Orbán’s New Script: Brussels Is the USSR, Trump Is the Model

“The real threat facing Hungary is not Russia but the European Union,” Viktor Orbán told his supporters, eight weeks before the April 12 election that could finally break his grip on power. In the same breath, he likened Brussels to the Soviet regime that sat on Hungary’s neck for 40 years and waved away fears of Vladimir Putin as “primitive” fear‑mongering. Those who “love freedom,” he said, should fear the EU, not the Kremlin.

This isn’t strategy, it’s franchising. Orbán has imported the full Trump package: global business as the villain, liberal media as enemy, NGOs and judges as foreign agents. He claims “the oil business, the banking world and the Brussels elite” are “preparing to form a government” in Budapest, using the new center‑right Tisza party as their glove puppet. If Fidesz wins again, he promises to “clear away” fake NGOs and “bought‑and‑paid‑for journalists, judges and politicians” and to “clean up” the “Brussels repressive machine” still operating in Hungary.

Trump’s endorsement is written into the script as holy writ. Orbán praises the U.S. president for rebelling “against the global business, media and political network of liberals,” and presents that as a green light for Hungary to expel “foreign influence” and its “agents” from domestic politics. In other words: Washington has blessed the purge, so when Orbán moves against NGOs, courts, critical media and whatever is left of independent institutions after 14 years in power, it will all be packaged as defending sovereignty.

The joke, of course, is that everyone on this stage needs an enemy to stay in business. Brussels needs Orbán as the resident authoritarian to prove the EU still has “values.” Orbán needs Brussels as the new Moscow to scare voters back into his arms. Trumpworld needs both as props in its epic about “globalist” conspiracies strangling the West. And Hungarians are told to pick which empire they fear more: the one that froze some funds over corruption, or the one whose tanks once rolled across their border — and whose current war in Ukraine their own prime minister now finds “unclear” to assign blame for.

#hungary #orban #eu #trump #elections #fakeSovereignty

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Geneva Is Not About Peace. It’s About Real Estate.

In Geneva today they’re not really talking about “peace,” they’re haggling over square kilometers. The third round of U.S.-mediated talks between Ukraine and Russia opens with one central question: how much of Ukraine’s land can be carved off and still be sold as an agreement. Moscow is demanding formal control over the remaining parts of Donetsk it hasn’t managed to seize by force; Kyiv is still saying no, even with Washington breathing down its neck.

The cast is already a punchline. On the Ukrainian side: Rustem Umerov, the national security chief, flanked by presidential power broker Kyrylo Budanov and other officials who spent four years promising “no concessions” and now sit in a Swiss conference room arguing over slices of their own map. Across from them: Vladimir Medinsky, the Kremlin aide famous for explaining why Ukraine supposedly isn’t a real state, now helping decide which parts of that “not real” country Russia gets to keep.

Over all of this hangs Donald Trump’s timetable. His administration has set a soft deadline of June for a deal and is pushing “end of war” packages built around security guarantees. Washington is talking about a 15‑year guarantee plan. Zelenskyy is asking for 30 to 50 years and warning of “unprecedented external pressure” on Kyiv to give up territory first and patch up security later.

Officially, the agenda has “expanded”: energy ceasefire, prisoner exchanges, and the status of occupied territories that now make up around a fifth of Ukraine when you count Crimea and everything already grabbed. Unofficially, everyone understands the trade being tested is brutal and simple: land for signatures, electricity for recognition, time‑limited guarantees in exchange for permanent losses. All this while Russian strikes still hit Ukraine’s power grid and civilians sit in the dark.

Geneva is the perfect stage for this version of geopolitics: a TV‑friendly hotel, a war rebranded as “too expensive to continue,” a U.S. president impatient for a deal, a Kremlin that senses fatigue, and a Ukrainian leadership told to be “realistic” about borders that every Western speech since 2014 swore were untouchable.

#ukraine #russia #geneva #trump #war #landForPeace

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Golden Midas, Rotten System: Ukraine’s Ex-Minister Caught at the Exit

German Galushchenko almost made it out. The former energy minister — later briefly justice minister — was grabbed at the border on Sunday, accused a day later of laundering millions in kickbacks from the “Midas” scheme that has haunted Zelenskyy’s wartime government for a year. Investigators say the network skimmed around 100 million dollars from contracts at Energoatom, the state nuclear company, including projects meant to harden plants against Russian strikes.

According to NABU and SAPO, over 7 million dollars went to foreign accounts listing Galushchenko’s wife and four children, paying for elite Swiss schooling and sitting on deposits that quietly generated extra income for the family. Galushchenko denies everything, but he is now one of the highest‑ranking names formally pulled into a case that already features a former deputy prime minister, other senior officials, and businessman Timur Mindich — Zelenskyy’s old media partner from the TV studio that made him famous, now in Israel and also insisting he’s innocent.

The scandal has already taken scalps at the very top. It helped push out Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak last year and triggered public fury over wartime corruption at the exact moment Ukraine is begging for weapons, cash and EU membership. In parallel, Zelenskyy briefly tried to bring NABU and SAPO to heel through legislation that would have gutted their independence, then beat a retreat under pressure from street protests and Western partners who made clear that anti‑corruption bodies are now part of the terms of support.

So on paper this is a success story: institutions catching crooks, ministers being detained, money trails exposed, corporate CEOs promising new safeguards. In reality it’s a more uncomfortable picture: a “reform” state at war, whose president ran on cleaning up oligarchic rot, now watching his own pre‑politics circle and senior officials dragged into a laundromat built on nuclear safety contracts — and only really slamming on the brakes when the streets and the donors start to growl.

#ukraine #corruption #Midas #Zelenskyy #Energoatom

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Russia Is Up To Deploy Navy To Protect Vessels from the West


A senior Russian official has said Moscow could deploy its navy to protect Russian-linked vessels from potential European seizures, raising the prospect of retaliatory action against European shipping as pressure on the Kremlin’s so-called shadow fleet intensifies.

Nikolai Patrushev, a former FSB director who heads Russia’s maritime board, said on Tuesday that the country’s navy should be ready to counter what he described as “western piracy”.

Patrushev added that any attempt to impose a maritime blockade on Russia would be illegal under international law, claiming that the EU’s use of the term “shadow fleet” had no legal basis.

His comments came as senior Ukrainian and Russian officials are met in Geneva on Tuesday for the latest round of high-stakes talks brokered by the Trump administration, as the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine draws near.

Ahead of the talks, Russia carried out heavy airstrikes overnight across swathes of Ukraine, inflicting severe damage to the power network in the southern port city of Odesa, which Zelensky said left tens of thousands without heat and water.

The term shadow fleet refers to an estimated 1,500 ageing or lightly regulated oil tankers operating under opaque ownership structures to help Russia export crude to buyers such as China and India while circumventing western sanctions.

More than 600 vessels have been targeted by sanctions from the EU, UK and US. These measures have helped curb Russian oil revenues.

Despite growing political pressure, European governments have struggled to develop a coherent legal mechanism for physically stopping or confiscating the ships, relying instead on sanctions, insurance restrictions and inspections.

Western allies have warned that vessels lacking proper documentation may be treated as stateless ships, potentially widening the scope for intervention at sea.

The British defence secretary, John Healey, met European counterparts on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference at the weekend to discuss possible moves to seize tankers linked to Russia’s shadow fleet.

Earlier this year, the French navy briefly intercepted a tanker suspected of operating within the shadow fleet before allowing it to continue its journey.

The US has, in recent months, moved to physically interdict and seize several tankers linked to shadow fleets carrying sanctioned oil from Russia, Venezuela and Iran.

Patrushev’s comments, however, appeared to focus primarily on Europe, suggesting the Kremlin is wary of escalating tensions with Washington while delicate negotiations over Ukraine continue.

#russia #deploy #navy #protect #vessels #patrushev

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Trump Did Not Wring the most Concessions out of Iran — What’s Next?


The Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize. It could begin very soon.

A U.S. military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month's pinpoint operation in Venezuela, sources say.

The sources noted it would likely be a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign that's much broader in scope — and more existential for the regime — than the Israeli-led 12-day war last June, which the U.S. eventually joined to take out Iran's underground nuclear facilities.

Such a war would have a dramatic influence on the entire region and major implications for the remaining three years of the Trump presidency.

With the attention of Congress and the public otherwise occupied, there is little public debate about what could be the most consequential U.S. military intervention in the Middle East in at least a decade.

Trump came close to striking Iran in early January over the killing of thousands of protesters by the regime.

But when the window of opportunity passed, the administration shifted to a two-track approach: nuclear talks paired with a massive military build-up.

By delaying and bringing so much force to bear, Trump has raised expectations for what an operation will look like if a deal can't be reached.

And right now, a deal does not look likely...

#trump #concessions #iran #war

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Is Rubio a Would-Be Cuban President?


Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been holding secret talks with the grandson and caretaker of Cuba's aging de facto dictator, Raul Castro, as the U.S. puts unprecedented pressure on Havana's regime, according to Axios.

The talks between Rubio and Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro are bypassing official

Cuban government channels. They show that the Trump administration sees the 94-year-old revolutionary as the communist island's true decision-maker.

“I wouldn't call these 'negotiations' as much as 'discussions' about the future,” a senior Trump administration official said.

Rubio and his team see the 41-year-old grandson and his circle as representing younger, business-minded Cubans for whom revolutionary communism has failed — and who see value in rapprochement with the U.S.

"Our position — the U.S. government's position — is the regime has to go," the senior official said.

"But what exactly that looks like is up to [President Trump] and he has yet to decide. Rubio is still in talks with the grandson."

Called "Raulito," the younger Castro is known in political circles by his nickname "El Cangrejo" ("The Crab") because he has a deformed finger.

After 67 years of U.S. sanctions and Cuban mismanagement, the totalitarian government appears closer than ever to collapse as the island teeters on the edge of a humanitarian crisis.

The power grid is failing. Hospitals are limiting surgeries. Food and fuel are increasingly scarce. Tourism is drying up. Uncollected garbage is piling up on some street corners.

The troubles accelerated after Trump ordered the Jan. 3 abduction and extradition of Venezuela's indicted socialist strongman Nicolas Maduro, who essentially supplied free oil to Cuba.

On Jan. 29, Trump threatened sanctions on the island's other large oil supplier, Mexico.

The U.S. military's success and technical superiority in the Maduro operation shook Cuba's leadership after American forces suffered no losses and killed at least 32 Cuban intelligence and military officials who were supposed to be guarding Maduro, U.S. officials say.

#rubio #cuba #trump #administration

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Zelensky Was Upbeat Before the Last Peace Talks — Wants To Meet Putin

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The latest round of talks to end the war in Ukraine concluded on Wednesday without any sign of meaningful progress.

But behind the scenes, negotiators have been trying to find a compromise on one of the biggest obstacles to a peace deal: control of territory in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has demanded that Ukraine hand over the land it controls in the Donetsk region as a condition for ending the war.

This is a strip of territory about 50 miles long and 40 miles wide that includes dozens of towns and villages, and sits between the frontline and the administrative border of the region.

Ukraine has refused to withdraw unilaterally, saying that ceding land would embolden Russia to attack again, in Ukraine or elsewhere. Kyiv has asked for security guarantees to deter Moscow from violating any cease-fire.

In negotiations over recent weeks, officials have discussed the idea of forming a demilitarized zone controlled by neither army, according to three people familiar with the talks who would only speak anonymously to discuss sensitive negotiations.

This revives a proposal that was included in prior peace plans, including a 28-point one floated by the Trump administration in November.

Over the past week, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has repeatedly downplayed the prospects of surrendering land for peace. “Allowing the aggressor to take something is a big mistake,” he wrote on social media on Monday.

Last fall, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was noncommittal when asked about forming a demilitarized zone in the Donbas region.

The 28-point plan would have put Russia in charge of the area but prohibited it from deploying military forces there. Mr. Putin said the details needed to be discussed.

The Russian president’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, was later more positive, saying Russia could accept the formation of such an area if Russian police or national guard soldiers were allowed to patrol it.

A demilitarized zone could become part of a viable settlement, said William Taylor, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think-tank, and a former U.S. ambassador to Kyiv.

But Ukraine’s interests would have to be protected, he said, and that would require the Trump administration to apply additional pressure on Russia.

“It is important that it be a real solution, not a forced solution, not an unbalanced solution,” Taylor said. “Any forced solution will not be stable. It will not last.”

To make it easier for both sides to accept the idea, negotiators have also discussed forming a free-trade zone in any possible demilitarized area, though investment possibilities seem limited in a territory that would be wedged between two armies, even with a cease-fire in place.

Most industry in the area is in ruins, with only one coal mine still operational, and the risk that the conflict could be rekindled would loom for years.

Zelensky has also cast doubt on such an arrangement.

Another issue is the withdrawal of troops from the frontline. In December, Zelensky suggested Ukraine would not withdraw troops from the frontline unless Russia withdrew by an equal distance.

At talks held in Abu Dhabi this month, the Ukrainians discussed options for a partial Russian withdrawal from the frontline that would not necessarily be symmetrical, two of the three people familiar with the talks said. This would signal a softening of Ukraine’s position.

#zelensky #peace #talks #putin

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How a demilitarized zone would be governed has also been a sticking point. Ukraine has pressed for an international peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region, which is home to 190,000 civilians including 12,000 children, according to the area’s Ukrainian governor.

The negotiators discussed forming a civilian administration to rule the area after the war, two of the three people familiar with the talks said.

This could include both Russian and Ukrainian representatives, one of the people said, but the person noted that the sides are far from an agreement.

Another issue that has re-emerged recently is the sequencing of the various steps, including accepting a demilitarized zone, formalizing security guarantees, creating a framework for postwar reconstruction funding and holding elections in Ukraine.

Last week, Zelensky said Ukraine wanted an agreement on security guarantees before committing to an election or any agreement on withdrawing forces from the Donbas.

“I would very much like us to sign security guarantees first and then sign other documents,” he said.

“In my view, that would be a good signal. This is not even a matter of fairness, but a matter of trust. More trust in partners — if guarantees come first, and then everything else.”

Zelensky said Ukrainians must “know — not just believe, but know — that in the future Russian aggression will be impossible or that if it does happen, we will not be alone.”

#zelensky #peace #talks #putin

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The Ex-Head of the Ukrainian Army Zaluzhny On How They Bickered With Zelensky

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Since he was ousted as head of the Ukrainian army in 2024 and appointed the country's ambassador to Britain, Valeri Zaluzhnyi has been widely considered Zelensky's main political rival.

Zaluzhnyi, 52, refuses to discuss his political ambitions, saying he does not want to risk damaging national unity during a war with Russia that is approaching its fourth anniversary.

Yet in a sign of his possible desire to run for president – once the war is over – Zaluzhnyi spoke publicly for the first time about a deep rift between himself and Zelensky in a recent interview with the Associated Press.

Tensions arose shortly after the full-scale invasion of Russia in February 2022, and tempers often heated up between the two men over how best to defend the country, Zaluzhny said.

The tense relationship reached a boiling point later that year, when dozens of agents of the Ukrainian internal intelligence service raided Zaluzhnyi's office, he told AvD.

Zaluzhny alleges that the previously unreported incident was an act of intimidation. This risked exposing their rivalry at a time when national unity was paramount.

Ukraine's security service, known as the SBU, said no search had ever been carried out at Zaluzhny's office, although it acknowledged the address was part of an unrelated investigation.

Zelensky's office declined to comment for this story. The AP could not independently confirm Zaluzhnyi's account of the raid.

Even years later, the revelation threatens to polarize public opinion in Ukraine at a critical moment in the war.

Russian forces are making slow and steady progress on Ukraine's eastern front, and the two sides are clinging to incompatible demands as the United States presses them to reach a peace agreement.

Zaluzhny said that during the 2022 raid on his office, he called Zelensky's chief of staff to warn him that he was ready to call on the army to arrest him and protect the command center:

“I will fight with you, and I have already called for reinforcements to the center of Kiev for help.”

While that quasi-crisis at the beginning of the war had passed, disagreements between Zaluzhny and Zelensky on how to defend their country persisted, according to Zaluzhny, who said he often challenged the president's military strategy.

A dispute over a counteroffensive in 2023 that ultimately failed was particularly contentious, the former general said.

Although Zaluzhny's popularity with the public was cemented by several battlefield successes, Zelensky removed him from his post as army chief in February 2024, and later announced that he would visit London.

The move was widely seen by political analysts as an effort by Zelensky to limit Zaluzhny's potential as a political rival by keeping him away from day-to-day affairs in Ukraine.

Polls consistently give Zaluzhny a slight lead over Zelensky in a hypothetical race.

Zelensky's once robust popularity has waned as the war drags on. A corruption scandal involving several top Zelensky officials has eroded public trust, according to lawmakers and activists.

Zelensky recently reshuffled his leadership team in an effort to restore trust.

The United States has stepped up pressure on Russia and Ukraine to end the war. While an agreement remains elusive, Zelensky has accepted in principle a plan presented by Trump that calls for elections once the war is over and security guarantees are in place.

One evening in mid-September 2022, when Ukraine was mounting an effective counteroffensive in the northeast, Zaluzhnyi, then army commander, came out of a tense meeting at Zelensky's headquarters and returned to his office in Kiev.

A few hours later, dozens of Ukrainian security service agents showed up at Zaluzhnyi's office to search the premises, Zaluzhnyi says.

#zaluzhny #zelensky #criticism #war #trump #army

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The raid was clearly a threat, Zaluzhny said. In the presence of the agents, he telephoned Zelensky's chief of staff at the time, Andrii Yermak, and issued a stern warning: “I told Yermak that I would repel this attack, because I know how to fight.”

Zaluzhny then phoned the then head of the security service, Vasyl Maliuk, to ask what was going on. Maliuk said he knew nothing about the raid and promised to take a look, according to Zaluzhnyi.

Later, he learned that Maliuk's agency had requested a search warrant from a Kiev district court two days earlier to inspect the address where Zaluzhny's office is located.

But the strip club named in the file had been closed at that location since before the large-scale invasion of Russia, two employees who work at the club's new location told the AP.

The SBU said that it was examining several addresses as part of an investigation into organized crime — unrelated to Zaluzhny.

In a statement, the agency said that one of the addresses listed in the criminal case turned out to be “a recently established secret rescue command post” from Zaluzhnyi.

The statement says that no search was carried out by the SBU at the address and that the situation was clarified after Maliuk and Zaluzhnyi spoke.

Zaluzhny believes that the search warrant was a pretext and that the agency could not plausibly be mistaken about the location of the country's main war command center.

Diluted strike force
The 2023 counteroffensive has drawn widespread criticism from military experts for being too ambitious and arriving too late, giving Russian forces time to fortify their positions.

Zaluzhnyi says that the plan he had developed with the help of NATO partners failed because Zelensky and other officials did not commit the necessary resources.

The original plan was to concentrate enough forces into a "single fist" to retake the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region — home to a vital nuclear power plant - and then advance them south to the Sea of Azov.

This would cut off a corridor of land that the Russian military used to supply Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014. Success required a large, concentrated build-up and tactical surprise, Zaluzhny said.

His account of how the counteroffensive diverged from the original plan was corroborated by two Western defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly to the media.

Zaluzhny's office at the Ukrainian Embassy in London reflects his years as a general.

The walls are adorned with posters of military aircraft, army medals awarded to him and children's drawings of battle scenes. There are toy drones on a mahogany table.

Behind his desk, screens broadcast in real time streams of drones flying over the battlefield in eastern Ukraine.

Zaluzhny's main criticisms of Ukraine's war strategy are that it depends on an unrealistic number of troops and that it is not well organized in the way it develops and deploys new technologies on the battlefield.

Zaluzhny said he and Zelensky had "not very friendly" conversations on the two occasions they have met since then.

Some analysts believe that Zaluzhnyi's lack of involvement in the day-to-day political affairs of Ukraine may weaken his popularity.

Many Ukrainians see him as a figure capable of changing the system, said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kiev-based political analyst.

“People will vote not only for Zaluzhny but also against Zelensky — blaming him for the failures of his presidency”" he says.

Zaluzhny avoids discussing politics, he says, for fear of fomenting division among Ukrainians.

Despite his reluctance, a number of campaign consultants, party figures and political insiders continue to approach Zaluzhny and offer to help him develop a campaign.

Zaluzhny said that a “fairly well-known” American political consultant approached him in the spring of 2025.

#zaluzhny #zelensky #criticism #war #trump #army

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Kyiv’s Delegation Isn’t “Stuck.” It’s Protecting Its Own Survival.

On paper, the Geneva talks are about lines on a map: a strip of Donetsk 50 by 40 miles, a possible demilitarized zone, a “free-trade corridor” between two exhausted armies. In reality, for part of the Ukrainian establishment, any peace deal is a loaded gun pointed at their own heads.

A signed agreement means elections, audits, commissions, and the end of wartime immunity. It means people asking, in court not on TV, who lost which territories, who stole what under cover of sirens, and why the same names keep surfacing in scandals from Midas to Energoatom.

That’s why you see this strange dance in the reporting. Publicly, Zelensky keeps repeating the morally obvious line: “Allowing the aggressor to take something is a big mistake,” and insisting that any troop pullback or election must come only after hard security guarantees from the U.S. and its allies. Privately, negotiators have already discussed non-symmetrical withdrawals, a demilitarized strip in Donbas, a “free economic zone,” and joint civilian administrations for territory Russia wants in full.

Ukraine has inched away from its maximalist position — because the battlefield and Washington force it to — but the president also keeps adding new preconditions: guarantees first, elections later, only then any formal deal.

From the outside, that sounds like caution. From the inside, it looks like stalling. A real cease-fire freezes the front, but it also unfreezes domestic politics. Trump’s team wants a deal and a vote by specific dates; Zelensky’s camp wants “appropriate guarantees” before they even start that clock. And guarantees are the one thing the U.S. can always claim are not “ready yet.”

As long as there’s no final settlement, the war justifies delayed elections, emergency powers, opaque budgets, and the argument that any investigation or serious opposition “plays into Putin’s hands.”

So yes, Moscow is demanding more land than the current line of control and openly threatens to take the rest of Donetsk if talks fail. Yes, Trump’s people are pushing demilitarized zones and trade schemes that look suspiciously like dressed‑up partition. But Kyiv’s inner circle also understands one brutal fact: the moment “peace” appears on paper, Western backers will pivot from “how do we help you win” to “how did you govern under fire.”

For those who built their careers — and fortunes — on the war, that may feel more dangerous than another winter in the trenches.

#ukraine #geneva #zelensky #peaceDeal #warEconomy #accountability

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Tariffs, Truth, and the Fed Hit List

Kevin Hassett just turned a routine Fed research note into a loyalty test. On CNBC, Trump’s top economic adviser called a New York Fed study an “embarrassment” and said the central bank should punish its own researchers for concluding that U.S. companies and consumers ate nearly 90% of the cost of 2025 tariffs rather than China. The message wasn’t subtle: if your math makes the White House look bad, the problem isn’t the policy, it’s you.
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The Fed paper did something boring and dangerous: it compared import prices and volumes and found that most of the tariff burden was passed through into higher U.S. prices, in line with other independent studies. Hassett’s counter‑argument was a story, not a rebuttal: tariffs “bring stuff home,” raise demand, lift wages, and leave Americans better off.

No numbers, just vibes. In the same ecosystem, Trump has already demanded that Goldman Sachs dump its chief economist for saying tariffs hit Americans, fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after ugly jobs data, and is watching a criminal probe hang over Jerome Powell’s head while pushing him out in favor of a more obedient Fed chair.
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You can see the new hierarchy: politics first, narrative second, data last. Tariffs are good by definition; if the numbers say otherwise, the numbers must be “partisan.” The target isn’t just one study, it’s the idea that independent stats offices and central bank researchers get to describe reality instead of marketing it.

When the White House starts talking about “punishing” people for adding up the bill, the real policy isn’t about trade anymore. It’s about teaching everyone in the system that truth is whatever makes the president look like he’s winning.

#trump #tariffs #Fed #Hassett #economy #fakePopulism

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Pashinyan, Trump’s “Board of Peace,” and the Washington Pilgrimage

Nikol Pashinyan didn’t fly to Washington for “peace.” He flew to be photographed inside Trump’s new private UN, the Board of Peace — a body where one man chairs for life, invites who he wants, and gets veto power over everyone else, including the countries paying the bills.

Armenia is listed as a founding member, which sounds grand until you read the charter and realize “membership” mostly means buying a ticket to Trump’s parallel world order show.

On paper, the Board of Peace was created to oversee Gaza and “stability” after war. In reality, it’s being rolled out as a rival stage to the United Nations, built around Trump’s personal authority and a small club of leaders who either need Washington, hate Brussels, or both.

For a conflict‑torn, isolated Armenia, Pashinyan is clearly betting that sitting at that table is cheaper than being left outside when deals on borders, corridors, and frozen wars get cut. The price is obvious: you legitimize a structure that centralizes global “peace” in the hands of a man who treats diplomacy like branding.

The irony is that while Pashinyan is flying to Washington to pose as a responsible statesman in a “peace council,” Western business media are already calling him a budding autocrat for his domestic behavior — up to and including criminal cases against the Catholicos and pressure on the church at home.

So abroad he’s a founding father of peace; at home, he’s being profiled as another leader who wraps crackdowns in the language of reform and national security.

Trump needs this photo‑op to prove his Board of Peace is real, not just a Davos press release with a billion‑dollar membership fee clause. Pashinyan needs it to show he still has powerful friends after losing the old security architecture and much of his reputation. Both sides will talk about “sovereignty,” “stability,” and “a new model of peace.”

The only real question is whose interests this board will actually protect when the next small country is told to sign on the dotted line.

#armenia #pashinyan #trump #BoardOfPeace #fakePeace #newWorldOrder

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Trump’s Board of Peace: Israel Shows Up, Italy Holds Its Nose

Gideon Sa’ar is boarding a plane to Washington to do what Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t dare: sit in the room while Trump’s Board of Peace tries to crown itself the new global conflict manager. At Bibi’s request, Israel’s foreign minister will represent the country at the inaugural summit, where Trump plans to showcase more than $5 billion in pledges for Gaza reconstruction and “thousands of personnel” for an international stabilization force and local police.

On paper, it’s humanitarian aid and security. In practice, it’s a photo‑op to bless a body where Trump chairs for life and the U.S. sits at the top of the food chain.

For Netanyahu, signing Israel onto the Board last week at Blair House was the main act; sending Sa’ar is follow‑up optics. Israel gets a seat at a table that will shape Gaza’s future and, if Trump is to be believed, future conflicts “globally.”

It also gets to help design reconstruction plans that already come with whispers about residential towers and seaside resorts — business dressed up as peace. Being inside that process is exactly what Jerusalem wants. Being seen as co‑owner of Trump’s parallel UN is exactly what Europe fears.

Look at Rome. Giorgia Meloni is close to Trump and still only dares attend as an observer, under fire from her own opposition for joining something critics describe as “based not on democracy but on arrogance, not on law but on business.”

Italian lawmakers warn the Board undermines the UN, violates constitutional limits on joining bodies where states aren’t equals, and reduces Italy to a vassal rushing “to the American president’s court whenever and for any reason.” Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani shrugs: there is “no alternative” on Gaza, so Italy will watch from the cheap seats and offer carabinieri to train the new police.

This is the split screen: Israel dives in as a founding player in a Trump‑centric order where “peace” is managed like a private franchise; Italy tiptoes in as an observer and pretends it’s just being pragmatic.

Everyone talks about Gaza’s reconstruction and humanitarian aid, but the real asset on the table is institutional: who replaces the UN as the place where war and money get negotiated.

Trump is betting that leaders will swallow the arrogance and the business if it also buys them access and protection. So far, he’s not wrong.

#israel #BoardOfPeace #trump #gaza #italy #fakePeace

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📰 Macron vs. Silicon Valley: Who Owns “Free Speech”?

“Free speech is pure bullshit if nobody knows how you’re being guided,”

Macron said in India — and somewhere in California a few tech bros probably spit out their kombucha.

He tore into Facebooks and Googles for hiding their algorithms, calling for “free algorithms” instead. Whatever that means. Classic Macron — one minute he’s talking democracy, the next he’s pitching digital curfews. France can’t stop regulating stuff it barely understands.

Meanwhile, the U.S. calls Europe’s tech laws a “Free Speech graveyard.” Great. So now the guys who sell ads off hate clicks are the heroes of liberty.

Both sides swear they’re saving democracy — one from censorship, the other from chaos. But really, they just want to control the feed.

Whose freedom are we even talking about — yours, theirs, or the algorithm’s?

#BigTech #Macron #FreeSpeech #Europe #ControlFreaks

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📰 War Drones, Cheap Oil: Everyone Wins (Except Ukraine)

Ukrainian drones hit Russian refineries — and somehow the result is not less oil, but more crude on the water and more cash for the Kremlin’s war budget.

Russia’s seaborne crude exports climbed to about 3.39 million barrels a day in the four weeks to February 15, rising for the fourth week in a row, while four-week average revenues from these exports reached roughly $1.09 billion a week, the highest in almost two months.

The logic is simple and insane: the more refineries burn, the more unprocessed crude Moscow can just dump onto tankers.

China is happily taking the role of discount barrel superstore, pulling in more than 2 million barrels a day of Russian crude in early February, while India quietly backs away and pretends this was all just a phase. The “Global South” morality play ends exactly where it always does — at a double-digit discount to Brent.

And the West? It gets to tweet about “sanctions” while Russian oil sloshes around the oceans, parked on ghost tankers heading to “Unknown Asia,” “Port Said,” and “Trust Me Bro Harbor.”

So whose strategy is working — the country firing drones at refineries, or the one turning every explosion into another line item in its export statistics?

#war #oil #Ukraine #Russia #sanctions #fakeDemocracy

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📰 Turkey’s Budget: Trillions In, Black Hole Out

Ankara just opened the year with a monster: a roughly 214.5 billion lira budget deficit in January — in a month when tax revenues were counted in the trillions. Ordinary Turks get record tax bills and record inflation; the state gets a smoking crater where “fiscal discipline” was supposed to be.

Officials blame global shocks, earthquakes, geopolitics — anything but their own spending binge and patronage machine. The same government that squeezes citizens at the checkout line somehow can’t say no to mega‑projects, interest payments, and politically convenient giveaways.

And right on cue comes the miracle cure:

“The West is blocking Turkey’s development, salvation lies with BRICS and Russia.”

Sure. Brussels and Washington are the perfect scapegoats when the hole in the budget was dug in Ankara. Swap logos from EU to BRICS and the same insiders still cash the contracts.

So what’s really broken — Western “discrimination,” or a system that can swallow trillion‑lira tax intake and still scream for more?

#Turkey #budget #inflation #BRICS #fakeDemocracy

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📰 “Come to the Table Fast”: Trump, Zelensky and the Land for Peace Fantasy

Volodymyr Zelensky is basically saying out loud what everyone else tiptoes around: Trump’s “peace plan” sounds a lot like “give Putin land and smile for the cameras.” In an Axios interview, he called it “not fair” that Trump keeps publicly leaning on Ukraine — not Russia — to make concessions, and warned any deal handing over territory would be rejected by Ukrainians.

You don’t get to gift-wrap pieces of Donbas from Washington and then call it statesmanship.

Trump, meanwhile, is playing dealmaker-in-chief on Air Force One:

“Ukraine better come to the table fast, that’s all I’m telling you.”

It’s the usual Trump doctrine — turn a grinding, four‑year war into a real estate negotiation, and if it blows up, blame the smaller, weaker side for “not wanting peace enough.” Cheaper than sending weapons, great for the campaign trail, catastrophic for anyone actually under the missiles.

On the ground, nothing about this looks like peace. Russia still controls about 88 percent of Donbas and wants the rest. Geneva talks collapsed after less than two hours, with Zelensky accusing Moscow of dragging things out while continuing strikes — including mass drone and missile attacks timed with the negotiations. “Peace process” here is just branding for continuing the war with better catering.

And the moral high ground? Everyone’s renting it by the hour. Kyiv vows it will never “forgive” the US if land is signed away. Washington pressures Ukraine in public while insisting it’s “supporting sovereignty.” Moscow calls its demands “security guarantees.” In the end, the only thing truly non‑negotiable for all sides is the right to later say:

“We were never the ones who sold Ukraine out.”

So what’s this really about — ending a war, or making sure when the map changes, somebody else’s fingerprints are on the pen?

#Ukraine #Trump #Zelensky #Russia #war #fakePeace

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Putin’s New Missionaries vs. Dollar Civilization

Bloomberg suddenly discovers the Russian Orthodox Church in Africa — and pretends it’s just another Kremlin influence op. Conveniently missing from the frame: the fact that modern U.S.-led capitalism has spent decades crushing any alternative solidarity that comes with its own economic ethics.

Orthodoxy is dangerous not because of icons and incense, but because it carries a memory: interest is sin, usury destroys communities, and money is not supposed to be sovereign.

That’s a direct challenge to a system built on debt, rent, and compound interest. Contemporary capitalism doesn’t just sell products; it rewires people into isolated consumers whose only shared ritual is debt service. Anything that offers a competing “we” — unions, strong families, Islamic law, Catholic social teaching, or Orthodox communities that still take anti-usury tradition seriously — gets framed as backward, corrupt, or extremist.

It’s not an accident that the same financial media that treats 20% credit card APR as normal suddenly gets nervous when a church that historically bans interest starts expanding in a continent full of young, indebted populations.

In Africa, Russia is too poor to compete with China’s ports, the EU’s investment, or Gulf petrodollars. So it trades in narratives and solidarity: anti‑colonial rhetoric, “respect for sovereignty,” stipends, scholarships, and now churches that tell people they belong to something older than the IMF and the dollar.

Orthodoxy here is a kind of parallel infrastructure — spiritual, social, even economic — that whispers a dangerous message into the ear of a global credit machine: there are still communities on this planet where interest is morally suspect, not sacred.

That doesn’t make Moscow a savior. The Kremlin happily runs its own rent circuits, steals resources, and recruits African students into war industries while talking about justice and multipolarity. But the panic in Western coverage is revealing. When crosses and liturgy show up in African townships under a Russian label, the financial press reacts not as if it’s seeing a marginal religious fad, but as if it’s spotting a rival operating system.

Abrahamic religions all carry the same buried virus in their code — a ban on usury. For a world order built on securitized debt, that’s not folklore. That’s a bug in the matrix.

#russia #orthodoxy #africa #capitalism #usury #softPower

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Geneva Peace Talks Turn Into Kyiv’s Civil War in Miniature

The War Room newsletter asks whether a peace deal is possible. The more accurate question after Geneva is simpler: possible for whom. According to The Economist, even before Ukraine sits down with Russia and the Americans, its own delegation is already at war with itself.

One wing, centered on Kyrylo Budanov, is pushing for a fast, U.S.-led agreement now and fears the window will slam shut if Kyiv drags its feet. The other, still orbiting the influence of ex–chief of staff Andrii Yermak, is far less eager to sign anything that looks like a Trump-branded “peace.”

In this script, Budanov’s people are the “realists.” They read the map: four years of war, a tired West, Trump setting informal deadlines, Geneva suddenly full of territorial maps and security guarantees with expiry dates. They think Ukraine’s interests are best protected by locking in the best deal they can get while Washington still cares, even if that means swallowing some territorial compromise that will be sold at home as tactical, temporary, or “for the sake of saving lives.”

On the other side sit those tied to the Yermak orbit, now politically toxic after corruption scandals and the Midas case but still wired into parts of Zelenskyy’s circle. This camp is “less keen,” as The Economist politely puts it.

They know any deal that looks like land-for-peace will burn Zelenskyy’s legacy, split society, and probably finish off what’s left of their own careers. Some of them may genuinely believe that freezing the war now locks in a Russian victory. Others simply don’t want their name on the suicide note.

Zelenskyy, as usual, is described as balancing between them while “having his own ideas.” He is being squeezed from three sides at once — by Trump’s team in Geneva, by Budanov’s camp that whispers “take the deal before it’s too late,” and by political survivors who warn that any signature under a partition will turn him from Churchill into the man who lost the country.

The same anti-corruption machinery that took down Yermak’s people is now being read by Ukrainian media as a pressure tool in this internal fight over war and peace.

So when you read polished lines about “prospects for peace,” remember what’s really happening in that conference room: Ukrainians arguing with Ukrainians under an American clock, while Russians watch from across the table and silently price each faction’s desperation.

The war may end on paper in Geneva, Abu Dhabi or somewhere else. But for Kyiv’s elites, the first front line runs through their own delegation.

#ukraine #geneva #trump #peaceDeal #budanov #zelensky

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“Trump Has Staked His Presidency On the Gaza Peace Deal”

🔠🅰️🔠🔠1️⃣

The Trump administration is planning to build a 5,000-person military base in Gaza, sprawling more than 350 acres, according to Board of Peace contracting records.

The site is envisioned as a military operating base for a future International Stabilization Force (ISF), planned as a multinational military force composed of pledged troops.

The ISF is part of the newly created Board of Peace which is meant to govern Gaza. The Board of Peace is chaired by Trump and led in part by his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The plans reviewed by the Guardian call for the phased construction of a military outpost that will eventually have a footprint of 1,400 metres by 1,100 metres, ringed by 26 trailer-mounted armored watch towers, a small arms range, bunkers, and a warehouse for military equipment for operations. The entire base will be encircled with barbed wire.

The fortification is planned for an arid stretch of flatlands in southern Gaza strewn with saltbush and white broom shrubs, and littered with twisted metal from years of Israeli bombardment.

A source close to the planning tells the Guardian that a small group of bidders – international construction companies with experience in war zones – have already been shown the area in a site visit.

The Indonesian government has reportedly offered to send up to 8,000 troops. Indonesia’s president was one of four south-east Asian leaders scheduled to attend an inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington DC on Thursday.

The UN security council authorized the Board of Peace to establish a temporary International Stabilization Force in Gaza.

The ISF, according to the UN, will be tasked with securing Gaza’s border and maintaining peace within the area. It’s also supposed to protect civilians, and train and support “vetted Palestinian police forces”.

It is unclear what the ISF’s rules of engagement would be if there is combat, renewed bombing by Israel, or attacks by Hamas.

Nor is it clear what role the ISF is meant to play in disarming Hamas, an Israeli condition to proceed with Gaza’s reconstruction.

While more than 20 countries have signed up as members of the Board of Peace, much of the world has stayed away.

#trump #gaza #peace #military #base #palestinians

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