Tension continues to build in Ukraine. Russia’s build-up of force in Donetsk during August and September is the prelude to a major battle. Russia large force aims to capture the towns of Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka. Urban fortresses sitting on high-ground, well-defended and controlling local road and rail junctions. If Russia can capture them, they will become a doorway into eastern Ukraine’s ‘Fortress Belt.’
Although Russian forces have been massing in this area since August, their progress remains minimal. Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka are still held by Ukraine and Russia is not making significant progress capturing them. An increase in Russian hybrid operations indicates that Putin understands the situation and is applying more pressure on the NATO alliance.
President Trump recently made a strong statement about supporting Ukraine. In a Truth Social post after meeting President Zelenskyy at the UN, Trump said Ukraine could return to “the original borders from where this war started“ with the support of Europe and NATO. A statement interpreted optimistically by many commentators, and it will be interesting to see if he acts.
Understanding Russia’s hybrid war
In the last post we discussed Russian hybrid operations, using the work of Australian strategist, David Kilcullen to help interpret the situation. Kilcullen categorises Russian hybrid tactics as ‘liminal warfare,’ arguing that between a democratic enemy knowing it is under attack, and it being able to respond with military force there is a grey or ‘liminal’ zone of conflict.
Kilcullen’s liminal zone has two sub-sections. An area or period of ‘covert operations’ during which attacks or intelligence activities are detected but cannot be ‘attributed,’ and one of ‘ambiguous action’ during which attacks are ‘detected’ but ‘attribution’ is difficult.
For example, Russia interference in the 2016 US presidential elections was ‘detected’ and ‘attributed’ but US action has been limited by ‘ambiguity.” In 2018, the US Senate’s bi-partizan Security and Intelligence Committee reviewed intelligence reporting, stated that “The Committee found that specific intelligence as well as open source assessments support the assessment that President Putin approved and directed aspects of this influence campaign.”
However, regardless of the Senate’s finding few Americans are willing to act because although the activity could be interpreted as a planned and concerted Russian hybrid operation against the US, there is sufficient ‘ambiguity’ that the response was limited. Lacking political support, it is difficult for US governments to take meaningful action to disincentivise future Russian election interference.
Kilcullen argues that Russian strategists have identified that their adversaries are democratic so are constrained when responding to hostile activity by the requirement for public accountability. A consideration that is especially pressing within an alliance of democratic nations like NATO, because collegial action requires support from the electorate of each member state.
Russia’s hybrid war is part of a wider strategy
The situation is simple, Russia’s ground campaign in Ukraine is failing so their hybrid war against Ukraine’s supporters needs to escalate. Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye or GRU has been expanding its operations since the 2022 invasion failed. In March 2025, the Centre for Strategic and International studies reported that” “The number of Russian attacks in Europe nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024, after quadrupling between 2022 and 2023. Russia’s military intelligence service, the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (or GRU), was likely responsible for many of these attacks, either directly by their own officers or indirectly through recruited agents.” Cyber-attacks, dis-information and sabotage attacks are becoming more common but are still hard to directly ‘attribute’ to directly to Russia.
Strategically, Russia is deeply concerned about NATO and the US supporting Ukraine. Putin knows that if the US ‘turns on the tap,’ and emphatically supports Ukraine his defeat is guaranteed. Likewise, if European nations work together, they have the industrial muscle to support Ukraine and defeat Russia. However, supporting Ukraine requires collective action, and Russia’s strategy is to prevent this occurring by creating situations that divide the alliance.
The intrusions into NATO airspace force all members of the alliance to consider if they are willing to take the risk of escalating the conflict with Russia. A conflict that the Kremlin is careful to frame as potentially nuclear, using threatening but vague rhetoric. For example, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov’s response to the UN’s 28 September debate about Russia’s intrusions, in which he stated that any aggression against Russia will be met with “a decisive response.” Strong, but vague language designed to create uncertainty.
Historically, NATO is slow to respond to Russian aggression, fearful of reprisals and worried by nuclear sabre-rattling. In 2014, Putin tested the mettle of NATO, and the strength of the Budapest Memorandum by invading Crimea and Donbas. The invasion was cloaked in uncertainty; Russian soldiers did not wear identification and the Kremlin described them as ‘volunteers’ supporting kindred communities in Ukraine. This ambiguity confused NATO countries encouraging them accept the invasion as a fait accompli, and look the other way.
Further, Russia has sown the seeds of discord using disinformation and carefully staged information operations to undermine democratic institutions in other countries. Russia’s information warfare presents the narrative that Russia is powerful and will fight to achieve its goals, and that supporting Ukraine risks confrontation. A confrontation Russia’s leadership is willing to escalate further than the democratically elected leaders of Europe. Russia’s programme has had some success because some US political leaders are now defined by their dislike of Europe, by the concern that NATO ‘freeloads,’ and by fear of Russia.
Intruding into NATO airspace is an escalation
Russia’s intrusions into NATO countries airspace are an escalation within the framework of Russia’s hybrid campaign. Sabotage, dis-information and cyber-attacks are more covert forms of attack that do not excite media inquiry and public debate. The wider public does not always perceive the effects of them. By their nature dis-information campaigns are hard to identify, small acts of sabotage pass unnoticed and people accept cyber-attack as part of modern life.
This ‘covert’ phase of the campaign is not designed to target the wider public, instead it targets NATO’s leaders and the key messages are; Russia has the will, and the means to attack covertly. Therefore, any decision to support Ukraine puts your nation at risk. Whether, it is an attack on democratic institutions, or costly shut downs of civil infrastructure there will be a price for supporting Ukraine.
Drones and fighter aircraft entering NATO airspace are the next phase, and in my opinion represent Russia moving from ‘covert operations’ to ‘ambiguous action’ in Kilcullen’s model. For example, Russia’s drones cross Polish territory creating alarm. Russia says the incursion is a mistake and the crashed drones are unarmed. Russia’s actions are easily ‘detected’ and ‘attributed’ but their intent is ‘ambiguous,’ forcing European leaders to assess whether the incursion is a mistake or something deliberate.
Last week the campaign intensified with Russian drones reported over Poland, Romania and possibly in Norway and Denmark. Russian Mig-31 fighters strayed over Estonia for 12 minutes, before being intercepted by Italian fighters and escorted out of NATO airspace.
Estonia was targeted because it does not have an air force. Instead, it relies on NATO to protect its airspace. This is why Italian F-35 fighters intercepted the Russian planes. The Russian’s are testing whether Italy, or every other NATO nation contributing to protecting Estonia’s airspace are willing to risk becoming engaged in a war with Russia to support Ukraine.
Essentially, Russia’s objective is to ‘turn up’ the pressure on the alliance, hoping less committed nations will break away, or to create organisational paralysis as alliance members debate
Is Russia’s plan working?
However, Russia’s programme of intrusions may not be achieving the desired result, NATO leaders appear to be united and willing to take a strong stance. For instance, speaking recently to CNN Romania’s foreign minister, Oana Toiu summed up the situation, stating that after speaking to Estonia’s foreign minister she believes “Russia is trying to undermine NATO’s coherence, but I think they’re achieving the exact opposite.”
And there is evidence that Toiu’s assessment is correct. NATO released a statement on 23 September stating “Russia should be in no doubt: NATO and allies will employ, in accordance with international law, all necessary military and non-military tools to defend ourselves.”
Speaking at the UN Security Council UK Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper stated that “Our alliance is defensive, but be under no illusion … if we need to confront planes that are operating in NATO airspace without permission, then we will do so.” Mike Waltz, the US representative told the Security Council that the US and its allies “will defend every inch of NATO territory.” Notably, Poland and Sweden have both issued blunt statements that Russian aircraft entering their airspace will be shot down.
The land campaign
The land campaign remains static; Russia is unable to capture key terrain or break into Ukraine’s defensive line in Donetsk. Russia’s operations near Sumy appear to have culminated, and Russian troops are being withdrawn from this area and moved to Donetsk.
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In recent weeks, Russia has concentrated resources in this area, including:
- Elite infantry units including at least three airborne (VDV) brigades and all of Russia’s five marine infantry brigades
- The 90th Tank Division, Russia’s largest and best equipped armoured formation.
- The Rubicon drone unit.
However, even with an impressive array of elite units, lots of tanks and approx. 250,000 soldiers in the area Russia is not making progress in Donetsk. In fact, Ukraine is systematically counter-attacking and reducing the salient Russia created north of Pokrovsk last month.
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The fighting in Donetsk is noteworthy because it demonstrates the combat power of Ukraine’s ‘drone wall.’ The lack of Russian forward movement indicates that Ukraine has been able to create a sophisticated local ‘kill web,’ or an area of ground that is under constant surveillance and within which any enemy movement is subject to immediate drone or artillery attack. A ‘kill web’ that is blocking Russian attacks.
Approximately, 100km north of the fighting in Donetsk is the town of Kupyansk. An important city built on the Oskil River. This river runs roughly north-south and blocks Russian advances west into Kharkiv Oblast. If Russia can capture Kupyansk it will control important bridges and transport infrastructure for crossing the river that could be used to attack into Kharkiv. This is and important battle to monitors.
In the last month, the battle to control Kupyansk has ebbed and flowed, and last week Russian troops used a gas pipeline to sneak close to the city and launch an attack. This daring operation received a lot of media coverage, and Ukraine’s ability to maintain control of the city had been questioned. But to-date the operation has not resulted in Ukraine losing control of the city.
Conclusion
In conclusion, at this point, the land campaign remains static. Russia has amassed a huge force in Donetsk but cannot ‘break into’ Ukraine’s defences. Putin’s regime has no desire to stop fighting, so is expanding the war ‘laterally’ by posing hybrid threats that it hopes will break NATO cohesion. Russia aims to use a hybrid campaign to reduce the support Ukraine receives from its NATO partners.
This is a dangerous phase of the war because NATO countries must act decisively to prevent escalation but remain proportionate. Sudden escalation by one nation may not be supported by all alliance members, testing unity and achieving Russia’s aim. It is a time for strong deterrence but action must be considered and collective. At this stage, the European leaders appear to understand the situation and maintaining the alliance’s cohesion.
Ben Morgan is a bored Gen Xer, a former Officer in NZDF and TDBs Military Blogger – his work is on substack
Your idea that democracies are hindered in response by their checks and balances is absolute bollocks.
Trump has authorised the extra judicial and illegal murder of Venezuelan citizens in international waters , for one example.He routinely behaves as a dictator with no reference to international law.Domestically he’s stacked the Supreme Court , attacked media,elevated the power of the executive branch,while purging it of any independent elements.Really Ben, you need to take your blinkers off and see whats happening in the real world.
Democracy is being undermined everywhere in the world, the checks and balances have come up empty.
I’m not seeing any restraints from the US when it comes to Israel’s actions in Gaza, the US is blatantly enabling genocide.
In fact Russia is advancing in Ukraine, the Ukrainian defences are becoming thin, they’re on the back foot .By declaring Ukraine is able to take back all the territories , including Crimea, with European help, Trump is washing his hands of Ukraine.
Must say Francesca that the Australian theorist and Ben must be smoking something. Fantasy of the highest order
Hahahahahahah, cope more NATO shill
“Ignorance is strength,
“War is peace,
“Freedom is slavery,
“2+2=5”
George Orwell
George Orwell warned us of a world where, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, ignorance is Strength, a world where, genocide can be ignored, normalised, and justified.
Finally a documentary that pokes its finger in the eye of the West’s genocide supporters and warmongers – AND Russia’s useful pro-war idiots.
https://deadline.com/2025/08/orwell-225-documentary-trailer-exclusive-1236492814/
……It’s been more than 75 years since George Orwell published his classic 1984, a crucial novel that introduced the world to Big Brother, Thought Police and “Newspeak.”….
……Never has Orwell’s warning about the danger of state repression, mind control and forced obedience to an all-powerful Party been more relevant or prescient than now. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck explores the vital importance of the British writer’s oeuvre in his new documentary Orwell: 2+2=5.
Those Tomahawk missiles promised to Ukraine have nuclear capacity what could go wrong
Everyone by now knows that the whole Ukraine war continues to exist solely for the needs (i.e. funding) of the US Military Industrial Complex (and money laundering of elites) after Trump ended the 20 year Afghanistan War, right? As soon as this one ends (they will want to keep it going for another 15+ years if possible) there will be a new “forever war” that needs constant injections of money. Just watch – this has been going on for decades now. The beast needs to be fed.
“This is a dangerous phase of the war because NATO countries must act decisively to prevent escalation but remain proportionate. Sudden escalation by one nation may not be supported by all alliance members, testing unity and achieving Russia’s aim. It is a time for strong deterrence but action must be considered and collective. At this stage, the European leaders appear to understand the situation and maintaining the alliance’s cohesion.”
When parsed that paragraph could be seen as a reasonable stating of the obvious, however it seems to presuppose NATO has some moral authority. The kindest thing I can write about it and its supporters (particularly those present at The Daily Blog) is you are all fuckwits.
Here are some pertinent words that a knowledgeable Frenchman recently wrote (sorry about the lack of paragraphs – the source I copied from didn’t have any) –
Dislocation of the West: The Threats Emmanuel Todd Oct 01, 2025
Trump’s perversity is unfolding in the Middle East, NATO’s warmongering in Europe. I have just written, at the request of my Slovenian publisher, a new preface to The Defeat of the West, which I feel must be published on Substack immediately. The threat of a worsening of all conflicts is becoming clearer. This text provides a schematic and provisional, yet updated, interpretation of the development of the crisis we are experiencing. This text is in fact the conclusion of my last interview with Diane Lagrange on Fréquence Populaire: “Victory for Russia, Enclosure and Fracture of France and the West.”
Preface to the Slovenian Edition From Defeat to Disintegration Less than two years after the French publication of The Defeat of the West, in January 2024, the book’s main predictions have been confirmed. Russia has held its own militarily and economically. The American military industry is exhausted. European economies and societies are on the verge of implosion. Even before the collapse of the Ukrainian army, the next stage of the disintegration of the West has been reached. I have always been hostile to the Russophobic policies of the United States and Europe, but as a Westerner committed to liberal democracy, a Frenchman trained as a researcher in England, and the child of a mother who took refuge in the United States during the Second World War, I am devastated by the consequences for us Westerners of the mindless war waged against Russia. We are only at the beginning of the catastrophe. A tipping point is approaching, beyond which the ultimate consequences of the defeat will unfold. The “Rest of the World” (or Global South, or Global Majority), which had been content to support Russia by refusing to boycott its economy, is now openly displaying its support for Vladimir Putin. The BRICS are expanding by accepting new members, increasing their cohesion. Forced by the United States to choose sides, India has chosen independence: the photos of Putin, Xi, and Modi gathered at the August 2025 meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will remain the symbol of this key moment. Yet Western media outlets continue to portray Putin as a monster and Russians as serfs. These media outlets were already incapable of imagining that the Rest of the World sees them as a leader and ordinary human beings, bearers of a specific Russian culture and a desire for sovereignty. I now fear that our media are compounding our blindness by being unable to imagine Russia’s renewed prestige in the Rest of the World, economically exploited and treated with arrogance by the West for centuries. The Russians dared. They challenged the Empire, and they won. The irony of history is that the Russians, a white, European, Slavic-speaking people, became the military shield of the Rest of the World because the West refused to integrate them after the fall of communism. I imagine the Slovenes are particularly well-placed culturally to appreciate this irony, even though I know well, as an anthropologist of family and religion, that, despite its Slavic language, Slovenia is much closer socially and ideologically to Switzerland than to Russia. I can sketch here a model of the dislocation of the West, despite the inconsistencies of the policies of Donald Trump, the American president of defeat. These inconsistencies do not, I believe, result from an unstable, and undoubtedly perverse, personality, but from an insoluble dilemma for the United States. On the one hand, its leaders, at the Pentagon as well as in the White House, know that the war is lost and that Ukraine must be abandoned. Common sense therefore leads them to want to get out of the war. But on the other hand, the same common sense leads them to sense that the withdrawal from Ukraine will have dramatic consequences for the Empire that those in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan did not have. This is indeed the first American strategic defeat on a global scale, in a context of massive deindustrialization in the United States and difficult reindustrialization. China has become the world’s workshop; its very low fertility rate, certainly, will prevent it from replacing the United States, but it is already too late to compete with it industrially. The de-dollarization of the global economy has begun. Trump and his advisors cannot accept this because it would mean the end of the Empire. A post-imperial age, however, should be the goal of the MAGA project, Make America Great Again, which seeks a return of the American nation-state. But for an America whose productive capacity in real goods is today very low (see Chapter 9 on the true nature of the American economy), it is impossible to give up living on credit as it does by producing dollars. Such an imperial-monetary withdrawal would imply a sharp drop in its standard of living, including for Trump’s working-class voters. The first budget of the second Trump presidency, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” therefore remains imperial despite the tariff protections that embody the protectionist project or dream. The OBBBA boosts military spending and the deficit. A budget deficit in the United States inevitably means dollar production and a trade deficit. Imperial dynamics, or rather imperial inertia, continue to undermine the dream of a return to the productive nation-state. In Europe, the military defeat remains poorly understood by leaders. They did not direct the operations. It was the Pentagon that developed the plans for the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023 (during which I wrote The Defeat of the West). The American military, even though it had its Ukrainian proxy lead the war, knows that it was defeated by Russian defense—because it couldn’t produce enough weapons and because the Russian military was smarter than it. European leaders only supplied weapons systems, and not the most important ones. Unaware of the extent of the military defeat, they know, however, that their own economies have been paralyzed by the sanctions policy, especially by the disruption of their supply of cheap Russian energy. Cutting the European continent in two economically was an act of suicidal madness. The German economy is stagnating. Throughout the West, poverty and inequality are increasing. The United Kingdom is on the brink of collapse. France is close behind. Societies and political systems are blocked. A negative economic and social dynamic predated the war and was already putting the West under pressure. It was visible, to varying degrees, throughout Western Europe. Free trade is undermining its industrial base. Immigration is developing an identity syndrome, particularly among the working classes deprived of secure and well-paid jobs. More profoundly, the negative dynamic of fragmentation is cultural: mass higher education creates stratified societies in which the highly educated—20%, 30%, 40% of the population—begin to live among themselves, to consider themselves superior, to despise working-class communities, and to reject manual labor and industry. Universal primary education (universal literacy) had nurtured democracy, creating a homogeneous society with an egalitarian subconscious. Higher education has spawned oligarchies, and sometimes plutocracies, stratified societies pervaded by an unequal subconscious. The ultimate paradox: the development of higher education has ultimately produced a decline in intellectual level in these oligarchies or plutocracies! I described this sequence more than a quarter of a century ago in The Economic Illusion, published in 1997. Western industry has moved to the rest of the world and also, of course, to the former people’s democracies of Eastern Europe, which, freed from their subjugation to Soviet Russia, have now regained their centuries-old status as a periphery dominated by Western Europe. I discuss in detail in Chapter 3 this kind of internal China, where industrial workers remain numerous. Throughout Europe, however, the elitism of the highly educated has engendered “populism.” The war has escalated European tensions. It has impoverished the continent. But above all, as a major strategic failure, it has delegitimized leaders incapable of leading their countries to victory. The development of conservative grassroots movements (usually referred to by journalistic elites by terms like “populist,” “far-right,” or “nationalist”) is accelerating. Reform UK in the United Kingdom. AfD in Germany, National Rally in France… Irony still: the economic sanctions that NATO expected to bring about “regime change” in Russia are about to bring a cascade of “regime change” to Western Europe. The Western ruling classes are being delegitimized by defeat at the very moment that Russian authoritarian democracy is being relegitimized by victory—or rather, overlegitimized, since Russia’s return to stability under Putin initially ensured its uncontested legitimacy. This is our world as we approach 2026. The dislocation of the West is taking the form of a “hierarchical fracturing.” The United States is relinquishing control of Russia, and, I increasingly believe, of China. Under Chinese blockade for their imports of samarium, this rare earth essential for military aeronautics, the United States cannot no longer dream of confronting China militarily. The rest of the world—India, Brazil, the Arab world, Africa—benefits from this and escapes them. But the United States is vigorously turning against its European and East Asian “allies,” in a last-ditch effort at super-exploitation, and also, it must be admitted, out of pure and simple spite. To escape their humiliation, to hide their weakness from the world and from themselves, they are punishing Europe. The Empire is devouring itself. This is the meaning of the tariffs and forced investments imposed by Trump on Europeans, who have become colonial subjects in a shrunken empire rather than partners. The time for supportive liberal democracies is over. Trumpism is a “white popular conservatism.” What is emerging in the West is not a solidarity of popular conservatisms but a breakdown of internal solidarities. The rage resulting from defeat leads each country, to mop up its resentment, to turn against those weaker than itself. The United States is turning against Europe and Japan. France is reigniting its conflict with Algeria, a former colony. There is no doubt that Germany, which, from Scholz to Merz, agreed to obey the United States, will turn its humiliation against its weaker European partners. My own country, France, seems to me to be the most threatened. One of the fundamental concepts of the West’s defeat is nihilism. I explain how the “zero state” of the Protestant religion—secularization having reached its conclusion—does not only explain the American educational and industrial collapse. The zero state also opens a metaphysical void. I am not personally a believer, and I do not advocate for any return of religion (I don’t believe it is possible), but I must, as a historian, note that the disappearance of social values of religious origin leads to a moral crisis, to an impulse to destroy things and people (war), and ultimately to an attempt to abolish reality (the transgender phenomenon for American Democrats and the denial of global warming for Republicans, for example). The crisis exists in all completely secularized countries, but it is worse in those whose religion was Protestantism or Judaism, absolutist in their search for the transcendent, rather than Catholicism, more open to the beauty of the world and earthly life. It is indeed in the United States and Israel that we are seeing the development of parodic forms of traditional religions, parodies of a nihilistic nature, in my opinion. This irrational dimension is at the heart of the defeat. This is therefore not only a “technical” loss of power but also a moral exhaustion, a lack of positive existential purpose that leads to nihilism. This nihilism is behind the desire of European leaders, particularly on the Protestant shores of the Baltic, to expand the war against Russia through incessant provocations. This nihilism is also behind the American destabilization of the Middle East, the ultimate forum for expressing the rage resulting from the American defeat against Russia. Above all, let us not give in to the all-too-easy assumption that the Netanyahu regime is enjoying warlike autonomy in Israel, in the Gaza genocide or in the attack on Iran. Zero Protestantism and zero Judaism certainly tragically combine their nihilistic effects in these outbursts of violence. But throughout the Middle East, it is the United States, by supplying the weapons and sometimes by attacking itself, which is ultimately the driving force behind the chaos. They are pushing Israel into action just as they pushed the Ukrainians. The first Trump presidency established the United States Embassy in Jerusalem, and it was Trump who first envisioned Gaza transformed into a seaside resort. I realize that it would take a book to demonstrate this thesis, a book that would dismantle the interactions between the actors one by one. But, as a historian by profession, and having been involved in geopolitics for half a century, I sense that, like NATO-backed Europe, Israel has ceased to be an independent state. The West’s problem is indeed the programmed death of the nation-state. The Empire is vast and it is disintegrating amidst sound and fury. This Empire is already polycentric, divided over its goals, schizophrenic. But none of its parts are independent at all. Trump is its current “center”; It is also its best ideological and practical expression, in that it combines a rational desire to withdraw into its immediate sphere of domination (Europe and Israel) with nihilistic impulses favoring war. These tendencies—withdrawal and violence—are also expressed within the American heart of the Empire, where the principle of hierarchical fracturing operates internally. An increasing number of Anglo-American authors are suggesting the coming of a civil war. The American plutocracy is pluralistic. There’s that of the financiers, that of the oil companies, that of Silicon Valley. Trumpist plutocrats, whether Texan oilmen or recent Silicon Valley converts, despise the educated Democratic elites of the East Coast, who themselves despise the Trumpist white heartland gentry, who themselves despise Black Democrats, etc. One of the interesting peculiarities of America today is that its leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between internal and external, despite the MAGA attempt to block immigration from the South with a wall. The army fires on boats leaving Venezuela, it bombs Iran, it enters the center of Democratic cities in the United States, it sponsors the Israeli air force for an attack on Qatar, where a huge American base is located. Any science fiction reader will recognize in this disturbing list the beginnings of a dystopian journey, that is, a negative world where power, fragmentation, hierarchy, violence, poverty, and perversity are intertwined. So let us remain ourselves, outside of America. Let us maintain our perception of the inner and the outer, our sense of proportion, our contact with reality, our conception of what is just and beautiful. Nor let us allow ourselves to be drawn into a warlike headlong rush by our own European leaders, those privileged people lost in history, desperate at having been defeated, terrified at the idea of one day being judged by their people. And above all, above all, let us continue to reflect on the meaning of things.
Paris, September 28, 2025
America is using the proxy war to deplete Russia. The deep state MIC is playing the long game. There is too much on the line for it not too.. Trumps Christian Nationalists are a tolerated political sideshow but will be swept aside when push comes to shove. I was half expecting a couple of Generals to get up on stage and usher Trump and Hegseth out to the brig and announce it yesterday – lol
2+2=5
War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, genocide is normalised. (updated)
Finally a documentary that pokes its finger in the eye of the Western warmongers and Putin’s useful idiots.
https://deadline.com/2025/08/orwell-225-documentary-trailer-exclusive-1236492814/
It’s been more than 75 years since George Orwell published his classic 1984, a crucial novel that introduced the world to Big Brother, Thought Police and “Newspeak.”
……Never has Orwell’s warning about the danger of state repression, mind control and forced obedience to an all-powerful Party been more relevant or prescient than now. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck explores the vital importance of the British writer’s oeuvre in his new documentary Orwell: 2+2=5.
British former MP George Galloway was detained under the Terrorism Act when returning from overseas. Under the act you can’t call a lawyer, can be detained without charge and commit an offense if you refuse to answer questions. This is what passes for the rule of law in UK.
War is peace,
Freedom is slavery,
Ignorance is strength.
Never has the last part been more proved than by Ben Morgan
Ben Morgan is so ignorant it’s incredible. (and Ben thinks his ignorance is strength).
Each week Ben swings from the West’s conflict with China in the Pacific, to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
He obviously doesn’t know that America has moved on, that now Russia and the US are now partners in drilling for oil in Russia’s Far East.
From the Byline Times:
The Real Story of the Trump-Putin Summit Is a US Oil Deal Hiding in Plain Sight
While no progress was made towards a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, the Kremlin opened the door to a deal that could pour billions into its own war coffers
Zarina Zabrisky, 18 August 2025
…….the red carpet, military flyovers, and conspiracy theories about Putin’s doubles drew the spotlight away, while leaving the real story overlooked…..
Putin issued a decree on August 15, the same day as the summit, allowing the US oil giant ExxonMobil to reenter a major Russian state-owned oil project on Russia’s Pacific coast.
Sakhalin-1 is run by a Russian state-owned Rosneft entities affiliates, the state-owned giant headed by Igor Sechin, a close Putin ally. ExxonMobil held a 30% stake but pulled out in 2022 when sanctions tightened after the Russian full-scale invasion in Ukraine…..
For ExxonMobil, regaining access to the project might revive its $500 billion Arctic exploration deal with Rosneft lost after the first sanctions were imposed on Russia in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea. This deal would increase environmental risks in polar regions.
For Russia, restoring Sakhalin-1 to full production, about 220,000 barrels a day, could generate billions of dollars in new revenue for Moscow. It would strengthen Russia’s economy and allow for the continued war of aggression. Oil and gas provide almost a third of Russia’s state revenue and more than 60% of exports……
In George Orwell’s book 1984 he wrote: We are at war with West Asia, we have always been at war with West Asia. Before switching the script and have his eponymous hero Winston Smith, rewrite it to fit Oceania’s shifting alliances.
Ben Morgan is a real world Winston Smith weekly performing the same switcharoo, This week, ‘We are at war with West Asia, we have always been at war with West Asia’. Next week,, ‘We are at war with East Asia, we have always been at war with East Asia’ (skipping over near Asia completely, because it doesn’t fit the script)
From the Byline Times:
……Russia is seeking financial normalization with the West and the fate of Ukraine is not the focus of the negotiations.
In that sense, the Alaska summit is a dark déjà vu: a spectre of lifting sanctions on Russian oil is haunting the globe. If left unrecognized, it risks paving the way for Moscow to expand its reach far beyond Ukraine.
And the US will be at war with West Asia again.
Time for us as a nation to opt out of this rank stupidity and deliberate ignorance.
Unfortunately Pat the chances of our political class and government elite ever charting an independent course is zero. They are all fully inculcated with the idea of Western supremacism, unipolarity and a rules based order. Their minds are closed, in short they and their view of the world are obsolete.
Naming the problem, begins the process of dealing with the problem.
Locating and Identifying the driving impulse toward global war allows us to think of ways to avoid being part of it.
Joining AUKUS, becomes untenable for the majority of the New Zealand population, and a hard sell for our military and political leaders. Pressing ahead against popular opposition robs these leaders of the of moral authority and legitmacy, makes space for the rise of alternative democratic political movements.
“Britain’s ELITE officers met a Gruesome END┃Russia wiped out the Restaurant ‘TBILISO’ full of BRITS
On the night of October 2, Russia launched another massive missile attack on logistics, railway infrastructure, and military facilities of the Ukrainian Army and NATO forces in Ukraine. This time, independent monitoring services recorded numerous powerful explosions in regions such as Odessa, Sumy, Kiev, and Kharkiv.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCDOwimqP_8
It’s pretty clear Russia has more or less achieved it’s operational goals. One of the key problems with how this “war” is presented by the MSM is that Russia wants to eventually occupy all of the Ukrainian territory 9and even beyond, e.g. Poland). They obviously have not given this even one second of thought – if Russia wanted to occupy all of the Ukraine, they would be seeking “regime change” and issued a formal declaration of war on the country (from Day 1). The occupied territory is clearly meant to be a “buffer zone” between the two nations. The disingenuous reporting of this “war” has been one of the worst since Iraq.
Winning the peace requires that those who promoted this proxy war decide to desist, which they won’t. Peace requires the utter destruction of the neocons in the USA and Europe. Russia alone cannot achieve that, it requires that the people of the West liberate themselves from these bastards.
Happy 73rd Birthday Vladimir Vladimirovich!
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