Some western pundits claim that, well, Russia is advancing so it is collecting its dead as it moves forward. But those same pundits are the ones who also claim that Russia is barely moving forward at all. In a different breath, you might also hear them claim that Russia is about to invade Estonia at any moment.
Those western pundits who also tell you that Russia will run out of money tomorrow – it really won’t – never talk about the fact that Ukraine is functionally bankrupt and totally dependent on financial gifts which the EU itself has to borrow
Since the war started, voices in the alternative media have said that Ukraine cannot win a war against Russia. Indeed, John Mearsheimer has been saying this since 2014.
Four years into this devastating war, those voices feel at one and the same time both vindicated and unheard. Ukraine is losing yet western leaders in Europe appear bent on continuing the fight.
Nothing is illustrative of this more than Kaja Kallas’ ridiculous comment of 10 February that Russia should agree to pre-conditions to end the war, which included future restrictions on the size of Russia’s army.
Comments such as this suggest western figures like Kallas still believe in the prospect of a strategic victory against Russia, such that Russia would have to settle for peace as the defeated party. Or they are in denial, and/or they are lying to their citizens. I’d argue that it is a mixture of the second and third.
When I say losing, I don’t mean losing in the narrow military sense. Russia’s territorial gains over the winter period have been slow and marginal. Indeed, western commentators often point to this as a sign that, given its size advantage, Russia is in fact losing the war, because if it really was powerful, it would have defeated Ukraine long ago.
And on the surface, it might be easy to understand why some European citizens accept this line, not least as they are bombarded with it by western mainstream media on a constant basis.
However, most people also, at the same time, agree that drone warfare has made rapid territorial gains costly in terms of lost men and materiel. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that since the second part of 2023, after Ukraine’s failed summer counter-offensive, Russia has attacked in small unit formations to infiltrate and encircle positions.
Having taken heavy losses at the start of the war using tactics that might have been conventional twenty years ago, Russia’s armed forces had to adapt and did so quickly. Likewise, Russia’s military industrial complex has also been quicker to shift production into newer types of low cost, easy build military technology, like drones and glide bombs, together with standard munitions that western providers have been unable to match in terms of scale.
And despite the regular propaganda about Russian military losses in the tens of thousands each month, the data from the periodic body swaps between both sides suggest that Ukraine has been losing far more men in the fight than Russia. And I mean, at a ratio far greater than ten to one.
Some western pundits claim that, well, Russia is advancing so it is collecting its dead as it moves forward. But those same pundits are the ones who also claim that Russia is barely moving forward at all. In a different breath, you might also hear them claim that Russia is about to invade Estonia at any moment.
Of course, the propaganda war works in both directions, from the western media and, of course, from Russian. I take the view that discussion of the microscopic daily shifts in control along the line of contact is a huge distraction.
The reality of who is winning, or not winning, this war is in any case not about a slowly changing front line. Wars are won by economies not armies.
Those western pundits who also tell you that Russia will run out of money tomorrow – it really won’t – never talk about the fact that Ukraine is functionally bankrupt and totally dependent on financial gifts which the EU itself has to borrow, in order to provide. War fighting for Ukraine has become a lucrative pyramid scheme, with Zelensky promising people like Von der Leyen that it is a sold investment that will eventually deliver a return, until the day the war ends, when EU citizens will ask whether all their tax money disappeared to.
Russia’s debt stands at 16% of its GDP, its reserves over $730 billion, its yearly trade surplus still healthy, even if it has narrowed over the past year.
Russia can afford to carry on the fight for a lot longer.
Ukraine cannot.
And Europe cannot.
And that is the point.
The Europeans know they can’t afford the war. Ukraine absolutely cannot afford the war, even if Zelensky is happy to see the money keep flowing in. Putin knows the Europeans and Ukraine can’t afford the war. In these circumstances, Russia can insist that Ukraine withdraws from the remainder of Donetsk unilaterally without having to fight for it, on the basis that the alternative is simply to continue fighting.
He can afford to maintain a low attritional fight along the length of the frontline, which minimises Russian casualties and maximises Ukraine’s expenditure of armaments that Europe has to pay for.
That constant financial drain of war fighting is sowing increasing political discord across Europe, from Germany, to France, Britain and, of course, Central Europe.
Putin gets two benefits for the price of one. Europe causing itself economic self-harm while at the same time going into political meltdown.
That is why western leaders cannot admit that they have lost the war because they have been telling their voters from the very beginning that Ukraine would definitely win.
At the start of the war, had NATO decided to back up its effort by force, to facilitate Ukrainian accession against Russia’s expressed objection, then the war might have ended very differently.
NATO would simply not have been able to mobilise a ground operation of sufficient size quickly enough to force Russia back from the initial territorial advances that it had made in February and March of 2022. That means, the skirmishes at least for the first month would have largely been in the form of air and sea assets, including the use of missiles.
There is nothing in NATO doctrine to suggest that the west would have taken the fight to Russia, given the obvious risk of nuclear catastrophe.
While it is pointless to speculate now, my view is that a short, hot war between NATO and Russia would have led to short-term losses of lives and materiel on both sides that forced a negotiated quick settlement.
Europe avoided that route because of the risk of nuclear escalation and the great shame of the war is that our leaders were nonetheless willing to encourage Zelensky to fight to the last Ukrainian, wrecking our prosperity in the process.
Who will want to vote for Merz, Macron, Tusk, Starmer and all these other tinpot statesmen when it becomes clear that they have royally screwed the people of Europe for a stupid proxy war in Ukraine that was unwinnable?
What will Kaja Kallas do for a job when everyone in Europe can see that she’s a dangerous warmonger who did absolutely nothing for the right reason, and who failed at everything?
Zelensky is wondering where he can flee to when his number’s up, my bet would be Miami.
So if you are watching the front line every day you need to step back from the canvas.
There is still a chance that European pressure on Russia will prevail, which makes this whole endeavour a massive gamble with poor odds.
More likely, when the war ends, Putin will reengage with Europe but from a position of power not weakness.
nuclear deterrence is currently an act of power, an act of domination by “those who have” over “those who have not.”
03 Apr 2024, Trends, Pierre Boussel, Researcher, Associate Fellow at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS), France
The nuclear bomb is one of the few weapons in the world that can claim to have spilled more ink than blood. Thousands of books written on the subject debate the validity of the original concept of ultimate chaos deterring mankind from provoking a global conflict.[1] Its tactical and strategic raison d’être remains unresolved.
The American nuclear bombing of Japan in 1945 and the establishment of a managed nuclear world order (IAEA, NPT, UN Security Council, CTBTO)[2] have not deterred warmongers from launching invasions, starving besieged populations, committing genocide, carrying out terrorist attacks, committing war crimes or provoking humanitarian crises. Israel’s nuclear arsenal did not prevent the Yom Kippur War, the First and the Second Intifada, and the Gaza War. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program estimates that since the Hiroshima tragedy there have been 270 to 300 state and non-state conflicts worldwide.[3]
Nuclear deterrence does not bring peace. It does not prevent frontal clashes and it does not speed up peace settlements. Countries wage war despite threats like Russian President Vladimir Putin’s words, “We will use them if necessary”[4] over Ukraine. At best, conflicts are limited to what the military calls “acceptable damage.”[5] When the Russian army targets the Zaporizhzhia power station and has its bombers modified to carry nuclear warheads, the U.S. limits the firepower of weapons delivered to the Ukrainians. This means that the war will continue as is, with several hundred people killed every day, and not escalate.[6]
Assuming the Worst
The atomic bomb embodies both the desire for hyper-power and the fear of chaos, and there has been no shortage of initiatives to curb its proliferation.[7] The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) came into force in 1970, signed by 191 nations. Arab countries have not been left behind. In the 1960s,[8] Egypt promoted the creation of a Middle East Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone (MENWFZ)[9] to protect the Middle East from nuclear proliferation. This did not prevent Israel from developing its first bombs at a secret site in Dimona (Beer Sheva).
In 1974, the Shah of Iran adopted the Egyptian idea of creating a nuclear weapon-free zone (ZEAN),[10] but it did not materialize. After the Israeli bombing of Iraq’s Osirak reactor,[11] several Arab chancelleries tried to resolve the issue of access to the atom. In 1991, Cairo called for a ban on weapons of mass destruction and demanded that Israel’s arsenal be exposed — in vain. It was as if the West had turned a deaf ear to Arab demands, preferring to entrust the IAEA with organizing disarmament forums and verifying suspected sites.[12] Once again, in vain: the only constant in these meetings has been, in the end, their ineffectiveness.[13]
The West has been ambivalent about nuclear energy. It has not responded to Arab diplomatic proposals and has not been very tough in condemning countries that have been tempted by military nuclear capabilities: Libya, Iraq, Syria, or Iran, whose military program was discovered by the IAEA in 2002-2003. Despite its ambivalence the West does fear insane behavior of a leader who appears ready to bring about the end of the world and considers that low and medium intensity conflicts increase the risk of escalation. The worst-case scenario for the West would be the use of tactical nuclear weapons, i.e., limited power (10 to 25 kilotons) with a ballistic capability of a hundred kilometers.[14] What would happen if the Afghan Taliban acquired tactical nuclear weapons? Would they use them against the local branch of the Islamic State group (IS-K)? How many warheads would have to be launched to defeat radical fighters hiding in deep, inaccessible mountains? What operational effectiveness would be recommended, and for what level of environmental disaster?
The West believes it can manage a war, for example, in Ukraine, because it considers itself to have the insight and maturity to avoid a nuclear conflagration. Anyone else who aspires to this capacity must demonstrate clarity and serenity to qualify for membership in the club of the powerful.
While the West enjoys the power of the atom and poor countries — suspected of being “irrational” or “slippery” — are exhausted by endless asymmetric wars, little attention is paid to India and Pakistan, two major nuclear powers fighting over control of Kashmir. This illustrates the differences in approach between the defenders of deterrence, who believe that the atom fulfills its deterrent mission and prevents the conflict from degenerating, and the detractors of deterrence, pointing out that these two countries have behaved beyond reproach. Meanwhile, Islamabad could be criticized for being unstable because of its alleged involvement in Afghanistan, and India for having mutated from Gandhian pacifism to unabashed nationalism.
The Vexation Strategy
Nuclear deterrence is, above all, vexatious, a notion too often overlooked in studies. Yet it has importance. One can imagine a country, say a poor, landlocked and indebted nation, that develops a weapon of unprecedented power — the ultimate weapon, the one that could replace all others. How would Washington, Moscow, Beijing, or Brussels react if the president of that country refused to share the new technology on the grounds that the superpowers are unreasonable and risk violating the principles of precaution and military proportionality? How would the nuclear giants react if they were deprived of this capability in the name of non-proliferation? Perhaps then the great powers would understand what it means to be offended: to be suspected of irresponsibility and forced to justify oneself and show their credentials in the vein hope of obtaining a new technology.
Access to the atom granted as a reward for good behavior raises the question of eligibility: the ability of a country to manage endogenous factors including terrorism, secessionism, and regional ambitions. This form of nuclear elitism is asserted with so much authority that we forget that the exemplarity on which the powerful pride themselves is shaky. On several occasions, humanity has come within a hair’s breadth of catastrophe. The history of nuclear power is littered with harrowing incidents: misunderstood orders that almost released chaos, technical errors corrected at the last minute (the Petrov affair), poorly applied procedures and even a simple airplane crash. On 17 January 1966, a U.S. Air Force Boeing B-52 collided with its tanker and crashed. Two of its four H-bombs spread radioactive material around the Spanish village of Palomares (250 hectares), where they fortunately fell without exploding. The United States, the world’s leading power, which never fails to show absolute intransigence on the conditions of access to nuclear energy, has lost at least six nuclear bombs.[15]………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The World Atomic Order
Ultimately, the fundamental question is: what regulates access to nuclear energy, and what are the right or wrong reasons for authorizing or prohibiting its use. History tells us that the great despots — Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin — engaged in destructive follies that were terribly rational and attracted considerable popular support (Thomas C. Schelling).[31] Caution is therefore called for. It is not only legitimate but necessary, given the specific characteristics of nuclear energy and the devastating uses to which it can be put.[32] There is unanimity on this point.
The problem is that the nuclear world order mechanically provokes defiant reactions, like those of Iran and North Korea, two nations that have deliberately chosen to continue their clandestine nuclear enrichment programs.[33] Not only international authorities (IAEA, UN) have no means to act, but worse still, Pyongyang, for instance, is in the process of reappropriating the concept of deterrence, with no limits other than those set by itself. It has created a de facto counter-system in which it can do as it pleases with minimal risk, keeping superpowers from considering the dismantlement of their nuclear arsenals.
The discretionary power of the major powers to grant nuclear licenses, like a “delegation of authority”, to countries in urgent need of energy, creates a sense of inequality. One example is the nuclear cooperation agreement with the U.S., which operates under Article 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act (AEA),[34] nicknamed the “gold standard”. Washington reserves the right to terminate agreements at the first sign of non-compliance on uranium enrichment. So even when signed, this type of agreement is only partially secure. The same is true of the IAEA, which imposes highly restrictive charters on would-be nuclear-weapon states, while Russia is suspected of developing a space-based nuclear weapon[35] likely to reignite proliferation. Add to this the New Start Treaty expiring in 2026 with no prospect of reducing arsenals, and China, which continues to grow in power. It would not take much to write that we have entered into a re-nuclearization of the strategic chessboard, a new arms race, less spectacular, less media-friendly, but one that takes us further away from the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, signed by 92 states in 2017.[36]
At the end of the Second World War, the geopolitics of the blocs was based on the concept of Melian dialogue, which postulates that justice between men is exercised when their “forces are equal.” [37] When this is not the case, “the strong exercise their power and the weak must yield.”[38] This model has been eroded in recent decades. Weaker states (Vietnam, Afghanistan) have defeated superpowers and the uncertainty factor, by definition, remains unresolved. In the 1950s, the Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld declared that the great organizations dedicated to peace were working “not to create paradise, but to avoid hell.”[39] The uncertainty factor should not be underestimated, but nuclear deterrence is currently an act of power, an act of domination by “those who have” over “those who have not.” Nuclear power is all too often seen as a lever to exert pressure on countries that are being asked to make their energy transition as quickly as possible, but to which control and non-proliferation norms are being imposed — countries that, in most cases, are simply expressing the desire to have access to nuclear energy to support their economic development. All in all, a normal request.
Fully terminating START communicates to the entire world that the US and Russia are so diplomatically inept that they cannot be trusted to continue to hold the entire world hostage to annihilation by holding thousands of first-use-ready nuclear weapons over everyone’s heads without adequate reasonable restraint
– When the nuclear Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the US and Russia expired last week, it ended a historic era— but triggered widespread speculation about the future.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “February 5 was a grave moment for international peace and security”.
For the first time in more than half a century, he pointed out, “we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America – the two States that possess the overwhelming majority of the global stockpile of nuclear weapons.”
US President Donald Trump dismissed the termination of the treaty rather sarcastically when he told the New York Times last month: “if it expires, it expires”—and denounced the expiring treaty as “a badly negotiated deal”.
“We will do a better agreement”, he promised, adding that China, which has one of the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenals, “and other parties” should be part of any future treaty.
The Chinese, according to the Times, “have made clear they are not interested”.
Currently, the world’s nine nuclear powers are the US, UK, Russia, France and China—all permanent members of the Security Council—plus India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
Collectively, they possess an estimated 12,100 to 12,500 nuclear warheads, with Russia and the US owning nearly 90% of the total eve while all nine are actively modernizing their arsenals.
Jonathan Granoff, President, Global Security Institute told IPS the START Treaty should be extended at least a year by formal or informal means. Is that as good as obtaining a new treaty that would include China as the US administration wants? No.
“Is it as good as fulfilling legally required steps such as adherence to the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) unanimous ruling to negotiate the universal elimination of nuclear weapons or the fulfillment of the promise of nuclear disarmament embodied in Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)? No”.
However, argued Granoff, doing nothing is asserting that a modest threat reducing easily obtained step now should not be taken because there are better ways forward. A modest positive step is no impediment to moving in other desired manners.
Fully terminating START communicates to the entire world that the US and Russia are so diplomatically inept that they cannot be trusted to continue to hold the entire world hostage to annihilation by holding thousands of first-use-ready nuclear weapons over everyone’s heads without adequate reasonable restraint, said Granoff.
The arguments being put forth as to why nothing can be done are inadequate.
First, the US argues that a new arrangement, a new treaty, is needed to bring China into the fold of restraint, he said.
“A modest step of extending START for a year by mutual presidential decrees while new negotiations take place does not negate creating a new treaty that would include China.”
Second, the arguments used to rationalize the new arms race fail to consider the folly of producing more accurate, usable, and powerful nuclear weapons”, declared Granoff.
Guterres pointed out the dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time – the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades.
“Yet even in this moment of uncertainty, we must search for hope. This is an opportunity to reset and create an arms control regime fit for a rapidly evolving context.”
“I welcome that the Presidents of both States have made clear that they appreciate the destabilizing impact of a nuclear arms race and the need to prevent the return to a world of unchecked nuclear proliferation.
“The world now looks to the Russian Federation and the United States to translate words into action. I urge both States to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework that restores verifiable limits, reduces risks, and strengthens our common security’, said Guterres.
In a statement released last week, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND), a global network of legislators working to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world, said the importance of the New START treaty is hard to overstate.
“As other nuclear treaties have been abrogated in recent years, this was the only deal left with notification, inspection, verification and treaty compliance mechanisms between Russia and the US. Between them, they possess 87% of the world’s nuclear weapons.”
The demise of the treaty will bring a definitive and alarming end to nuclear restraint between the two powers. It may very well accelerate the global nuclear arms race, PNND warned.
This was one of the key reasons that on January 27, 2026, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock to 85 Seconds to Midnight.
Last year, PNND Co-President Senator Markey introduced draft legislation into the US Senate urging the government to negotiate new post-START agreements with Russia and China. The legislation is supported by a number of other Senators and by a companion bill in the House of Representatives. But this seems to have fallen on deaf ears in the Trump Administration.
Granoff, providing a deeper analysis, told IPS the scientific data makes clear that a full-scale nuclear war between the US and Russia would annihilate humanity and that a limited nuclear exchange of less than 2% of the world’s arsenals would put around 5 million tons of soot into the stratosphere leading billions of deaths and the devastation of modern civilization everywhere.
“Realism reveals that the alleged need to duplicate the arsenals of adversary nations is not needed for deterrence. Realism also reveals that there is actually little to no meaningful difference between a nation having 600 (as China does now) or over 1400 deployed nuclear weapons, mirroring the US and Russia, or 30,000 nuclear weapons as Russia and the US each had at the height of the last arms race”.
“The reality is that devastation globally of a small portion of the world’s nuclear arsenals would be unambiguously unacceptable to any sane person. We could say that realism informs us that we have moved from Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) to Self-Assured Destruction (SAD). The fact is that if any of the 9 states with the weapons were to use several hundred nuclear weapons that nation itself would also be devastated. MAD today reveals a new acronym, SAD.”
Meanwhile, a posting in the US State Department website reads
Treaty Structure: The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, also known as the New START Treaty, enhances U.S. national security by placing verifiable limits on all Russian deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons. The United States and the Russian Federation had agreed to extend the treaty through February 4, 2026.
Strategic Offensive Limits: The New START Treaty entered into force on February 5, 2011. Under the treaty, the United States and the Russian Federation had seven years to meet the treaty’s central limits on strategic offensive arms (by February 5, 2018) and are then obligated to maintain those limits for as long as the treaty remains in force.
Aggregate Limits
Both the United States and the Russian Federation met the central limits of the New START Treaty by February 5, 2018, and have stayed at or below them ever since. Those limits are:
• 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments; • 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments (each such heavy bomber is counted as one warhead toward this limit); • 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.This article is brought to you by IPS NORAM, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
An attendee told The Grayzone that oil industry heavyweights were less excited about Trump’s Venezuela policy, privately complaining about the President’s aggressive push to restart their operations.
When the American Petroleum Institute (API) gathered oil industry leaders and lobbyists for a “State of American Energy” summit on January 16, 2026, the geopolitical landscape seemed to be shifting dramatically in their favor. However, an attendee of the resource extraction cartel’s most important annual lobbying conference told The Grayzone that participants privately grumbled about President Donald Trump’s heavy-handed attempts to steer their agenda, particularly in Venezuela, where he has demanded they immediately restart operations.
Two weeks before the API summit, the US military kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a violent raid, enabling the Trump administration to commandeer the country’s oil reserves. Meanwhile, foreign-backed riots left thousands dead in oil-rich Iran on January 8 and 9, generating enough instability to excite Western governments about the prospects of regime change.
From the stage at Washington DC’s Anthem theater, veteran industry consultant Bob McNally of the Rapidan Energy Group could not contain his excitement over the prospect of toppling the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“Iran holds the biggest promise as well, though they’re the biggest risk, but the biggest opportunity,” McNally proclaimed. “If you can imagine the United States opening an embassy in Tehran, the regime in Tehran reflecting its people – the most pro American population outside of Israel in the Middle East, culturally, commercially adept – historic. If you can imagine our industry going back there, we would get a lot more oil, a lot sooner than we will out of Venezuela.”
According to McNally, who formerly advised President George W. Bush on energy policy, a US regime change war on Iran would be a “terrible day for Moscow, [a] wonderful day for the Iranians, the United States, the oil industry and world peace.”
However, like many industry titans at the API summit, McNally saw Venezuela as a high-risk, low-return investment, even after the de facto US takeover of its resources. “Since the President’s decision to apprehend Nicolas Maduro, I think we’ve seen, you know, private conversations, the meeting at the White House, the administration has had to learn, you don’t go into Venezuela, turn a tap and 3 million barrels a day flow. It doesn’t happen like that,” he commented.
McNally went on to suggest the oil industry was pushing back on Trump’s demands that it immediately reinvest in Venezuela: “The prize in Venezuela is getting back from below a million barrels a day to between three and four million barrels a day, and that we will measure in many years and many decades. And that’s the truth. And the industry is speaking that truth to the administration.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The oil lobby sponsors a TV show to glorify itself
The API “State of American Energy” summit’s program closed with a session which demonstrated the power of America’s oil lobby to influence Hollywood content.
On stage beside actor Andy Garcia, a star of a new Paramount+ show, Landman, API President Mike Sommers boasted about his role in sponsoring a dramatic series which glorifies a heavily maligned industry on a Trump-aligned network.
According to Axios, API provided Landman with “a seven figure ad campaign,” ensuring the show’s viability on Paramount+, a network purchased in 2025 by the pro-Trump, ultra-Zionist billionaire heir David Ellison.
Landman’s plotlines sell viewers on the image of America’s extraction industry as a vital force that is entitled to bend the rules and make crooked deals in order to keep the oil flowing. In one episode, the roguish “landman” protagonist Tommy Norris, played by Billy Bob Thornton, finds himself involved in a turf war with a Mexican narco-cartel which controls a valuable plot of land. To increase his leverage over the cartel, Tommy threatens to trigger Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) involvement unless they stand down. Ultimately, the cartel agrees to co-exist with Tommy’s company, M-Tex Oil, ensuring secure drilling and lucrative profits.
It’s a plot that could have been ripped from actual headlines about the US oil industry’s secret dealings with Mexican cartels and designated terrorist groups. And just months after the Trump administration initiated a legally dubious anti-drug operation off Venezuela’s coast to increase pressure on Maduro, who now languishes in a federal prison cell as Washington dictates energy policy to Caracas, the API-sponsored Landman feels increasingly like predictive programming. https://thegrayzone.com/2026/02/13/iran-war-opportunity-oil-lobbys/
The unexplained illnesses and deaths of animals, a desert veterinary clinic run by a uranium mining corporation, and its attempts to ignore the troubling facts are perplexing.
Orano has set a stark precedent, demonstrating that even lenient mining laws are no real constraint. According to activists, the company simply ignored the required environmental impact assessment for some of its ISL mining projects in Dornogobi Aimag. Coincidentally, Orano was also bribing officials to secure mining licenses during this same period.
Environmentalists square off against a French mining company.
On a warm April 1st day last year, Budee Khekhee, head of local non-profit The Power of Unity for the Sake of Our Homeland, led a team into the Gobi Desert to investigate reports of a mysterious illness causing the death of wild and domestic animals, which he obtained from the local herders. A former resident who’d assisted his father’s veterinary work, Budee knew the terrain and knew authorities had ignored previous alarms.
In Zamyn Ud, they spotted numerous white-tailed gazelles lying on the ground, unable to get up, and twitching their legs convulsively. The activists livestreamed their discovery. “My heart was overwhelmed with despair,” Budee later testified. “I realized I couldn’t just abandon them here to die.”
Suspecting that the epidemic was caused by French uranium company Orano’s in-situ leach operations, he loaded four gazelles aboard a truck and drove to the corporation’s clinic gate, broadcasting on Facebook. Orano had built and was operating a veterinary clinic in the mining area. Budee didn’t trust them a lot, but he hoped that the staff would assist in rescuing the animals. Those hopes were dashed when, after two hours of standing outside the locked clinic doors, no one appeared, and the animals died. Left with little choice, the activists dissected the gazelles’ bodies and took tissue samples for independent analysis. They livestreamed their actions to Facebook.
For many Mongolian herders, resource neocolonialism is not an abstract concept. They have resulted in tangible losses, illness, and deaths. Descendants of the Mongol Empire now face uranium mining invaders. After the Soviets departed—leaving behind a legacy of toxic mining—the “clean” French uranium industry arrived, reproducing similar patterns of corruption while poisoning the land. At the same time, these colonialists have participated in the persecution of environmental activists.
Should they be held accountable before domestic and international communities?
The Revenge
In official reports, human rights defenders often refer to the persecution of activists as “unjust” or “disproportional punishment.” However, what happened in the case of the Mongolian herders was closer to pure revenge. Unidentified individuals made police reports accusing Khekhee of illegal hunting. He was subjected to repeated questioning for several months after the criminal investigation began.
The local prosecutor’s office then reclassified the matter as an administrative offense. The state’s Environmental Protection Office determined that Khekhee illegally pursued and killed four gazelles. They penalized him $1,200, a substantial sum for an average Mongolian. His July appeal was denied in full in September, but the court of first instance postponed the sentence for three months, thereby conceding that the case lacked merit.
Neither the investigation nor the court determined why Budee Khekhee allegedly needed to kill the gazelles. However, a local journalist discovered the “motive,” writing in August 2025 that it was done “to mislead the public about the consequences of uranium mining by the joint Mongolian-French enterprise ‘Badrakh Energy’ LLC.”
Prosecution for Independent Dosimetry
The unexplained illnesses and deaths of animals, a desert veterinary clinic run by a uranium mining corporation, and its attempts to ignore the troubling facts are perplexing. Especially when combined with the absurd accusation of poaching directed at an environmental activist whose action was widely livestreamed. When connected to other similar events, a pattern emerges.
In mid-August 2025, the same non-profit invited Russian nuclear physicist Andrey Ozharovskiy to conduct dosimetry measurements. Their focus on radioactive pollution was encouraged by groundwater assessments, which had revealed high uranium and arsenic levels in the area. Ozharovskiy, who had extensive experience in identifying radioactive sources, agreed to come. He entered Mongolia legally with his dosimetry and spectrometry equipment for “business purposes.”
On August 15–17, activists drove him along dirt roads in the Gobi Desert to Orano’s pilot ISL uranium extraction wells, where locals reported trucks carrying pregnant solution or liquid waste. It didn’t take the Russian expert long to discover three dried-up puddles emitting gamma radiation 20-50 times above background levels. Spectrometry identified uranium decay products—radium-226, bismuth-214, and lead-214, which, according to Ozharovskiy, was consistent with mining spills rather than natural radiation. The activists published their finding on social media, and this is how the Mongolian authorities learned about the expedition.
The group later traveled across Mongolia along similar dirt roads to Maradai. On August 19, while measuring radiation near abandoned Soviet mining sites, the group was detained by a border officer and some people in plain clothes. According to the activists, the authorities used drones to spot them in the desert. After spending a day or two in several offices, Ozharovskiy was transferred to the Main Intelligence Directorate in Ulaanbaatar. There, after being questioned, he was told that he was suspected of espionage and immigration violations.
Although the authorities released Ozharovskiy, they took his passport so that he couldn’t leave the country. A few days later he was taken again, forced to admit administrative violations, including using unregistered dosimetry devices, and to pay a fine. Then they brought him to the border with Russia and expelled him without his belongings but with a 10-year entry ban. The local activists, meanwhile, have spoken of intimidation, police reporting requirements, smartphone searches, and non-disclosure agreements.
In the same days the Mongolian Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a formal statement, where accused Ozharovskiy of spreading false information about radiation background. Some media labeled the activists foreign agents undermining Franco-Mongolian projects in Russia’s interest.
A System That Favors Abuse and Distrust
Mongolian law prohibits radiation measurements using devices that haven’t been registered with the country’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission. After his first detention, Ozharovskiy donated some of his measuring devices to the non-profit. Activists brought them to the NRC but were denied certification with no clear explanation. The only reason provided, though invalid, was that the devices belonged to a Russian citizen.
The activists explained why they hadn’t registered the devices beforehand: they didn’t want authorities to know about their survey in advance. “If they knew about the devices, they wouldn’t let us measure anyway,” one activist said. “We don’t trust them,” Khekhee added.
This distrust is entirely justified given the broader context documented by prominent human rights organizations. Mongolia has earned a reputation for cracking down on critics and human rights defenders, particularly those challenging the mining industry. Amnesty International’s 2024 report documents that criticism of authorities and mining corporations has become effectively criminalized. According to the report Our Land, these corporations commit massive environmental violations, causing significant environmental pollution and deterioration of public health, and undermining traditional Mongolian livelihoods. To attract investors, Mongolian mining lobbyists even managed to pass corporate-friendly legislation. According to Our Land, in 2006 and again in 2013–2015 they weakened environmental safeguards, reducing water protection zones and allowing mining on private and even protected lands.
While the new multi-year energy program favors nuclear power, our investigation reveals that the final bill for the EPR2 reactor program could reach nearly 250 billion euros.
“EDF presents its provisional estimate for the EPR2 program at 72.8 billion euros,” read a press release from the group on December 18 .
The final cost estimate for the construction of the first series of six French -made nuclear reactors at the Penly (Seine-Maritime), Gravelines (Nord), and Bugey (Ain) sites, of the EPR2 type (approximately 1,650 megawatts of power), is expected this spring. EDF and its shareholder, the French State, hope for a final investment decision by the end of the year.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has initiated talks with France on strengthening Europe’s nuclear deterrent as he urged the continent to bolster its defences and “repair” strained relations with the US. The discussions, centred on the possibility of Germany joining France’s nuclear umbrella, underline mounting anxiety in Europe over an expected reduction in the US military presence on the continent, as Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine enters its fifth year.
Matt Ridley: Donald Trump has revoked the official doctrine that carbon dioxide is a danger to human health. This removes the justification for the federal government treating it as a pollutant. An anti-scientific lurch that will kill people – or a welcome return to common sense? What does the science actually say?
The most sinister revelation from the article is that NATO’s Secretary-General maintains a “highly classified” contingency plan which allows giving the NATO Supreme Allied Commander broad emergency authority to unilaterally move forces around without a vote of the members:
The Munich Security Conference has kicked off, and not surprisingly the Brussels nomenklatura and its attendant apparatchiks and media flacks are pushing war hysteria. The purpose of this is to make the Ukrainian conflict feel existential to Europeans to jawbone them into parting with their dwindling eurobucks for the sake of bleeding Russia as much as possible.
BRUSSELS — Western countries increasingly believe the world is heading toward a global war, according to results from The POLITICO Poll that detail mounting public alarm about the risk and cost of a new era of conflict.
But while Politico smugly celebrates the convection toward war, the rag laments the unwillingness of the drowning masses to destroy what remains of their serfhood for the sake of funding these cabal-provoked wars:
But The POLITICO Poll also revealed limited willingness among the Western public to make sacrifices to pay for more military spending. While there is widespread support for increasing defense budgets in principle across the U.K., France, Germany and Canada, that support fell sharply when people learned it might mean taking on more government debt, cutting other services or raising taxes.
This leaves European leaders “in a bind”:
So European leaders are left in a bind — unable to rely on the U.S., unable to use that as a reason to invest domestically, and under higher pressure to urgently solve this for a world where conflict feels closer than before.”
Well, the conflict “feels” closer than before only because the European sock-puppet leaders are pushing it there themselves, every day, more and more aggressively.
Most concerning for the elites is that support for militarization is on a down-trend heading out of 2025:
The elites are in panic over how to convince their populaces to fan the flames of war ever higher. They are distraught that the peons are overly concerned with selfish pursuits like self-preservation, sustenance, taking care of their families, paying their mortgages, etc. Conclaves like the Munich Conference are meant to stoke debate over precisely how to more effectively connive the masses sell the necessity of war to the public; the going concensus seems to be to just pile on more hysteria, fake lies about the Russian threat, etc. It’s a reliable standby.
This was supported by fiery calls-to-arms from Ukrainian frontliners:
“You [Europe] need to prepare yourselves before war comes to you. And in this, we Ukrainians are your best partners, because we already live in the future of war” – Oleksandr Falshtynskyi, Chief of Medical Service of the 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces, during Ukraine House at the Munich Security Conference.
He warns Europe to be ready for the coming war—but is Europe ready? Two recent simulations have shown that to woefully not be the case.
In the first, WSJ reports a single Ukrainian team of 10 drone operators was able to eliminate “two NATO battalions” in a single day without any losses:
Overall, the results were “horrible” for NATO forces, says Mr. Hanniotti, who now works in the private sector as an unmanned systems expert. The adversary forces were “able to eliminate two battalions in a day,” so that “in an exercise sense, basically, they were not able to fight anymore after that.” The NATO side “didn’t even get our drone teams.”
Multiple concurrent Wall Street Journal articles push war hysteria—it must be good for stock prices!
In the article, Germany’s “top military officer” General Carsten Breuer states explicitly that Russia will be ready to wage war on Europe in three years:
Breuer is racing to prepare Germany’s armed forces for war. And for the 61-year-old veteran of conflicts from Kosovo to Afghanistan, the clock is ticking.
Germany’s military-intelligence agency estimates that within the next three years, Russia, whose armies poured into Ukraine in 2022, will have amassed enough weaponry and trained enough troops to be able to start a wider war across Europe. Breuer says a smaller attack could come at any time.
“We have to be ready,” he says.
Besides the obvious fear-mongering, this does appear to indirectly confirm our thesis that Russia is building a large rear reserve force if NATO ‘intelligence’ continues to surmise that Russia “will have amassed enough weaponry and trained […] troops” for WWIII in three years’ time. Clearly, there is a surplus of force regeneration, which flies in the face of the contradictory narrative we’re fed daily that Russia’s losses are now vastly outpacing its recruitment. If that was the case, how could Russia possibly be building a force capable of tackling Europe so soon?
This quote from the article is just rich:
To that end, Breuer has been waging a multi-front campaign to rally Germany’s politicians, business people, soldiers and the general public behind efforts to speed the nation’s rearmament and persuade them that they must be prepared to fight Russia to preserve their democratic freedoms.
So, stoking WWIII to destroy Russia now retreads the same old phony and fatuous “freedums and liburty” ignis fatuus used by neocons time and again since the Iraq war days. Funny, given that it’s Germany now suffering from totalitarian restrictions on their so-called freedoms.
But while the article boasts of Germany raising its commitment level to provoke WWIII by stationing troops in Lithuania, the reality seems to be a bit different. Spiegel reports that Germany is in fact struggling to even find enough recruits to fill the brigade meant for the task:
On 13 February 1960, France detonated a nuclear weapon over the deserts of Algeria. It was the first of what were eventually 17 nuclear detonations across two sites. Four of these took place while Algeria’s fight for independence was still raging. To this day, communities harmed by the development of France’s nuclear weapons arsenal are seeking recognition, compensation and redress.
ICAN joins other organisations in a joint statement on the anniversary of France’s first nuclear detonations in Algeria, “66 Years Since the First French Nuclear Explosion in Algeria … No Truth Without Transparency, No Justice Without Reparation”
The statement recognises efforts to address the legacy of harm from French nuclear testing through parliamentary debates in both Algeria and France. The explosions exposed nearby communities, soldiers and workers to dangerous levels of radiation and left a long-lasting toxic legacy in the environment.
In France, steps are being taken to revise the compensation framework in order to make it fairer for victims of the tests in Algeria and French Polynesia, alongside calls to strengthen transparency and accountability.
In Algeria, the People’s National Assembly addressed this issue for the first time in February 2025 through a parliamentary session that resulted in 13 recommendations calling for enhanced transparency, justice for nuclear victims, the transmission of memory, and the development of research on health and environmental impacts. ICAN France, the Observatoire des armaments and the Heinroch Böll stiftung published The Waste From French Nuclear Tests in Algeria: Radioactivity Under the Sand to provide more information on the environmental legacy of French testing in the region.
The statement further calls on the French government to provide sustained technical and financial support for health monitoring and environmental remediation programs. It calls on the Algerian government to protect public health in affected areas through a national program of monitoring, early screening, and medical care, and to ensure that populations receive accurate information in national and local languages, with particular attention to vulnerable groups. Today, people in Algeria are still living with cancers, contaminated lands, and intergenerational health problems linked to those tests.
France is urged to sign and both countries are encouraged to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
ICAN’s dedicated nuclear testing impacts website hosts stories of those who worked near the test sites in Algeria, as well as more detailed information on the tests carried out by France.
By Bill Gertz – The Washington Times – Wednesday, February 11, 2026
The U.S. Space Force is accelerating the deployment of counterspace weapons under a new Trump administration policy aimed at reasserting and ensuring American dominance over China and Russia in any potential orbital conflict.
The force is deploying three electronic satellite jammers and racing to match the more advanced space forces of China and Russia, which include arsenals of anti-satellite weapons.
Space Force Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently set the goal for the U.S. military to dominate in space.
“And the Space Force was created to do just that,” Gen. Saltzman told The Washington Times. “The service has and will continue to invest in a full range of counterspace capabilities to deter conflict in space and to win decisively if called upon.
“Continuing to train and equip combat-credible Guardians is essential to maintaining our warfighting readiness,” he said.
Mr. Hegseth said in a speech to workers at the space company Blue Origin last week that the $25 billion being spent on the Golden Dome national missile and drone defense system would produce “cutting-edge, space-based capabilities which we are going to need.”……………….
“That is how we will establish total orbital supremacy,” he said.
Golden Dome systems are expected to support Space Force counterspace arms.
A Space Force spokeswoman declined to provide details on Gen. Saltzman’s plans for counterspace weapons, but at this point, the newest branch of the American military — the force was founded in 2019 under the first Trump administration — has only limited capabilities with counterspace systems. The force will be challenged to match enemy systems…………………….
Funding for counterspace weapons in the recently passed $890.6 billion defense authorization bill is relatively meager and does not appear to support a space dominance policy.
Procurement for counterspace weapons in the current fiscal year is $2 million, and the research, development, testing and evaluation budget for counterspace systems spending is $31.2 million, according to a funding chart in the defense authorization act.
Developing space weapons is a priority for the Pentagon because U.S. space systems, including high-altitude Global Positioning System satellites — used for GPS targeting and navigation in military operations, missile warning satellites and key imagery and communications systems — were not designed for conflict in space…………..
A Pentagon official said a presidential directive requires U.S. space superiority and therefore “American leadership in space is nonnegotiable.”…………………………..
“The Department of War has and will continue to invest in a full range of capabilities — kinetic, non-kinetic, reversible and irreversible — to restore deterrence and, if necessary, prevail in conflict.”………………………………………………
Charles Galbreath, a retired Space Force colonel, said Mr. Hegseth’s comments on space power dominance are “probably some of the most aggressive language I’ve heard ever, openly, about conflict in the space domain.”………………………………………………………..
The orbital playbook
Space Force plans for waging warfare in space are outlined in a March 2025 report, “United States Space Force Space Warfighting: A Framework for Planners.”
The report defined three main types of counterspace operations as control of space using both offensive and defensive action.
“Counterspace operations are conducted across the orbital, link and terrestrial segments of the space architecture,” the report said, creating effects aimed at “space superiority.”……………………
The combat will include “orbital warfare” using fires, movement and maneuver to control space.
Also used will be electromagnetic warfare to defeat enemy space and counterspace threats.
Cyberwarfare will be a major part of space combat, with strikes and other actions aimed at gaining control of space.
Offensive space combat will include orbital strike operations, pursuit and escort of satellites, standoff attacks, interdicting space communications links, and maneuvering killer satellites that can grab and crush enemy systems.
Orbital attacks will use “pursuit operations” with an attacking system maneuvering to an enemy spacecraft before firing weapons. Alternatively, the Space Force will use standoff operations — space-based or ground long-range missiles that attack without a nearby orbital rendezvous.
Space link interdiction will use electromagnetic or cybernetwork attacks……………………………………………
For electronic attacks, high-powered lasers and microwave weapons are being built, and some reports indicate that electromagnetic pulse arms could be used to damage satellite electronics without causing debris.
Emil Michael, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, stated in a X post that the Pentagon has directed energy weapons………………………………………………………………………………..
Navy drone warship, undersea robot weapon unveiled
By Bill Gertz – The Washington Times – Wednesday, February 11, 2026
U.S. Navy efforts to deploy large numbers of drone weapons advanced this week with the disclosure of a coming autonomous warship and a new undersea drone.
Blue Water Autonomy, a shipbuilding startup, announced the first autonomous warship called the Liberty that the company says will provide advanced warfare capabilities for the Navy as soon as later this year.
The Boston-based technology firm and shipbuilder said construction of its first 190-foot Liberty drone ship will begin next month with the goal of delivering the first vessel to the Navy in 2026.
The ship will be 190-feet long with a range of over 10,000 nautical miles and can carry more than 150 tons of payload capacity, Blue Water said in a press release.
“As the U.S. Navy drives to expand fleet capacity, accelerating the deployment of unmanned systems that complement traditional crewed ships has become a critical effort,” the company said……..
Separately, defense contractor Lockheed Martin this week disclosed its development of a new class of smart, stealthy, multimission autonomous undersea drone.
The Lockheed vessel, called the Lamprey, is capable of launching drone aircraft from the surface and is described by the company as a “do-it-all” submersible, “built to disrupt and deny enemy forces at sea.”
The undersea drone will be used to detect, disrupt, decoy and target enemy forces in support of sea denial missions and “subsea seabed warfare,” Lockheed said on its website.
The Lamprey can be hitched to submarines or warships, will launch aerial drones for surveillance or attacks, and can conduct electronic warfare to disrupt underwater enemy sensors.
Both drone warfare platforms are likely to become part of what the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. Sam Paparo, has called a “hellscape” strategy to deter China.
The strategy, which remains mostly secret, calls for deploying thousands of low-cost armed drones as a deterrent and counter to any potential future Chinese attack on Taiwan or other locations in the region. The “hellscape” could also influence Chinese commanders’ decision-making on whether such attacks could be successful……………………………………….
“The Liberty class reflects our focus on building autonomous ships that are designed from the start for long-duration operations and repeat production,” said Rylan Hamilton, Blue Water Autonomy chief executive. “By adapting a proven hull and reengineering it for unmanned operations, we’re delivering a vessel that can operate for extended periods without crew while being produced at a pace the Navy urgently needs. This is a modern take on an old idea: building capable ships quickly and at scale.”
The drone warship will use artificial intelligence for its automated controls with limited human intervention for months-long deployments.
It was developed entirely with private capital without defense funding as part of push by Navy and Pentagon leaders on defense contractors to privately develop key military technology outside of a problematic procurement process.
nuclear-news 