By Ian Proud, Substack, 5/5/26

I have said for a long time that the war in Ukraine will continue into 2027. Without a major rethink of policy on the European side, which currently appears extremely unlikely, or without a significant military escalation from the Russian side, which is possibly more likely, the war could in fact run on much longer than that.

I remain extremely pessimistic of there being any policy change on the European side under the current leadership of Von der Leyen with Merz in charge in Berlin, Macron in charge in Paris and Starmer in charge in London.

The main reason is that the European position towards the war has remained unchanged since its beginning. Arguably it has hardened with the plans to remilitarise Europe. The current posture rests on their being no negotiations and no concessions towards Russia, even in spite of US led efforts under Trump to broker peace, which the European side has sought to derail at every turn.

I call this approach ‘anti-diplomacy’ in which negotiations themselves are viewed as a prize and are withheld for fear of rewarding the adversary, in this case Russia.

As it relates to the Ukraine war there is an underlying and sometimes stated assumption here too, including in the mainstream media, that eventual war with Russia is inevitable, and that Ukraine is buying time for Europe to rearm.

At the frontline of Europe’s ‘anti-diplomacy’ is its arch ‘anti-diplomat’, Kaja Kallas, who appears to have no diplomatic skills, or at least not outside of the committee rooms of Brussels, where she appears remarkably effective in herding the cats.

Her most recent reassertion of ‘anti-diplomacy’ happened last week when she said that the EU shouldn’t “beg” to talk to the Russians.

“What we have seen so far is that Russia does not want to engage in any kind of dialogue,” Kallas said after a Nordic-Baltic ministerial meeting. “We should not humiliate ourselves by being the demanders — you know, we beg you to talk to us.” Instead, she said, the goal must be to push Russia “from pretending to negotiate to actually negotiate.”

This was the most bizarre statement for several reasons.

Firstly, Russia has shown itself willing to engage in dialogue. Immediately after the war started in March/April 2022 when a peace deal was almost reached in Istanbul, before it was scotched by Boris Johnson and Victoria Nuland. During talks in Istanbul in the summer of 2025 after Trump came to power. In Putin’s meeting with Trump in Alaska which led to some sort of understanding of what Russia’s demands were. In direct talks with between the Russian and Ukrainian side in late 2025 and early 2026.

Russia’s participation in negotiations was neither demanded nor begged for.

Objectively, European politicians, through ‘anti-diplomacy’, have been unwilling to enter into negotiations with Russia at any point since the war started. After the Alaska talks, Ursula von der Leyen said there was no intent in Moscow to engage in peace talks, even after Putin had held talks with Trump, which was bizarre but also familiar, given the frequency with which this line is trotted out in Brussels and elsewhere across Europe.

Ten months after the war started, Joe Biden said he would only talk to Putin if Russia showed real intent to end the war, in other words, the US would not enter into talks unless Russia agreed to every western demand without securing any concessions including on NATO membership.

In December, Macron said that Europe will need to engage with Putin though that offer went nowhere amid infighting in Brussels around who should be the European representative in Putative talks.

Keir Starmer has said several times that he has no plans to talk to Putin, indeed, the Uk said that it would not enter into talks with Russia even if Europe did.

So, this “anti-diplomacy”, pushed by Ukraine’s western sponsors in which not talking to Russia is the norm, is established and fairly set in stone. In fact, it was first initiated by the UK Foreign Office in the summer of 2014, after Philip Hammond became foreign secretary. Twelve years down the track, the Europeans have adopted this approach lock stock and smoking missile launcher, and now own it.

More recently, Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever has suggested talks with Russia and absolutely nothing has happened.

So, looking back at Kallas’ statement you can see how absurd it is.

Firstly, it is absurd in its suggestion that Europe might “beg” Russia for peace talks. Europe has done everything in it power to avoid talks. If von der Leyen, Merz, Macron, Starmer, or any combination suggested talks with Russia, I believe Putin would agree to that. All the evidence of the talks that have taken place so far, brokered by the US, suggest that is so.

Indeed, throughout the war, there have been ongoing Russia-Ukrainian talks about practical issues such as prisoner and body swaps, and also on the reunification of displaced children with their Ukrainian parents.

A key principle of talks is the need to discuss areas of disagreement and search for ways to find compromise that will be acceptable to both sides and which both sides can agree to. And when I say both sides, I mean just that, both the Russian side and the Ukrainian side. Any peace deal will have to leave both countries feeling safer than they did before the war, and confident that war won’t resume again.

A popular misinformation line in Europe’s “anti-diplomacy” has been that Ukraine must not be left out of talks. And yet, when has Ukraine ever been left out of talks since the war began?

The pathology of European diplomacy has descended into holding countless Summits and meetings about peace that Zelensky attends, but to which the other combatant in the conflict – Russia – is not included.

This summitry serves not to resolve differences between Russia and Ukraine and search for common ground, but rather to reinforce the Ukrainian position as the only right and just position that should not be resiled from.

These summits are intended to avoid any possibility of compromise on Ukraine’s side and to insist on total compromise from the Russian side. As I’ve said before, Zelensky’s permanent star billing at these events allows him to own the narrative that Russia isn’t interested in peace and that only by supporting Ukraine with more funding and weapons, can peace be achieved.

One meeting between Putin and Trump, however, provoked a cacophony about Zelensky being excluded, yet this, too, is nonsense, as Trump has met him on several occasions.

Diplomatic negotiations aren’t about friendship they are about dispute resolution. They are not about favouring one side over another side. A single meeting does not confer legitimacy. It just confirms that there are important things to be discussed.

Europe’s “anti-diplomacy” has created a vacuum which, until Trump came to power, US leaders and now, European and British leaders filled with money and weapons. They didn’t fill it, by the way, with troops, preferring to let Zelensky fight to the last Ukrainian, so the Poles, Germans, French, Italians and sparse ranks of Tommies could be spared.

This is what I have described many times as the neither war nor peace posture of the British and Europeans. They don’t want a direct war with Russia, neither do they want peace with Russia, and so proxy war has become the preferred policy fudge whatever the cost in Ukrainian lives and livelihoods, not to mention Ukraine’s catastrophic depopulation and demographic cliff edge.

What is absolutely clear, is that funding Ukraine and giving it more weapons isn’t intended at resolving Ukraine’s dispute with Russia.

Many will say, of course, that if we don’t give Ukraine weapons, then Russia will take over the whole country. But no evidence is ever provided that Russia’s goal in entering this was really to conquer the whole of Ukraine, rather than to prevent the possibility of Ukraine being used as another NATO client state on Russia’s border.

Right at the start of the war, the first round of peace talks in Istanbul seemed to reach a point where Russia and Ukraine could agree to the conditions for the war to be brought to a close. That included Ukrainian neutrality and non-membership of NATO and an acceptance that Ukraine could join the EU.

So, having captured much less land than Russia occupies today, the Russian side was willing to sue for peace and pull its troops back from the north of Kyiv as a confidence building measure.

Organisations such as the Institute for the Study of War in DC, run by Victoria Nuland, has since claimed that the agreement was a surrender of Ukrainian sovereignty.

Yet, I don’t believe the first Istanbul deal would have been a surrender of Ukrainian sovereignty, but rather a guarantee of its future neutrality a neutrality, by the way, which would have allowed for a slow – and let’s be honest it may take a generation if it ever happens – normalisation of relations with Russia.

We now know, of course, that Victoria Nuland encouraged Zelensky not to take the deal. But the point is that both the Ukrainian and Russian negotiation teams believed that it was a deal that both countries could live with in the interests of ending the war.

That is how diplomacy works. Two sides with vastly opposing positions undertake tough negotiations to hammer out a framework that both can live with recognising that, absent a decisive military victory by one side, some compromise will have to be made.

Here we bring in the second aspect of “anti-diplomat” Kallas’ statement.

The goal must be to push Russia “from pretending to negotiate to actually negotiate.”

If you consider this statement carefully, I don’t understand what is meant by “pretending” to negotiate. Russia has been negotiating and a whole host of prisoner swaps, body swaps and children reunifications have happened at different times.

It also raises the question, actually, to negotiate with whom? Because Russia has been negotiating with Ukraine in circumstances where European leaders refused to engage with Russia in negotiations. There has been no pretence on the European side, they have not wanted either to pretend to, or, actually to negotiate.

And it is clear from Kallas’s rhetoric that pushing Russia to actually negotiate means insisting that Russia simply accepts Europe’s demands for how peace should be restored to Ukraine, with no Russian conditions being met in any settlement.

This, again, is clearly absurd, because Russia occupies 20% of Ukraine’s land – whatever the rights and wrongs of that situation – and has the funds to sustain the war for the foreseeable future, a position that Europe does not occupy. If the intention is to pressure Russia to end the war then that itself implies a negotiation that has not been offered by Europe and does not appear to be wanted by Europe.

Because any negotiation will inevitably lead to some concessions being offered to Russia that will allow Putin to settle and be able to show to his people that the four years of devastation was worth it in some way.

Kaja Kallas on the other hand has over the past year made wild demands that peace in Ukraine will only be possible if Russia fully withdraws from Ukraine back to the 1991 borders, pays full war reparations for all the damage caused to Ukraine, while leaving the door open to Ukraine joining NATO.

It may seem obvious to point this out, but Russia will never agree to this. If Russia was losing badly, then the situation might be different. If Russia was losing badly, perhaps Europe might prefer to maintain the war to inflict a much talked about strategic defeat on Russia. But neither of these scenarios have ever appeared even remotely likely.

So, the cold reality boils down to Europe doing everything in their power to avoid the possibility of such diplomatic negotiations that might result in an agreement between Russia and Ukraine that was markedly weaker than the maximalist calls they have been making since the war began.

And, unfortunately, the longer the war continues, the more solidified this position is becoming in Brussels.

Why? Because a peace deal with Russia will amount to a PR disaster for Europe.

Why? Because since the start of the war, European leaders to a person have been saying that Ukraine will win, and that the situation isn’t as bad as portrayed.

That position is relentlessly reinforced by the western mainstream media who insist that Russia is collapsing and that, ultimately, Ukraine will prevail.

This has never looked remotely true to any independent observer who looks at evidence of economic collapse, troops losses and territorial gains. Yet it is an unshakeable narrative punctuated just occasionally, by the odd voice who raises a hand only to be slapped down immediately, like the Punch and Judy crocodile.

Ukraine not winning will make citizens across Europe ask why they were lied to for all this time.

Since the war has started, citizens have been sanctioned, and in some cases had their citizenship revoked, naysayers are summarily detained at British airports and interrogated if they disagree, elections are rigged in Central European nations, lawfare is used in France against the political party with the largest share of public support, all because they disagree with this narrative.

And you need to understand something here too.

When the anti-diplomat Kaja Kallas holds another presser in yet another expensive designer dress or coat, she isn’t doing so to impart truth, she is doing so to gain attention.

She is safe and democratically uncontested – or rather, undemocratically uncontested – in her job at least until 2029 so she can say what she wants with the mainstream media hanging on her every word and reporting it verbatim as if it is truth.

I don’t know how many politicians in the foreign policy space you’ve met, but I’ve met a lot and I can tell you one thing, they love to cut a dash on the world stage. Starmer is another terrible example but then, in fairness, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were dreadful examples too.

Being right is entirely incidental to being right in front of the camera particularly, in Boris’ case, if the reporter is a bit of a filly.

So, the point is, it is far harder to bullshit when it comes to domestic policy. If the NHS is crap, if rats are taking over Birmingham, if innocent kids are being killed with zombie knives in London because the police are too timid to stop and searching sketchy looking youngsters, if young girls are being gang raped, then these are political stories that a British politician can’t ignore.

When it comes to foreign policy, they have a greater free reign to say what they want because most citizens are first and foremost concerned with basic survival and raising their kids and couldn’t really care that much about the situation in Ukraine. Except when it hits their bank balances, in which case the mainstream media will tell them it is Putin’s fault and we have to defeat him and we will defeat him because Ukraine is winning.

What happens, though, when he isn’t defeated? Suddenly, Ukraine becomes like a giant rat clambering over an uncollected bin bag in Birmingham or a yobbo walking away from a crime scene with a parent in tears over their murdered schoolchild. People will ask, hold on a minute, you said this wasn’t going to happen and that you were going to sort things out. You lied to us.

So, “anti-diplomacy” is held aloft by those like Kallas who are trapped by a dread fear of being revealed as bare faced liars and narcissists who kept a war going because they wanted more time in front of the cameras to shake their booty on the world stage and show how tough they were.

By Ted Snider, Responsible Statecraft, 5/12/26

An explosive new poll suggests that a majority of Ukrainians feel their future is more threatened by corruption in the government than by Russian military aggression.

Given that Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdog just charged Andriy Yermak, former head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, with money laundering and corruption, the results of this survey are particularly salient.

The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology’s (KIIS) poll, conducted between April 20 and 27 and released on May 6, asked Ukrainians who lived in territory controlled by Ukraine what they “consider the biggest threat to Ukraine’s development.” They were given two choices: government corruption or Russia’s military aggression. Some 54% said they were more concerned with corruption; 39% identified the Russians.

Additional new polling conducted by KIIS suggests that not only concern with corruption is going up, but that trust in Zelensky is going in the wrong direction too — though the majority of those polled still trust the Ukrainian president rather than not, 58% to 36%. This represents a 4-point drop from the 62% who trusted him only a month earlier. Complaints such as the continuing war, unspecified “unfulfilled promises,” and corruption topped the list among those who lacked full faith in the Ukrainian president.

These criticisms are endemic and reflect a larger problem for Ukraine, say critics. Sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko of Freie Universität Berlin told Responsible Statecraft that the concern with corruption identified in the polling shows that “Ukrainians fundamentally distrust their state and the elite and this has not changed during the ‘existential’ war that was supposed to unite the country.”

Additionally, Ishchenko asserts that the “crisis of legitimacy” has harmed the war effort because as “the massive draft dodging and desertion” shows, Ukrainians “do not want to sacrifice themselves” for a state they do not trust.

A breakdown of the people who said they did not trust Zelensky found that 20% identified corruption as the cause. And, in that regard, things could be getting worse. Aside of Yermak’s charges on Monday, new revelations about last year’s investigation into a $100 million kickback scheme could add to the damage.r

In November 2025, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) cooperated in “a major anti-corruption operation” that led to charges being laid against multiple high-level officials. Some of them inhabited Zelensky’s innermost circle. Some of them have now been suspended or fired or have resigned. Several more have been implicated.

Timur Mindich, a close friend of Zelensky and co-owner of his Kvartal 95 media production company, may have been the ringleader of the operation. According to NABU, Timur Mindich, “controlled the work of the so-called ‘laundry room,’ where criminally-obtained funds were laundered.”

As NABU describes it, the “high-level criminal organization” bribed energy contractors between 10 and 15 percent of their contracts’ value. But what really stung Ukrainians is that some of those contracts were for defensive fortifications to protect energy infrastructure that was being bombed by Russia. And while those strikes left many Ukrainians without power, tapes obtained by NABU seem to contain conversations about delaying these fortification projects to obtain maximum profit on kickbacks from more lucrative alternatives.

Now a new set of tapes has been released that brings the corruption scandal back into the attention of Ukrainians and could make concern with corruption and distrust in Zelensky even worse.

The just-released tapes appear to show people who are very close to Zelensky, including Mindich, influencing then-Defence Minister Rustem Umerov’s decisions on defense contracts. The tapes also appear to capture conversations about luxury estates that were financed by the corruption scheme, including one that is allegedly for Yermak.

Mykola Hladyshchenko, a high ranking official of a state-owned bank at the centre of the corruption scandal, temporarily suspended himself after the new tapes implicated his bank in the scandal. But the biggest official yet to be charged in the wake of the new tapes is Yermak.

Nevertheless, throughout the war, Ukrainians have proven their resilience and their optimism. Despite years of hardship, asked whether they saw their country as a “prosperous EU member” or a “ruined country” ten years from now, a full 63% still opted for the optimistic choice. That is down only 3% since the beginning of the year. But corruption does negatively impact Ukrainians domestically while harming their chances for European Union accession, Western integration, and European support. The worsening kick back corruption scandal will only reinforce this pattern of distrust and make Ukrainians’ fears for the future of their country worse.

***

The Ukrainian Political War: Who Is Waging It and Is Its Target Ukraine’s Corruption or Zelenskiy?

By Gordon Hahn, Substack, 5/14/26

Note: Articles are cross-posted as is. Typos are in the original.

Recently, four simultaneous events in Ukraine that markedly intensified the already overwhelming stench of corruption surrounding the country’s leader Volodomyr Zelenskiy, his elite, and the Maidan regime as a whole. Besides that stench, there is another smell: that of a well-orchestrated campaign to weaken Zelsnkiy and drive him from power. The director or directors of this campaign are almost certainly in Washington. However, it cannot be excluded that its one-time minions have gone rogue and are playing a game internal to Ukraine alone.

The four events are the following.

First was last week’s release of new Mindichgate or Midasgate tapes implicating both Chairman of the Defense and Security Committee of Ukraine and former Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and former head of Zelenskiy’s Office of the President Andriy Yermak, who was forced to resign from this, the second most powerful position in Ukraine after the first wave of Mindichtapes and accusations were released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) last summer. These tapes revealed more evidence of these officials’ involvement in graft involving the casting agency-turned defense industrial enterprise producing drones owned by Zelenskiy’s close associate Timur Mindich. Another tranche of tapes released a day later covered discussions between Mindich and Umerov regarding a corrupt real estate deal that was to end with the construction of four mansions—one apparently designated for Zelenskiy himself (www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/04/29/8032290/ and www.intellinews.com/new-nabu-tapes-implicate-zelenskiy-s-inner-circle-in-corruption-440581/).

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Second, new charges were levelled by NABU against Yermak, a former deputy prime minister and four others, including a “businessman (likley Mindich). The indictment charges Yermak and the others for laundering more than 460 million griven (Ukrainian currency) by constructing a luxury residential complex in the village of Kozyn, the Kyiv region including “four private estates with auxiliary facilities, along with a shared spa complex, on an 8-hectare land plot. Nearly USD 9 million of the construction costs was money-laundered by Mindich, who was intended to become the owner of one of the estates (https://nabu.gov.ua/en/news/legalizatciia-460-mln-grn-na-elitnomu-budivnytctvi-pid-kyyevom-novi-pidozry/ and https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-12/ukraine-s-anti-graft-agency-probes-officials-in-real-estate-case).

Third, on Tuesday Yermak was detained in the center of Kiev. The Special Anti-Corruption Office of the Procuracy (SAPO) then released information regarding what its agents had found in his car upon detention. The materials included Yernak’s “plan maximum,” which involved an attempt to make appointments to top posts in Ukraine’s secret police, the Security Service of Ukraine or SBU (https://strana.news/news/505418-v-avto-ermaka-nashli-plany-naznachenij-na-kljuchevye-dolzhnosti-v-sbu.html). It is worth noting that the SBU officials have been targets of recent NABU investigations (https://nabu.gov.ua/en/news/vymagannia-110-tys-khabaria-pratcivnykam-sbu-ta-advokatu-povidomyly-pro-pidozru/). Indeed, on the SBU or at least former SBU officials named in Yermak’s plan maximum is General Il’ya Vityuk, who was charged with abuse of office for self-enrichment in connection with a real estate deal and removed from office in September 2025, shortly after the Mindichgate revelations were made (https://strana.news/news/490945-vitjuku-izbrali-meru-presechenija.html). In addition to Yermak’s plan, which may have been of a pre-coup or some other nefarious nature, “evidence of influence” on the State Bureau of Investigation (GBR), the General Prosecurtor’s Office, and the Finance Ministry (https://strana.news/news/505418-v-avto-ermaka-nashli-plany-naznachenij-na-kljuchevye-dolzhnosti-v-sbu.html). Also, in one memo found, Yermak mentions a fortune teller he advised with in making personnel decisions (https://strana.news/news/505414-prokurory-zajavili-chto-ermak-sovetovalsja-s-hadalkoj-po-kadrovym-voprosam.html). At his detention herain on Wednesday Yermak faced with detention or release under a large bail sum. As of writing, the hearing is delayed, and Zelenskiy remains silent.

Fourth, the day prior to NABU’s indictment of Yermak and his cohorts, Zelenskiy’s former press secretary, Yulia Mendel, gave a blockbuster interview to Tucker Carlson in which she confirmed the massive corruption inside Zelenskiy’s inner circle and the leader’s own encouragement of, and likely involvement in it as well as Zelenskiy’s immense narcisssism, simulacratism (if you will) or emphasis on propaganda to make an alternative reality, and drug taking (www.facebook.com/reel/1609995450289819?__cft__[0]=AZbB0kuw3ErbGzscTq4kFyDQPMTYtIL0D-3ZzXsRIKq9kPHTatsKrK_GHHT_r6uIAkQ9RhQOGGbiWHRZLNT1XoOA3TGkgInEulwQVJcKAhpweJ_rraxvGXuKT_GVDZEJW4NtNixx0tee8foF3uGg-f_WS-4zkvSa6AzVmRbJUVIYGr7ZpeTHXXDZzjj-ffmDEpLWiw1id6GqOfNGetN8kR2z&__tn__=-UK-R).

The simultaneity of these events makes it almost a certaintly that they are part of a well-planned political assault on Zelenskiy. As I have noted in previous articles related to the original Mindichgate revelations, investigations, indictments, arrests, and ‘departures’ of suspected high state officisls from the country, this is likely an effort that originates in Washington, as NABU is closely tied to the FBI and the U.S. government as well as the Democrat Party and George Soros (https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/zelenskiy-kiev-in-quicksand?r=stexy; https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/coup-poker-again-in-kiev?r=stexy; https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/kiev-coup-poker-update?r=stexy; and https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/kiev-pre-coup-crisis-politics-update?r=stexy).

The tightening of the corruption noose around Zelenskiy’s neck has to be part of a larger plan. It is likely that two forces in Washington generally opposed to each other – US President Donald Trump and the ‘Deep State’ – in a rare case are working towards the same end for different reasons. Trump is endeavoring still to press Zelenskiy to begin honest peace negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and at a minimum agree to give up the rest of Donetsk, if not Zaporozhe and Kherson, to Moscow in order to secure an agreement. In the event, Zelenskiy continues to hold out and fight the war, Yermak’s successor in the OP and former military intelligence (HUR) chief Kirill Budanov could be a replacement candidate. Budanov has repeatedly warned of a coming disaster at the front and has been negotiating prisoner releases and other issues with Russian military intelligence on an episodic basis with results. He could be a compromise candidate acceptable to the CIA, MI6, the Democrat Party, and globalist oligarchs like Soros. After all it was the Barak Obama administration’s CIA that trained Budanov in intelligence, sabotage, and assassination operations.

The CIA, the Democrat Party, globalist oligarchs like Soros, and MI6 likely are hoping to bring a new force to power; one that will continue the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War. To be sure, some in globalist-captured Europe are nervous about some of their EU colleagues’ plans to militarize and plan for war with Russia. Besides Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and even still Hungary, Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said it was time to begin talks with Russia (https://news.liga.net/en/war/news/stubb-said-he-was-looking-for-an-envoy-or-group-of-leaders-from-europe-to-contact-russia). Clearly, Trump is pressuring Europe to stop its escalation of the Ukrainian War and political-military tensions with Russia and back his stalled, all but dead Ukrainian peace drive. With Ukraine suffering military, social, economic, financial, and political crises and a Russian summer offensive around the corner, the jig is up for the globalists’ golden boy, but some of the globalists and their allies still may not realize it. The Europeans, who have some influence over NABU, may also be using the Mindichgate corrupt scandal in order to trap Zelenskiy so that he continues to do its bidding by fighting Russia and to not to dare to even think about seeking a peace agreement with Putin.

In order to prevent Russia from exacting a strategic defeat on NATO, the U.S., and the globalist-oligarchic elite, it is more likely that these forces are either preparing the ground for Zelenskiy’s fall or directly pursuing it. In the event, they would like to see former commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valeriy Zaluzhniy and/or neofascist elements, such as the military’s well-armed 3rd Army Corps ‘Azov’ led by Brigadier General Andriy Biletskiy and/or the 1st Army Corps ‘Azov’ led by Brigadier general Denys ‘Redis’ Prokopenko. Zaluzhniy has had good relations with another neofascist formation, Right Sector, whose founder, Dmitro Yarosh, he appointed as an advisor of his before the war, so he, like so many in Ukraine, are willing and able to work with these extremist forces. Biletskiy, as I wrote recently, is on the rise in terms of coercive power as well as pubic popularity and authority. Should Biletskiy’s and Prokopenko’s respective Azov corps overcome their differences, they, along with Zaluzhniy, would constitute a formidable force capable of pulling a coup d’ etat. If one doubts that elements in the West would turn to neofascist to save their Ukraine project and effort to deliver a strategic defeat to Russia, then you need look no farther than Syria where an Al Qaida leader was ushered into power in Syria. U.S. and other Western intelligence work with Ukrainian fascists has a long pedigree and is in demand today.

Another possibility, less likely albeit, is that the West’s s minions in NABU and elsewhere in Ukraine are going rogue and are playing a largely domestic game internal to Ukraine. NABU and much of the rest of the Ukrainian government is dependent on Western financing, and it could not be waging war against Zelenskiy and his corruption without some sort of Western backing.

Either way, the roof is coming down on Zelenskiy’s head and the Maidan regime. The corrupt circus of this clown and superb actor is closing down. The stakes are sky high in NATO and the West, especially with the Iran debacle and shift to a Russo-Sino-empowered multipolar world. With the Ukrainian army in rapid retreat this summer, it is time for the West to conjure up a Plan B, however futile or dangerous it might be.

By Natalia Trapeznikova, Frank Media (Russia), 4/30/26 (Machine translation)

According to data published by Rosstat, the Gini coefficient in Russia stood at 0.422 by the end of 2025. It reflects the uneven distribution of income within society. Its value ranges from 0 to 1: the higher the value, the more unevenly wealth is distributed within society. Russia’s 2025 figure is the highest in the past 18 years; the last time income inequality in Russia reached this level was in 2007.

The Gini coefficient increased by 2.7% compared to 2024. This is the strongest growth trend in the past five years. For example, in 2024, the coefficient increased by 1.2% (to 0.410), in 2023 by 1.7% (to 0.405), and in 2021 by 0.7% (to 0.409). In 2022, the Gini coefficient decreased by 2.7% (to 0.398).

A new approach to an old question

Rosstat has introduced a new methodology for calculating the Gini coefficient, which takes into account the tax burden and regional differentiation. While the current calculation method uses income before income tax, the new methodology will use income remaining after taxes, accounting for interregional differences.Read alsoThe Central Bank recommended restructuring the debts of businesses affected by floods in southern Russia.

The new indicator will also be used to determine how effectively the Russian authorities have achieved the goals set in the presidential decree. According to the decree, the Gini coefficient should decrease to 0.37 by 2030 and to 0.33 by 2036.

The Gini coefficient calculated using the new methodology was 0.375, close to the target set for officials by Vladimir Putin. The figure was significantly lower than the standard calculation. The higher the income level, the greater the level of tax deductions, since Russia has had a progressive tax scale since 2025, explained Elena Vashalomidze, associate professor of the Department of Labor Economics and Demography at the Faculty of Economics at the Academy of Labor and Social Relations, to the Vedomosti newspaper.

Rosstat promised to publish both Gini coefficients in the future—those calculated using both the old and new methodology.

Rosstat had previously published an estimate of the Gini coefficient in its 2025 annual report, but then removed it, the “If byt’chnom” project noted in March. At that time, it was 0.419. This estimate was confirmed by the project’s own calculations. State Duma deputies also criticized Rosstat for removing inequality data.

By Rosemary Kelanic, Responsible Statecraft, 5/1/26

Rosemary Kelanic is Director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities and author of the book, Black Gold and Blackmail: Oil and Great Power Politics. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and other outlets. She earned her PhD in political science from the University of Chicago.

President Trump and members of his administration have repeatedly claimed that the United States’ prodigious oil production insulates the country from price shocks stemming from Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

It’s not clear whether they’re acting as fools or knaves – but either way, they’re wrong.

U.S. oil production does not render American consumers immune to fluctuations in oil prices, which are determined by the interplay of supply and demand in a global market. To the contrary, because the U.S. economy burns more oil to produce each unit of economic output than peer countries do, the United States will suffer more from the Iran War price shock than will China, Russia, or the European Union.

Those facts will surprise many Americans because myths and misconceptions about oil have long clouded U.S. political debates and the reasons behind U.S. vulnerability are genuinely counterintuitive.

Oil price shocks affect all countries, regardless of how much petroleum they produce, because of the deeply globalized nature of oil markets. Economists often compare the global oil market to a giant bathtub with many spigots and drains. The spigots represent all the countries producing commercial quantities of oil, and the drains represent states consuming oil, which is every country in the world.

It generally doesn’t matter which molecules from which spigots go into which drains. What determines prices is the overall level of oil in the bathtub, which represents the global oil supply, and market speculation, or predictions about future oil prices that can influence actual prices through self-fulfilling prophecies.

Normally, the global market supplies roughly 100 million barrels per day, but the Hormuz closure provoked by President Trump’s disastrous war against Iran has abruptly removed about 10 million barrels a day. That has reduced the bathtub level of oil and raised prices for every country attached to the global oil market – including the U.S. – regardless of whether or not they directly consume Persian Gulf oil.

The crisis is unfolding on a time delay, with Asia hit first — but not worst — due to its proximity to the Persian Gulf, the site of the physical disruption. The worst effects have yet to ripple across the full length of the bathtub, but their arrival is imminent in the Western Hemisphere.

Ironically, the stream of empty oil tankers crossing the Atlantic to load up on U.S. oil, which President Trump bragged about on Truth Social on April 11, is the exact transmission mechanism through which the shock spreads.

Those tankers are now diverting U.S. supply to Asia, where prices are higher, which in turn drives up oil prices here. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data for the week ending April 24 shows a massive drawdown of 6.2 million barrels from U.S. oil inventories, confirming that diversion is already underway. EIA now estimates that average U.S. gasoline prices jumped to $4.24 per gallon in April, up from $3.77/gallon in March and $3.03/gallon in February, before the war began.

Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopened at full capacity tomorrow, U.S. gasoline prices in May will no doubt be even higher than April, due to the time-delayed effects of Persian Gulf oil already removed from the market.

It’s no exaggeration to say a global economic meltdown could be the result. Oil price shocks are linked to economic recessions, with 10 out of the 12 post-WWII U.S. recessions immediately preceded by a spike in oil prices. The only exceptions are the 1960-61 recession and the Covid pandemic.

Oil consumption is a necessity that can’t be quickly reduced. U.S. consumers live where they live, drive the car they drive, and must still commute to work. So high gasoline prices force U.S. households to reduce spending on everything else, leading to massive demand shock for all other goods. Increased transportation costs for items like food and clothing will also cause the prices of those necessities to spike, worsening U.S. inflation.

That’s the basic logic for how oil price shocks affect consumers, but the actual pain felt by Americans will be comparatively worse than the situation in China, Russia, and the EU. The U.S. economy is highly oil intensive, meaning that it burns more oil to produce each unit of GDP than all of these countries, by quite significant amounts. Per dollar of economic output, the U.S. economy consumes twice as much oil as the EU, 40% more oil than China, and 20% more oil than Russia — which is especially astounding because Russia is a petrostate.

Two underlying factors explain why U.S. output is so reliant on oil. First, the U.S. is a car-loving culture, and its transportation system has always relied more heavily on automobiles than other major powers. Second, the U.S. has lagged in transitioning to electric vehicles, which can be powered by electric grids that are almost entirely independent of oil. China, in particular, has long pushed EVs and electric rail for strategic reasons, understanding the security benefits of decoupling their transit system from a global oil market prone to price shocks.

In the long term, the U.S. should copy China’s strategy and de-risk from petroleum through government policies to encourage the U.S. transition away from oil-burning automobiles.

But in the short run, the only solution is to make a deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz — and the sooner the better. As the disruption hits and U.S. prices skyrocket, Trump’s bargaining power vis-à-vis Iran will plummet. Whatever cost the U.S. must pay to Iran to reopen Hormuz will only compound as the oil crisis worsens. Time is not on Trump’s side.

Russia Matters, 5/11/26

“I believe that the matter is coming to an end, but this is really a serious matter,” Vladimir Putin declared regarding the Ukraine conflict during a Q&A following this year’s Victory Day parade, casting the war as a proxy struggle with “the so‑called globalist part of the Western elites.” Commenting on Putin’s remark, Kommersant’s veteran Kremlin pool reporter Andrei Kolesnikov argued that “changes have appeared in Vladimir Putin’s position. He has begun to think of something, possibly different, about this war.” “In Vladimir Putin’s opinion, the end is near,” Kolesnikov added in his account of the May 9 Q&A. Putin’s declaration constitutes “one of the Kremlin’s clearest indications yet that Moscow may be seeking a negotiated settlement after more than four years of fighting,” according to long-time Berlin-based Russia watcher Ben Aris. In contrast, Moscow-based analyst Georgii Bovt warns against literal readings of Putin’s declaration that “the matter is coming to an end,” calling the phrase rhetoric “addressed to the public,” which both craves an end and is meant to hear that “victory itself is near.” In her latest R. Politik Bulletin, France-based Russian political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya argues that Putin’s unusually upbeat claim that the war “is coming to an end” reflects his perception of a fragmenting West rather than any genuine readiness to compromise. A Telegram channel attributed to well-known Russian blogger Anatoly Nesmiyan observes that Putin’s remark sparked a wave of commentary, with some seeing “no visible reasons for the war to end.” “Yet in an autocratic regime, rationality is secondary, and a conflict can begin or end without clear cause,” according to the Otrkytye Prostranstva (Open Space) Telegram channel. Our search of Putin’s speeches on May 9 in 2022–2025 on the Kremlin’s website netted repeated closing calls “For Victory!” by Putin, but no declarations that the war in Ukraine is coming to an end. Russia’s recent territorial losses in Ukraine and modest declines in Putin’s popularity (which is still above 60% and is perhaps partially driven by shrinking economic output) may have played a role if Putin’s claim did constitute a signal that he wants to end the war soon.*

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Putin’s Bitter Reckoning With Europe: An Analysis of Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day Comments

By Alexander Mercouris, Substack, 5/10/26

Putin’s press conference yesterday was interesting because it highlighted his deep feeling of anger and betrayal by Europe.

(1) He reminded the journalists (all Russians) that the crisis began with the EU insisting Ukraine ratify an Association Agreement incompatible with Ukraine’s free trade agreement with Russia. When Ukraine demurred the Maidan coup was the result;

(2) He said Europe’s objective in 2022 was to engineer Russia’s collapse so that the Europeans would be able to help themselves to its parts. In a truly extraordinary passage, he spoke of Finland joining NATO in order to participate in the plunder;

(3) He gave a very bitter account of the events of April 2022 and of the failure of the Istanbul Agreement.

Briefly: He revealed for the first time that it was Macron who called him and tricked him into pulling Russian troops back from Kiev, telling him that “the Ukrainians could not be expected (to sign the Istanbul Agreement) with a gun pointing at their head”. He was careful to say that the Russians recorded the conversation and have Macron saying all this on tape.

He then spoke about how, once the Russian troops had been withdrawn, ‘another colourful character’ – Boris Johnson – told the Ukrainians to ditch the Istanbul Agreement in return for unlimited Western support.

I came away with the clear impression that Putin believes Macron and Johnson were working together and had it all worked out in advance;

(4) He accused the Europeans of using Ukraine as a proxy in their conflict with Russia;

(5) He signalled that the only major West European political figure he retains any trust in is Gerhard Schroder, who is of course out of power;

(6) Contrary to many reports, Putin did NOT say that he believes the Ukraine conflict is coming to an end. This belief stems from misreporting of his words by a TASS journalist.

If Putin’s words are read carefully it is clear his meaning was quite different. It is that with the failure to bring about the collapse of Russia that which on The Duran we call ‘Project Ukraine’, ie. the West’s (in Putin’s view, Europe’s) bid to use Ukraine as a tool to destabilise Russia, is coming to an end.

Perhaps wrongly, Putin appears to blame the Europeans more for ‘Project Ukraine’ than he does the Americans.

(7) Putin did float the possibility that with the failure of Project Ukraine, and with the crisis this has caused in Europe, a new generation of European leaders might find a way back towards a reconciliation with Russia. However, he did not seem to me to say this with much conviction;

(8) As for the Americans, Putin appears to think that their various diplomatic initiatives of the last year to end the war have run into a wall and are effectively over.

Many people will say that Putin has a paranoid view of Europe and its intentions. He however would point to Europe’s actions (eg. he spoke about Europe’s work fabricating Ukraine’s drones) and its rhetoric, which is frankly terrible. Certainly, in Russia his opinions are widely shared.

This is where in Europe relentless hostility, extreme rhetoric, and a total rejection of dialogue with the Russians, has led us. If the Russians and their leader now entertain these views of us, we should not be surprised.