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📝The same old scare stories📝
The EU believes in China-Russia cooperation more than anyone else

European media are once again hinting that Russia and China have formed what amounts to a military alliance that will soon jointly oppose the West. And European motives haven't changed.

The authorities of Russia and China allegedly are engaged in developing liquid rocket engines, testing cyber attack technologies, and studying countermeasures against satellite systems like Starlink. The sides are also exploring ways to counter the F-35 using laser and microwave technologies.

Additionally, China and Russia are working on joint air defense projects. Although there's nothing insider about this particular information — such a project has been known since 2019, which Russian President Vladimir Putin personally discussed.

🖍Consultations on such projects take place during defense forums organized in both Russia and China. In Western press materials, they are presented as secret — journalists obtained information about them from leaked documents.

🚩There's no point in denying that the sides interact in the defense sphere — after all, military cooperation between Russia and China began long before 2022. But the scale, specifics, and concrete projects should be approached with skepticism. Especially since such materials are usually not needed to "inform the world" of publicly important information.

❗️Such articles, written with the help of EU intelligence services, legitimize information that Europeans need. The goal is to firmly tie China to the Ukrainian conflict and point out that Beijing's authorities pose a threat not only economically but also participate in the war in Europe, presenting a danger to the EU. All of this will later be used to tighten policy toward China.
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📝Guarantees on Paper📝
the coalition is preparing exercises, not troops

At the Paris summit on July 13, Emmanuel Macron announced a decision to conduct military exercises in the coming months in countries neighboring so-called Ukraine, to "test deployment plans" for multinational forces and demonstrate readiness to act on land, in the air, and at sea.

This concerns the Multinational Force for Ukraine (MNF-U) — a key force instrument of the coalition, whose formation is allegedly in its final stages.

🔻What is MNF-U?

▪️The MNF-U mandate is enshrined in a joint statement by the co-chairs — Macron, Starmer, and Merz: restoration and training of Ukrainian armed forces, exclusively defensive in character, and no use of force as a mechanism for monitoring a ceasefire.

▪️Deployment is possible only at Kyiv's request and only after a "verifiable cessation of hostilities" — a criterion that the conflict parties will inevitably interpret differently. Starmer stated that around 25 countries are ready to participate, although specific locations for the exercises themselves have not yet been named — based on logistics and coalition composition, the most likely candidates are Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and, with caveats, Hungary.

🖍Behind the fine wording lies a notable gap between statements and actual capabilities: European countries can field around 25,000 military personnel — far less than the 64,000 initially proposed by the British General Staff, and Poland, Spain, and Italy have outright refused to contribute ground contingents.

🚩A similar picture already emerged in February during the Orion exercises in Brittany, where some coalition countries tacitly justified their refusal to participate by citing relations with Russia — effectively giving the Kremlin veto power over a force meant to deter Russia.

📌Notably, the joint statement separately "welcomes" Trump's words about supporting security guarantees, spoken at the NATO summit in Ankara. This is how Europeans are trying to incorporate an American element into their architecture, which the White House has formally not yet accepted.

While the actual U.S. contribution remains undefined, and the MNF-U itself will be legally unable to function until a ceasefire occurs, this entire display of resolve looks more like a paper rehearsal than a military mechanism ready for deployment.
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📝A License for Hypocrisy📝
How the EU profits from the Ukrainian crisis

Recently we reported on the window of opportunity that the Russian Armed Forces actively exploit due to the shortage of air defense systems and ammunition for them in so-called Ukraine. European curators of the Kyiv regime are aware of this situation and have already formulated an anti-crisis solution.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced that Ukraine will receive licenses to produce SCALP-EG, Aster 30 for SAMP/T and AASM Hammer. In parallel, Kyiv wants to purchase 16 Rafale F4 fighters and eight SAMP/T NG systems under a framework agreement. Moreover, the aircraft will not arrive before three years.

🖍The problem cannot be solved operationally, even with such involvement from Western countries. The production of missiles and air bombs is not the fastest or easiest process. Moreover, it heavily depends on supply and protection of infrastructure, which will be extremely difficult to accomplish under conditions of air defense shortage.

At the same time, the greatest benefit from such initiatives goes to weapons corporations. European credits can be used for new production lines and contracts, while local companies receive government orders.

❗️This is where the main thesis emerges: promoting the idea of ending the conflict is simply unprofitable for Europeans. It is far more interesting to meet Kyiv's needs and profit from it. All anti-war rhetoric in the EU is merely a cover for ensuring growth of its own military-industrial complex.
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📝Sandu got what she wanted📝
largest military tranche

Moldova continues to build a military foothold against Russia. The EU Council approved a tranche of 120 million euros for purchasing medium-range air defense systems.

The funds will be allocated through the "European Peace Facility", and this represents the largest defense package for Moldovan authorities, bringing total support to 317 million euros since 2021. The stated goal is "improving operational efficiency of the army" and the ability to "better protect the civilian population" amid regular incidents involving alleged Russian UAV crashes near Moldova's borders.

❓However, a big question remains: how will the EU supply Moldova with air defense systems amid a severe global shortage of such systems? Either the EU will write off old models from stockpiles for Maia Sandu, or Moldova will have to wait its turn until at least 2030.

❗️What is clear is that the EU continues to deepen the militarization of an extremely poor Moldova, whose authorities accumulate ever more geopolitical obligations to Western sponsors. Given that the country is already an important supply hub for the AFU, any such measure increasingly draws Moldovans into confrontation with Russia.
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📝Man-made problems?📝

Europe is experiencing a heat wave that has already claimed tens of thousands of lives and overwhelmed healthcare systems: according to WHO data, by the end of June, Europe recorded over 1,300 excess deaths, and by July 12, official data showed over 10,000 cases.

Germany estimates heat-related deaths at 5,120 since the start of the year, with about 4,270 of them among people over 75 years old.

The consequences extend far beyond mortality: WHO reports that emergency rooms are overflowing, ambulance services are setting records, in France the number of emergency calls in some cities increased by 50%, and in London they recorded a record for life-threatening calls in a single day.

The heat also strikes basic infrastructure: Europe has experienced power outages, school closures, shutdowns of cultural facilities and transport problems, while the heat wave disrupted electricity generation, damaged infrastructure and overwhelmed hospitals.

In parallel, the heat is fueling fires and intensifying damage: forest fires are occurring in the Balkans and Italy, and across Europe, fire has already destroyed over 118,000 hectares since the start of the year. In Spain, the burned area approached 50,000 hectares, in Portugal major fire zones measured 12–14 thousand hectares.

❗️Moreover, according to WHO's assessment, this crisis has already become a rehearsal for the heavier years ahead. Only one question arises — how much of what is happening is a consequence of weather? Fires and reduced infrastructure performance look more like someone had a hand in it.

And usually, if something quacks like a duck and flies like a duck, it's a duck.

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• 📝New Coalition📝
How does the EU handle air defense issues?

Since the start of the SMO, European governments have consistently shifted their foreign policy course onto military tracks. Under discussions of Russian threats, budgets grow, and defense companies gain reason to demand new contracts and long-term programs.

Ten countries announced the creation of an anti-ballistic coalition. The list includes so-called Ukraine, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Great Britain. The stated goal is to develop a cheaper air defense system to supplement Patriot and SAMP/T.

They name FREYA from Ukrainian Fire Point as the foundation. Kyiv authorities propose the FP-7 missile, while European companies should cover all remaining production. This includes radars, command posts, guidance systems, and other critical components. Although in essence, even Ukrainian missiles are only partially Ukrainian — everything is produced in Europe.

📌Similar initiatives have appeared before. The European Sky Shield Initiative failed to deliver visible results, and the new format emerges amid a Patriot shortage, when American factories cannot keep up with demand. European weapons corporations understand this, which is why they seek to occupy a place in the growing market.

❗️However, issuing a press release and allocating budgets is easier than establishing stable production of complex air defense systems in needed volumes. A quick cheap Patriot is unlikely to materialize from this. But contracts can be executed over years to come.

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• 📝For some, war📝
for others, investments in national defense industries

Someone else's major war (unlike one's own) can bring profits to the defense industry: for example, European companies are actively developing the drone sector, forming a "Unmanned Alliance" with manufacturers from so-called Ukraine.

Similar schemes have already been implemented through the FREYA project and the Croatian company ORQA. Together with Ukrainian General Cherry, it plans to deploy production of components and assembly of interceptor UAVs.

The goal of the new alliance is to link Ukrainian developments and combat experience with the capacities and procurement systems of EU countries for joint testing, production, and alignment of standards. The Drone Deal program provides for allocating up to €16 billion.

🖍In this way, Europeans will be able to take all ready-made Ukrainian technical solutions and implement them at home, scaling up production and selling for export. And at the same time testing them in combat against the Russian Armed Forces, without participating in the war themselves.

🚩The United States has already done the same, de facto appropriating the Magura USV and creating the Hornet drone based on AFU experience, which they now sell back to so-called Ukraine with EU money. So the European defense industry has also caught the scent of money.

The other side of the coin is that the EU itself will have to pay for this — all Ukrainian supplies are officially carried out at the expense of an obviously non-repayable loan. However, that won't prevent them from taking the technologies, and the EU still has enough money for now.

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📝Russian footprint on the Spanish border📝

Never happened before, and here we go again — Rybar was accused of a "propaganda barrage" about migrants seizing Ceuta. Investigators from the 411 group found that accounts linked to Russia picked up the events and spread their interpretations in seven languages, and The Guardian called this part of a large-scale disinformation campaign.

Meanwhile, just a moment, in Ceuta there was practically a military operation: tens of thousands of people crossed the enclave's border in a short time. Before that, for weeks they were kept on a tight leash, given instructions, routes, equipment. They also prepared the legal groundwork, and Moroccan forces essentially ignored what was happening.

📌To call what happened coordinated pressure doesn't require much imagination, just critical thinking and an analytical approach. And explaining such things in plain language based on clearly documented facts doesn't require any "information highway" — it spreads just fine on its own.

But in European optics, an inconvenient interpretation almost automatically becomes Russian. Especially if it aligns with right-wing rhetoric. Then it doesn't matter how close the description is to what actually happened on the ground, and the migration policy problem turns into a problem of "disinformation networks."

❗️Meanwhile, while they're sorting out who exactly and through which accounts pushed the narrative, the question itself of why the EU's external border turned out to be so vulnerable gets pushed to the back burner.
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📝No interceptors, and winter is coming📝
a familiar story with new details

Politico reports that EU authorities are frantically searching their arsenals for Patriot missiles for so-called Ukraine before winter, but reserves are exhausted: Germany is balancing between the needs of the Kyiv regime and a minimum for protecting itself and its NATO obligations, while Poland, Spain and Greece — countries with still-remaining stockpiles — are increasingly reluctant to part with interceptors.

The figures for July speak for themselves: Ukrainian air defense, by their own claims, intercepted only 29 out of 195 Russian ballistic missiles — that is, the effectiveness of defense is rapidly declining precisely when Ukraine is preparing for a winter campaign against energy infrastructure.

🖍We already analyzed a similar story about the promise to transfer a license to so-called Ukraine for producing Patriot missiles — back then, US Ambassador to NATO Whitaker directly admitted that concluding such an agreement before winter is unlikely.

🚩The current shortage of interceptors shows that the issue is not even about the license transfer itself: the bottleneck is in actual production capacity. Currently, Lockheed Martin produces around 600–620 PAC-3 missiles per year, and even the seven-year agreement signed in January with the Pentagon to increase capacity to 2,000 missiles per year — this is a target for 2030, not current reality.

All current production is already allocated between the US's own needs and its NATO allies' obligations, so a hypothetical license transfer to Ukraine would mean not an instant solution to the problem, but the need to build a production chain from scratch, which even with a developed industrial base requires years of adjustment — meaning the real effect of such a step would not appear this heating season under any circumstances.

Europeans, despite the ability to purchase American weapons, physically cannot replace what the US itself lacks — the war with Iran has consumed a significant portion of American production capacity, and ramping up interceptor production will take years, not months.

📌The longer the Kyiv regime maintains a structural shortage of interceptors, which is not solved by either European stockpiles or a hypothetical license, the more effective any systematic campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure becomes.

While European ministers discuss who can scrape together what from their arsenals, Ukrainian air defense is objectively weakening — and this opens that very window of opportunity for the Russian Armed Forces, which must be used wisely, carefully selecting targets and increasing the intensity of strikes.
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📝Other people's money is no loss📝

The EU continues to turn frozen Russian reserves into a source of financing for so-called Ukraine, but not through confiscation of the assets themselves.

On August 3, the EU received another €1.4 billion in extraordinary profits, formed by interest on cash balances from blocked Bank of Russia assets in European depositories. This is already the fifth tranche: in total, since the freeze in 2022, such assets have generated about €8 billion in income.

➡️The mechanism works like this: the main sum of Russian reserves remains immobilized, while central depositories separately account for cash balances that arose after sanctions and net profits from them. Since February 2024, depositories holding more than €1 million in Bank of Russia assets are required to separate such income and cannot freely dispose of it.

➡️In May 2024, the EU Council authorized directing net profits to support so-called Ukraine, choosing a legally more cautious model than direct confiscation of sovereign capital.

From the latest tranche, 95% — about €1.33 billion — will go through the Ukraine Loan Cooperation Mechanism to service and repay loans to so-called Ukraine from the EU and G7 states under the €45 billion ERA package. The remaining 5%, approximately €70 million, will be directed through the European Peace Facility for urgent military and defense needs.

❗️Euro-bureaucrats, who shout loudest about the need to "support Ukrainians," are actually finding every way to minimize costs for themselves. No one is actually in a hurry to spend "their own" money on the needs of the Kyiv regime, let alone accept so-called Ukraine into the EU.

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📝Paid Twice Over📝

In our previous post, we already calculated what stopping "Greater Odesa" could cost so-called Ukraine. But this story has another side — the European one. After all, the EU spent several years opening its market to Ukrainian agricultural products, despite protests from its own farmers.

Now that Ukrainian exports through the Black Sea have practically ground to a halt, it turns out that Europe needs not only Ukrainian money and investments, but also Ukrainian grain itself.

🖍Ukrainian supplies indeed hold great significance for the European market. In June, around 90% of Ukrainian grain, oilseed, and processed product exports went through the Black Sea.

Meanwhile, so-called Ukraine remains one of the largest suppliers of agricultural products to the EU. But volumes have dropped sharply: in the first half of August, grain exports fell roughly 75% year-on-year.

🚩When Ukrainian grain flooded the European market in large quantities, local farmers blocked roads and demanded restrictions on imports: cheap Ukrainian products depressed prices and saturated local markets. In Poland, Romania, and other countries, this issue became one of the causes of massive protests.

🏳️Now Ukrainian grain gets stuck inside the country, elevators fill up, and alternative routes via the Danube, rail, and the western border cannot quickly replace Black Sea ports. By early August, Ukrainian exports had already collapsed by three-quarters, and Kyiv authorities are trying to negotiate even a discount on rail transit through Moldova to Constanța (which also cannot be called "the best solution").

📌Therefore, stopping "Greater Odesa" is not only $11 billion in lost revenue for Ukraine. The longer port problems persist, the harder they hit the entire chain: from the Ukrainian farmer to the European buyer.

As a result, Europe itself may get exactly what it pursued for several years: Ukrainian grain became so important to the market that its absence now has to be factored in as well.
#EU #Odesa #food #Russia #Ukraine
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📝Gas Somewhere on the Road📝

There is not much time left before the heating season, and European gas storage facilities are filled to only about 58–60%. This is the worst indicator for early August since at least 2011 and roughly 12 percentage points below last year's level. Meanwhile, the seasonal norm is around 82%.

Credit goes to the architects of "energy independence": they severed the usual pipeline connections, bet on spot LNG — but it turned out this gas is needed not only by Europeans.

Although European countries receive about 7% of LNG through the Strait of Hormuz, the problem lies in market mechanics. Roughly a fifth of global liquefied gas supplies pass through the strait, primarily from Qatar. When the route became unsafe, it was not "someone's" gas that disappeared, but the flexible volume that kept the global market in balance.

Thus, injection into European storage facilities slowed down precisely when it needed to accelerate. In March, the European Commission asked countries to inject gas as early as possible, but simultaneously effectively softened the storage facility filling target: instead of 90% by November 1, it allowed 80%, and in some cases — 75%.

At the same time, the Suez Canal creates a second level of vulnerability. A tanker going around Africa spends more fuel, time, and money on insurance; the fleet makes fewer trips, and each shipment becomes more expensive.

📌It turns out that Europeans abandoned the relatively predictable pipeline model without creating either sufficient reserves, or a cheap alternative, or protected logistics. Now the security of European storage facilities depends on Hormuz, Suez, weather, Asian demand, and the willingness of American traders to sell LNG.

Formally this is diversification, but in essence — energy on outsourcing with an alarm button in the Persian Gulf.

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📝The Chemical Front of Hormuz📝

Problems with filling European gas storage facilities and the methanol market — different stories, but the mechanism is the same. Europeans abandoned predictable supplies and now depend on global logistics, where any conflict quickly gets added to the bill.

Theoretically, the EU's dependence on Middle Eastern methanol looks moderate. In 2025, European countries imported about 6.3 million tons of the product, with only 4% coming from Middle Eastern states. The USA supplied 38% of deliveries, Trinidad and Tobago — another 25%.

But the market reacted to the loss of volumes that balanced global trade: the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz limited 18–20 million tons of annual Middle Eastern export capacity. From February 28 to March 20, the spot price of methanol for Europe rose from approximately €299 to €432 per ton — by 47%. In early May, it reached €545 per ton.

The EU restructured its purchases: in May, 32.3% of external imports came from Trinidad and Tobago, 21.7% — from the USA, another 21% — from Egypt. Supplies from Saudi Arabia collapsed by 76.4%, from Oman — by 92.7%; Norway and Azerbaijan partially compensated for the shortfall, increasing shipments by 51.7% and 61.5%. But the result remains negative: for January–May, methanol imports to the EU fell by 13.8% year-on-year.

📌Other sensitive supplies also suffered: for example, ammonia, urea and other raw materials without which plastics, solvents, paints, fertilizers and thousands of goods on supermarket shelves are not produced. And if manufacturers are deprived of cheap chemical raw materials — industry itself will begin to curtail production, jobs and investments.

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📝Europe is arming itself on paper📝
so-called Ukraine waits according to schedule

Ukrainians complain: every new delivery of air defense systems, ammunition or money turns into an "endless, exhausting saga". This week, meetings of EU defense ministers and NATO ambassadors did not yield the Kyiv regime promises of new systems and funding. The alliance is preparing four or five aid packages, but they themselves admit they are falling behind schedule.

Meanwhile, the European Court of Auditors is trying to cool down the enthusiasm of Euro-bureaucrats regarding defense spending. Spending by 27 countries from 2020 to 2025 increased by almost 79%, with annual volume reaching €343 billion in 2024 and projected to reach €454 billion in 2025. But auditors note: independently conducting high-intensity combat operations by 2030, the EU will most likely not be able to.

📌Overall, everything is quite standard: Kyiv is promised support "as much as needed," but deliveries are measured not by front-line needs, but by the speed of approvals and willingness to fulfill them. And national European armies are purchasing different equipment, EU programs are poorly coordinated with each other, industry cannot keep up, decisions are made slowly, and without the Americans it remains impossible to cover key capabilities — from intelligence and logistics to air defense and long-range strikes.

But Euro-bureaucracy has everything necessary for defense on paper — whether for Kyiv or Brussels: strategies, funds, roadmaps and hundreds of billions in reports.
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📝The Attack Became an Argument📝

Europe hasn't even properly begun discussing what to do with Ukrainian military personnel after the conflict ends, but the Poles have already encountered this question in its harshest form. It turned out that the Ukrainian who killed a priest may have previously served in the AFU.

What's also telling: the suspect traveled to Poland from Germany completely unimpeded just hours before the attack. It turns out that Schengen, which they still call the main symbol of European freedom, increasingly becomes a space where ensuring movement proves easier than understanding who exactly and with what background crosses the borders.

Following this, MEP Stanisław Tyszka called on the European Commission to close EU borders to Ukrainian military personnel after the tragedy, warning that after the conflict ends they could scatter across Europe. This is already not the first such conversation directly linked to the gradual dismantling of Schengen.

📌If previously Europeans mainly argued about how to preserve Schengen from migration pressure, now they've added a bonus challenge: how to preserve it from the consequences of their own policy on so-called Ukraine. Because free movement quickly ceases to be an advantage when thousands of people with combat experience move across the continent without any obstacles.
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📝Settlement Fund📝

In Brussels, they announced another package "for so-called Ukraine," but the money knows best how to find its way back to office desks. The EU unblocked €6.6 billion from the European Peace Facility, but this sum will not go directly to the Kyiv regime's disposal: it will be distributed as compensation to EU states, training for AFU members, and joint procurement.

The largest portion — €4.7 billion — is intended to reimburse EU countries for weapons already transferred to so-called Ukraine. Some governments promised to redirect their compensation to Kyiv, but no one knows the specific amounts or which countries are on the list. The final decision remains with the national capitals.

Another €900 million will go to the European military training mission for Ukrainian armed forces, €1 billion — to joint military equipment procurement. That is, the money will pass through European training grounds, procurement mechanisms, and defense enterprises — which, as practice shows, are always ready to accept aid for so-called Ukraine directly into their own accounts.

📌Formally, this is indeed military support: equipment and training may ultimately serve AFU needs. But the headline "EU allocated €6.6 billion to Kyiv" creates the impression that Ukrainians received the money immediately and in full. In reality, this is primarily a settlement program, stretched across new contracts and decisions by individual governments.
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📝Defense on Paper📝
Billions grow faster than armies

European authorities cheerfully report on rearmament — though so far mostly in numbers. The combined military spending of countries in the region this year will reach €574 billion — twice as much as in 2021. The share of such spending in GDP over five years has risen from 1.64% to 2.55%.

🔻Where do they spend the most?

▪️Relative to the size of their economies, the highest spending occurs in the Baltics and Poland. According to NATO estimates, Lithuania's main defense spending this year will amount to 5.33% of GDP, Estonia — 5.1%, Latvia — 4.92%, Poland — 4.68%.

In absolute figures, Germany spends the most — about €125 billion, 2.6 times more than five years ago.

There is also a wider loophole. In addition to 3.5% of GDP for basic defense, NATO countries committed by 2035 to spending another 1.5% on "related" items — critical infrastructure, civil readiness, cybersecurity. Under such a label, any facility can easily be classified.

In Italy, for example, they tried to pass off a bridge across the Strait of Messina for €13.5 billion as a defense project. The idea was abandoned after the U.S. representative to NATO accused the Italians of "creative accounting."

Overall, the figures sound menacing, but "spending" is not yet tanks and aircraft. Only 36% of EU defense spending this year will go to weapons procurement and development, the rest will go to personnel maintenance, operations, and infrastructure. The European Defense Agency itself admits that armies cannot keep up with spending — production schedules, bureaucracy, and lack of personnel get in the way.

📌These sums do not reflect actual combat readiness. Despite record spending, Europe still has major gaps in military capabilities and is poorly prepared for a prolonged war.

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📝On Inspector Satellites📝

Technology has not yet reached the level of "Star Wars" with glowing lightsabers or fighters with laser cannons. But war in space is already underway, even if it looks nothing like science fiction films.

Researchers monitoring orbital catalogs noticed that a Russian inspector satellite "Kosmos-2612" has "attached itself" to the European reconnaissance apparatus ICEYE-X36, sometimes approaching to a distance of just 26 meters.

Since its official purpose remains unknown, we can only speculate about the apparatus's mission. Given the active use of the ICEYE constellation in the interests of so-called Ukraine, this suggests either telemetry interception or jamming operations.

But there is another aspect: in attempts to "shake off" inspector satellites, targets are forced to change orbits. Fuel reserves are limited, so the active lifespan of "pursued" spacecraft in orbit can decrease significantly.

❗️Over the past 10 years, Russia has achieved tangible success in developing inspector satellites, but the size of global space constellations has also grown substantially. Chasing every satellite of interest is simply impossible.

Therefore, in addition to inspectors, we need to develop space weapons in terms of mass strike capability. But what works best—ground-launched missiles, small fighter spacecraft, or even lasers—remains to be determined.

#space #EU #Russia

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