Connexion
And Sharmine Arwani is back.
Trump expands his oil wars from Venezuela to Nigeria
« La vente de LUKOIL International GmbH est liée à l’introduction de mesures restrictives par certains États à l’encontre de
L’article Face aux sanctions, Lukoil vend ses actifs à l’étranger est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Like the US itself, Trump is nothing but his image, so when he looks weak, confused, ridiculous or petty, the world can see exactly how his eviscerated nation is doing
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Image War — Aug 16, 2025.
Since American presidents are now at risk of stumbling headfirst going up or down Air Force One, it’s only logical for them to use stairlifts and evacuation slides. Why chance having the Defender of the Free World crack his denture and skull, just heading to another golfing vacation, or some global summit where he will be mostly ignored, if not mocked? Sliding down, each POTUS should be without pants or Depend. With a splash, he’ll plunge into a kiddie pool as journalists cheer. After being washed, perfumed and sedated by two illegal immigrant nurses of color, he’s ready to hit the red carpet to shake hands with foreign dignitaries.
For transparency’s sake, this entire process will be broadcast live on CNN, Fox News and the BBC, with appropriate color commentaries. “For some reasons, that brown bitch is taking too long to soap the president’s balls. Soon as we find out why, we’ll give you an update. Meanwhile, President Putin of Russia patiently waits, his only sign of exasperation a barely perceptible sigh.”
These patriotic and constructive reflections were triggered by the alarming yet endearing spectacle of Trump zigzagging in Alaska. Was he trying to find Cook Inlet? Since Putin took his time descending, Trump had to wait. When the better man finally appeared, Trump erupted with three bursts of applause. Receiving no equivalent affection, Trump looked positively forlorn when they finally shook hands. With his palm up, Trump was a beggar, and for seconds, his left hand even joined their manual coupling in an unmanly, needy threesome. In our image obsessed world, these spectacles aren’t just significant but emblematic. Like the US itself, Trump is nothing but his image, so when he looks weak, confused, ridiculous or petty, the world can see exactly how his eviscerated nation is doing.
This stinking and stumbling psycho is strapped to thousands of nuclear warheads, however. Without them, the US would just be one vast Skid Row, begging to be divided up by Mexico, Canada, Russia, China and Greenland. Here and there in the Heartland, there may still be MAGA republics, though impoverished, irrelevant and worse off than today’s Lesotho, Eswatini, Tristan da Cunha or Bir Tawil.
Rwanda and Gabon have joined Israel, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Pakistan and Cambodia in nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. No major European, Oriental or South American countries have done so. Even the most servile US vassals can’t risk embracing a genocidal child rapist.
Demanding peace between Thailand and Cambodia, 2,500 monks marched through Phnom Penh on 8/10/25. Over a dozen hoisted large photos of Trump, with “Thank You! Mr. President.” Though the US likely had a hand in starting that war, these cloistered doofuses credited the Donald with stopping bloodshed.
Right in downtown Tirana is George W. Bush Street. Though short, it passes Mosque of Namazgah, Albania’s largest. Maybe Trump will have at least an alley named after him in Phnom Penh? He’s winning the image war in Cambodia!
In 2020, I was astounded to discover Trump Kids Kindergarten in Lào Cai, a Vietnamese city of 130,000 right on the Chinese border. In an obscure spot high up in the mountains, Trump was idolized by ignorant Communists. This state run school is still there.
(L): 2,500 monks march, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 8/10/25 ; (R): painting of Bill Clinton in Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion
The US as a brand is most seductive to those with no chance of experiencing the Tenderloin, Skid Row, Philadelphia’s Kensington, Camden, Gary, South Bend, Youngstown, Scranton, St Louis, Oakland or all of New Orleans outside the French Quarters. They’re like those middle-aged guys in Amman, Jordan who are mesmerized by one Hollywood movie after another at cozy yet grimy Pop Café, a place no tourist but one has ever entered. They don’t know what it’s like to endure social distancing nearly every waking hour for decades. I’ve never experienced a population more atomized.
Let’s examine one photo of Zelensky’s visit to the White House on 2/28/25. With his arms folded, the Jewish clown is being scolded by two suited idiots, with Trump flaunting his trademark pucker. Like his boss, lapdog Vance is waving his hands in disapproval. Basic manners dictate you don’t bully a guest, even in private, but this was a staged spectacle, performed for Trump’s Budweiser and Miller High Life swilling base. The setting itself is laughable. Behind Trump on the mantel are the tackiest golden urns and figurines, and “TRUMP” is on some booksized block on the coffee table. Trump must always push his brand. Of course, there are no real books within sight. Flags of the US Army and US Marines flank this draft dodger. If only Liberace had become president!
If only we were just talking about taste. Just now, photos of Epstein’s Manhattan mansion have emerged. Though we see the same level of pricey tackiness so beloved by Trump, there are much darker notes. Vigilant Citizen describes a work of art, “Everything about this sculpture is creepy and unsettling, especially considering that young girls were being raped and abused in this very mansion. White gowns worn by brides are meant to represent their purity and virginity. This particular bride is seemingly attempting to escape something awful… like maybe an old pedo trying to abuse her. They like to mock their victims.” Inside this pedo rape paradise are sweet photos of Epstein with Bill Clinton, Trump, Melania, Bill Gates, Mick Jagger and Elon Musk, among others. A long letter from Woody Allen includes this poetic line, “Add to this that Jeffrey lives in a vast house alone, one can picture him sleeping in damp earth.”
There’s a lovely painting of a saucy Bill Clinton in a blue dress and red heels. Draped across a French Empire chair, he’s showing off his cleavage and flashing a pink thigh.
Long before death, they’re hell dwellers, and proud of it. Why not? Indulging in the worst acts imaginable has reaped them the greatest benefits. Most of their victims even consider them gods.
Baltimore, Maryland, USA: (L): 5/26/11 ; (R): 12/18/11
So Far Gone! — Aug 17, 2025.
The mysterious animal living in Mrs. Seven’s house turned out to be a large green frog. Dwelling behind her coolers, it had standing water on the concrete floor to drink, plus mosquitoes and gnats, one must assume, to feast on. Worrying about this beast’s poor diet, she left a hunk of bread by its side. Since it remained untouched days later, she removed it. Content, this solitary exile will stay right where he is, a silent, brooding presence, unmolested by men, dogs or God. That’s a better fate than most men’s. His options beyond this house aren’t great. Escaping, he’d likely be squashed or gently lowered into a boiling pot of rice gruel with mung beans.
At Vietnamese wet markets, you’ll see skinned frogs still alive. I’ve also written a poem about a turban wearing and gum chewing “sadistic climbing perch monger.”
Here’s the killer part, “Keeping these fish in a tin basin, she takes out each one and snips, with a scissors, its tail, anal fin, dorsal fin, pelvic fin, ventral fin, pectoral fin, then, finally, head. If only she would reverse this order, the climbing perch would not thrash about during the entire process.”
All travelers know no two nations do anything the same. Of course, if you only hop from one global enclave to another, you’ll miss most of these stark or subtle differences, but that’s not traveling. Landing in Timbuktu, Nakhchivan or Qaanaaq, they look immediately for a McDonald’s and a Starbucks.
Baltimore, 5/26/11
Recently, Trump cited Oakland and Baltimore as examples of cities “so far gone,” they need federal intervention, as just happened in DC. Since Trump doesn’t drive, much less walk, anywhere dicey, he has no direct experience of Anacostia or Deanwood in DC, much less Baltimore, but that’s true of his critics also. Whether conservative or liberal, most Americans know better than to stray into black ghettos. Here are the five deadliest American cities, Memphis, Oakland, St. Louis, Baltimore and Detroit. Four are majority black, with St. Louis nearly so.
Just pointing out these facts will get me charged as a “racist” by many upstanding Americans, but consider this hateful passage, “In the city of Philadelphia the increasing number of bold and daring crimes committed by Negroes in the last ten years has focused the attention of the city on this subject. There is a widespread feeling that something is wrong with a race that is responsible for so much crime, and that strong remedies are called for.” It was written in 1899 by that famous Nazi, W.E.B. DuBois, when he was best buddies with Adolf Hitler. Growing up in adjacent rowhouses, they’d split even a pretzel. So poor, they had to pool money over months to buy one Tastykake.
When Trump talked about solving urban crimes, his MAGA base plus many others immediately understood it as a resolve, finally, to tackle black crime, so they cheered, though not at work or in polite company. With Trump, though, it’s just another con and misdirection. He’s using black crime to normalize the presence of soldiers on American streets. Having engineered the worst economic collapse, he’s preparing for its attendant chaos and violence.
Baltimore, Maryland, USA: (L): 5/26/11 ; (R): 12/18/11
As a high school kid in Northern Virginia, I’d drive my Mustang II to Baltimore to catch my Mariners play the Orioles at Memorial Stadium. I’d head straight there from my McDonald’s job on Little River Turnpike. In my M’s jersey and waving a pennant, I once screamed so loud while sitting alone in the outfield, a player turned around to stare at the freak. I’d like to say it was Ruppert Jones, but he must have been retired by then.
As an adult in Philly, I’d take a Greyhound to Baltimore to spend another relaxing, near suicidal day. Away from its Inner Harbor, the city looked bombed. Wandering around Charm City, I started to understand why John Water’s Divine thought eating dogshit was so wonderful. With so many murals honoring murder victims, you also feel close to God, as in, “I’ll be there in a second, Jesus.” It’s a spiritual city.
You, too, should drop everything to visit Baltimore at the first opportunity. Its tourism slogan, “You won’t get it till you get here.” A preview, “A 13-year-old boy with 18 prior felony arrests has been apprehended again, this time for a series of armed carjackings and robberies that took place across Baltimore from July 26 to 27, according to the Baltimore Police.” Similar youths are liberally sprinkled across America.
Under Biden, there was a noticeable uptick in anti social behavior, including street takeovers, flash robberies, smash and grabs, dine and dashes, porch piracy and nuisance streaming. Far from going away, these have only increased under Trump, since their root causes, alienation, pathological self absorption, community breakdown, unaffordability of basics and meaningless existence, have only been exacerbated. Plus, Trump is himself a worldclass felon. Crime exudes from all his pores and orifices effortlessly. Trump emanates crime.
In 1992, Camden Yards opened in Baltimore. Now, there are retro ballparks all over. Inside these exclusive environments, the USA is still safe and wholesome. The cheapest seat for a game five days from now goes for $23, with the most expensive at $153. With the added cost of hot dogs, soft drinks, beer and parking, a typical family of four can’t come here. Triple locked inside some ghetto rowhouse or a suburban duplex, they can still enjoy this American mirage, on their bought-on-credit flatscreen. That’s how it will be, then, as their world cracks, crumbles and burns.
New York, 8/4/09
John Rocker, Prophet — Aug 18, 2025.
Twenty five years ago, an Atlanta Braves pitcher, John Rocker, said, “I’m not a very big fan of foreigners. How the hell did they get in this country?” With his team in NYC to play the Mets, Rocker observed, “Imagine having to take the 7 train to the ballpark, looking like you’re riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It’s depressing.”
It’s clear this 26-year-old had never been to Beirut or anywhere in the Middle East. Even today, you almost never see in Muslim nations purple haired kids, queers with AIDS, obvious felons or 20-year-old moms with four kids. Unlike in the USA, their criminals, degenerates and misfits don’t advertise themselves. Even American nerds pose as gangstas, for their culture glamorizes all crimes, including genocides.
When Rocker was born in Statesboro, GA in 1974, it had roughly 17,000 people. In high school, he lived in Macon (pop. 130,000). Though a city, it’s still in the same state, then he was drafted by the Braves. Nearly his entire minor league career was spent in the South.
There were plenty of Latino players in his organization, however, and the big club’s roster for 2020 included players from Venezuela, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Canada and Cuba. Even with so many foreign teammates, Rocker had plenty of white ones to socialize with, however. The appearance of everyone working together towards a common goal disguises the fact that, after the game, most players stick with their own race or at least those who speak their language comfortably. Even on the airplane home, they self-segregate.
New York, USA: (L): 10/8/11 ; (R): 11/3/17
Rocker’s disgust, fear and hatred of NYC is all too common. It’s not just the natural reaction of any bumpkin towards the city, but of every child when forced to enter school, or of any man on his first trip abroad, even if he’s going voluntarily, for pleasure. To be uprooted is always violent, but without this, almost no goals are achievable, especially today. Very few are allowed to be housewives or simply shopkeepers in their hometowns. Thrust into alien, bewildering environments, nearly everyone seeks to reclaim his hickishness by frequenting the same bar, café, cheesesteak joint or Chinese takeout, or he can watch the Braves or Phillies for 200 times a year, including the playoffs and Spring Training. Compulsive, addictive behavior is nearly an inevitable reaction to the terrors of displacement.
Retired, Rocker must be living in some Southern town, so he’s no longer displaced. Most people don’t have that option.
Trump’s decision to send National Guardsmen from Ohio, West Virginia and South Carolina to Washington DC made me think of John Rocker. Unlike the pitcher, they won’t be armed with fastballs and sliders, but M4 carbines and M9 pistols. Nothing will go wrong, I’m sure.
Deployed around Union Station, Georgetown, Chinatown and 14th Street, they’ll make a show of arresting sandwich throwing drunks and public urinators, but their real tasks, make no mistake, is to sow fear and disorder. When American cities go up in flames, American hicks will cheer.
Though the worst kind of New Yorker, Trump, with his red cap, is posing as a John Deere tractor driving peasant. You’d never find him plopped next to a John Rocker, though, at any good ol’ boys tavern. Served a pickled trotter, the Donald would retch.
Before college, I had been to NYC just once. At 15-years-old, I went there with my mother, stepfather and half brother on a day trip, a very long drive from Northern Virginia. That day’s highlight was a visit to the top of the World Trade Center. Applying for college, I was accepted at Pratt and Parson, but visited neither. Wanting to become an oil painter, I knew I’d have to confront NYC at some point.
New York, USA: (L): 10/8/11 ; (R): 11/3/17
From Philly, I’d take two local trains to NYC. At first, it was only to visit its museums. Eventually, I’d get to know many neighborhoods, including those across the Hudson in New Jersey. I gave poetry readings at St. Mark’s Place, the Nuyorican Café and a few other venues I can’t quite remember. I was paid to talk to a class at Yeshiva University, I’m not kidding. I was on a panel at NYU with Susan Sontag and Carolyn Forché, among others. I was a critic-in-residence at Art in General. Many of my college friends moved to NYC. My main publisher was there. On my last visit, I was interviewed by Chris Hedges for Russia Today. I wrote a long poem about Yankee Stadium. Despite all this exposure, I never warmed up to Manhattan. It’s too much about image, with every transplant remaking himself to be more worldly, even freakish. Even their speech changes.
At Philly’s Friendly Lounge, there was a regular, Johnny AC, who made it a point to never visit NYC, and he had been to Japan.
For thousands of years, we lived in villages. Now, 55% of the world’s population dwell in cities, with millions packed into cubicles suspended in smog. Last week, some tattooed asshole in Hanoi was caught on camera beating up a female neighbor by the elevators. He clearly didn’t care who she was, or even where he was. His soulless, arrogant face exudes alienation.
When I was born in November of 1963, Saigon had a population of 1.6 million. Now, it has 14. That’s why I’m living in a drowsy city by the ocean. At 4:06AM, I’m again sitting at a sweetly shabby café in a quiet alley. Mrs. Seven is still living in her childhood home. Through the open door of her bedroom, I can see an elegant pastel portrait of her late father. On her wall is a peeling mural of the Vietnamese countryside. Her two dogs’ one big trip was to the wet market, a quarter mile away. Behind her red cooler, a large green frog contently squats. Like everyone, he has had enough harrowing life experiences to brood over.
Clearly, our species’ existence is unsustainable. Though we know and sense this, there’s nothing we can do. Our elites, though, have firm, definite plans they’re already executing. Meanwhile, there are still baseball games to be stared at on our droning televisions.
About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):
‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
“Now let them seek a delicate exit from the mess they’ve gotten themselves into — but we will achieve our objectives.” — VVP
By William Schryver at imetatronink.
My coalescing sense of the underwhelming Alaska Chats is that Russia has not materially varied from its longstanding terms.
Trump rolled into town with his “stealth” flyover, imagining he was the one giving an audience to Putin.
From start to finish it was perfectly evident to any discerning observer that it was just the opposite, and that Putin was there to repeat and to emphasize Russia’s apparently inviolable terms.
As I understand it, the Russians have said they will implement a conditional temporary ceasefire in the south while NATO/AFU forces withdraw from Donetsk.
No one has said anything about ending the Special Military Operation, nor of the disposition of territories.
In essence, the Russians are saying:
“We’ll temporarily stop destroying you on the southern part of the line of contact while you retreat from the northern part, and then we’ll demand you also withdraw from the southern part, and lay down your arms.”
I cannot understand how so many people seem to doubt the resolve of the Russians to continue fighting western forces for years to come pursuant to their clearly enunciated objectives.
In each successive year of this war, Russian strength has augmented across the spectrum. Russia is not only outproducing the combined west by several multiples, but their military hardware is now indisputably superior in most key categories.
The only exit route for the US/NATO is capitulation, which in this instance entails withdrawing NATO military presence to the 1997 borders, as stipulated in the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997.
How they opt to frame that capitulation is up to them.
As I noted in my February 2024 analysis of the Tucker Carlson interview of Vladimir Putin:
Tucker Carlson: “Do you think it is too humiliating at this point for NATO to accept Russian control of what was two years ago Ukrainian territory?
Vladimir Putin: I said let them think how to do it with dignity. There are options if there is a will.
Up until now there has been the uproar and screaming about inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield. Now they are apparently coming to realize that it is difficult to achieve, if possible at all. In my opinion, it is impossible by definition. It is never going to happen.
It seems to me that now those who are in power in the West have come to realize this as well. If so, if the realization has set in, they have to think what to do next. We are ready for this dialogue.”
That both Tucker Carlson and others have failed to correctly interpret Putin’s words is incomprehensible to me. So permit me to paraphrase them in language that is perhaps more understandable to the dimwitted and disingenuous people in the West who continue to misrepresent them:
“We offered them an early out, and they rejected it in favor of an appeal to arms in order to inflict what they imagined would be a severe strategic defeat against Russia on the field of battle. But their reach greatly exceeded their grasp. They cannot defeat us. Now let them seek a delicate exit from the mess they’ve gotten themselves into — but we will achieve our objectives.”
Novorossiya
No matter how the would-be masters of empire try to spin defeat into victory, most everyone around the world will still know the score. And it is this disabused illusion of imperial military supremacy that will rapidly accelerate its inexorable decline.
Of course it’s all about Alaska. Here’s what’s in play. But it’s the shadowplay that’s even more exciting.
By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture Foundation.
Of course it’s all about Alaska. Here’s what’s in play. But it’s the shadowplay that’s even more exciting.
Across the world, for those who grew up in the Cold War Swingin’ Sixties, the temptation is irresistible to cast Donald Trump as Goldfinger (but who would play Oddjob? Hegseth?)
Goldfinger, after all, is a powerful, ruthless gambler. His 21st century motto would be “Obliterate & Plunder”. In fact, sequentially, an orgy of obliteratin’ and plunderin’ if the occasions present themselves. Everything subjected to the search for the Golden Deal. My way. The only way.
Yet now it’s possible that Goldfinger may have met its appropriate – collective – match.
This is what happened the last time a summit took place in Alaska, in this particular case US-China in a shabby hotel in Anchorage. That shook the geopolitical chessboard to the core. Trump-Putin might – but only under quite specific conditions.
There’s only one realistic, optimal endgame for Alaska: a joint declaration of intent, pointing to a follow-up, as in the next meeting to be held in Russian territory. A sort of starter for the long and winding road towards a real reset of US-Russia relations, including a possible settlement in the proxy war in Ukraine.
Essentially, they may agree to keep talking. Yet what really matters is what may be implied by the promise: Goldfinger refrains from imposing secondary sanctions on Russia’s partners.
That will constitute a tremendous BRICS victory (Iran excluded. Actually, two strategic allies of Russia would be excluded: Iran and the DPRK).
BRICS are actively building a coalition to stare down Goldfinger. The key players are Bear, Dragon, Toucan and Elephant – all four original founders of BRIC. Nightingale should be added later, as it is linked via geopolitical/geoeconomic strategic partnerships with Bear, Dragon and Elephant.
When it comes to the Alaska nitty gritty, the top Bear needs to consider all the ramifications of what is an imperative for the Russian General Staff and the vast intel apparatus in Moscow: unless Goldfinger minions stop weaponizing and providing precious intel to Ukraine is all its forms, the mythic “ceasefire” that Goldfinger and the pack of toothless chihuahuas in Europe desperately want will be just an intermission to allow Ukraine to rearm to the hilt.
That’s a tough call for the top Bear: he has to placate his domestic, radical critics who blast him for sitting down with the enemy, and at the same time he must deliver the goods to his under-siege BRICS allies.
BRICS counteract Goldfinger’s Plunder tactics
Bear, Dragon, Toucan and Elephant are involved in breathless telephone diplomacy to articulate their collective response to Goldfinger’s Tariff/Plunder drive.
Examples. Modi on Brazil: “A strong, people-centric partnership between Global South nations benefits everyone.”
Lula on India: “Brazil and India are, so far, the two most affected countries. We reaffirmed the importance of defending multilateralism and the need to address the challenges of the current situation.”
Xi to Lula: China backs Brazil to defend its national sovereignty; BRICS is “a key platform for building consensus in the Global South.”
Goldfinger’s Tariff Plunder works in several ways.
On India: because New Delhi refuses to open its vast agricultural market to tariff-free Made in USA imports (45% of India’s population directly depends on agriculture); and because India buys Russian oil at much-needed discount prices.
On Brazil: because the ultimate target is regime change and free reign to plunder Brazil’s natural wealth.
So far, Goldfinger’s Plunder antics have been stellar when it comes to engineering their own blowback: from allienating even allies – see abject European submission – to de facto burying multilateral trade, not to mention international law.
Example: just a few hours before the tariff “pause” on Made in China products was about to expire, Goldfinger signed an executive order extending the deadline for another 90 days. Translation: TACO, all over again. If the tariff “pause” went through, the economy of the $37 trillion-indebted “indispensable nation” would be in even more dire straits.
Then there’s Goldfinger’s possible Arctic gameplay, already examined here. There’s virtually no evidence Russia would allow the US to participate in the development of the Arctic-wide Northern Sea Route (NSR), or Arctic Silk Road in Chinese terminology.
The role of Russia’s Atomflot – 11 nuclear icebreakers, 9 of them in action, 2 being built, including Project 10510 Rossiya, a behemoth capable of navigating anywhere in the Arctic anytime – in parallel with Russia’s astonishing arsenal of new weapons systems, these are absolutely key variables on any serious discussion on any possible US-Russia partnership post-Alaska.
Arya – آریا: mural at Tehran’s Enghelab Square. Farsi text: “The end of this saga is of glory, thus recite the name of Iran, for it is the slayer of its enemies.” The Iranian warrior Rostam from Shahnameh fights the serpent (the US)
Goldfinger’s obsession to cage Nightingale
Now let’s look at Nightingale – an immensely complex case. Goldfinger has totally embarked on a multi-track maximum pressure/tension remix against Iran: forcing Hezbollah to disarm; forcing the collapse of Lebanon into factional war; legitimizing the “al-Qaeda R Us” dismemberment of Syria; forcing snapback UN-backed sanctions on Tehran.
Then came the Goldfinger-hailed “historic peace summit” with Azerbaijan’s Aliyev and Armenia’s Pashinyan.
Well, what Baku and Yerevan really signed under Goldfinger’s watchful eye is not a peace deal: it’s a mere memorandum of understanding (MOU).
Their Joint Declaration is extremely vague – and non-binding. What is promised is a “let’s keep talking” set up: “We acknowledged the need to continue further actions to achieve the signing and ultimate ratification of the [Peace] Agreement.”
It remains to be seen what happens with the much-ballyhooed 99-year American grip on the Zangezur corridor – trimphally named Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) – complete with grabbing 40% of its revenues (Armenia would get only 30%) and placing 1,000 American mercenaries to patrol Armenian territory, right south of Nightingale’s borders.
The big story is of course Goldfinger eager to snatch at least one connectivity corridor in southern Eurasia – in the strategic south Caucasus, using a gangster-minded MI6 asset (Aliyev) and a national traitor (meek Pashinyan), which will be discarded and/or sweetened in due time. Crucially, NATO membership was offered to both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The Deep State’s game plan is total control: what really matters is the opening to establish a NATO corridor all the way to the Caspian.
There’s no way Nightingale will let that happen, not to mention Bear and Dragon: it would mean a direct NATO threat not only to the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), which unites three BRICS (Russia, Iran, India) and crosses the Caspian, but also the Chinese Silk Roads, whose corridors traverse Iran with possible branch outs to the Caucasus.
Nightingale has already made it quite clear it will not allow any kind of change of status for the Zangezur corridor. And it has the necessary missile arsenal to back it up. IRGC Deputy Commander Yadollah Javani: Iran “will not allow an American corridor on its border.”
Wherever it comes from, Goldinger or the Deep State, the pressure by the Empire of Chaos is relentless. There will be no respite in the Hybrid – and otherwise – Wars on BRICS, especially on the new Primakov triangle (“RIC” as in Russia, Iran, China).
Alaska in principle should be about a reset of all US-Russia security matters – geopolitical, commercial, military, with Ukraine being just a subset. That will be a major stretch. It’s hard to imagine Putin being able to impress on Trump, on the same table, the finer points of NATO/US ceaseless plots to undermine, harass and destabilize Russia.
The most probable outcome is that the proxy war – and the SMO – will keep rollin’ on, but with the Deep State making extra bundles of euros by selling tons of weapons for NATO to dispatch to Kiev. But even without the promise of a new, serious, US-Russia security architecture, BRICS may still stand a chance to snatch a victory out of Goldfinger’s latest photo op.
All eyes on Alaska. The Bear-Eagle face-off is part of an astonishing acceleration of history in the summer of 2025.
By Pepe Escobar at Sputnik.
Two weeks after Alaska, there’s the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) annual summit in Tianjin, China. India’s Narendra Modi and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian will join, among others, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin at the same table. A BRICS/SCO table.
September 3, in Beijing, is the 80th anniversary of what is officially defined as the victory of “the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War”. Putin is the guest of honor. The rehearsal, with 22,000 participants, took place this past weekend in Tian’anmen Square.
On the same day, in Russia’s Vladivostok, it’s the start of the Eastern Economic Forum, which discusses everything about Russia’s drive to develop the Arctic and eastern Siberia – the equivalent of the Chinese “Go West” campaign started in the late 1990s. Key Eurasian players will be in the house. Putin addresses the plenary session on September 5.
Top BRICS leaders of China, Russia, Brazil and India, meanwhile, are actively involved in a flurry of phone calls coordinating a collective response to the tariff wars – part of the hybrid war by the Empire of Chaos against BRICS and the Global South.
How Trump is Aiming for a PR Win
Let’s see how Alaska is setting the stage for something much bigger.
The summit was announced following what Putin advisor Yuri Ushakov concisely defined as “a proposal from the American side which we think is quite acceptable.”
This sentence was as far as the Kremlin would comment – in contrast with the non-stop verbal onslaught emanating from Washington. That the Kremlin even considered the American offer means an implicit recognition of what Russia is achieving on the battlefield and in the geoeconomic sphere.
Timing. Why now? Especially after Trump had threatened buyers of Russian oil with tariffs? Essentially, because military intel in selected deep state silos have done the math and finally admitted that the long proxy war in Ukraine is lost.
Moreover, Trump personally wants to get over it so as to concentrate on the next chapters of the Forever Wars – including the one that really matters: against “existential threat” China.
From Moscow’s point of view, conditioned by the successful results of its calibrated war of attrition, the facts on the battlefield spell out the special military operation rollin’ on – and no ceasefire; at best a “humanitarian” pause of a few days. The Americans want a ceasefire of at least a few weeks.
Reconciling both sides’ optics will be a Sisyphean task. Still, Alaska is just the beginning: the next meeting is already in the works to take place in the Russian Federation, according to Ushakov.
Trump’s motives are easily identified: create the perception of the US extracting itself from the mess; some sort of truce; and back to doing business with Russia – especially in the Arctic.
In parallel, assuming any sort of deal, the deep state will never recognize the new Russian regions, even Donetsk and Lugansk; and will seek to re-weaponize Ukraine, “leading from behind”, for a NATO-led war replay further on down the road.
So the US-Russia abyss is mirrored by the domestic American abyss – and most of all the Trump-NATO/EU abyss. The toothless chihuahua European pack, trying to salvage its pitiful Kiev actor, is doing somersaults – complete with possible black swans – to derail the summit even before it happens.
There’s no way Trump can sell any sort of settlement to the rabid NATO/EU pack. But nothing would please him more than to transfer the war – in full – to them. With the benefit that the deep state in this case will not complain – because it will be reaping massive euro profits from the weapons sale racket. End result: a classic Trump PR win.
Exit Ukraine, Enter the Arctic
Ukraine, though, will not be the main theme in Alaska. The ever-perceptive Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov cut to the chase: what really matters is that “the first signs of common sense are appearing in Russia-US relations, which were absent for several years before.”
Ryabkov was quick to also highlight the dangers: the risk of nuclear conflict in the world “is not decreasing”; and Russia sees the risk that “after the expiration of the New START Treaty, nuclear arms control will be completely absent”.
Once again: Alaska is just the beginning of something much bigger – including, finally, a serious discussion about “indivisibility of security” (what Moscow wanted already in December 2021, rebuffed by the autopen administration).
And that brings us to the Arctic – and serious stuff that will certainly be debated in depth at the upcoming Vladivostok forum.
The Arctic holds at least 13% of global undiscovered oil reserves and 30% of undiscovered natural gas. Russia controls at least half of all these reserves. The Empire of Chaos badly wants to be part of the action.
Yet one thing is possible massive US investment in joint Arctic projects with Russia. Something entirely different is the US joining the Northern Sea Route (NSR) – which the Chinese call the Arctic Silk Road. The NSR reduces shipping time between Asia and Europe by up to 50%.
The Russian-Chinese rationale for the NSR – including the expansion of Russia’s unique nuclear icebreaker fleet – is exactly to bypass the Suez Canal and connectivity channels controlled by the US. The key question then is what would it take to swing Moscow to accept a Trump-Putin deal in the Arctic.
So on Ukraine, in principle, Russia has all the cards – as long as the special military operation goes on, now on overdrive. On hybrid war, the tariff chapter, the US ruling classes finally realized they have no cards – because blowback caused by secondary sanctions will badly damage the US. What’s left then is a commercial deal: the Arctic.
It’s quite intriguing that even the JPMorgan Center for Geopolitics admitted that the best solution for the Ukraine mess is a Georgia scenario: that would somewhat offset the optics of a total capitulation by the West. Only Ukraine would capitulate: no NATO, no EU, no money, no security guarantees.
Inestimable Prof. Michael Hudson has condensed how Alaska will proceed under two vectors: “Part I is whether the US will acknowledge that the trajectory of the current fighting is for a total Russian victory, on the terms that Putin has been explaining for two years: no NATO membership, no foreign arms supplies, Nuremberg-like trials of the Banderite leaders, and perhaps reparations by Ukraine and NATO for the rebuilding of formerly ‘Ukrainian’ Russia.”
Assuming Trump accepts it, and that’s a major “if”, then comes the real nitty gritty (remember Ryabkov), “starting with whether a new atomic missile and arms treaty will be put in place.”
Russia’s version of peace, writes Prof. Hudson, will flow along these lines: “We don’t want an atomic war with the United States. Let’s agree that if a German or other EU/NATO missile hits Russia, when we retaliate it will only be against Britain, Germany and France, not North America.”
Prof. Hudson is adamant that “America has only one thing to offer other countries: the (temporary) promise NOT to hurt them. There’s nothing positive to offer, given its de-industrialization and the world’s de-dollarization.”
As it stands, and also considering the multiple ramifications of the hybrid war against BRICS, Alaska carries the potential of offering Washington a way out of the debris of a massive strategic defeat.
Any analyst who tried to understand the special military operation from the beginning, in detail, could tell that Russia’s war involved something much bigger than Ukraine. It was always about the burial of the “rules-based international order”, in fact the whole old order architecture. That is happening as we speak in the black soil of Novorossiya. Strategic patience, in the end, does pay.
The whole world is watching these developments with great interest.
By William Schryver at imetatronink.
They will endeavor to talk tough and “keep up appearances” for a while yet, but as a credible and capable military/political alliance, NATO is irreparably broken.
Confederate Field Fortifications, Petersburg, Virginia, USA. 1865
Union Trench Mortars, Petersburg, Virginia, USA. 1865
I’ve watched a LOT of drone footage from this war. I’ve seen, from a bird’s eye view, as it were, the design of the field fortifications Ukraine constructed, with NATO guidance, over the course of eight years.
The logic of these miles and miles of fortifications harkens back to the 1864-65 Battle of Petersburg (US Civil War), with a few World War I innovations thrown in for good measure.
It is a logic where victory largely depends on you not running out of men, heavy weaponry, and ammunition — and the enemy being comparatively stupid.
In many ways, the revealed logic of Ukraine’s long-prepared strategy for this war is a reflection of American military delusions and vanities, which multiplied and solidified over the course of the brief and fleeting “unipolar moment”.
Despite not having won a war since 1945, the US military is consumed with the vanity that it has always dominated opposing forces in every conflict.
There is a measure of truth in this perspective. But it is irrelevant. Because, since no later than the Korean War, the US has not faced a peer or near-peer adversary in a high-intensity conflict. The US military has not been, for almost three-quarters of a century, truly tested “under-fire”.
The US has measured its battlefield mettle, for decades, against brave sandal-shod men with AK-47s, RPGs, and a certain savoir faire for constructing IEDs.
Taliban Fighters, Afghanistan.
But they have never faced anything like Russian artillery or missiles – not even in Hollywood movies or video games.
Consequently, the Pentagon’s self-perception of unquestioned supremacy has served to disinform and corrupt its doctrinal and procurement decisions for multiple generations of its officer corps. For most US generals and admirals, all putative opponents are underestimated.
That said, I believe a great many have now been awakened from their intellectual slumber by the manner in which the Russian armed forces quickly assessed the Ukrainian order of battle, and then professionally adapted their strengths and tactics to decisively defeat it.
The Battle of the Donbass
Here is a brief summation of the Russian tactical approach to the Battle of the Donbass:
Step #1: Advance reconnaissance units (often in force, with dozens or hundreds of drones overhead) to assess the situation; draw fire; relay to commanders raw video and geo-coordinates.
Step #2: With target-correcting drone swarms overhead, relaying real-time strike video, proceed to savage the fortifications with towed and mobile artillery, Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (in gradations of strength and precision), and even horrific thermobaric munitions for particularly suitable targets.
Let smoke clear.
Repeat Step #1.
Still something moving there?
Repeat Step #2.
Repeat Step #1.
Dead bodies everywhere?
Step #3: Send in tanks and infantry to mop up.
Move to next series of fortifications.
And so on and so forth …
This is why Ukraine now suffers hundreds of battle deaths every single day. And why, for months, the Russians have suffered very few casualties — likely as low as a 1:8 ratio, and quite possibly even lower.
Artillery, airstrikes, and precision guided munitions are doing almost all the fighting.
The Fatal Hubris of NATO War Strategy in Ukraine
But back to Ukraine’s apparent strategy for this war, and the apparent US influence on that strategy.
I will preface my commentary on this issue by stating that Ukraine’s fatal blunder was buying into NATO’s over-confident delusion that they (the Armed Forces of Ukraine) actually had a reasonable opportunity to defeat the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in a high-intensity conflict.
I initially believed NATO military leaders must have had a sober view, far in advance, that their half-million-strong, well-armed, trained-to-NATO-standards Ukrainian proxy army had almost no chance of prevailing on the field of battle against Russia.
But watching drone video of Ukrainian fortifications has convinced me the US military brain trust, in the course of their eight-year-long preparation of the eastern Ukrainian battlefield, effectively disdained the Russian military and its commanders.
Their vanity persuaded them the Russians would mindlessly smash themselves to pieces against an entrenched well-armed force.
Indeed, they were so confident of the genius of their plan that they persuasively encouraged many hundreds of now-killed or captured NATO veterans to “share in the glory” of humiliating the Russians and bringing down the Putin regime once and for all.
They deluded themselves into believing the Russians lacked strategic and logistical acumen, a sufficiently well-trained force, and – arguably the biggest miscalculation of all – sufficient stockpiles of ammo to conduct a protracted high-intensity conflict.
In short, I have come to believe US/NATO commanders actually persuaded themselves that this “Mother of All Proxy Armies” had an excellent chance to soundly whip the Russians in a battle situated in their own back yard.
In other words, they disregarded centuries of European history that they somehow convinced themselves had no relevance to their 21st century aspirations to defeat Russia militarily and take a great spoil of its resources.
But, as is now readily apparent to all objective, knowledgeable military analysts around the globe, the Ukrainian proxy army has been pulverized by a patient, methodical, and significantly outnumbered Russian force, using long-established Russian doctrines and tactics.
Even more revealing is that once-vaunted and universally feared US/UK weaponry – almost all of it actually rather antiquated – has proven to be far less “game-changing” than the pea-brained strategists in Washington and Whitehall mistakenly believed.
Javelins, NLAWs, and Stingers have been exposed as mostly ineffective against their intended targets (tanks, helicopters, and low-flying jets). M-777 howitzers break down after just a few fires. GPS-guided “precision” munitions are routinely jammed by Russian electronic warfare counter-measures.
Worse yet, the inculcation of NATO field doctrines in the minds of the Ukrainian officer cadre has resulted in pervasively inflexible responses to battlefield events that develop contrary to expectations. Consequently, discipline has disintegrated, and improvisation has been paralyzed.
To be sure, if one were to go by the laughable assessments of western think-tank propagandists and their dutiful lackeys in the media, “Ukraine is winning” and “the inept Russian military has been humiliated”.
But more discerning observers around the world know better.
Sober military men in potential adversary countries across the globe see with clarity that Russia has, with one hand tied behind its back, eviscerated the massive, relatively well-armed and well-trained Ukrainian military. The US/NATO intimidation factor has been forever compromised.
More geopolitically significant, at least in the near future, is that European NATO members can also read the scorecard of this war: they now understand as they never could previously that standing on the NATO side of the field is hardly a guarantee of security.
I am convinced NATO will not survive the results of this war in Ukraine. Sure, they’ll “keep up appearances” for the time being, but there can be no doubt most now understand that siding with a rapidly declining empire is fraught with great risk and minimal gain.
More concerningly, the Chinese have been watching all of these developments with great interest. They are almost certain to be emboldened to act decisively to secure their sphere of influence in the emerging multipolar world.
Great dangers now await in east Asia …
(Mine) Metropolitan Kirill: “Lord have Mercy. Did he really ask, “…why were the Oreshniks not released as the US & Tel Aviv saw this move as weak. Why did it not happen and will it happen?” Son, this venue ain’t the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). And no worldly weapon is gonna win this War”
Background:
Official channel of the Synodal Department for Interaction with the Russian Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies:
The Synodal Department for Interaction with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies held an award ceremony for military correspondents
On June 3, 2025, the Chairman of the Synodal Department for Interaction with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies, Metropolitan Kirill of Stavropol and Nevinnomyssk, met with military journalists and correspondents who, in the course of their work, actively cover the activities and service of the military clergy in the SVO zone.
Among them:
For their contribution to the coverage of the service of military clergy in the SVO zone, they were all awarded the medal of the Order of the Blessed Prince Dmitry Donskoy.
Military Department of the Moscow Patriarchate
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