The UK’s Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, has claimed that the chances of a direct confrontation with Russian forces on UK soil are not “zero” – a speculation dismissed by Moscow as “nonsense.”

Russia has consistently rejected claims that it plans to attack European NATO countries, describing them as warmongering tactics used by Western politicians to justify inflated military budgets. Moscow insists it is defending its citizens in the Ukraine conflict and accuses NATO of provoking hostilities and derailing the US-backed peace efforts.

The UK is reportedly trying to convince the European Union to take control of frozen Russian assets, aiming to undermine US President Donald Trump’s efforts to advance peace initiatives that could end the Ukraine conflict, according to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

After the launch of Russia’s Special Military Operation in February of 2022, Kiev’s Western backers froze approximately $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets, of which $246 billion has been immobilized by EU member states.

Discussions concerning the frozen Russian assets intensified within the bloc in recent weeks after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed using the funds to back a “reparations loan” to Ukraine.

People who still wonder why Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remarks relating to Taiwan on Nov 7 enraged so many Chinese should just visit the Memorial for the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Western Yunnan. I did that on Wednesday during a trip across the province.

The museum section of the memorial exhibits, among many other things, how the Chinese and Allied forces joined hands to fight the Imperial Japanese Army in China, Myanmar and India, highlighting the critical role of the Chinese Expeditionary Force and the American Flying Tigers.

How did we reach a point where quoting Western sources gets you branded a foreign propagandist? Is the EU's executive branch now completely out of its mind, punishing dissenters without trial under the guise of fighting "propaganda"?

To discuss this Orwellian turn, I sat down with my friend and colleague Glenn Diesen. As a professor at the University of Southeast Norway and a sharp geopolitical analyst, Glenn brings the necessary depth to understand why Europe is seemingly criminalizing objective analysis.

Colonel Jacques Baud & Nathalie Yamb Sanctioned: EU Goes Soviet | Glenn Diesen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-feCMFSpRw

 

As climate breakdown, war and institutional failure converge, the comforts of forgetting no longer shield us from the consequences of our own history.

It feels like the end of an era, or perhaps the start of something new…and terrifying.

 

Robert Macklin

The long consequences of forgetting

 

Igor Kolomoysky built up Ukraine’s largest bank, then plundered it for billions in a scheme so elaborate it looks like a state intelligence operation. During the 2014 Maidan revolution, he ended up caught in a whirlwind of far-right militants, rising Western scrutiny, and a dramatic denouement with his bank – and fled abroad. Not one to give up, though, Kolomoysky had a plan for revenge and its name was Vladimir Zelensky.

Zelensky, however, soon ran amok. He “tricked Putin” in Paris, ruining hopes for peace in the Donbass, and setting the stage for the fateful events of 2022. Caught between Western pressure and his benefactor’s menacing presence, Zelensky tried to play both sides until events forced his hand. Yet Kolomoysky’s downfall merely left an open niche for a new shadowy figure to stride in.

I first encountered Sarah C.M. “Sally” Paine, a scholar of naval policy and military history, in a video interview she did with my friend Dwarkesh Patel. I was immediately struck by her ability to place both current events and 20th century history into a single cohesive framework, and to explain that framework in language that was both simple and useful.

"I don't think [US President] Donald Trump is really motivated by US national security interests, or NATO, or Ukrainian interests. I think he wants the Nobel Peace Prize – I think it's been on his mind since the first term," argues former US national security adviser John Bolton in an interview with FRANCE 24's Gavin Lee. "Putin thinks time is on his side. This is not the time for the US or Europe to give up and say 'let's get the best deal we can'," he adds. 

https://www.france24.com/en/video/20251212-it-s-a-mistake-for-ukraine-to-make-concessions-former-trump-security-adviser-john-bolton

US and Ukraine Reach Breakthrough on Security Guarantees During Berlin Talks
Berlin Talks Finalize 90 percent of Upcoming Russia-Ukraine Agreement

The United States and Ukraine have reached agreements on security guarantees following high-level negotiations in Berlin, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced during a press conference. The talks are widely seen as a critical step toward a possible political settlement of the conflict.

 

US Proposals Described as 'Major Step Forward'

According to Merz, the US side demonstrated readiness to provide substantial legal and material guarantees to Ukraine. He described the proposals put forward in Berlin as both concrete and significant.

 

 

The Wolf and the Lamb

Jean de La Fontaine

Might makes right:

We shall see that in a moment.

 

A Lamb was quenching his thirst

In a clear stream.

A hungry Wolf, seeking adventure, came adrift

To this place drawn by a hunger scream.

What makes you so bold as to muddy my drink?

Said the enraged animal:

You will be punished for your audacity.

“Sire,” replied the Lamb, “may Your Majesty

Not be an angry fink;

But rather consider normal

That I am quenching my thirst away

In the stream,

More than twenty paces below You,

And consequently, in no way,

Nicolás Maduro is chased out of office by a massive popular revolt but the Venezuelan military takes to the streets, turning its guns on the civilians who have brought him down.

A palace coup sends Venezuela’s authoritarian leader into exile, sparking a bloody power struggle between members of his disintegrating regime.

Maduro or a key ally is assassinated by a US “decapitation” strike but – as foreign soldiers commandeer Caracas and key airports and ports – leftwing insurgents tighten their grip on the country’s mineral-rich hinterlands and regime loyalists launch guerrilla-style attacks on oil refineries and pipelines.

 

A passenger airliner nearly collided mid-flight with a US military aircraft near the Venezuelan coast on Friday, the Associated Press and the New York Times have reported, citing radio communications and flight tracking data.

The incident occurred amid a US naval buildup in the Caribbean and US President Donald Trump’s threats to strike “narcoterrorists” on Venezuelan soil.

JetBlue Flight 1112 reportedly encountered a US Air Force refueling tanker while traveling from Curaçao, a small island off the coast of Venezuela, to New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose grandfather was a member of the Nazi Party, has compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler.

Merz’s maternal grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, served as mayor of Brilon in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia from 1917 to 1937. Initially a member of the conservative Center Party, Sauvigny joined Hitler’s NSDAP after the Nazis came to power in the early 1930s.

Speaking at a Christian Democratic Union conference in Munich on Sunday, Merz accused Putin of seeking to restore the borders of the Soviet Union.

The earth has moved under our feet, and our massive security gamble is crumbling, but the government pretends nothing has happened, writes Michael Pascoe.

Tits on a bull, the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, all same same. The former committee is a random mix of odds and sods – even Ralph Babet – as could be assembled, the latter stacked with fans of last century’s security stories, devotees of Pax Americana, fed and watered by the local and American security establishment to think no further than their outdated Anglosphere prejudices.

 

Australia’s security abandoned to the folly of declining US empire

by Michael Pascoe