Category: Russia

  • The Indian Navy (IN) commissioned two different types of frigate on 1 July, one built in Russia and the other in India. Notably, this could be the last time India resorts to buying naval vessels constructed overseas. INS Tamal, a Project 1135.6 frigate bearing the pennant number ‘F71’, had been constructed at the Yantar Shipyard […]

    The post Delivery of two INS Udaygiri in one day marks a watershed for India appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Officials in Kiev are seeking clarification on a US decision to halt a delivery of air defense munitions to Ukraine, which a White House spokesperson said was taken to “put America’s interests first.”

    “We’re now checking with the Americans what’s really happening,” an anonymous Ukrainian official was cited as saying by the Washington Post on 2 July.

    Other Ukrainian officials were “silent or declined to answer, and seem to have been caught by surprise by the news,” the report added.

    The US Department of Defense announced halting shipments of air defense missiles and other precision munitions over concerns that stockpiles were running low.

    The post Ukraine Demands Answers After US Halts Missile Shipments appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • In March, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, began receiving top secret messages from national security officials in the Trump administration after he’d been inadvertently added to an internal Signal chat. Many of those same officials oversaw recent military strikes against Iran. On this week’s More To The Story, host Al Letson sits down with Goldberg to discuss what “Signalgate” taught him about the Trump White House and his concerns for the future of American democracy.

    Producer: Josh Sanburn, with help from Steven Rascón, Artis Curiskis, and Julia Haney | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | Interim executive producers: Brett Myers and Taki Telonidis | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson 

    Listen: In Fallujah, We Destroyed Parts of Ourselves (Reveal)

    Read: The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans (The Atlantic)

    Read: All the Ways Trump Officials Are Downplaying the “War Plans” Group Chat (Mother Jones)

    Read: New Report: Trump Administration Just Got Hit With Another Signal Chat Scandal (Mother Jones)

    Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • By the end of the annual meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in The Hague in June 2025, it became clear that everything was about money. In fact, the final communiqué was perhaps the shortest of any NATO meeting – only five points, two about money and one to thank the Netherlands for hosting the summit. The Hague Declaration was only 427 words, whereas in the previous year, the Washington Declaration was 5,400 words and ran to 44 paragraphs. This time, there was not the granular detail about this or that threat, nor the long and detailed assessments of the war in Ukraine and how NATO supports that war without limit (“Ukraine’s future is in NATO”, the alliance said in 2024, a position no longer repeated in the brief statement of 2025).

    The post The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Hallucinations appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • At this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, leaders announced an alarming new goal: push military spending to 5 percent of nations’ GDP by 2035.

    Framed as a response to rising global threats, particularly from Russia and terrorism, the declaration was hailed as a historic step.

    But in truth, it represents a major step backwards — away from addressing the urgent needs of people and the planet, and toward an arms race that will impoverish societies while enriching weapons contractors.

    This outrageous 5 percent spending target didn’t come out of nowhere — it’s the direct result of years of bullying by U.S. President Donald Trump.

    The post NATO’s Obscene Five Percent Pledge appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Iran’s Guardian Council ratified a bill on 26 June to suspend all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

    The move came a day after parliament overwhelmingly approved the measure in response to Israeli and US attacks on the country’s nuclear sites.

    France and Russia have both warned against the move, urging Iran to maintain cooperation with the UN agency and avoid escalating the nuclear standoff further.

    The law halts all IAEA inspections, oversight, and reporting, and will remain in effect until Iran receives guarantees for the safety of its nuclear facilities and personnel, along with recognition of its enrichment rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

    The post Iran Ratifies Ending Cooperation With United Nations Nuclear Watchdog appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The BRICS, the influential bloc of emerging geopolitical powers, demanded an immediate end to the cycle of violence in West Asia following the recent attacks against Iran. The group also pushed for the establishment of a zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in the region as a whole, a crucial measure to ensure long-term stability,

    The Brazilian government, the current president of the bloc, issued the forceful statement on Tuesday, June 24. The statement responds directly to the recent United States and Israeli military attacks against Iran, events that have dangerously escalated regional tensions.

    The post BRICS Demands End To Violence In West Asia appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • North Korea may deploy more troops to Russia as early as July or August to aid in its war against Ukraine, with recruitment efforts already underway for another wave of military support to Moscow, South Korean intelligence told lawmakers Thursday.

    Last week, Russia’s Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has decided to send 5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sappers, or combat engineers, to support demining and reconstruction efforts in the Kursk border region, according to Russian state media Tass and RIA Novosti.

    Since last fall, North Korea has already deployed more than 12,000 troops to Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of the Kursk region in August, according to Ukraine, the United States, and South Korea. In April, Russia and North Korea confirmed their soldiers fought the Ukrainian forces together there but did not disclose how many.

    In a closed-door meeting on Thursday, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) told a parliamentary committee that North Korea recently began recruiting additional troops and will likely send them to Russia in July or August.

    The NIS noted that North Korea’s deployment of military troops to Russia last year also came just a month after Shoigu’s visit to the country where he signed an agreement with officials in Pyongyang, said South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong Kweun who attended the briefing.

    Images made from video released by Russian state media on April 28, 2025, show North Korean troops training in Russia at an undisclosed location.
    Images made from video released by Russian state media on April 28, 2025, show North Korean troops training in Russia at an undisclosed location.
    (Russian state media)

    The NIS also said North Korea has been continuing to contribute significantly to Russia’s war effort, including providing weapons. Moscow, in turn, provided Pyongyang with economic cooperation, air defense missiles, and radio jamming equipment, it said.

    Russia has also been providing technical advice to North Korea on satellite launches, drones, and missile guidance capabilities, Lee said, citing the NIS.

    “The National Intelligence Service reported that it is working to minimize the impact on the security of the Korean Peninsula as the close relationship between North Korea and Russia may expand due to the additional dispatch of North Korean combat troops,” Lee said.

    Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea for talks with Kim Jong Un and signed a mutual defense treaty. Since then, the two countries have aligned closely through military cooperation, including the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia.

    Reports of North Korean troop deployment to Russia first surfaced last October. While evidence of their presence grew – including when North Korean soldiers were taken captive by Ukrainian forces in Kursk and were interviewed – neither North Korea nor Russia acknowledged their presence until this year in April.

    Written by Tenzin Pema. Edited by Mat Pennington.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Han Do-hyung for RFA Korean.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • At a time when democracy is under siege from Kremlin-backed strongmen to MAGA disinformation machines, this week’s Gaslit Nation bonus show offers much-needed hope. We unpack the NATO summit, celebrate a major grassroots victory in New York City, and also discuss how to contain Russia with security expert Candace Rondeaux, author of Putin’s Sledgehammer.

    First up: NATO is finally stepping up. All member nations, except Spain, have committed 5% of their GDP to defense and security by 2035. Predictably, Trump is already trying to take credit, but this shift isn’t about him. It’s a direct response to Putin’s ongoing war in Ukraine. European leaders have learned how to handle Trump’s ego: offering flattery when necessary while quietly strengthening defenses against the very aggression he once downplayed. That’s not concession; it’s strategic diplomacy.

    Meanwhile, in New York City, there’s real reason to celebrate: Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary for mayor is a major win for grassroots organizing and progressive politics. His campaign, alongside Brad Lander and others, championed public investment, reallocated resources from the NYPD’s military-sized budget, and pushed back against Fox News crime porn fearmongering and disinformation. It’s a clear signal that authentic, coalition-driven campaigns have the power to break through. Is the Democratic Party establishment listening?

    And finally, don’t miss our powerful conversation with Candace Rondeaux, who outlines how to contain Russian fascism and the ongoing threat of the Wagner Group. As we’re always saying at Gaslit Nation: fascists don’t stop until they’re stopped.

    Want to enjoy Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chat, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

    Show Notes

    Support Gaslit Nation on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/gaslit


    This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Opponents of the war with Iran say that the war is not in American interests, seeing that Iran does not pose any visible threat to the United States.

    This appeal to reason misses the neoconservative logic that has guided U.S. foreign policy for more than a half century, and which is now threatening to engulf the Middle East in the most violent war since Korea.

    That logic is so aggressive, so repugnant to most people, so much in violation of the basic principles of international law, the United Nations, and the U.S. Constitution, that there is an understandable shyness in the authors of this strategy to spell out what is at stake.

    The post War On Iran Is Fight For US Unipolar Control Of World appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Paris, June 23, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of Ukrainian journalist Vladislav Yesypenko and Belarusian journalist Ihar Karnei, who had been unjustly detained for years by Russia and Belarus, respectively.  

    Russia freed Yesypenko on June 20 after he served a five-year prison sentence on charges of possessing and transporting explosives, which he denied. Karnei, detained for nearly 2 years, was released along with 13 political prisoners, including opposition figure Siarhei Tsikhanouski. The 14 were freed by Belarus on June 21 following a visit to Minsk by senior U.S. official Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general.

    “CPJ celebrates that Vladislav Yesypenko and Ihar Karnei are now free and reunited with their families,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “The efforts and pressure of the international community must not stop here, as Russia and Belarus continue to hold dozens of journalists in connection with their work. They all should be released immediately.” 

    Russian Federal Security Service officers detained Yesypenko, a freelance correspondent for Krym.Realii, a Crimea-focused outlet run by U.S.-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), in March 2021 in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea. He was initially sentenced to six years in prison, but the term was reduced by a year on appeal in August 2022.

    Karnei, a former freelancer with RFE/RL, was detained in July 2023 and sentenced to three years in March 2024 on charges of participating in an extremist group — the Belarusian Association of Journalists, which had been the largest independent media association in the country until it was dissolved in 2021 and later labeled an extremist group. His sentence was extended by eight months in December 2024.

    “RFE/RL extends its deepest gratitude to the U.S. and Ukrainian governments for working with us to ensure that Vlad’s unjust detention was not prolonged,” RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said in a statement.

    Karnei and Yesypenko’s releases come after sustained international pressure, including from CPJ, and after Andrey Kuznechyk, another RFE/RL journalist, was freed from a Belarusian prison in February.

    Belarus is Europe’s worst jailer of journalists, with at least 31 behind bars as of December 1, 2024. Thirteen of the 30 journalists still detained by Russia are Ukrainian


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Lauren Wolfe.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • International Commission of Jurists

    photo_2025-06-10_07-29-51

    On 10 June 2025 The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) condemned the arrest and detention of prominent Kaliningrad lawyer and human rights defender Maria Bontsler and called on the Russian authorities to release her immediately.

    The ICJ is concerned that the charges against Maria are spurious and likely to be related to Bontsler’s legitimate activities. Proceedings against her have been undertaken in a shroud of secrecy and the ICJ calls on the authorities to immediately clarify their legal and factual basis for the charges against her.

    Maria Bontsler was arrested on 28 May 2025 under Article 275.1 of the Russian Criminal Code, which provides for criminal liability for “confidential cooperation with a foreign State” aimed at “undermining the security of the Russian Federation”.

    Available information indicates that a court hearing concerning Maria Bontsler’s detention or the filing of charges was held behind closed doors, at the Prosecutor’s request, on grounds of State secrecy. However, no official justification has been provided to demonstrate that the secrecy of the proceedings was necessary and proportionate as required under international human rights law. The ICJ is concerned that this lack of transparency undermines Bontsler’s right to a fair hearing.

    This prosecution reflects a broader campaign of retaliation against lawyers in Russia who engage in what the authorities see as politically sensitive cases. Such actions serve to intimidate and discourage other lawyers from vigorously defending their clients,” Temur Shakirov, Director (ad interim) of ICJ Europe and Central Asia Programme said.

    Maria Bontsler has a long record of defending politically persecuted individuals, including critics of Russia’s unlawful military intervention in Ukraine.

    Irrespective of any charges, the ICJ stresses that it is inappropriate to keep Maria Bontsler in pre-trial detention.

    In a broader context of interference with the legal profession, searches were also carried out at the homes of her colleagues, Roman Morozov and Ekaterina Selizarova, with electronic devices and legal documents seized. According to available reports, Morozov was questioned in relation to his alleged connections to the human rights organisation Memorial.

    The ICJ stresses that under international law and standards, including the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, lawyers must be able to perform their professional activities without hindrance, including the collection and dissemination of information essential to protecting effectively their clients’ rights.

    Maria Bontsler is a well-known human rights lawyer who represents individuals in politically charged cases and has been recognized by the Moscow Helsinki Group for her human rights defence work. Her clients include critics of the Russian Federation’s unlawful military intervention in Ukraine.

    ….Previously, Maria Bontsler was fined under administrative proceedings for courtroom statements made in defence of her clients, part of a systematic harassment faced by lawyers handling “political” cases in Russia

    https://www.icj.org/russian-federation-authorities-must-immediately-release-lawyer-maria-bontsler/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • On June 17, Trump demanded the unconditional surrender of Ayatollah Khamenei, and said “Our patience is wearing thin.”

    On June 16, Trump posted to his Truth Social and to Facebook, this warning for everyone in Tehran to evacuate the City:

    He has said there that America is in this war not to invade Iran but to protect Israel. However if Iran will have any success, then Americans, and not ONLY Israelis, will be bombing Iran. (And, of course, virtually all of Israel’s weapons do already come from America.)

    The U.S. Government, and not ONLY Israel’s, actually invaded Iran on June 13 and had co-planned that aggression together.

    So, this invasion of Iran IS the policy of the U.S. Government, and not (as the propaganda describes it) ONLY the policy of Israel’s Government.

    And here was Trump’s Truth Social post on that day:

    In that post, he unintentionally made clear that he never actually “negotiated” with Iran; he ORDERED Iran to do Netanyahu’s bidding. And, NOW, he and Netanyahu intend to forcibly (militarily) regime-change Iran, simply because Iran refused to comply with Netanyahu’s (and Trump’s, and Biden’s) DEMAND (that Iran be subordinated to Israel).

    This is now heading into WW3. On June 16, the excellent news-site, which analyzes international-policy issues of protecting Russia from the U.S. empire’s constant aggressions to weaken or replace Russia’s Government, en.topcor.ru/news/, headlined “CRINK Air Force Could Help Iran Stand Up to Israel,” and here was its grim but entirely realistic analysis:

    The military defeat of Iran, if it also leads to the beginning of the process of disintegration of the Islamic Republic into a number of quasi-states, will become the gravest geopolitical defeat [that the] informal anti-Western alliance CRINK led by Russia and China [have faced]. The ally [member, actually: Iran is the “I” in “CRINK”] must be saved, but how, exactly?

    At the moment, the war between Israel and Iran is characterized by a remote exchange of air strikes using aircraft, ballistic missiles and kamikaze drones, as well as sabotage and terrorist attacks by Israeli special services in the Iranian rear.

    Given that they have no common border and the US’s stated non-interference, large-scale ground operations are out of the question, so sending international brigades of Russian, North Korean or Chinese volunteers to help the Persians makes no sense. However, Tehran would certainly not refuse help in the fight against Israeli aviation, so it is worth remembering that something similar has already happened in modern history.

    “Flying Tigers”

    Let us recall that even before the start of World War II, a war between the Chinese Republic and the Japanese Empire that had attacked it had already begun in the European theater of operations in Southeast Asia on July 7, 1937. At the same time, the Japanese were taking out the poorly prepared Chinese aviation with one hand. However, in that historical period, China enjoyed support not only from the USSR, but also from the USA.

    Retired US Air Force Major Claire Lee Chennault, sent there as a military adviser, proposed creating a special air unit in which the pilots would be American volunteers flying American planes. And that was done. President Roosevelt officially allowed US Air Force pilots to take leave and fight on a purely volunteer basis on the side of China against Japan.

    A special aviation unit called the Flying Tigers was then created, consisting of three fighter squadrons flying American aircraft purchased under Lend-Lease. Its pilots signed a contract with the Chinese private firm CAMCO (Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company), under the terms of which they received $500 for each enemy aircraft destroyed.

    American volunteers successfully fought on the side of the Chinese Republic until 1942, after which the Flying Tigers were withdrawn from the Chinese Air Force and included in the 23rd Fighter Group of the 10th Air Force of the US Army, and in 1943 it was transformed into the 14th Air Force of the US Army, consisting of 60 bombers and more than 100 fighters. Their commander, Claire Lee Chennault, became a general.

    Legion “Condor”

    Around the same time, the Condor Legion, created in Nazi Germany to help the future Franco regime in Spain, was operating in the European theatre of military operations. The number of this “volunteer” unit was relatively small, reaching 5,5 thousand people.

    However, in the Third Reich, Condor was seen as a training ground for personnel, a testing ground for modern weapons, and a source of up-to-date combat experience. In addition to four bomber squadrons and four fighter squadrons, the legion included anti-aircraft and anti-tank defense units, an armored group of four battalions, transport sections, anti-tank artillery, and flamethrower units.

    During the Spanish Civil War, the German army trained its best future aces and tested the latest aircraft that later fought in World War II. The Europeans intend to do something similar today, sending a so-called fighter coalition to Ukraine to help the Zelensky regime, which will protect Kyiv and the right bank from Russian missile and air strikes.

    CRINK Air Army?

    Returning to the topic of Iran, one must ask why, in fact, Russia, the DPRK and China should be interested in Tehran not losing and not following the path of Syria, which lost its sovereignty and turned into a terrorist enclave?

    Our country needs Iran as a friendly partner, covering the southern flank and providing access to the Indian Ocean through the Caspian Sea. The oil fields that Israel threatens to bomb already belong to Beijing, which has invested huge amounts of money in the Iranian oil and gas sector. And for Pyongyang, Tehran has long been a technological partner in the development and production of various weapons.

    What could the CRINK alliance actually do to help its ally, who has been dealt a vile blow and is being prepared to be destroyed by “Western partners” at the hands of Israel? Based on the above, there are two possible paths.

    The first is the creation of an international volunteer unit of Russian, North Korean and Chinese “vacationers” who would receive modern fighters and air defense systems purchased by Iran under Lend-Lease and would go to gain real combat experience in air battles against the ultra-modern Israeli aviation.

    Bearing in mind that the Russian Federation is facing a direct conflict with NATO, which has placed its bets on aviation, the DPRK has South Korea right next door, and the AUKUS alliance has already been created against China and a military operation against Taiwan is looming, such relevant experience in air combat would be, to put it mildly, not superfluous. Taking it into account, the Russian and Chinese defense industries could appropriately modify their aircraft and create a center for joint training of pilots from Iran, the DPRK, the Russian Federation and China.

    The second path is a little less demonstrative and involves the creation of a hypothetical aviation PMC, for the needs of which Tehran could buy modern aircraft from Russia and China and hire vacationing pilots from the Russian Federation, China and, possibly, North Korea, who would be ready to cover Iran from Israeli air strikes.

    There are options, if there is a desire.

    All of the propaganda in The West PRESUMES that The West has decency and international law on its side and that all OTHER countries are inferior to it — less good, less decent, than are the U.S.-and-allied nations. The reality is the exact opposite.

    For example, the CIA-edited and written Wikipedia (which blacklists — blocks from linking to — sites that aren’t CIA-approved) article on “CRINK” redirects the reader to their article “Axis of Upheaval”, which opens:

    Axis of Upheaval” is a term coined in 2024 by Center for a New American Security foreign policy analysts Richard Fontaine and Andrea Kendall-Taylor and used by many foreign policy analysts,[1][2][3] military officials,[4][5] and international groups[6] to describe the growing anti-Western collaboration between Russia under Vladimir PutinIranChina, and North Korea beginning in the early 2020s. It has also been called the “axis of autocracies“,[7][8][9] “quartet of chaos“,[10][11][12] the “deadly quartet[4] or “CRINK“.[13][a]

    The loose alliance generally represented itself in diplomatic addresses and public statements as an “anti-hegemony” and “anti-imperialist” coalition with intentions to challenge what it deemed to be a Western-dominated global order to reshape international relations into a multipolar order according to their shared interests. While not a formal bloc, these nations have increasingly coordinated their economic, military, and diplomatic efforts, making strong efforts to aid each other to undermine Western influence.[1]

    Central to its opening paragraph is the Center for a New American Security (CNAS); and, as is made clear at one of the CIA’s NON-approved sites, the “Militarist Monitor”, their article “Center for a New American Security” (which thus is not used as a source by Wikipedia) makes clear that CNAS is totally neoconservative (a marketing-arm of the U.S. weapons-manufacturing industry), but even that site (MM) says nothing about who funds it. Another CIA-banned site, “WSWS”, has a far more comprehensive article about CNAS, titled “Democratic think tank plots war against Russia and China: What is the Center for a New American Security?”, and it makes explicit that CNAS’s main donors are “Defense contractors” (which sell ONLY to the U.S. Government and its allies) and secondarily “High tech” (which sell both to those Governments and to the public). In other words: the CIA represents the billionaires who are heavily invested in those two industries — as well as in the ‘news’-media (such as Wikipedia) that propagandize for America’s armaments companies in their ‘news’, editorials, and ads. (For example: even if a pharmaceutical company is simply advertising in these billionaires’ ‘news’-media, it is thereby funding the necon operation.) In 1922, Walter Lippmann invented the phrase “manufacture of consent” to refer to this then-new type of ‘democracy’; but it became big-time only after Truman started the Cold War and the U.S. global-hegemonic empire, on 25 July 1945.

    The hegemonic (or “hegemoniacal”) global empire that U.S. President Truman started on 25 July 1945, needs now, finally, to be defeated decisively. This means without reaching the stage of a nuclear war against Russia, because that could end ONLY in the defeat of both sides and the end of all human civilization. However, I am personally inclined to think that The West have become SO desperate to rule the entire world, so that Russia — and perhaps all of the CRINK — need now to announce publicly that they will NOT allow Iran to be defeated, and that this means that they ARE willing to go nuclear against America and Israel, in order to PREVENT Iran’s defeat — if that’s what would be needed in order to PREVENT the U.S. from providing such backup to Israel’s invasion of Iran.

    Trump (like Biden) never planned for that possibility. If there is to be a WW3, then the most evil empire in all of history, America’s empire, must be prevented from starting it (e.g., by extending Israel’s war against Iran into becoming fully a U.S.-Israel invasion of Iran). It must instead be started by their main targets — CRINK — if it MUST start, at all. The initiator of a war (such as Israel and the U.S. are, in regard to their joint war against Iran) always has the advantage of surprise (such as on June 13th), and thus the higher likelihood of eliminating the other side’s central command (as Israel has largely done). That way (by CRINK’s joining with Iran on this war), if there will be any future afterwards, it WON’T be dominated by the world’s most evil nations — the U.S.-empire nations. Planning for a post-WW3 world has now become important, because of Trump’s commitment now of greatly increased U.S. backup of Israel’s war to conquer Iran. Post-WW3 would be hell in any case, but simply allowing the U.S.-Israel-UK empire to take the entire world would LIKEWISE be hell. And that’s what we all are now heading toward.

    The post Trump (Like Biden) is Simply Evil first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • At the beginning of June, Kiev took measures to toughen its military conscription, despite the fact that deaths and injuries of Ukrainian soldiers and support personnel continue to increase as the US/NATO proxy war continues to grind on. The gaps along the front lines, which Ukraine is desperately struggling to hold, are increasingly being filled by unmotivated, conscripted soldiers, a growing number of whom have health problems restricting how long their rotation may last.

    For the Ukrainian authorities, the dragooning of cannon fodder (military conscripts) into their increasingly stretched military front lines remains a matter for more Western funds and weapons from the West to help solve.

    The post Modern Slavery In Ukraine And Antislavery Resistance appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • By Russell Palmer, RNZ News political reporter

    Opposition parties say Aotearoa New Zealand’s government should be going much further, much faster in sanctioning Israel.

    Foreign Minister Winston Peters overnight revealed New Zealand had joined Australia, Canada, the UK and Norway in imposing travel bans on Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

    Some of the partner countries went further, adding asset freezes and business restrictions on the far-right ministers.

    Peters said the pair had used their leadership positions to actively undermine peace and security and remove prospects for a two-state solution.

    Israel and the United States criticised the sanctions, with the US saying it undermined progress towards a ceasefire.

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, attending Fieldays in Waikato, told reporters New Zealand still enjoyed a good relationship with the US administration, but would not be backing down.

    “We have a view that this is the right course of action for us,” he said.

    Behind the scenes job
    “We have differences in approach but the Americans are doing an excellent job of behind the scenes trying to get Israel and the Palestinians to the table to talk about a ceasefire.”

    Asked if there could be further sanctions, Luxon said the government was “monitoring the situation all the time”.

    Peters has been busy travelling in Europe and was unavailable to be interviewed. ACT — probably the most vocally pro-Israel party in Parliament — refused to comment on the situation.

    The opposition parties also backed the move, but argued the government should have gone much further.

    Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has since December been urging the coalition to back her bill imposing economic sanctions on Israel. With support from Labour and Te Pāti Māori it would need just six MPs to cross the floor to pass.

    Calling the Israeli actions in Gaza “genocide”, she told RNZ the government’s sanctions fell far short of those imposed on Russia.

    “This is symbolic, and it’s unfortunate that it’s taken so long to get to this point, nearly two years . . .  the Minister of Foreign Affairs also invoked the similarities with Russia in his statement this morning, yet we have seen far less harsh sanctions applied to Israel.

    “We’re well past the time for first steps.”

    ‘Cowardice’ by government
    The pushback from the US was “probably precisely part of the reason that our government has been so scared of doing the right thing”, she said, calling it “cowardice” on the government’s part.

    “What else are you supposed to call it at the end of the day?,” she said, saying at a bare minimum the Israeli ambassador should be expelled, Palestinian statehood should be recognised, and a special category of visas for Palestinians should be introduced.

    She rejected categorisation of her stance as anti-semitic, saying that made no sense.

    “If we are critiquing a government of a certain country, that is not the same thing as critiquing the people of that country. I think it’s actually far more anti-semitic to conflate the actions of the Israeli government with the entire Jewish peoples.”

    Debbie Ngarewa-Packer
    Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer . . . “It’s not a war, it’s an annihilation”. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone

    Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the sanctions were political hypocrisy.

    “When it comes to war, human rights and the extent of violence and genocide that we’re seeing, Palestine is its own independent nation . . .  why is this government sanctioning only two ministers? They should be sanctioning the whole of Israel,” she said.

    “These two Israel far right ministers don’t act alone. They belong to an entire Israel government which has used its military might and everything it can possibly do to bombard, to murder and to commit genocide and occupy Gaza and the West Bank.”

    Suspend diplomatic ties
    She also wanted all diplomatic ties with Israel suspended, along with sanctions against Israeli companies, military officials and additional support for the international courts — also saying the government should have done more.

    “This government has been doing everything to do nothing . . .  to appease allies that have dangerously overstepped unjustifiable marks, and they should not be silent.

    “It’s not a war, it’s an annihilation, it’s an absolute annihilation of human beings . . .  we’re way out there supporting those allies that are helping to weaponise Israel and the flattening and the continual cruel occupation of a nation, and it’s just nothing that I thought in my living days I’d be witnessing.”

    She said the government should be pushing back against “a very polarised, very Trump attitude” to the conflict.

    “Trumpism has arrived in Aotearoa . . .  and we continue to go down that line, that is a really frightening part for this beautiful nation of ours.

    “As a nation, we have a different set of values. We’re a Pacific-based country with a long history of going against the grain – the mainstream, easy grind. We’ve been a peaceful, loving nation that stood up against the big boys when it came to our anti nuclear stance and that’s our role in this, our role is not to follow blindly.”

    Undermining two-state solution
    In a statement, Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson Peeni Henare said the actions of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir had attempted to undermine the two-state solution and international law, and described the situation in Gaza as horrific.

    “The travel bans echo the sanctions placed on Russian individuals and organisations that supported the illegal invasion of Ukraine,” he said.

    He called for further action.

    “Labour has been calling for stronger action from the government on Israel’s invasion of Gaza, including intervening in South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, creation of a special visa for family members of New Zealanders fleeing Gaza, and ending government procurement from companies operating illegally in the Occupied Territories.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • We live in dangerous times. Now is the time for the people of the United States and Russia to set the example of how civil discourse and dialogue can pave the way for peace between our two nations.

    On June 18, Americans and Russians from all walks of life will come together to engage in an act of “people’s diplomacy.” Whether seated in a theater in beautiful Saint Petersburg, or in the historic Mohican Hotel in downtown Kingston, New York, the participants will be doing what we collectively can only hope our respective leadership will do — engage their citizen counterparts in constructive dialogue which seeks to better relations between their two nations.

    The post United States-Russia Citizen’s Summit appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • JSC ROSOBORONEXPORT (part of Rostec State Corporation) will be showcasing the latest Russian military equipment at Indo Defense Expo 2025. The event will be held from June 11 to 14 at Jakarta International Expo, Kemayoran, Indonesia and the Russian special exporter will be presenting more than 250 Russian products for the armed forces. “The Russian […]

    The post ROSOBORONEXPORT to take part in re-equipping Indonesian Armed Forces appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Brian Becker, host of BreakThrough’s The Socialist Program, joins the show to discuss the latest surrounding the escalating proxy war in Ukraine. Becker breaks down Donald Trump’s claims about ending the war, NATO’s role in fueling global conflict, and the growing disconnect between European governments and their people. “There’s really great alarm by the EU leadership that peace might break out in Ukraine,” Becker says, calling it a “bizarre turn in world politics” driven by European capitalists who are “groveling before US imperialism” that they now demand a more aggressive US posture, even at the expense of their own populations.

    The post How Ukraine Is Accelerating The ‘Collapse Of Europe’s Political Center’ appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • “Who is in charge in Washington? Is it the white house or the pentagon? . . . It was quite significant and not accidental that it (the attack) happened just two days before the Russian-American arrangements were supposed to come into full force” – Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, 2016

    “The American bombing of Syrian soldiers was no ‘mistake’ – it was a mutiny by the War Party in the U.S. military and government, who want victory for the jihadists.” – Black Agenda Report Executive Editor Glen Ford

    On September 17, 2016 United States forces bombed Syrian army positions in the Deir al-Zour region of that country and killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers.

    The post Ukraine Terrorism And The Question Of US Involvement appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has called on NATO allies to adopt US President Donald Trump’s former demand that member states increase defense spending to five percent of their gross domestic product (GDP), a significant jump from the current target of two percent.

    Hegseth made the remarks on 5 June during a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels, with the aim of finalizing commitments before the upcoming summit in The Hague scheduled for 24–26 June.

    “We’re here to continue the work that President Trump started, which is a commitment to five percent defense spending across this alliance,” Hegseth said, emphasizing that the increase “has to happen by the summit.”

    The post Hegseth Demands Nato Allies ‘Spend More’ To Ensure US Support appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Ukraine’s drone attacks on air bases deep inside Russia on Sunday were timed to provoke Russia into shunning the Russia-Ukraine talks set for the next day in Istanbul. Volodymyr Zelensky and his European puppeteers also may have thought they could provoke Vladimir Putin to escalate attacks on Ukraine to such a degree that the U.S. could not “walk away” from Ukraine without appearing cowardly.

    The PR benefits of destroying Russian aircraft far from Ukraine was part of Kyiv’s calculus. It was a huge embarrassment and a tactical victory in a short-lived, narrow sense.

    But the black-eye given Russian security services will eventually heal.

    The post Putin Would Not Rise To The Bait appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Havel Prize 2025

    On 1 May 2025 the Human Rights Foundation announced the recipients of the 2025 Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent: Cuban artist and pro-democracy activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Syrian activist and artist Azza Abo Rebieh, and Russian artist, poet, and musician Sasha Skochilenko.

    Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara
    Azza Abo Rebieh
    Aleksandra Skochilenko

    For more on the Havel Prize and its laureates see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/438F3F5D-2CC8-914C-E104-CE20A25F0726

    The Havel Prize ceremony was broadcast live at oslofreedomforum.com on May 26. see oslofreedomforum.com and follow @OsloFFon X and other social media.

    LUIS MANUEL OTERO ALCÁNTARA

    Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a Cuban artist, activist, and political prisoner. He is the founder of the San Isidro Movement, a collective of artists and dissidents that emerged in 2018 to challenge censorship and demand greater freedoms in Cuba. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/09/19/the-rafto-prize-2024-to-cuban-artivist-luis-manuel-otero-alcantara/]

    He gained international attention for his performance art and peaceful protests, including hunger strikes and symbolic acts of resistance. He was arrested during Cuba’s historic 2021 protests and sentenced to five years in prison following a closed trial. In 2022, following a submission by HRF, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared his imprisonment to be arbitrary and urged the Cuban regime to release him immediately. He is being held in Guanajay maximum-security prison.

    Los Heroes no Pesan
    Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, “Los Heroes no Pesan.” Courtesy of the artist.

    AZZA ABO REBIEH

    Azza Abo Rebieh is a Syrian artist born in Hama in 1980. During the Syrian revolution, she created graffiti, led workshops with women, and organized puppet theater for children in rural villages. In 2015, she was detained by the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

    Art became her solace during her imprisonment in Adra prison, where she shared a cell with 30 women, many of whom were illiterate. Azza drew her cellmates, dignifying them through reminders and glimpses of themselves through sketches. Following her release, her prison drawings were exhibited at the Drawing Center in New York. Her work explores memory, resistance, and survival and is held in collections including the British Museum and Institut du Monde Arabe.  

    Hindmosts
    Azza Abo Rebieh, “Hindmosts. Courtesy of the artist.

    SASHA SKOCHILENKO

    Sasha Skochilenko is a Russian artist, musician, poet, and former political prisoner. She was arrested in 2022 for distributing anti-war messages and sentenced in 2023 to seven years in prison under Russia’s so-called “fake news” law.

    Skochilenko was released in 2024 as part of the Ankara prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia. She lives in Germany, where she continues her artistic work, participating in exhibitions in Paris, Amsterdam, and London to showcase the drawings she created in prison. Beyond activism, she’s the author of “Book About Depression,” which played a significant role in destigmatizing mental health issues in Russia.

    Sasha Skochilenko replaced pricing labels with anti-war messages

    Sasha Skochilenko replaced pricing labels with anti-war messages (seen here in English translation).

    https://hrf.org/latest/announcing-the-2025-havel-prize-laureates-from-syria-russia-and-cuba/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • On the one hand, there are the words.

    In the analysis of  Oleg Tsarev, the leading Ukrainian opposition leader now in Crimea, the end-of-war terms presented by the Russian side at Istanbul on Monday afternoon  are “’not an ultimatum at all,’ [Russian delegation head Vladimir] Medinsky has stressed. Of course, Medinsky (lead image, left) is right. This proposal is not an ultimatum, but only a requirement for the complete and unconditional surrender of Zelensky.”

    On the other hand, there is the force.

    Moscow military blogger reports and the Defense Ministry bulletin on the battlefield operations of Monday indicate little change in the volume of Russian drone attacks, the Ukrainian casualties, and territorial gains around the May average. In fact, Monday’s casualty rate was fractionally below Sunday’s.    While the Russian Army continues its westward advance along each of the five army group directions, there has been no resumption of the Russian electric war campaign. There has also been no reply to the Ukrainian operation of June 1 striking the  strategic bomber airfields at Murmansk, Irkutsk, Amur, Ryazan and Ivanovo, and the bridge and railway attacks at Kursk and Bryansk. “I hope”, commented Boris Rozhin, author of the influential Colonel Cassad  military blog, “that the military-political leadership will find a way to adequately respond. The blow should be painful… As long as we are waging a limited war, the enemy is waging a total war, the purpose of which is the destruction of our country and people. And no peace talks will change this. The longer it is in coming, the more unpleasant surprises.”

    On the one hand, at the Çırağan Palace on June 1, there was the meeting of 12 Russian negotiators (unchanged from the first meeting) with 14 Ukrainian negotiators  (minor  changes ) for just over one hour. The Russian delegation leader, Vladimir Medinsky, then briefed the press for nine minutes.  He followed the press briefing by Rustem Umerov (lead image, right) for the Ukrainian side, also reading from a notepaper like Medinsky.   Umerov, the Ukrainian Defense Minister, was the nominal delegation leader but outranked by Andrei Yermak, the chief policymaker for Vladimir Zelensky in the presidential office. Yermak told the press: “The Russians are doing everything not to cease fire and continue the war. New sanctions are very important now. Rationality is not about Russia.”

    On the other hand, before the three o’clock session Medinsky met in private with the nominal head of the Ukrainian delegation, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, for two and a half hours. There has been no disclosure of who also attended on each side and what was said, except that, according to Tass, “this predetermined the effective course of further negotiations.”

    This fatuity cannot conceal that real negotiations had taken place.  But the realities on the ground had already overtaken the agenda, as leading Moscow security analyst Yevgeny Krutikov points out. Because the Russian side had already received the Ukrainian term sheet on May 28, and the Russian term sheet was drafted before the Sunday rail, bridge and airfield attacks, “those two memorandums…no longer correspond to the changed realities, but they will have to be discussed, because this was announced in advance, this agenda cannot be abandoned… so the main task of the Russian delegation is to translate the negotiations into a constructive course, if there is any possibility.”

    On the one hand, in Moscow on Monday President Vladimir Putin had just one official meeting in the morning; this was with Maria Lvova-Belova to discuss Children’s Day and the welfare of orphans across the country.

    On the other hand, in Washington President Donald Trump’s schedule for the day was empty except for lunch, which he ate at one o’clock.   He has issued no tweet or press statement on Russia and President Putin since May 27 when Trump announced: “What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!”

    Interpreted in the warfighting context, as it must be, Trump was saying that the US, including its European allies and the Kiev regime, is holding escalation dominance and intends to keep it. This means the firepower to decide what happens to Russia next without being deterred by anything Russia says or does. The “fire”, Trump meant, he intends to keep for the US and its allies in the European war.  The “fire” doesn’t and won’t belong to Russia – Trump means to deter Putin from “playing” with it.

    Calling the five airfield strikes terrorism rather than acts of war; dating the operational plan to the Biden Administration, not to Trump; minimizing the physical damage, cost, and number of Tupolev bombers hit; unravelling the logistical details from source of explosives to drone launch; and faulting Russian internal security and airbase defence – these details, comments a well-informed Moscow source, are “beside the point. The reality of this is on Putin. So what did he tell Lavrov to tell Trump through Rubio on Sunday night? What did he tell Medinsky to tell Umerov and Yermak for Zelensky on Monday afternoon? This is now simple strategic either/or and yes or no – no more operational tit for tat. Either Putin told Trump to order de-escalation, or Russia will escalate and destroy the enemy’s capabilities to fight on. This is the Oreshnik moment.”

    A western military source responds: “I’ve read the [Russian] terms from beginning to end but I can’t find a correlation between them and what we’re seeing, full spectrum, on the battlefield. Either Putin releases the General Staff to assert escalation dominance now, or there is no point in continuing negotiations on the memorandums and term sheets, no point in ceasefires, no point at all in meeting Trump or letting him grandstand for peace. The discipline, if I can call it that, of the Russian warfighters is unrealistic.”

    June 1 — here is the map of the Ukrainian strikes against the Russian nuclear bomber force:


    Anticipation of an attack on these airbases, where the nuclear-capable Tupolev-95 and Tu-22M3 bombers are parked in the open to comply with Russia-US treaty inspection requirements, was published in this US source in April 2024. The satellite imagery of the five airfields and their bomber and tanker aircraft since the Sunday strikes which have been published so far does not substantiate the Ukrainian damage claims. Analysis by Oleg Tsarev of reports in Kiev of competition between the military intelligence agency GUR, headed by Kirill Budanov, and Vasily Maslyuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), suggests the former was in charge of the railway attacks in Kursk and Bryansk, while the SBU was responsible for the airfield operation. “Many write that behind the attack on the strategic airbases are the British. Possibly but unlikely – the GUR in Ukraine is under the MI6 while the SBU is under the CIA. These agencies compete fiercely…The consequences of competition between the GUR and the SBU will have far-reaching consequences.”

    June 2 — Follow the timeline and the details of the daylong proceedings in Istanbul reported by  the state press agency, RIA Novosti.

    This source also revealed that an hour and a half before the main session began, the Ukrainian delegation had “met with the representatives of Germany, Italy and the UK and coordinated positions.”

    Western and Ukrainian media reports indicate this meeting was at deputy ranking level, not at the level of principals.  It is unclear, so far unreported, who represented the US and France following General Keith Kellogg’s announcement last week that “we’ll have what we call the E3 with us, that is the national security advisors from Germany, France, and Great Britain.”   The British representative yesterday, for example, was Nicholas Catsaras, nor Jonathan Powell who was at the first Istanbul round on May 16.


    No name and country identifications have been published by these sources of the deputy officials in their Istanbul meeting photograph. Sources: https://x.com/Barnes_Joe/status/1929512752793432076 and https://x.com/SpoxUkraineMFA/status/1929474274865115430

    This downgrade on the western side, in parallel with the secretive Medinsky-Umerov talks, and the absence of Rubio as US national security advisor and Kellogg as Trump’s negotiator indicate there was preliminary understanding that nothing more significant would take place than public exchange of term sheets; announcement of agreement on a new and large exchange of prisoners and corpses; and the names of children Kiev is claiming for return.

    Umerov has intimated that the June 2 session was little more than a mail drop and PR show. “Our teams will have a week to study the documents, after which we will be able to coordinate further steps”, he reportedly said, according to Moscow press reports. The third round is proposed by the Ukrainians between June 20 and 30.

    Umerov is also reported as telling reporters in Istanbul: “If the Russians were ready for a ceasefire, their planes would not have been blown up. Russian journalists asked Umerov questions about the passenger train blown up in the Bryansk region, but he ignored them.”


    The principals in the Russian delegation include Alexander Fomin (2rd from left, Defense Ministry),  Igor Kostyukov (GRU), Vladimir Medinsky (Kremlin), and Mikhail Galuzin (Foreign Ministry).

    Here is the full verbatim text of the Russian term sheet published in Istanbul as “Proposals of the Russian Federation (Memorandum) on the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.”

    The post When the Strategy of Words Fights the Strategy of Force, Who Wins the War first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Russian and Ukrainian officials held a second round of direct talks in Istanbul on Monday and agreed to move forward on another prisoner swap, but did not appear to make any progress toward a ceasefire or lasting peace deal as the two sides remain very far apart.

    Russia and Ukraine agreed to return the bodies of more than 12,000 soldiers, and up to 1,200 POWs from each side could also be exchanged. Each side released 1,000 POWs following the first round of talks in mid-May.

    During the talks on Monday, which lasted about an hour, Russia presented its terms for a peace deal, which include Ukrainian troops withdrawing from territory in the four oblasts Moscow annexed in 2022.

    The post Russia, Ukraine Agree On Prisoner Swap But No Progress On Ceasefire appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.


  • This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.


  • This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Six years ago, on May 20, 2019, Ukraine inaugurated a new president who had defeated by a large margin the incumbent Petro Poroshenko, elected in May 2014. That election occurred barely three months following the coup that ousted Ukraine’s elected and constitutional president, Viktor Yanukovych, and its national legislature.

    Poroshenko is one of the richest men in Ukraine. His five-year presidential term firmly placed Ukraine on the global map as a hostile, ‘anti-Russia’ at the service of the Western powers.

    Following the 2019 election campaign, the candidate who became president, Volodomyr Zelensky, continued the radical, ethnic nationalism of his predecessor, Poroshenko, even though Zelensky’s election campaign had deceptively suggested that he would end the bloody civil war being waged by Kiev against the people of Donbass since 2014.

    The post Six Years Of Dashed Hopes For Peace And Reconciliation In Ukraine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb has crossed the threshold when it comes to triggering a Russian nuclear response. How Russia and the United States respond could determine the fate of the world.

    The post Playing With Fire appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.


  • This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.