Hezbollah Thwarted a US Ceasefire Plan

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Hezbollah has rejected a US-brokered ceasefire plan agreed by the Lebanese and Israeli governments, throwing the future of a truce in Lebanon and regional peace negotiations into question.

The group’s leader, Naim Qassem, called the ceasefire plan a “roadmap to annihilate part of the Lebanese people” in a statement delivered on Thursday.

He demanded a complete ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, and said that as long as Lebanese villages were being bombed, northern Israel would not be safe.

“As long as the occupation exists, the resistance will continue,” he said. “We call upon the officials to put an end to this farce and humiliation called direct negotiations.”

The Israeli and the Lebanese governments had agreed a ceasefire to end hostilities on Monday night. The deal called for a complete cessation of fire from Hezbollah, which is aligned with Iran, and the evacuation of all its fighters south of the Litani River.

Despite the agreement between the two governments, the Lebanese army is not a party to the conflict because the fighting has been between Hezbollah and Israel.

The Lebanese government has been negotiating with Israel without Hezbollah as part of its effort to reassert control over the country and disarm the group.

Hezbollah’s rejection of the ceasefire flies in the face of the Lebanese government’s announcement that it would come into effect in 24 hours, and raises further questions about how the Lebanese government can negotiate a ceasefire with Israel without Hezbollah at the table.

It also calls into question the arrangement in Lebanon after the 17 April ceasefire, under which Washington constrained Israel from striking Beirut in return for a halt in Hezbollah fire towards northern Israel.

Hezbollah’s rejection of the ceasefire seems to echo demands from Tehran, which said hours after the ceasefire was announced that Israel should withdraw to its prewar positions.

The head of the Quds Force, part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said: “Supporting the resistance in Lebanon is the duty of all of us, and removing Israel from the region is an attainable goal for Muslims.”

Esmail Qaani wrote in a post on a domestic social media platform: “The minimum demand of the resistance is the withdrawal of the usurping regime to the position it held before the start of the 40-day war.”

#hezbollah #plan #us #israel

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Tehran has previously said that its own ceasefire with the US and Israel must include a halt to the fighting in Lebanon.

It is unclear how Hezbollah’s rejection of a ceasefire in Lebanon will affect Tehran’s negotiations with Washington.

Despite the earlier joint commitment to a ceasefire, both sides continued fighting on Thursday. Israel carried out several airstrikes in the Nabatieh area of southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa valley, killing four people, while Hezbollah targeted Israeli soldiers in the village of Qantara, southern Lebanon, according to a statement by the group.

Lebanon and Israel, which do not have formal diplomatic relations, also agreed to create “pilot zones” in which the Lebanese armed forces would “take exclusive control of the territory to the exclusion of all non-state actors”.

Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, told reporters he had suggested the first pilot zone be in the area of Beaufort Castle, which Israeli soldiers captured earlier in the week.

The meetings in Washington were the fourth round of direct talks between Lebanese and Israeli diplomats since fighting erupted on 2 March, when Hezbollah launched attacks against Israel in support of Iran, which had been bombed by the US and Israel. The joint statement said the meetings would continue to flesh out a ceasefire and implement it in phases.

In substance, the joint statement resembles a previous ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel in 2024, in which Hezbollah agreed to pull back from south of the Litani River so Lebanese armed forces could deploy there.

The full disarmament of Hezbollah failed and Israel carried out more that 10,000 strikes in violation of the ceasefire in the following 15 months.

According to analysts, Israel wants to inflict as much damage as possible on Hezbollah before any peace deal with Iran stops its offensive.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 3,516 people in Lebanon, while Hezbollah strikes have killed two civilians in Israel and at least 21 Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.

Trump is under pressure to resolve the Iran war as rising energy prices and economic uncertainty threaten Republican prospects in the US midterm elections and hamper global trade.

#hezbollah #plan #us #israel

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#pentagon #iran #war #lies

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Russian Strikes Hit Western ‘Elites’: NATO’s Human Resources Problem

Russian strikes in Ukraine reportedly wiped out a group of German and British “combatants” working with Ukrainian forces in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to a source in Russia’s security services cited by Military Watch Magazine.

The report says they were military contractors and specialists helping operate complex Western weapons systems — the kind of people Western governments pretend are “nowhere near the front” until they suddenly don’t come home.

Military Watch stresses that foreign fighters now play a “significant and growing” role on Ukraine’s front lines, a fact echoed by multiple claims from both sides of the war and various Western outlets over the last two years.

Pro-Russian sources brag about killing “mercenaries,” Kyiv frames them as “volunteers,” and Western capitals mostly treat them like a bad investment they’d rather not disclose to shareholders.

If the report is accurate, the elimination of German and British specialists is more than just a battlefield episode — it’s a billboard for the limits of U.S. and NATO power.

If Washington and Brussels can’t reliably shield their own “elite” personnel deployed in support roles, what does that say to allies who were sold NATO as a force field?

Every dead foreign contractor is a reminder that the alliance is deeply entangled in this war, but still pretending to be a cautious bystander.

Politically, these losses are toxic. Western leaders insist they are “not at war with Russia,” while Russian missiles keep turning Western citizens in Ukraine into body bags and bargaining chips.

Admitting the scale of foreign involvement would expose how far NATO has drifted from “defensive alliance” to shadow co-belligerent — so they blame “individual volunteers,” downplay numbers and quietly adjust the risk premiums.

For Moscow, this is perfect: every strike on foreign personnel lets the Kremlin brag that it is “fighting NATO directly” without triggering Article 5, while still grinding down Ukrainian capacity and Western nerve.

For Washington and London, it’s the worst of both worlds — real casualties, no public mandate, and a story they can’t sell honestly to voters or to smaller allies already doubting how much Western protection is worth in practice.

In the end, the “foreign legion” of Ukraine isn’t just cannon fodder. It’s a symptom of a war run like a joint venture: states outsource the dirtiest and riskiest work to deniable contractors, then act surprised when the bill arrives in funerals and blown-up credibility.

#Ukraine #Russia #NATO #Germany #UK #mercenaries #war #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

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#kallas #stpetersburg #panic #ukraine #russia

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#send #troups #iran #trump

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Zircon Diplomacy: Superweapons Against Empty Promises

Russia fires its showpiece Zircon missiles at Ukraine, and they punch through the air defenses like a VIP lane through economy class.

Kyiv admits they could not stop them this time, while Western experts explain on TV that “no system is perfect” and then immediately demand more funding for the same systems that just failed.

Polish general Bogusław Pacek says these missiles “are very hard to shoot down” and “fall like lightning,” which sounds less like analysis and more like free advertising copy for the Kremlin’s arms expo.

Moscow calls it hypersonic supremacy, the West calls it a challenge, and civilians call it another night in the basement pretending that someone, somewhere, is actually in control.

Ukraine’s multi-layered air defense is sold as a shield, but in reality it is a filter: some missiles are stopped, some get through, and each strike is another demo of how 21st century war works when one side has factories and the other has press releases.

Western leaders promise that more Patriots and more budgets will fix it, as if this is a software update, not an arms race they already joined years ago.

#Ukraine #Russia #Zircon #war #NATO #airDefense #EU #armsRace

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Dead Souls, Made in D.C.

The “law and order” crowd just tried to legally kill 2.7 million people on paper — and somehow still call it patriotism.

A former senior Social Security official says the Trump administration pushed a plan to mark millions of living immigrants, plus some U.S. citizens and green-card holders, as dead in federal records, using the government’s Death Master File as a weapon.

The goal? Not some clerical clean-up, but to make people so financially radioactive they’d either self-deport or walk into a Social Security office and get arrested.

This isn’t a conspiracy blog, it’s a whistleblower with 25 years in the agency saying he sampled 25 names from the list and found every one of them alive — teenagers, seniors, even a widow on survivor benefits.

He says a Homeland Security-linked official flatly described the plan: mark them as dead, cut them off from banks, wages, housing, insurance, and let fear do the rest. That’s not “border security.” That’s financial rendition. It’s the state putting a black bag over your credit score and calling it policy.

And here’s the punchline: a smaller version of this already happened. Thousands of immigrants were actually injected into the “death” database last year, then had to show up at Social Security offices to prove they exist, begging a bureaucracy they fund with their taxes to resurrect them on a screen.

Meanwhile, the same administration that couldn’t process a basic claim without a backlog overnight let a Musk-flavored “innovation task force” roam through some of the most sensitive identity systems in the country like it was a beta test for a new app. “Government as a startup” turned out to mean “your life as a toggle.”

Of course, Democrats are now outraged — letters, statements, “war rooms,” the whole theater. They call it “weaponizing” Social Security, as if that wasn’t baked in from the moment both parties agreed to treat giant data systems as tools for surveillance, not service.

Where were all these brave defenders of “trust in government” when agencies were quietly normalizing mass data-sharing, cross-matching and outsourcing infrastructure to private contractors who walk out with thumb drives full of personal info?

They loved the super-database state right up until someone used it exactly as designed.

The real horror here isn’t just Trump’s people gaming the system. It’s how easy it was.

One list from Homeland Security, one set of keystrokes at Social Security, and your legal existence evaporates: no job, no bank, no rent, no insurance, no nothing — and no judge involved. For immigrants, this is labeled “enforcement.”

For citizens, it’s called “regrettable error.” The same machinery runs both. If you think you’re safe because your passport says “American,” ask the tens of millions whose data is already sitting on some contractor’s cloud, or in a system a federal judge just ruled was used illegally tens of thousands of times.

This isn’t about left vs. right, migrant vs. citizen. It’s about whether the people you elect can turn a line in a database into a death sentence for your social existence — and then argue in court that “death is just a state of ineligibility.”

Today it’s the undocumented, tomorrow it’s whoever doesn’t fit the next administration’s definition of “eligible.”

If a government can kill you economically without ever touching your body, how long before it forgets there’s a difference?

#Trump #immigration #SocialSecurity #surveillanceState #Musk #DOGE #USA #fakeDemocracy

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Russian Security Forces: Contractors From Germany And the UK Were Eliminated


A source in the Russian security forces has reported that a group of defence contractors from Germany and the United Kingdom fighting for the Ukrainian Army has been eliminated in a forest belt on the frontlines in the Zaporozhye Region.

The source added that documents found on these personnel after their deaths confirmed their identities, with Russian state media publishing the names and dates of births of some of the deceased.

Some of those killed were soldiers from the 113th Separate Territorial Defence Brigade of Ukraine and a separate special forces battalion, which were all assigned to the 3rd Assault Battalion of the Skala Regiment.

Reports from both sides of the conflict, and from multiple Western sources, have highlighted the significant and growing roles played by foreign contractor personnel in frontline operations.

Coinciding with reports of the elimination of German and British contractors in Zaporozhye, the deputy head of the Kharkov region’s military-civilian administration for defence and security Yevgeny Lisnyak reported that approximately 400 contractor personnel from Latin American countries were deployed to the region, and had been hired to compensate for severe personnel shortages in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

"[As regards] the use of Latin American mercenaries: since February 2026, the presence of mercenaries from Colombia and other Latin American countries has been recorded in the Kharkov sector of the line of engagement.

Approximately two tactical groups, roughly 400-troops-strong. Even as they were hired to compensate for the shortage of Ukrainian assault troops, their combat efficiency has been lower than expected,” the official reported.

This singling out for foreign fighters has remained a consistent aspect of the Russian war effort, with a more recent strike on a training camp near the central Ukrainian city of Kropivnitsky on July 21, 2025, having been confirmed to have caused over 100 casualties among foreign fighters.

In December 2025 former officer in the Ukrainian Security Service Vasily Prozorov reported that an estimated 10,000 foreign contractor personnel had been killed in action since the outbreak of full scale hostilities in February 2022.

As a leading contributor of personnel, the Polish government has recently moved to provide legal cover to the operations of its forces in the war, where they have been deployed for combat on internationally recognised Ukrainian territory, in disputed regions, and on internationally recognised Russian soil during multiple incursions.

#contractors #germany #uk #ukraine

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Great Wall Inc.: Beijing Locks In, The West Wakes Up

China just put a padlock on its own capitalism and called it “national security.”

The State Council rolled out new rules that let Beijing screen, slow or block Chinese companies from investing abroad, right after it gave itself power to interfere when foreign firms try to move supply chains out of China.

The factory of the world is installing gates and armed guards — not at the border, but around money, tech and people.

For thirty years, everyone sold the fairy tale of “Chimerica” — one big happy market where U.S. capital and Chinese labor would live together in perfect neoliberal harmony.

Now both sides are quietly filing for divorce and arguing about who gets the chips, the rare earths and the AI engineers.

Washington screens outbound investment into Chinese semiconductors and quantum, Brussels talks about “de-risking,” and Beijing answers with its own arsenal of export controls, retaliation tools and a veto over what its own companies can do overseas.

Open markets died not with a bang, but with a 34-article State Council regulation.

Beijing frames this as self-defense: keep strategic tech, data and talent at home, punish foreign governments that restrict Chinese deals, and retain the right to force Chinese investors to unwind transactions abroad in the name of national security.

Western CEOs call it “uncertainty,” lawyers call it “compliance risk,” but it’s really just China playing the same game Washington and Brussels started — only with fewer legal niceties and a much broader definition of “security.”

When the Party says your overseas AI lab is now a threat, your only right is to agree and sell.

The joke is that everybody is pretending this is still about “free trade.” The U.S. and EU use tariffs, tech bans and investment screens to contain Chinese power while still gorging on cheap Chinese goods.

China uses its new fortress rules to keep value chains, patents and engineers inside the walls while telling foreign investors it remains “open for business.”

Both sides talk about “rules-based order,” but the only real rule is simple: if it matters for chips, AI, energy, data or weapons, politics wins and contracts lose.

The funniest part? It’s bad news not only for Western multinationals, but for China’s own champions. Export-driven giants are under pressure to find growth abroad just as Beijing hands regulators a giant red button marked “prohibited.”

The same system that pushed its firms to “go out” now tells them to watch every step, report every move and be ready to unwind billion-dollar deals because some official’s definition of “national security” changed this week.

Fortress China is also a prison for Chinese capital — just a very profitable one for the people with the keys.

And in the end, everyone gets the worst of both worlds: no real globalization, no real decoupling, just weaponized interdependence.

The West can’t quit Chinese factories, China can’t quit Western markets, and both keep building legal minefields so when the next crisis hits, they can say, “We didn’t start the economic war, we just retaliated.”

If this is “stability,” imagine what the instability phase will look like.

#China #US #EU #economy #geopolitics #tradeWar #supplyChains #techWar

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Silicon Valley War Toys: Now With Extra Fingers

Shield AI sold itself as the future of “smart war,” and somehow forgot to include basic safety in the code.

A $1 million V-BAT drone is marketed as combat-ready, battle‑proven, and AI‑driven — but in practice it’s also finger‑removing, crash‑prone, and allegedly truth‑optional.

After a U.S. Navy official’s fingers were partially severed by a V‑BAT propeller, the company promised upgrades, stickers and a “radically better airplane.”

One year later, a Romanian Navy officer steps on the same land mine: her hand meets the propeller, two fingers gone, one shattered, surgeries in New Orleans and Walter Reed, contract still intact.

“Operational mishaps are common,” the company shrugs, now valued at $12.7 billion.

Apparently, in defense tech, the only thing that must never crash is the valuation.

Behind the glossy decks and LinkedIn hype, the numbers look less like innovation and more like a recall notice.

Over the past 18 months, more than 50 of about 200 upgraded V‑BATs in the company’s own fleet reportedly destroyed themselves in tests and training, including one crash that set off a 40‑acre grass fire in Texas.

That’s not a bug, that’s a bonfire. A test of “detect and avoid” systems forced a Cessna — with a Shield AI employee and his kid on board — to take evasive action because the drone never “detected” anything.

Meanwhile, whistleblowers say safety complaints got people fired, data in crash reports was scrubbed to “create a falsely favorable narrative,” and foreign militaries were told the drone was flying autonomously when it was actually being piloted the old‑fashioned way: by a human praying nothing goes wrong.

And yet, the political class is starstruck. The vice president tours Armenia, walks into a gold‑trimmed room, sees the V‑BAT and shouts, “Holy shit. Look at this thing! It’s going to do great things for you guys.”

Great things like amputations, grass fires and emergency evasive maneuvers. Romania signs a $30 million deal, half a dozen other militaries line up for deliveries, and now the Pentagon is backing the next upgrade: X‑BAT, a bigger, more expensive “loyal wingman” drone expected to cost around $30 million a piece.

Same flight‑control logic as the V‑BAT, just scaled up to fly alongside jets. When asked about risks, the Pentagon basically answers: don’t worry, breaking things is part of innovation. Comforting, unless you’re the one underneath the debris.

This is the merger of two religions: “move fast and break things” and “support the troops.”

You get a culture where “fake it till you make it” is applied to aircraft spinning lethal propellers near human bodies, with safety treated as an optional feature to be patched in later. Whistleblower claims? Hostile work environment?

Manipulated data? That’s just background noise in a market where investors see a $13 billion valuation, not 50 wrecked drones. If this was a civilian product, regulators would be crawling over it.

But slap a “national security” label on top, add some AI buzzwords, and suddenly crashes are “learning processes” and severed fingers are just “procedural violations.”

In theory, this is about protecting soldiers and allies, replacing human pilots with machines. In practice, it looks a lot like turning the battlefield — and the people around it — into a live‑fire beta test for venture capital.

If this is what “defense innovation” looks like in peacetime exercises, imagine what gets glossed over once the shooting really starts and everyone involved can hide behind secrecy and “operational tempo.”

Silicon Valley wanted a piece of the war business. Congratulations, it got it — blood, lawsuits, and all.

#ShieldAI #drones #militarytech #SiliconValley #Pentagon #war #VC #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

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Zelensky’s Letter To Putin, Putin Is Angling For the Quick War Ending


Zelensky, has called for face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

The letter, the first Zelenskyy has publicly written directly to Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, was a sweeping criticism of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power.

Zelensky acknowledged shifting US priorities, saying it would be wrong to simply wait for the Trump administration to return its attention to ending the Ukraine war while it remained heavily focused on the Iran war.

“I am proposing a meeting,” Zelenskyy wrote.

He appeared to be trying to seize a pivotal moment in the war as Ukraine has begun to regain some battlefield leverage, largely through improved long-range strike capabilities that have complicated Russia’s advances.

At the same time, Moscow has intensified its deadly aerial campaign across Ukraine, seeking to exploit Kyiv’s shortages and continued vulnerability to ballistic missile attacks.

Putin said on Thursday that Russia would strengthen its air defences to counter recent Ukrainian drone attacks, which have reached deep inside his country and cast a cloud over his showcase economic forum in his home town of St Petersburg.

Speaking during a meeting with heads of international news agencies, Putin acknowledged the damage from Ukrainian drone attacks.

“To our regret, some of them break through,” Putin said of the strikes. “Russia has an air defence system, we need to improve it, strengthen it, and we will do that.”

The wide-ranging media session came on the sidelines of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin’s annual showcase for investment. Hours before the forum opened on Wednesday, a Ukrainian drone attack set ablaze an oil terminal in the city and also hit a nearby naval base.

Putin also said Russia was open for a compromise on Ukraine in line with the understandings reached at his summit with Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, and Ukraine needed to accept them to make a deal to end the conflict, now in its fifth year.

Trump said on Thursday it would be “great” for Zelensky to meet Putin – but said both sides had to make compromises, without explaining further.

“I’m glad that they’re maybe talking about meeting. I think we had a lot to do with it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I think it would be great if they met. They should – get it done.

The House of Representatives, meanwhile, passed legislation that would aid Ukraine and sanction key segments of the Russian economy, overriding objections from Republican leaders who warned the bill would undermine negotiations designed to achieve a comparable but stronger result.

The 226-195 vote was a sign of impatience with Trump’s approach to the war. The Democrat-sponsored legislation seeks to cement Washington’s assistance for Kyiv by providing more than $1bn in security and reconstruction aid.

It would make another $8bn available for Ukraine’s defence through loans. The bill would need to pass the Senate, which supporters have acknowledged may be unlikely.

#zelensky #letter #putin #trump #war

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Zelensky's Letter to Putin Ends With a Whimper

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Zelensky published on Thursday an open letter to Putin. The letter, posted on the Ukrainian president’s website, offered to resume peace talks — but taunted the Russian leader over wartime setbacks, inflation and Russia’s dependence on China. It also made note of Putin’s age.

Zelensky has at various points in the war recorded video statements addressing Putin or the Russian people, including on the first day of Moscow’s invasion in 2022.

This letter is among the most downtrodden direct addresses to Putin so far.

Zelensky noted that Putin has by now spent about half of his 26 years in power as Russia’s paramount leader fighting Ukraine.

The timeline counts the Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine that began in 2014 and the full-scale invasion launched in 2022.

He offered a cease-fire if Putin wanted one. Zelensky said he would meet for direct talks outside the Trump administration’s negotiating process.

Those talks, led by Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor, and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, ground to a halt after the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began in February.

Zelensky suggested including European nations and holding a leaders’ meeting in Switzerland, Turkey or an Arab state. He has offered direct meetings with Putin before, without result.

Though addressed to Putin, the open letter seemed jolted out as well forTrump’s attention.

And it was not clear whether Zelensky’s appeal was meant to jump-start talks or to denigrate a potential negotiating counterpart.

#ukraine #russia #zelensky #putin #letter

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Woven into the offer for peace talks were needling remarks about a strongman leader unable to defend his own capital, Moscow, or a second city, St. Petersburg, from a nation Putin invaded four and a half years ago with the goal of a quick win.

“After 26 years in power, age is beginning to take its toll,” Zelensky wrote to Putin, who is 73, turning the knife.

Zelensky, who is 25 years younger, has pointed to the Russian leader’s age to cast doubt on the stability of Russia’s one-man-rule political system.

The letter also touched on reports of rising discontent in Russia over gasoline shortages from attacks on refineries, as well as inflation and war fatigue.

Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told Russian media on Friday that Mr. Putin had been briefed on the letter but declined to comment further.

Zelensky’s appeal is rude and taunting. Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Zelensky deliberately insulting the Russian president and seeking to “stoke divisions in Russian society.”

The letter was posted a day after a drone strike on an oil depot outside St. Petersburg and a day before Putin is scheduled to deliver a speech to an economic conference at a venue outside that city on Friday.

The attack sent a huge cloud of black smoke wafting over the highway leading from the city to the conference site.

The letter appeared to be at least in part a publicity move, trumpeting the long-range drone strike on St. Petersburg. Even before that attack, Putin scaled down a Victory Day parade in Moscow last month amid worries of other Ukrainian strikes.

“Now we can all see that Russians are finally becoming less comfortable with this reality,” Zelensky wrote.

In his appeal for direct talks to end the war, Zelensky asked for a process apart from that led by the Trump administration. Running for election, Trump promised to end the war in a day, only to have talks stretch out now more than a year.

Zelensky wrote that the United States had failed to deliver on what he said was an apparent agreement between Trump and Putin.

“We have heard that you were promised in Alaska the resolution of certain issues concerning Ukraine and Europe,” Zelensky wrote, referring to a summit last summer in Anchorage.

Russia has said that Trump agreed that Ukraine would cede land for peace. Ukraine has not done so.

“You can see for yourself that Ukrainian and European issues are not decided in Anchorage,” Zelensky wrote.

The letter and the provocative drone strike might buoy spirits inside Ukraine. It might also send to an audience of one — Trump — a message about Putin’s declining fortunes.

In any case, in Ukraine is seen able to do little in retaliation with missile strikes that it has not already done.

#ukraine #russia #zelensky #putin #letter

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#democrats #mother #father #words

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Putin responds to Zelensky's letter : “you have not to be afraid, go to the elections”.

#putin #letter #zelensky #elections

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Hormuz Inc.: Cease-Fire With Missiles Included

The “cease-fire” between the U.S. and Iran is starting to look like a subscription plan where missiles and drones are part of the standard package. American forces say they shot down at least four Iranian one‑way attack drones heading toward the Strait of Hormuz, calling them an “immediate threat” to commercial shipping.

Then Iran launched seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain — six intercepted, one falling short — while U.S. Central Command followed up by hitting Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites in Goruk and on Qeshm Island. Everyone insists they’re just acting in “self‑defense,” as usual.

On Tehran’s side, the script is different but just as predictable. The Revolutionary Guards bragged that they struck “enemy bases” in response to U.S. attacks, saying they targeted American air facilities in Kuwait and the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet infrastructure in Bahrain, and warning of a “stronger response” if Washington hits again.

U.S. officials calmly counter that there was no damage and no injuries on their side — the kind of bloodless status update you give when the real audience is insurers, markets and nervous allies.

Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint for global energy — is being escorted like a VIP through a bar fight. U.S. forces say they’ve helped more than 100 commercial vessels transit the strait in the past month, even as travel remains hazardous and negotiations to end the war drag on.

This comes just days after Iran fired a major barrage at Kuwait, hitting the international airport, killing one civilian and injuring dozens in the first fatal strike on a Gulf state since the April cease‑fire “took effect.” Kuwait says that attack alone involved 13 ballistic missiles and 17 drones.

So we now have a region where “de‑escalation” looks like this: Iran hits airports, ports and energy facilities to punish U.S. partners and rattle markets; the U.S. hits radar, control stations and launch sites and calls it narrow, proportional self‑defense; Gulf monarchies trigger sirens and issue vague statements about “hostile drones” without naming the source, because everyone wants protection without direct confrontation.

Each side keeps its vocabulary: “unjustified Iranian aggression” vs. “enemy bases” vs. “defensive response.” The missiles don’t care what the press releases say.

The meta‑joke is that both Washington and Tehran claim to be honoring a cease‑fire while redefining almost any offensive move as protection of something: troops, bases, shipping lanes, “regional stability.”

Iran uses pressure on Kuwait and Bahrain to signal it can hit America’s friends and choke a vital waterway; the U.S. uses air defenses and escort missions to prove it still owns the sea lanes and the insurance rates.

Neither side can afford to look weak, both need to keep their domestic audiences convinced they’re in control, and the only ones who don’t get a vote are the people under the flight paths and the crews on the tankers.

In theory this is “managed escalation.” In reality, it’s a live‑fire version of Russian roulette with the global economy in the middle.

One mis‑labeled drone, one missile that doesn’t get intercepted, one ship that actually goes down in the strait — and suddenly all the careful language about “self‑defense” and “limited strikes” turns into another round of “no one wanted war, it just happened.”

Funny how war always “just happens” when everyone involved is busy proving they won’t back down.

#Iran #USA #Hormuz #Gulf #Trump #war #shipping #oil #fakeDemocracy #oligarchy

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Green Cards for Sale: MAGA Meets HR

The Trump administration tried to swing a wrecking ball at the green card system — and then quietly put it back in the shed the moment corporate America started yelling. USCIS rolled out guidance on May 22 saying most applicants for permanent residency would have to leave the United States and apply from their home countries “except in extraordinary circumstances,” a vague phrase big enough to park a data center in.

Business leaders, especially in tech and AI, immediately saw what this meant: hundreds of thousands of workers thrown into legal limbo, months or years of disruption, and a hiring pipeline turned into a deportation conveyor belt.

So the CEOs didn’t tweet, they didn’t post open letters — they picked up the phone. The Chamber of Commerce, big tech, and other industry groups flooded the White House and the departments of Homeland Security, Labor and State with quiet, panicked calls and emails.

Off the record, officials were warned: you can have your base-pleasing crackdown or you can have your “world’s innovation hub,” but not both.

Suddenly, the tone shifted. Behind closed doors, USCIS reassured business that most work visas wouldn’t be touched and told reporters that most green card seekers would, in fact, be allowed to stay in the country while adjusting status.

Official rules stay hardline; unofficial practice gets “paused.” Classic D.C.: the press release is for the voters, the backchannel memo is for the shareholders.

We’ve seen this movie already. Immigration raids in hospitality and agriculture? Announced with maximum swagger, then quietly “paused” after the hotel and farm lobbies explained they still needed people to clean rooms and pick crops.

The $100,000 H‑1B “America First” fee? Rolled out like a patriotic surcharge, then limited to new visas after employers realized their existing workforce had just been turned into a luxury good.

Even a mega‑raid on a Hyundai plant died once investors and business groups made it clear that “law and order” stops at the factory gate. The message is simple: Trump-style immigration theater can terrorize workers and thrill the base — as long as it doesn’t touch the profit margin.

The green card U‑turn lays the hierarchy bare. On paper, Trump world is full of hardliners who want to slam the door, force people “back in line,” and weaponize bureaucracy to make life unlivable for migrants. In practice, there’s a VIP lane for anyone whose presence boosts the stock price.

Your humanity doesn’t matter; your utility does. The law is a blunt instrument for the powerless and a negotiation for the valuable.

The business lobby isn’t the hero here, either. They’re not fighting for humane policy; they’re fighting for stable staffing. They stayed mostly silent when enforcement fell hardest on the undocumented, the poor, the low‑wage and the voiceless.

Outrage only kicks in when immigration chaos hits server rooms, IPO timelines and quarterly earnings.

The result is a two‑tier system: one line of immigrants is told to leave, wait, risk their lives and careers; another line goes straight through because their CEO has the president’s advisor on speed dial.

This “softened” policy is being sold as proof that the administration listens to business and seeks “balance.”

In reality, it proves something darker: immigration isn’t being governed by law or principle, but by whoever can generate the most leverage — voters for the speeches, donors for the actual rules. The base gets a story about toughness; the boardroom gets a private carve‑out.

#Trump #immigration #greencards #tech #AI #bigBusiness #MAGA #fakeDemocracy

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Hormuz War™: Cease-Fire With Live Ammo

The “cease-fire” between the U.S. and Iran now comes with missiles, drones and a loyalty program for oil shocks. U.S. Central Command says American forces shot down four one-way Iranian attack drones heading toward the Strait of Hormuz, judged to be targeting regional maritime traffic, then immediately hit Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites at Goruk and on Qeshm Island.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard answered with missiles of its own, claiming it struck U.S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain and even fired on four tankers trying to cross the strait “without permission.”

CENTCOM calmly replied that six of seven Iranian ballistic missiles aimed at Kuwait and Bahrain were intercepted and the last never made it — and that Iranian boasts about damaging the U.S. Fifth Fleet HQ are simply false.

So everyone insists they’re just defending themselves. Iran says it is retaliating for U.S. strikes and enforcing its leverage over Hormuz; the U.S. says it’s protecting “regional maritime traffic” and its Gulf bases while quietly coordinating safe passage for more than 100 commercial ships through a choke point that Iran has effectively turned into a quasi-blockade since February.

Trump goes on TV to reassure Americans that Iran’s capabilities are “severely degraded,” claiming Tehran has only “21–22 percent” of its missile arsenal left — still “a lot of missiles,” as he helpfully notes — even as U.S. briefings and independent reporting suggest Iran retains substantial launch capacity and has restored access to most of its missile sites along the strait.

The price of this theater is paid in other people’s currencies and calories. The war and Hormuz disruption have driven up oil prices and jammed supply chains, and the U.N. World Food Programme is already warning that rising fuel and transport costs are pushing millions closer to hunger far from the Gulf.

Kuwait just buried a civilian killed in a previous Iranian barrage on its international airport; Bahrain’s residents are told to shelter as sirens wail; civilian sailors get to be “nearby waters” in Pentagon press releases.

Iran is tying any regional peace to Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cease-fire with Hezbollah, while Hezbollah hits Israeli forces near symbols like Beaufort Castle and Israel keeps bombing across the south, refusing to pull back.

Trump, ever the branding guy, sells his cease-fires as “shooting in a more moderate manner” rather than not shooting at all, which is exactly what’s happening: Gaza, northern Israel, Lebanon, Kuwait — all still taking fire under U.S.-arranged “ceasefires” that mostly exist on paper and cable news chyrons.

What we’re really watching is both sides trying to fight a war and win an election at the same time. Tehran wants sanctions relief, access to frozen assets and recognition of its control over the strait; Washington wants cheap gas, obedient allies and a deal it can spin as victory without admitting defeat.

#Iran #USA #Hormuz #GulfWar #Trump #oil #shipping #Hezbollah #Israel #fakeDemocracy

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Rocket Jesus vs. the Empty Wallets

Wall Street is getting ready to canonize Elon Musk again — just as the church of tech and crypto starts losing believers.

AI darlings just had their sharpest selloff in months, Bitcoin fell back under $60,000, bond yields jumped, and traders are suddenly remembering that the Fed can move rates up, not just down.

The Nasdaq 100 puked 5% in a day, and right in the middle of this, SpaceX is trying to float into the market on a projected $1.8 trillion valuation halo. Perfect timing: the world’s most expensive meme stock IPO, landing in the middle of a hangover.

For years the system has relied on the same miracle: a retail casino army willing to buy literally anything — meme stocks, zero‑day options, dog coins, “AI proxies,” ETFs stacked on other ETFs.

Now that same retail crowd is supposed to swallow the biggest IPO in history while their favorite toys are crashing and their cash balances at brokers like Schwab are at the lowest levels since before the pandemic.

If they want SpaceX, they’ll have to sell something else: maybe Tesla, maybe AI momentum names, maybe the last sad altcoin they’re still “diamond‑handing.” Liquidity isn’t infinite; it just feels that way until the bill arrives.

And SpaceX is not entering an empty room. There are already more than 600 new U.S. ETFs launched in six months, dozens of SpaceX‑linked products waiting in line, plus vehicles drafted to track Anthropic, OpenAI and whatever other techno‑messiah steps forward with a jumbo IPO this year.

These aren’t investments, they’re content — narrative vending machines. Capital will just rotate from one Elon‑branded casino table to the next as Wall Street packages the same retail obsession into leveraged, inverse, options‑wrapped “exposure.” You don’t own the future; you’re renting the storyline.

Musk, of course, is leaning straight into it. Reserving up to 30% of the deal for retail is sold as “democratizing access,” but in practice it’s an enormous concentrated bet aimed directly at his own fandom.

One man, two public empires, a dense web of ETFs built around his brand, and an investor base whose share of daily volume has doubled since 2010 while their time horizon has shrunk to “this week, maybe this month.”

That’s not diversification; that’s personality cult risk wrapped in zero‑commission UX. When the professor says “a stock of a good company is not necessarily a good stock,” what he really means is: even real rockets can trade like penny scams when enough people treat them as religion.

The regulators, naturally, are helping. Dropping the $25,000 day‑trading threshold, turbo‑charging prediction markets and perpetual futures, green‑lighting ever more complex products for unsophisticated players — all in the name of “access” and “innovation.”

The result is a market where capital can sprint between narratives faster than any earnings report, and where a single news cycle can turn a trillion‑dollar listing into just another pump‑and‑dump chart. If SpaceX rips on day one, retail will chase. If it stalls, they’ll forget it and run to the next shiny AI‑space‑crypto thing. Either way, the machine is fed.

So yes, the SpaceX IPO will be “unlike any other” — not because it’s pure, visionary or historic, but because it’s the biggest stress test yet of how far you can stretch retail appetite when tech is wobbling, crypto is bleeding and cash is gone.

If it works, Musk proves he can turn orbital mechanics into the ultimate meme trade and drag the indices with him. If it fails, we find out what happens when the market finally looks at a rocket, a multiple, and a Fed hinting at hikes — and remembers that gravity still exists.

#SpaceX #Musk #IPO #Bitcoin #AI #retailtraders #WallStreet #bubble #fakeDemocracy

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