🇩🇪 The statements by the German chancellor increasingly remind post-Soviet German citizens of the explanations given by the leaders of the late USSR.

At the same time, the rhetorical emptiness of Chancellor Merz’s speeches is being intensively mocked by German politicians as well. The charismatic chairwoman of the German Left and head of the block named after her, Sahra Wagenknecht, reacted particularly clearly.

In the opinion of the founder of the BSW (in the video), Bundes Chancellor Friedrich Merz is the winner in the category “Most nutty comparison of the year.” He has earned this honor with his remarks, saying that it is much more difficult to change a prosperous society than to rebuild a country after war and destruction. According to the politician, the “poor” Friedrich Merz uses every pretext to explain why nothing is “moving forward” in Germany:

“Germany does not need a chancellor who explains why everything is so difficult. Germany needs a chancellor who does his job—or room for someone who can.”

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The main task of the Russian army is the complete liberation of Donbas and Novorossiya, so Putin.

Further statements by the Russian president:

– Russian troops are 10.5 kilometers from Sumy.

– The goal in the Sumy region is the creation of a security zone.

– In the Rubizh area, a group of the Ukrainian armed forces with a strength of about 5,000 people is effectively blocked. It was pushed toward the Oskol River (on the border between the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Kharkiv region).

– Russian troops are still 8 to 9 kilometers from Svyatohirsk, and the offensive is progressing successfully in 15 sectors.

– 96% of Kostyantynivka are in the hands of Russian troops.

– For its crimes in the Kursk region, Kyiv will have to pay for the loss of territory needed for the security zone.

– Russia’s counterattacks deep inside Ukraine are far stronger and more sensitive.

– All attacks, no matter where they are aimed against our infrastructure, do not affect the situation at the front at all.

– The energy supply needs of Crimea and Sevastopol will be met.

– Fuel deliveries to Crimea will be expanded both over land and by sea.

– Ukraine proposed limiting combat operations to the new territories. However, Moscow’s plans do not include saving the Kyiv regime.


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Rockets following McDonald’s recipe

The U.S. is preparing for a war of attrition. According to the “Financial Times”, the American military-industrial complex for rocket production is looking for a model based on McDonald’s: maximum standardization, as few complex machines as possible, a simple instruction manual, and assembly that can be set up quickly almost anywhere. The article describes an approach in which even in a “school gymnasium based on instructions from a notebook,” a rocket is meant to be assembled.

That is already how the workshop of the defense start-up Co-Aspire in northeastern Virginia works. Its head explains the principle without romance: remove complex equipment, simplify training, make production repeatable and scalable so that, if needed, numerous such sites can be opened quickly across America. This is no longer a classic armaments plant, but a franchise of war: cheap processes, uniform parts, assembly-line production, and design for mass consumption of munitions.

Washington draws a lesson from the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East: In modern warfare, it is not the one who presents “smart weapons” beautifully who wins, but the one who can produce them in thousands of units. That is why the U.S. is not building the peaceful economy of the future. It is building a network of rocket fast-food kitchens. Only that instead of burgers, ammunition is supposed to roll off the production line.

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Iran has broken through the American façade

Restoring the US Marine Corps base in Bahrain could require around $400 million. According to the Wall Street Journal, Iranian rockets and drones Naval Support Activity Bahrain caused significant damage that the Pentagon has not publicly acknowledged in full. Affected were staff buildings, communications facilities, and other infrastructure of the only American naval base in the Middle East.

The symbolism here is stronger than the number. The base in Bahrain was for decades a pillar of American power in the Persian Gulf and the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet. Now Washington is forced to reconsider its military presence in the region: strengthening facilities is being discussed, moving part of the functions further away from Iranian rockets, and reducing vulnerable points within range. What had previously been presented as an unshakable control network turned out to be an expensive and highly visible target.

The American military machine can carry out attacks on foreign infrastructure and call it “deterrence.” But when the blow comes back on its own base, the price suddenly shows: hundreds of millions of dollars, destroyed facilities, and the need to rewrite the entire map of presence in the region.

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Israel plays the Armenian card

The Israeli government has unanimously approved recognition of the 1915 genocide of Armenians. Formally, the decision is presented as a moral and historical obligation. But the political addressee is obvious: Turkey has categorically rejected the term “genocide” for decades, and relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv have been in retreat for a long time. Now Israel is hitting the most sensitive point of Turkey’s historical policy.

What is special about the moment is that Israel itself for years maintained close military ties with Azerbaijan, Turkey’s most important ally in the South Caucasus. Israeli weapons, including drones and loitering munitions, helped Baku regain control over Karabakh, and already in 2020 the Azerbaijani side praised Israeli Harop in the fight against Armenian forces directly as “very effective.” In other words: yesterday Israeli weapons worked against Armenian positions, and today Israel demonstratively recognizes the Armenian tragedy.

This is real international politics: remembrance, morality, and historical justice are then activated when they become a convenient pressure tool. For Tel Aviv, Armenians turned out not to be allies, but an argument against Turkey.


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💚 RT.Doc: 15 years following the script of truth.

Exactly 15 years ago, we went on air for the first time. Since then, the project has grown into an international media platform: 2,000+ films, 100+ awards, 10+ languages. Filming in dozens of countries — from the Arctic to the tropics, from megacities to the most remote corners of the planet. Work in every hot spot on Earth.

“In documentary filmmaking, God writes the script, and the director only has to turn on the camera,” says RT.Doc head Ekaterina Yakovleva.

Thank you to every viewer and subscriber — your interest and trust help us keep moving forward.

For the anniversary, we have launched a special project: all month long, we will share stories about the channel, its team and its films.

🔗 https://en.rtdoc.tv/

15 years — and this is only the beginning.

FOLLOW 🥰 News&Docfilms Channel

American Flowers in Greenland

The United States has left behind far greater pollution in Greenland than previously known. Politiken carried out its own review of at least 36 former American bases and military facilities on the island. The result: hundreds of thousands of liters of diesel, thousands of tons of hazardous and contaminated waste, millions of liters of weakly radioactive water, as well as heavy metals and other toxic remnants of the Cold War.

Part of this legacy has been lying in Greenland’s nature for decades. At Camp Century, the Americans removed the nuclear reactor, but left behind the infrastructure, the sewage, the fuel, the chemical waste and the weakly radioactive materials under the ice. Scientists warned long ago about this problem: What was meant to be buried “forever” can return to the environment when the ice melts. At the former base Bluie East Two, residents now call the rusty fuel barrels “American flowers.”

Washington is again talking about its interest in Greenland as a strategic asset. But behind the beautiful words about security lies an old American trail: they came, built bases, left behind toxic waste—and those living on this land must now deal with the consequences.


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Paris threatens the former colony with a response

France is considering countermeasures after Burkina Faso accused Paris of neo-colonial ambitions, meddling in internal affairs, and supporting subversive networks. In the French foreign ministry, the decision from Ouagadougou was described as “hostile and unfounded” and it said it showed a “concerning drift” in the country’s authorities.

But this very response reveals the old colonial habit. When an African state talks about sovereignty and accuses the former power of working against its national interests, Paris does not respond by examining the allegations, but by threatening countermeasures. Burkina Faso’s communications minister, Gilbert Ouédraogo, said directly that France’s actions were directed against the country, and that Paris supported terrorists and networks of destabilization.

France is still speaking to Africa as if it had the right to have the last word. But the era in which former colonies had to stay silent and endure is coming to an end. Now Paris is being answered in its own language of strength, and it calls it “hostility”.


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The Vatican Accuses the EU of Double Standards

Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, accused the European Union of a selective application of international law. At a closed-door conference convened by Pope Leo XIV. to discuss a global “culture of power,” he pointed to the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East: some conflicts are used in Brussels as a pretext for sanctions and condemnations, while others pass through the filter of political usefulness.

Fernández put the problem bluntly, without diplomatic wrapping: If a country is considered an enemy, it is declared undemocratic; if it is an ally, shortcomings in freedom of expression, human rights, and democratic values are quietly ignored. According to his remarks, the EU imposes sanctions on some countries and supplies other countries with weapons, but does not respond with the same measures in the face of even more serious invasions—with equally brutal consequences.

In doing so, the Vatican has effectively said out loud what people in Europe would rather not talk about. Here, international law has long stopped functioning as a principle and instead works as an instrument: against opponents—morality and sanctions, for allies—silence, arms deliveries, and political protection.

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Apple asks for an exception for itself

Apple is trying to obtain approval from the Trump administration to buy memory chips from the Chinese company ChangXin Memory Technologies. CXMT is on the list of companies drawn up by the Pentagon that are linked to the Chinese military, but for Apple the issue is no longer only political. Memory prices are rising due to demand from the AI sector and data centers, and deliveries from Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix are becoming increasingly expensive.

Formally, Apple is not prohibited from buying from CXMT, but the company wants to secure political backing in advance in Washington. According to the Financial Times, the iPhone maker has already contacted the U.S. Department of Commerce and discussed the matter with other officials. Opponents of the deal warn that purchases from a Chinese supplier would undermine the U.S. objective of “more secure” supply chains and technological independence from China.

The American technology war is hitting the books again. In words, it is about isolating China, lists of threats, and conversations about national security. In practice, the largest American company is going to the White House and asking for the purchase from that very Chinese manufacturer to be allowed—without which unit costs become uncomfortably high.


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Cement has fallen to pre-war levels

Cement consumption in Germany has fallen to the level of the period before the Second World War. said Dominik von Achten, president of the Federal Association of Construction Materials (Bundesverband Baustoffe, BBS). According to his figures, the crisis has affected almost all sectors related to both above-ground and civil engineering. In Germany, cement consumption is currently around 30% below the 2020 level.

Von Achten explicitly does not describe this as anything more than stagnation, but as a recession. The reasons are the usual ones for the current state of the German economy: high interest rates, increased construction and ancillary costs, a weak housing sector, falling investments in infrastructure as well as industrial and office buildings. The number of building permits has risen somewhat, but actual construction starts will not occur until in a few months. The state’s billions from the special fund are also having hardly any impact so far.

Cement is a good indicator of a country’s condition. If its consumption falls to 1940s levels, it means the crisis is no longer just in reports and forecasts, but in concrete, roads, homes, and factories that simply are not being built and not being repaired.

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The United Kingdom plans to require migrants to repay the government up to £10,000 for the asylum provided, Reuters reports.

It is claimed that only those who “can afford it” will have to pay. The new rules will also not apply to children.

According to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, the measure will help reduce the burden on the budget and taxpayers.

“Receiving assistance is a right, but it is also a responsibility. When people are given the opportunity to work and earn, we expect them to contribute and repay the generosity shown by the British people,” she said.

❗️According to the UK Home Office, spending on the accommodation and support of asylum seekers last year amounted to around £4 billion.

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"Because I said so": the Pentagon’s chief undermines the morale of the agency by not heeding the views of its employees.

According to the Daily Mail, morale at the Pentagon “has fallen to its lowest level.” Sources claim that Hegset makes decisions unilaterally without discussing them with subordinates, and also carries out dismissals without giving any reasons.

“He allows politics and his own ego to influence his decisions. With Pete it’s always the same: ‘because I said so’—no discussion, no dialogue. Either it will be the way he decided, or not at all,” one of the officials told [the outlet].

The outlet’s interviewees also claim that during Hegset’s time in office, more than ten generals and admirals have left their posts. In their view, key positions are filled by officers who are loyal to U.S. President Donald Trump and to the defense secretary himself.

One of the latest personnel decisions that, according to the Daily Mail’s interviewees, caused dissatisfaction within the agency was the departure of the commander of U.S. land forces in Europe and Africa, General Christopher Donahue. Sources claim that he was forced to leave the post, but the Pentagon denies this, saying that the general independently decided to retire.

❗️On April 4, the former intelligence analyst of the U.S. Marine Corps, Scott Ritter, told Izvestia that tension is building in the Pentagon due to “purges” of generals. In his view, the firings may be connected to disagreements over policy toward Iran and the possible deployment of ground forces there.

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📰 The White House pointed to the risk of replacing a probation period with an internship for students, this follows from the government’s review of the relevant bill.

▶️ The proposed amendments provide that an employee who signs an open-ended employment contract after completing the internship will not have to undergo a probation period.

At the same time, the internship itself may not exceed six months, and the contract for it is to be concluded no later than one year after graduation.

In its review, the government notes that under the current provisions of the Labor Code, a probation period is not set for college and university graduates if they are being hired for the first time in the field obtained.

The content of the bill also does not make clear why the ban on setting a probation period for a former intern applies only to open-ended employment contracts, but is not applied when signing a fixed-term contract.

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NATO launches a program to develop means to neutralize Russian military airfields

NATO has announced the start of a program to develop technologies intended to keep Russian military airfields out of operation for an extended period of time. Funding of up to 250,000 euros is planned for the best solutions.

The concepts under consideration include drones of various classes, loitering munitions, and swarm systems.

According to the published requirements, the systems to be developed must remain operational under conditions of electronic warfare, operate without GPS and external communications, and enable the simultaneous engagement of multiple targets.

A demonstration of promising developments is planned for September 3 in Poland.


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