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French submarine-maker targeted by hackers

Cyber attackers claim to have uncovered source code for submarine weapon systems.

 A French naval giant is investigating a potential cyber attack after
hackers claimed to have obtained sensitive data about the country’s
nuclear submarines. Naval Group, a state-owned ship maker that traces its
origins back almost 400 years to the reign of Louis XIII, said it had
“immediately launched technical investigations” after cyber criminals
threatened to publish files on the dark web.

 Telegraph 27th July 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/27/french-submarine-maker-targeted-by-hackers/

July 29, 2025 Posted by | France, safety | Leave a comment

The real story of Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster in history

The Chernobyl Sarcophagus Memorial sculpture was erected in 2006 and is dedicated to the memory of the heroic plant workers and emergency crew who prevented a global catastrophe .

28 July 25,https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-story-of-chernobyl-the-worst-nuclear-disaster-in-history

On 26th April 1986, a routine safety test went catastrophically wrong and triggered the worst nuclear accident of all time. The incident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine led to the release of 400 times more radiation than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during WW2.

31 people died in the immediate aftermath, whilst the long-term health effects caused by Chernobyl are still a hotly debated subject. Approximately 60,000 square miles around the plant were contaminated and an area nearly twice the city of London remains an exclusion zone to this day.

Background of Chernobyl

Lying just 10 miles from the Belarus-Ukraine border and around 62 miles north of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was commissioned in 1977 as part of the old Soviet Union, with the first reactor supplying power to the grid later that year. By 1984, four reactors had entered commercial operation, each capable of producing 1,000 megawatts of electrical power.

Just under two miles from the plant was the city of Pripyat, founded in 1970 and named after the nearby river. It was built to serve the power plant and at the time of the disaster, its total population was just shy of 50,000.

Nuclear disaster unfolds

Throughout Friday, 25th April 1986, Chernobyl’s engineers lowered power at Reactor No. 4 in preparation for a safety test to be conducted later that evening. The test was supposed to check whether the reactor turbines could continue powering emergency water coolant pumps in the event of a power failure.

Ironically, the safety test was anything but safe as human error and substandard reactor design led to a partial meltdown of the core.

The experiment was poorly conceived and equally badly executed. Firstly, the less-experienced night shift crew carried out the safety test and later claimed they had not received full instructions from the day shift crew on how to properly conduct it. Secondly, the emergency core cooling system for Reactor 4 was disabled along with the emergency shutdown system.

Finally, the reactor’s power level dropped to a dangerously unstable level at which point the engineers removed most of the control rods in violation of safety guidelines. Although power began to return, it was far from under control.

Explosion in Reactor 4

At 1:23am on 26th April, the safety test was given the all-clear by plant supervisors. Almost immediately a power surge occurred, triggering the engineers to re-insert all 211 control rods. The control rods were graphite tipped, a design flaw that would prove fatal as they increased the reaction in the core, instead of lowering it.

The subsequent steam explosions blew off the steel and concrete lid of the reactor as the core suffered a partial meltdown. Two engineers were killed instantly whilst two more suffered severe burns. The explosion, along with the resulting fires, released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere. Blown by the wind, radioactive materials were spread to many parts of Europe over the coming days.

Emergency response begins

Firefighters quickly arrived on the scene but without proper protective clothing, many perished in the coming months from acute radiation syndrome. By dawn, all the fires were suppressed except for the one in the reactor core.

The other three reactors were shut down a short while later. The following day officials ordered helicopters to begin dumping more than 5,000 tonnes of sand, lead, clay, and boron onto the burning reactor to help extinguish the core fire.

A Soviet cover-up

It took nearly 36 hours for Soviet officials to begin evacuating nearby Pripyat. The city’s residents were unaware of the true dangers presented by the previous day’s events. Advised to pack only necessities, the people of Pripyat were loaded onto buses believing their evacuation to be temporary. Little did they know, they would never return to their homes again.

Two days after the catastrophic explosion the rest of the world remained in the dark as the Soviets attempted to cover up the event. However, on 28th April, Swedish radiation monitoring stations 800 miles away began detecting high levels of radiation. With their backs to the wall, the Soviets finally made a statement, with the Kremlin admitting an accident had occurred at Chernobyl, but assuring the world that officials had it under control.

Heroism on display

In the days that followed, hundreds of workers risked their lives to contain radiation leaking from the reactor core.

On 4th May, three divers made their way through the dark flooded basement of Reactor 4 to turn valves and drain the ‘bubbler pools’ sitting below the core. Had they not succeeded in their mission, molten nuclear material would have eventually melted its way down to the pools.

This would have triggered a radiation-contaminated steam explosion and destroyed the entire plant along with its three other reactors, causing unimaginable damage and nuclear fallout that the world would have struggled to recover from.

Radioactive debris also needed to be removed from the roof of the reactor. After robots failed to do the job, workers equipped with heavy protective gear were sent in.

Nicknamed ‘Bio-robots’, these workers were unable to spend more than 90 seconds on the roof due to the extreme levels of radiation. In the end, 5,000 men went up on the irradiated rooftop to successfully clear the radioactive material from it.

Clean-up commences

By mid-May, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had ordered thousands of firefighters, miners, and soldiers to begin the long and arduous task of cleaning up. Known as ‘Liquidators’, 600,000 – 800,000 of them began burying radioactive debris and topsoil, as well as shooting all wildlife (both domestic and wild) within the 19-mile exclusion zone surrounding the power plant.

Nicknamed ‘Bio-robots’, these workers were unable to spend more than 90 seconds on the roof due to the extreme levels of radiation. In the end, 5,000 men went up on the irradiated rooftop to successfully clear the radioactive material from it.

Clean-up commences

By mid-May, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had ordered thousands of firefighters, miners, and soldiers to begin the long and arduous task of cleaning up. Known as ‘Liquidators’, 600,000 – 800,000 of them began burying radioactive debris and topsoil, as well as shooting all wildlife (both domestic and wild) within the 19-mile exclusion zone surrounding the power plant.

Aftermath

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was eventually extended to cover approximately 1,000 square miles, whereby it was declared uninhabitable for over 20,000 years. The other three reactors at Chernobyl remained active until their individual shutdowns in 1991, 1996, and 2000. Gorbachev later wrote that he believed the incident at Chernobyl was the ‘real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union’.

Whilst the lasting health effects of the disaster remain unclear and much debated, various sources have estimated that thousands of cancer deaths can be linked back to Chernobyl.

July 29, 2025 Posted by | incidents, Reference, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Greenpeace hails Italian court ruling allowing climate case against energy company Eni to continue

 Italy’s highest court has ruled that a lawsuit brought by climate
activists against Italian energy company Eni and its government
shareholders can go ahead, in what Greenpeace said on Tuesday was a victory
for efforts to pursue climate justice in Italy.

In an ordinance released on
Monday, the Court of Cassation rejected the company’s motions to dismiss
the lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds and ordered the case to be heard on
its merits by a Rome tribunal. Eni said that it was greatly satisfied with
the decision, and said it expected that the Rome court would ultimately
“dismantle” the climate activists’ claims of responsibility.

 Yahoo News 22nd July 2025, https://uk.news.yahoo.com/greenpeace-hails-italy-court-ruling-130205151.html

July 29, 2025 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

The Kyshtym disaster: Russia’s hidden nuclear crisis

The Kyshtym disaster in 1957 was the Soviet Union’s biggest nuclear crisis until Chernobyl. So, why did the Soviets keep quiet about the former for decades?

28 July 25, https://www.history.co.uk/articles/kyshtym-disaster-russia-hidden-nuclear-crisis

What would be considered the worst nuclear disaster in history? Many scholars would say Chernobyl, when an explosion at a nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine released dangerous levels of radiation.

This was on 26th April 1986, when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. Was Chernobyl inevitable? Many historians do believe that Soviet authorities failed to learn lessons from an earlier nuclear crisis on their own soil. Below, we at Sky HISTORY look back at the 1957 Kyshtym disaster — and how the Soviets kept it under wraps for decades.

Was there really a nuclear plant in Kyshtym?

The nuclear plant at the heart of the Kyshtym disaster was not actually in the Russian town of that name. Instead, it was in a secretive ‘closed city’ nearby, called Chelyabinsk-40. Today, it is called Ozyorsk. (Both Kyshtym and Ozyorsk are in Russia’s Chelyabinsk Oblast.)

In the 1940s, the Soviets realised that they were trailing the United States in the development of nuclear weapons. To help themselves catch up, they hastily built what is now commonly known as the Mayak nuclear plant.

This facility, which still stands today, was tasked with processing plutonium needed to make nuclear weapons. However, because the plant was assembled in a rush, many safety risks of the project were not considered sufficiently.

The Kyshtym explosion and its immediate aftermath

Before the Kyshtym disaster, it was routine for Mayak workers to deposit radioactive waste into the Techa River. This bode ill (literally) for villagers along the river who used it as a source of drinking water.

So, Mayak staff later decided to store such waste in an underground storage compartment of the plant itself. This space comprised 14 stainless steel containers attached to a concrete base.

However, in the 1950s, the cooling system in one of these tanks started to malfunction. This led the waste in the container to heat up and eventually, on 29th September 1957, explode. The force sent 20 curies of radioactive material flying a kilometre into the air.

The wind blew the radioactive particles over an area of about 20,000 square kilometres inhabited by approximately 270,000 people. This was generally to the northeast, away from Chelyabinsk-40, which lay upwind from the Mayak plant.

How did authorities initially react?

Residents of nearby areas were not initially notified of what had happened. This was largely due to the Soviet Union’s strong culture of secrecy during the Cold War. The national government didn’t want to let slip that Mayak even existed, let alone that a nuclear explosion had happened there.

It was also around the same time that the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik satellite, a big PR coup. Admitting responsibility for what was the world’s biggest nuclear disaster to date would have been more than an inconvenient fly in the ointment.

Still, the Soviets also knew that doing what they could to limit the radioactive contamination would go some way towards keeping everyone in the dark. So, while about 10,000 local residents were evacuated over the next two years, they weren’t told exactly why.

A cover-up lasting for decades

Almost 17,000 hectares of the contaminated area was turned into East Ural Nature Reserve in 1968. Members of the public were barred from entry, which remains the case to this day. Scientists have studied the reserve to monitor the long-term effects of nuclear radiation on its ecology.

The Kyshtym disaster was kept secret from the public until 1976, when Soviet dissident Zhores Medvedev reported about it in New Scientist magazine. However, the Soviet government still did not openly acknowledge the Kyshtym disaster before accidentally revealing it to the United Nations in the late 1980s.

It is estimated that thousands of cancer cases may have resulted from exposure to radiation caused by the nuclear explosion way back in 1957.

How does Kyshtym compare to Chernobyl?

On the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), Kyshtym is classified as Level 6. Chernobyl, an even bigger catastrophe, is ranked just one level higher (Level 7) on the INES. Kyshtym released about 40% as much radioactivity as Chernobyl.

Chernobyl is thought to have affected a larger population, too, as 335,000 people were evacuated in the wake of the 1986 disaster. Also, while Chernobyl quickly claimed 31 lives, none were lost in the immediate aftermath of Kyshtym.

July 28, 2025 Posted by | history, incidents, Reference, Russia | Leave a comment

 ‘A heroic endeavour’: Sizewell C’s £38bn plan to keep the lights on

 As construction finally starts how will this megaproject be built, can
it avoid the pitfalls of previous nuclear plants, and is it worth the
money?

Hinkley Point is overdue and over budget, while the EPR has been
plagued by problems in other countries where it has been built. Small
wonder, then, that some have asked whether replicating Hinkley is a good
idea.

Julia Pyke is here to tell people that copying Hinkley is exactly
what we should be doing. “It’s better to build the thing you know how
to build because … it will be cheaper.” Hinkley has helped build up a
nuclear workforce that was in decline. Pyke recalled the first batch of
university interns at Sizewell C. “The majority of them literally
didn’t know that the UK had a nuclear industry. It had been that
quiet,” she said.

The deal struck last week will see the government take
a 45 per cent stake, with Canadian pension fund La Caisse holding 20 per
cent, British Gas owner Centrica 15 per cent, EDF 12.5 per cent, and Amber
Infrastructure the remaining 7.6 per cent.

The gargantuan cost will be 65
per cent funded by debt, and 35 per cent by equity. The government has
pencilled in a total cost of £55 billion for contingency and inflation
over the lifetime of the plant. Last week there was much noise around the
fact that Sizewell’s price tag had ballooned from an estimate of £20
billion, in 2015 money. The new figure accounts for inflation and “some
cost increase”, according to Pyke. One big difference between Hinkley and
Sizewell, she argued, is that the design is now better understood and
contracts will be tighter. Many of Hinkley’s overruns were blamed on
“cost-plus” contracts that allowed suppliers to ratchet up their bills.
Pyke pointed to a recent deal for civil engineering at Sizewell: “It’s
a contract which, roughly speaking, pays the contractors the actual cost of
doing a day’s work. And it aligns profit to achieved milestones. So
they’re not incentivised to run the job long.”

In any case, Pyke argued, talk of cost misses the point. Sizewell C will ultimately be an
asset for the taxpayer. And the project will pay billions in tax over its
lifespan. “The cost is an investment for society because it’s going to
give us energy security and lower bills, as well as pay tax … it has much
wider societal benefits.”

Alison Downes, executive director of the Stop
Sizewell C campaign, said that as a group, they had always tried to
emphasise the wider problems with the project, beyond their self-interest.
“One former EDF chief executive described the EPR design as too
complicated — almost unbuildable,” she said. “The long delays at EPRs
elsewhere in the world, the massive cost overruns, suggest that this
project will be very difficult to build. And the Sizewell site is complex.
Any savings are likely to be frittered away in more complicated
groundworks.”

 Times 26th July 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/sizewell-c-38bn-plan-to-keep-the-lights-on-ndszrldwd

July 28, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

SNP slam ‘toxic’ Sizewell-C costs for Scottish energy bills.

 THE SNP have demanded Scots are not forced to pay for “toxic” overspending
on the Sizewell-C budget. Prior to the summer recess, Energy Secretary Ed
Miliband quietly revealed that energy bills in Scotland will rise as a
result of a significant budget increase on the project – doubling in cost
to £38 billion with further revelations a loan facility of up to £36.6bn
will be provided, pushing the upper limit to £47.7bn.

Sizewell-C now becomes more costly than Hinkley Point C, the most expensive nuclear power
plant in the world.

Independent analysis from the House of Commons Library
confirmed that Scots will pay at least £300 million extra on energy bills
now to cover the overspend, with Miliband admitting there will be a
decade-long “nuclear tax” on bills north of the border.

SNP Energy spokesperson, Graham Leadbitter MP, said: “This toxic overspend now totals
£48bn and Anas Sarwar has serious questions to answer as to whether he
thinks it’s acceptable for Scots to foot the bill through higher energy
bills. “It is an absolute disgrace that energy rich Scotland will see
Scots face higher energy bills because of a nuclear plant running over
budget in Labour-run England.” With 2.5m households in Scotland, Miliband
forecasted that bill payers will pay an extra £12 per year to cover the
power plant, though experts have warned that figure is likely a minimum
with costs expected to rise further.

 The National 27th July 2025 – https://www.thenational.scot/news/25342880.snp-slam-toxic-sizewell-c-costs-scottish-energy-bills/

July 28, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

The next Chernobyl? Soviet-era nuclear power plant is branded a ‘ticking time bomb’ that could go off at ‘any moment’

 A Soviet-era nuclear power plant in an earthquake zone has been branded
‘Chernobyl in waiting’ and a ‘ticking time bomb’ amid fears of a looming
disaster. The Armenian Nuclear Power Plant was opened in 1976 and comprises
two reactors, reportedly supplying the nation with 40 per cent of its
electricity. But it stands in a seismic zone, and has already been
shuttered once before, closing for six years after the Spitak Earthquake in
1988.

 Daily Mail 25th July 2025,
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14939915/Chernobyl-nuclear-power-plant-ticking-time-bomb.html

July 28, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, safety | Leave a comment

Ed Miliband put up your energy bills (for Sizewell nuclear)– and hoped you wouldn’t notice

 Miliband took the last day of term before MPs knocked off for a
six-week-long holiday – sorry, I mean “working in the constituency”
– to let slip that he was putting up your energy bills. This is to pay
for the ballooning cost of the Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk.
Incidentally, another thing that the Energy Secretary let out the bag on
Tuesday was that the cost of this had almost doubled to £38 billion.

That is regrettable but Miliband did not want us to get too down about it. The
UK Government expects that it will be “limited to an average of around
£1 a month on a typical household bill”. Given the way that energy bills
have gone in recent years, I doubt that anyone feels anything less than
seething resentment at paying even another penny.

 The National 25th July 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25342653.ed-miliband-put-energy-bills—hoped-wouldnt-notice/

July 28, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Tory peer apologises for helping set up ministerial meeting for a nuclear firm he advises

Deputy speaker Ian Duncan found to have breached rules by providing parliamentary service for Terrestrial Energy

The former junior climate minister has been an adviser to Terrestrial Energy since 2020. When he joined he was given share options, which allowed him to buy shares in the company at a preferential rate if they became profitable.

The Guardian revealed that, in 2023, Duncan forwarded a letter to Andrew Bowie, the nuclear minister at the time, from Simon Irish, the firm’s chief executive who wanted a meeting with the minister at short notice. The peer signed off his email “Lord D of S”.

The chief executive of the company, which is developing a new type of nuclear reactor, secured the meeting with Bowie at which he lobbied for Terrestrial Energy to be given easier access to government funding.

In his response to the watchdog, Duncan said Bowie was a “friend of long standing” who had helped him get elected as a member of the European parliament in 2014 and had then worked in his Brussels office.


Margaret Obi, the Lords commissioner, decided that the rule prohibiting peers from providing “parliamentary services in return for payment or other incentive or reward” was absolute.

She added: “It did not provide an exemption in cases where there was an existing personal relationship.”

She ruled: “Although Lord Duncan stated he was not paid specifically for facilitating this introduction, he received an allocation of share options as consideration for his work for Terrestrial Energy.

“I consider that this can reasonably be understood to have been an incentive or reward for the various tasks he undertook for the company.”

Guardian 25th July 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/25/tory-peer-ian-duncan-apologises-for-helping-set-up-ministerial-meeting-for-firm-he-advises

July 28, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Sizewell C loans could see project cost rise above Hinkley to £47.7bn

The National Wealth Fund said it will provide a loan facility for the nuclear power station of up to £36.6bn, pushing the upper limit to £47.7bn.

July 22nd 2025, https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/576872/sizewell-c-loans-could-see-project-cost-rise-above-hinkley-to-47-7bn/

Project costs for the Sizewell C nuclear power station could rise to an upper threshold of £47.7 billion as a result of a new government loan extension.

The National Wealth Fund (NWF) has increased the size of its loan facilities to provide a debt buffer in case project costs rise, the government has confirmed.

The government’s new sovereign fund said in a statement that Treasury has recapitalised the fund from a prior capitalisation of £27.8bn so it can provide a loan facility for nuclear power station Sizewell C of £36.6bn.

The NFW, which started operating in October, will act as a lender of record for the project and continue to have the capacity to invest across its mandated sectors, a spokesperson said.

According to the statement, an additional £5bn of debt will be guaranteed by France’s export credit agency Bpifrance Assurance Export.

An energy department spokesperson told Energy Voice that “in order to finance a project of this size, the project partners have made available finance to fund costs up to £47.7bn (real) to safeguard taxpayers in the event of cost overruns”.

“This is based on a remote scenario for the project and is not what the company is managing the project to,” the government spokesperson said.

“The central target in terms of costs is around £38bn real, but as is standard for big and complex projects, we have secured a financing which contains contingency in case of overruns.”

According to people close to the matter, one of whom cited project documents, while Sizewell C is estimated to cost £38bn, the lower threshold for financing is £40bn, with a higher upper threshold of £47.7bn.

The newly secured loan capital would raise the projected upper limit of financing for the power station by nearly £10bn if it was fully drawn down over the course of the project’s lifecycle, they indicated, although a spokesperson for the fund said that would be unlikely. He said the facility provided for the effect of inflation.

“It is likely that NWF would not be exposed to the full amount of its debt provision, meaning its total debt exposure is likely to be less than the nominal maximum it has provided for,” the fund’s spokesperson said.

This increase would provide for a maximum project cost of £47.7bn, which would make the nuclear project more expensive than stalled Somerset nuclear power station Hinkley Point C, which is estimated to cost in the region of £46bn.

The UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) confirmed this morning that it had secured investors to commit a total of £38bn to Sizewell C. That included investment commitments from EDF, Centrica, Amber Infrastructure Group and Canadian fund La Caisse.

Together Against Sizewell C chair Jenny Kirtley said: “The scale of potential exposure of public funds to the Sizewell C project is revealed as a staggering £54.589bn in the government’s FID subsidy scheme.

“So much for claims made by EDF and government that there would be huge cost savings from ‘lessons learned’ from the Hinkley Point C build.”

She added that “future generations will have the responsibility to protect the Sizewell C site until the late 2100s and are depending on us to get it right”.

Sizewell C, which reached a final investment decision in the early hours of Tuesday, is expected to be a more efficient replica than its delayed and long-awaited Somerset counterpart, with efficiencies estimated to be between 20% and 25% greater than the first two reactors at Hinkley.

Supply chain ‘incentivised to keep costs down’

Investors insist that they are confident that costs will not overrun, yet Somerset nuclear power station Hinkley Point C is years overdue and over budget.

“The project supply chain is strongly incentivised to keep costs down and investors will see lower returns if there are overruns, reducing risk for taxpayers,” DESNZ told Energy Voice by email.

The new Suffolk nuclear power station at Sizewell is expected to be delivered by the mid-2030s.

Yet Hinkley Point C, which secured a contract-for-difference to operate in 2015, is still not fully built.

Project owner EDF received a dressing down from the French auditor earlier this year, which insisted that it should refinance Hinkley before investing in another nuclear power station in the UK, Sizewell C.

EDF has subsequently reduced its stake to 12.5%, representing an equity commitment of £1.1bn. Centrica has agreed to invest £1.3bn in a 15% stake, while Amber Infrastructure Group and Canadian fund Le Caisse have committed to take an initial 7.6% and 20% stake respectively.

The UK government said it will initially take a stake of 44.9% in Sizewell C, which is expected to reduce if Amber and La Caisse’s combined stake rises to 30%, according to a person familiar with the matter.

July 27, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

From hero to zero- When western leaders realised that Zelensky isn’t a corruption-fighting democrat –

Indeed, war has turbo-charged corruption to a new and more disgusting level.

it is impossible that British and European governmental agencies would not be aware of the huge graft within the Ukrainian state…… Having held up the ‘nothing to see here’ signs for so long, our political leaders may now be starting to worry about how they will account for and continue to justify the billions that western nations are pumping into Ukraine.

Ian Proud, The Peacemonger, Jul 25, 2025

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, in February 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky has been elevated to the status of a hero King, pure in thought and deed, interested only in saving humble Ukraine from the onrushing hordes of Russian Orcs. Like Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, but short, thin-skinned and with a gravelly voice.

Zelensky has been completely immune from criticism in the west, with allegations dismissed and labelled as Kremlin talking points, and accusers called out as Quislings.

Yet, in an instant, that illusion has been shattered.

For the first time since February 2022, Zelensky has been revealed as no different from every President of Ukraine since the country gained independence in August 1991; corrupt and authoritarian.

This comes as no surprise to most realists, but offers a devastating blow to the neo-liberal true-believers who invested their reputations and cash into defeating Russia.

This week, President Zelensky signed a law that stripped two important anti-corruption bodies – the National Anti-Courrption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) of their independence, making them report to the Prosecutor General, who he appointed.

In the face of widespread protest, Zelensky has been forced to backtrack, although it is not year clear what the new arrangements will be, or when they will be implemented, and the Verkhovna Rada has started its summer recess.

Let’s be clear, corruption is and has been a totemic issue in Ukraine, right back to the onset of the Maidan protests in late 2013 and, of course, before that. During my visits to Ukraine, while posted to Russia, it was clear that young people saw tackling corruption as a top priority for the government. This formed part of their desire for Ukraine to move towards European Union membership and for their country to integrate into a community more clearly governed by democracy and the rule of law.

Whether they might consider the European Union to be democratic today, as unelected Commission President Ursula von der Leyen centralises ever more powers, is another question. But that European and anti-corruption aspiration was real back in 2013.

Yet scant progress has been made in tackling corruption since that time. In February 2015, one year after the height of the Maidan protests, the British Guardian newspaper published a long piece entitled ‘Welcome to Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe’. The Ukrainian Prime Minister, Arseny Yatseniuk, who had been personally selected by Victoria Nuland at the U.S. State Department, was forced to resign in April 2016 in the face of allegations of widespread corruption within his government.

In 2021, the European Court of Auditors produced a report entitled Reducing Grand Corruption in Ukraine: several EU initiatives, but still insufficient results. It defined Grand Corruption as ‘the abuse of high-level power that benefits the few, and causes serious and widespread harm to individuals and society’.

In January 2023, an article in the Hill remarked on the need to defeat corruption as Ukraine’s ‘other enemy’. Shortly after that article, a piece, again in the Guardian, discussed the challenges faced by the Head of Ukraine’s National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NACP), which works closely with the now de-clawed NABU and SAPO.

That report in particular talked about specific examples of corruption in President Zelensky’s inner circle. Occasionally, Zelensky has purged his cabinet, to show his commitment to governmental reform, for example, sacking his former Defence Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, in the face of widespread accusations that the Ukrainian Defence Ministry was siphoning off foreign donations on an industrial scale.

But the occasional show trial has never taken the whiff away that Zelensky’s administration is every bit as corrupt as those that preceded it.

This stripping of powers from NABU and SAPO took place as those organisations were closing in with investigations against senior members of the Zelensky administration. Zelensky has spoken about the need to deal with Russian influence, but most people have seen through that smoke screen.

Zelensky was voted into office in 2019 on a platform to eradicate corruption in Ukraine. He has not done so.

And, as I have pointed out often, war has held back real steps to address the problem.

Indeed, war has turbo-charged corruption to a new and more disgusting level. Money for infrastructure projects has been siphoned off, weapons’ orders have been falsified with officials skimming the profits. You’ll see as many hypercars tooling round Kyiv as might be witnessed at the Monaco Grand Prix. Want to get out of enlistment? We can make an arrangement for the right money. Need to cross the border? Just hand over the cash.

This has prompted the mother of all holy shit moments, in which European politicians are quickly waking up to the fact that their hero, Zelensky, is just a flawed human like everyone else. Although, from my personal experience, it is impossible that British and European governmental agencies would not be aware of the huge graft within the Ukrainian state.

Having held up the ‘nothing to see here’ signs for so long, our political leaders may now be starting to worry about how they will account for and continue to justify the billions that western nations are pumping into Ukraine. Two thirds of Ukrainian state expenditure is effectively paid for by us, non-Ukrainian citizens, through the donations of western governments.

And yet Ukraine has become more corrupt…………………………………………………………https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/from-hero-to-zero?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=169225133&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

July 27, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Trump’s Ukraine Plan: Power Play or Exit Strategy?

Beneath the rhetoric lies a fundamental truth: America is disengaging. Not with a decisive withdrawal, but through a form of diplomatic sleight-of-hand. By recasting its role from arsenal to arms dealer (insisting NATO nations pay “a hundred percent” for U.S.-made weapons) the United States transforms the principle of collective defense into a commercial transaction.

Beneath the rhetoric lies a fundamental truth: America is disengaging. Not with a decisive withdrawal, but through a form of diplomatic sleight-of-hand. By recasting its role from arsenal to arms dealer (insisting NATO nations pay “a hundred percent” for U.S.-made weapons) the United States transforms the principle of collective defense into a commercial transaction.

Uncover the hidden logic behind Trump’s delayed weapons aid, NATO rifts, and realpolitik tactics reshaping U.S. foreign policy and Ukraine’s fate.

Post-Liberal Dispatch, Jul 24, 2025, This piece was written by guest contributor Sérgio Horta Soares and has been reviewed and edited by Paulo Aguiar, founder of Post-Liberal Dispatch.

In geopolitics, there are no saints, only actors grappling for advantage, cloaking raw interests in the language of freedom, democracy, and humanitarian concern.

The recent choreography surrounding former U.S. President Donald Trump’s ostensible reentry into the Ukraine conflict lays bare the mechanics of power as they actually function: not through moral imperatives, but through calculated ambiguity, resource preservation, and the exploitation of time.

What masquerades as renewed support for Ukraine is, in substance, a meticulously engineered performance, designed not to rescue Kyiv, but to extricate Washington. Trump’s pronouncements of “billions” in arms, and his threats of tariffs against nations buying Russian oil, are not expressions of strategic commitment; they are instruments of political theater, signals issued to multiple audiences with competing agendas, none of whom are meant to receive a clear message.

To understand this gambit, one must first understand the war’s trajectory. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Western countries (led by the United States) have supplied billions in weapons, economic assistance, and intelligence to Ukraine in an effort to repel Russian advances and prevent the collapse of the post–Cold War European security order.

Initially, this support was framed in terms of values: defending sovereignty, democracy, and international law. But as the war dragged on into its third year, cracks emerged in the Western coalition (rising costs, strained defense stockpiles, and growing domestic opposition to what many now view as an open-ended commitment).

Beneath the rhetoric lies a fundamental truth: America is disengaging. Not with a decisive withdrawal, but through a form of diplomatic sleight-of-hand. By recasting its role from arsenal to arms dealer (insisting NATO nations pay “a hundred percent” for U.S.-made weapons) the United States transforms the principle of collective defense into a commercial transaction.

NATO, once a bastion of mutual obligation, is being refashioned into a procurement agency. The nations of Europe are no longer being asked to fight beside the U.S.; they are being asked to shop.

That this approach incites confusion and resentment among allies is the point. Strategic ambiguity, long a hallmark of Trump’s foreign policy, is not a flaw but a deliberate tactic. By maintaining a posture of conditional engagement, the U.S. preserves its leverage, avoids definitive entanglement, and keeps both adversaries and allies on edge. This calculated vagueness allows for plausible deniability and quick reversals. It ensures that commitments can be revoked, blame can be shifted, and outcomes can be rebranded.

What emerges is not policy, but posture, a stance of strength unmoored from obligation. The imposition of delayed tariffs and the promise of weapons that will not arrive in time to affect the current Russian offensive are not strategic errors; they are expressions of strategic intent. They buy time; not for Ukraine, but for Russia.

Intelligence suggests that Russian commanders believe they can achieve key battlefield objectives within weeks, before weather and logistics slow their operations. Trump’s 50-day deadline for triggering sanctions likely falls outside of that window. This is not coincidence; it is complicity, veiled beneath performative deterrence.

Ukraine, under siege and starved of arms, is left to decipher whether the promised aid is a lifeline or a leash. Meanwhile, Washington hedges its bets, calibrating its involvement to extract maximum geopolitical return with minimum exposure.

The material realities further erode any illusion of robust support. Western arsenals are depleted. Since 2022, the U.S. and its NATO allies have shipped tens of thousands of artillery shells, air defense systems, and armored vehicles to Ukraine. Yet the West’s military-industrial base is still operating on peacetime rhythms, struggling to keep pace with the demands of high-intensity warfare. Arms production in the U.S. and Europe cannot meet short-term demand, and weapons systems, such as Germany’s promised Patriots, are delayed by months.

These constraints reveal a widening gap between political intent and logistical feasibility. Without urgent expansion of industrial capacity, Western efforts risk falling behind Russia’s war economy, rendering even well-publicized support strategies operationally irrelevant

The fragmentation of NATO in response to the Trump plan is less an aberration than a revelation.

France and Italy reject participation outright, prioritizing domestic industry and fiscal restraint. Hungary abstains on ideological grounds, and the Czech Republic prefers alternative aid mechanisms. Even those nations nominally listed as partners (Finland, Denmark, Sweden) were reportedly blindsided by the announcement. This is improvisation, and it exposes the brittle scaffolding of transatlantic unity, where each state calculates its own interests and distances itself from burdens it cannot (or will not) carry.

Within this fractured landscape, Ukraine is not a partner but a bargaining chip, leveraged between competing powers with conflicting priorities. Trump’s ultimate objective is not Ukrainian victory but………………………………………………..(Subscribers only) https://postliberaldispatch.substack.com/p/trumps-ukraine-plan-power-play-or?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=4747899&post_id=169097642&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

July 27, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

The Flamanville EPR is still shut down: we know more after the visit of the nuclear regulator

Shut down since mid-June 2025 due to a leak on a protection valve, the Flamanville EPR received a visit from a team from ASNR, the nuclear regulator.

The Flamanville EPR is still shut down: we know more after the visit of the
nuclear watchdog. Shut down since mid-June 2025 due to a leak on a
protection valve, the Flamanville EPR received a visit from a team from
ASNR, the nuclear regulator.

La Presse de la Manche 22nd July 2025, https://actu.fr/normandie/flamanville_50184/lepr-de-flamanville-est-toujours-a-larret-on-en-sait-plus-apres-le-passage-du-gendarme-du-nucleaire_62944598.html

July 27, 2025 Posted by | France, safety | Leave a comment

Predictably, there was no progress in Istanbul peace talks

Citizens have been fed a non-stop diet of propaganda about Zelensky our savior from the terrors of the Vlad the terrible. Yet now cracks have appeared and people are asking whether Zelensky is in fact just as corrupt as every Ukrainian leader who came before him

Will war now stretch into 2026 or has Zelensky’s anti-corruption blunder changed the game?

Ian Proud, The Peacemonger, Jul 24, 2025

Below my article of yesterday in Responsible Statecraft. I predicted there would be no progress at the Istanbul peace talks yesterday and there was no progress. The meeting apparently lasted just 40 minutes or so, with little to show except for further agreement on a further round of POW exchanges.

Zelensky didn’t need to cut a deal in Istanbul because he figures that the US will impose harsh secondary sanctions on Russia’s trading partners on 2 September, amounting to a 100% tariff. I have written previously about why I believe that will backfire on the US.

In any case, Zelensky stalling on peace talks in Istanbul may soon be overtaken by events closer to home, in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

It would be easy, I think, to underestimate just how big an impact this will have on public perceptions of Zelensky in western nations that have supported Ukraine to the hilt in the war, and to the impoverishment of their own people. Citizens have been fed a non-stop diet of propaganda about Zelensky our savior from the terrors of the Vlad the terrible. Yet now cracks have appeared and people are asking whether Zelensky is in fact just as corrupt as every Ukrainian leader who came before him. More on that in my next article.

But having started yesterday certain that war would drag into 2026, I am coming round to the idea that it could be over this year. The Ukrainian front line is cracking in various places. European leaders may find it harder than ever before to justify feeding the Zelensky gravy train. One thing I do know, it’s going to be a rocky ride in Kyiv for a while. And more people will die on the front line while the drama unfolds.

Time to end this nonsense now.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has said that a further round of talks between Ukraine and Russia could start as early as this week, and indicated that “everything had to be done to get a ceasefire.” Yet it is far from clear that a ceasefire will be possible. And it’s likely that the war will continue into 2026.

In June, Zelensky was pressing the European Union to go further in its sanctions against Russia, including calling for a $30 per barrel cap on Russian oil shipments. Washington effectively vetoed a lowering of the oil price cap at the recent G7 Summit in Canada. However, on July 18 the European Union agreed its 18th round of Russian sanctions since war began, overcoming a blocking move by Slovakia in the process.

This imposes a cap on Russian oil shipments at 15% below market value ($47.60 at the time the package was agreed) and places further restrictions on Russia’s energy sector. But, there is scepticism that this will dent Russian revenues without the U.S. mirroring the measures, as the prior $60 per barrel G7 cap made no noticeable difference. Zelensky hailed the package as “essential and timely.”

Despite the overtures towards peace talks, economic sanctions against Russia continue to be the preferred approach for both Zelensky and for the EU. And the clock is ticking for the focus to shift back to President Trump’s proposed secondary sanctions. Having given Russia 50 days to agree a peace deal with Ukraine or face tariffs of 100% against its major trading partners, Trump has effectively set a deadline of September 2.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….this limited agenda will not be enough to satisfy the Kremlin that Ukraine is ready to negotiate and make progress towards an agreement on Russia’s so-called underlying concerns, the key concern being Ukraine’s NATO aspiration. Without the negotiations seriously getting into this and other such substantive issues as the disposition of forces and territory when the fighting stops, don’t expect a leader-level meeting any time soon.

…………………This dynamic of Europe and the U.S. threatening Russia with sanctions unless progress towards peace is made, while no expectations are placed on Ukraine to make concessions, has been locked in since March of 2015. It simply will not work.

Calling on Putin to meet in Istanbul is therefore, like it was in May, an act of political theater by Zelensky. He needs to keep his Western sponsors on side and for the flow of money and arms into Ukraine to continue. He also wants to polish his image as a putative global statesman.

Meanwhile, at the most recent Contact Group of Support for Ukraine meeting, then Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal requested an additional $6 billion to cover this year’s deficit in defense procurement. He also urged “partners to allocate funds for Ukraine in their budget proposals for 2026, right now.”

Anyone who believes that Zelensky is really committed to accelerating moves towards peace in Ukraine may, I fear, be overly optimistic. I am increasingly convinced that war will continue into next year. https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/predictably-there-was-no-progress?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=169121725&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

July 27, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Anas Sarwar urged to break silence on Labour’s ‘nuclear tax’ for Scots

ANAS Sarwar has been urged to clarify whether he backs a plan to apply a
“nuclear tax” to Scots with bills set to go up due to the rising cost of an
English nuclear plant. Energy Security Secretary Ed Miliband has confirmed
the Sizewell-C plant will cost £38 billion, nearly double the previous
estimate of £20bn.

Miliband snuck out a statement hours before Parliament
was due to go into a six-week summer recess, admitting energy bill payers
would face a decade-long levy as a result of the price hike. This is
despite Labour promising ahead of the General Election that their flagship
GB Energy policy would save people £300 a year on their energy bills. In
actual fact, bills are on average 10% higher than they were this time last
year.

The National 23rd July 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25335813.anas-sarwar-urged-break-silence-labours-nuclear-tax-scots/

July 27, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

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