Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Newly declassified intelligence records have revealed that the Biden administration labeled Americans who opposed the COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as “Domestic Violent Extremists.”

The documents, which were declassified by DNI Tulsi Gabbard, show that they cutely abbreviated the term to ‘DVEs’.

🚨 JUST IN: Tulsi Gabbard has CONFIRMED the Biden regime put many of us on TERROR WATCH LISTS for speaking out against COVID mandates

People need to be JAILED over this! pic.twitter.com/r8Gz0uuzro

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 23, 2025

Catherine Herridge, one of the journalists who obtained the records, notes “The designation created an “articulable purpose” for FBI or other government agents to open an “assessment” of individuals.”

NEW: Biden Administration Labeled Opponents Of Covid Mandates As “Domestic Violent Extremists,” Newly Released Documents Show

The designation infringed on the First Amendment and opened the door to investigating Americans for vaccine mandate skepticism.

The Biden Administration… pic.twitter.com/BFbffO0xUC

— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) May 23, 2025

A former FBI agent told Herridge that this “is often the first step toward a formal investigation.”

Herridge further reports:

The report… claims that “anti government or anti authority violent extremists,” specifically militias, “characterize COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as evidence of government overreach.” A sweeping range of COVID narratives, the report states, “have resonated” with DVEs “motivated by QAnon.”

The FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) coauthored the December 13, 2021 intelligence product whose title reads, “DVEs and Foreign Analogues May React Violently to COVID-19 Mitigation Mandates.”

The report cites criticism of mandates as “prominent narratives” related to violent extremism. These narratives “include the belief that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe, especially for children, are part of a government or global conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil liberties and livelihoods, or are designed to start a new social or political order.

“It’s a way they could go to social media companies and say, ‘You don’t want to propagate domestic terrorism so you should take down this content,’” said former FBI agent Steve Friend.

Wow. Those violent extremists believing that COVID vaccines were potentially unsafe for young people.

It’s not like they were 100% correct and big pharma is being forced to admit this is exactly the case.

The FDA is requiring COVID vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna to update their warnings about the possible risk of myocarditis and pericarditis. https://t.co/KWQ2WpuBI6

— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 21, 2025

Herridge also reports that “The newly declassified report seems to draw a straight line between opposition to vaccine mandates and elevated levels of domestic terrorism.”

A separate February 2022 report called “Special Analysis: Joint Analytic Cell” investigates the “Sociopolitical Factors Amplifying Persistent Domestic Violent Extremist Threat.”

The newly declassified report seems to draw a straight line between opposition to vaccine mandates… pic.twitter.com/0oLkXZyGWD

— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) May 23, 2025

And will there be any consequences for the people who engaged in this behavior?

I think we all know.

— Jack Bauer after dark 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@JackBauerAD) May 23, 2025

Not unless Trump officially reverses all the pardons made with the autopen.

Every federal employee who acquiesced to this and colluded with the Biden Pretendership in its war against the American people needs to do hard prison time.

— Michael Goulish (@Mick_Goulish) May 23, 2025

True, labeling concerned citizens as extremists was a big government overreach. People have a right to question mandates.

— VJT (@KelvinCold1234) May 23, 2025

It’s every ounce as awful as we felt and suspected.

Just awful. https://t.co/CEZ55Lswln

— BhawkMom (@bhawk_mom) May 23, 2025

As the lawyer who filed the most lawsuits in America to challenge COVID restrictions, I find this appalling & un-American, and it will not deter me from continuing to urge members of Congress to overrule the cases that made this tyranny possible, starting with Jacobson v. Mass. https://t.co/upJCVWwhrZ

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@HarmeetKDhillon) May 23, 2025

*  *  *

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The White House on Friday began easing sanctions on Syria, in fulfillment of President Trump’s promise to give the war-torn country a new chance and put it on the path to “greatness”.

“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Trump had first announced in an investment forum in Riyadh last week, where he met President Sharaa (Jolani), who is the founder of al-Qaeda in Syria. But Trump still expressed hope that the new government would “succeed in stabilizing the country.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio days later admitted in a Senate hearing that the new leadership in Damascus “didn’t pass their background check with the FBI” – which is of course an understatement given Jolani even had been with ISIS early in his jihadi ‘career’.

The Treasury Department confirmed that it has issued General License 25 (GL25), authorizing previously prohibited transactions under the Syrian Sanctions Regulations (SSR), and further Rubio issued a 180-day waiver of the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, suspending some of the harshest measures passed by Congress in 2019.

“Today’s actions represent the first step in delivering on the President’s vision of a new relationship between Syria and the United States,” the secretary of state announced. “President Trump is providing the Syrian government with the chance to promote peace and stability, both within Syria and in Syria’s relations with its neighbors.”

Western officials have unwittingly admitted that sanctions are a tool of regime change, regardless of the horrific impact they have on millions of common citizens…

Syria has reportedly been reconnected to the SWIFT international payment system, and the Treasury action paves the way for American entities dealing Syria’s central government, Central Bank of Syria and other banks, as well as energy firms, and telecommunications providers, etc.

Below are some further thoughts on the Syria proxy war of regime change which kicked off in 2011 and unleashed a state of chaos and suffering for the Syrian people ever since, authored by Kevork Almassian…

“For years, Robert S. Ford posed as a diplomat. In reality, he was laying the groundwork for Syria’s destruction through rebranding Julani, a former al-Qaeda leader, as a political asset,” Almassian begins. 

Former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford fully unveils his role in bringing Jolani “out of the terrorist world” in an effort to make him palatable as someone who Washington could back:

For years, Robert S. Ford posed as a diplomat. In reality, he was laying the groundwork for Syria’s destruction through rebranding Julani, a former al-Qaeda leader, as a political asset.

A thread 🧵 pic.twitter.com/eDD7uo1ERT

— Kevork Almassian (@KevorkAlmassian) May 21, 2025

He continues:

I don’t use words like “hate” or “despise” lightly. But there are individuals in our modern political theater whose actions warrant such condemnation—not out of emotional impulsivity, but out of moral clarity. 

We are not lesser for feeling hatred toward those who have inflicted unspeakable damage on entire nations. On the contrary, to remain indifferent to their deeds would be a greater failure of conscience. 

Robert Ford, former U.S. Ambassador to Syria, is one such figure. For many Syrians, his name is etched into our memory not as a diplomat, but as a saboteur who cloaked his destabilizing mission under the guise of diplomacy. 

While diplomats are meant to represent peace, dialogue, and neutrality, Ford played a very different role—one more fitting for a provocateur or an imperial foot soldier. 

In 2011, as Syria began descending into unrest, Ford made a highly publicized trip to Hama without notifying the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That’s a basic diplomatic protocol—even adversarial states follow it. 

But Ford had a mission, and it wasn’t peaceful: he wanted to embolden a movement, not mediate it. His stunt echoed the actions of Victoria Nuland in Ukraine, who infamously handed out cookies to Maidan protesters. 

The symbolism was clear—this wasn’t about supporting democracy; it was about scripting regime change.  Ford didn’t just cheerlead the opposition. He actively pushed for a specific type of opposition—one increasingly dominated by hardline Islamist factions. 

He helped legitimize the most radical elements, whitewashing them as “freedom fighters” even as they called for ethnic cleansing and sectarian annihilation. This wasn’t a mistake of judgment; it was a policy choice. 

Today, in 2025, we are seeing the horrifying fruits of those choices. Julani—the former al-Qaeda commander—has become Washington’s “rebranded” man in Syria.  A decade ago, he was a wanted terrorist. Now, thanks to a calculated effort led by Western-backed NGOs and think tanks, he’s the self-selected President of Syria.

Robert Ford, unsurprisingly, is at the center of this moral charade. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in Baltimore just this month, Ford admitted to being part of a British conflict resolution team tasked with rehabilitating Abu Mohammad al-Julani. 

He revealed that he met Julani twice between 2023 and 2024 to “train” him, with a third meeting in January 2025—this time at none other than the Presidential Palace in Damascus. The implications are staggering. 

Let’s be clear: Ford, a former U.S. ambassador, now works directly with the same jihadist whose group committed atrocities across Syria and Iraq. The same Julani who oversaw the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities and implemented Taliban-style governance. 

Ford isn’t just a retired diplomat giving lectures at think tanks. He’s a contractor for chaos—still shaping U.S. policy, still operating in the corridors of power through institutions like the Middle East Institute and the Atlantic Council. 

And yes, the Middle East Institute is funded by Gulf monarchies with vested interests in destabilizing the Levant. Ford doesn’t work for peace; he works for the empire, for the oil aristocrats, and for the military-industrial complex. 

There’s a word I use for journalists who serve imperial narratives: prestitutes. For people like Robert Ford, the term must be extended. He is the diplomatic equivalent of a mercenary—a man who sold his intellect and influence to perpetuate misery under the pretense of bringing change. 

What we are witnessing today is not just the manipulation of geopolitical outcomes—it is the reprogramming of collective memory. We are being asked to forget Julani’s crimes, to welcome him as a “moderate” leader, all because figures like Ford have deemed it politically convenient. 

We must reject this narrative. We must hold these individuals accountable—not just for the destruction they helped sow, but for the audacity with which they continue to profit from it. 

Robert Ford may speak fluent Arabic, but he never understood the Syrian people. If he had, he would know that no amount of diplomatic spin can wash away the blood spilled by men like Julani—or by those who empowered him.

Independent journalist and author Brad Hoff also has kept and analyzed the receipts.

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

One of the reasons many people voted for President Trump during this past election was the Republican Party’s focus on our nation’s out-of-control finances.

After four years of what can only be described as the Biden administration purposefully racking up as much debt as humanly possible—while not even telegraphing a semblance of fiscal responsibility—the Trump administration ran on a plan to drastically cut spending and inject some financial common sense into government.

So far, there’s been some tangible progress. Trump is trying to recalibrate global trade in order to bring in new revenue and narrow our trade deficit. DOGE has worked to try and cut wasteful government spending. And there have been more discussions about sound money and methods to try and address the nation’s debt in the Trump administration’s first few weeks than I heard during all four years of the Biden administration.

But now we’re staring down the face of a tax and spending package bill, referred to as the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, that’s dividing parts of the GOP.

Trump is advocating for his new bill because he believes it will stimulate economic growth, reinforce U.S. infrastructure and industry, and strengthen national security—all while projecting confidence in America’s financial future. He argues that targeted spending now can generate long-term returns through job creation, increased productivity, and global competitiveness. By pushing this bill, he’s aiming to balance fiscal responsibility with strategic investment, positioning it as a necessary step to rebuild the country’s foundations after what he portrays as years of neglect and mismanagement under the previous administration.

GOP opponents of Trump’s new spending bill argue that it adds too much to the national debt and doesn’t include enough spending cuts to balance it out. They’re concerned it could worsen inflation and say the government is trying to take on too much instead of leaving things to the states or private sector. Some also believe the bill is filled with unnecessary items and lacks clear focus. Overall, they see it as fiscally irresponsible and a step away from conservative principles of limited government and careful budgeting.

Last night Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) opposed Trump’s bill, calling it fiscally reckless due to its mix of tax cuts and increased spending. He warned it would add trillions to the debt and criticized the rushed vote on a still-unfinished bill. Despite pressure from GOP leaders and Trump, Massie voted no, underscoring deep divisions in the party over fiscal policy.

Massie correctly pointed out that investors continue to demand higher yields on U.S. bonds, signaling a loss of faith in the creditworthiness of the United States.

Massie is unique as a Republican because of his willingness to stand up to the MAGA machine and stand on principle. He’s also unique as a member of Congress in the sense that he’s probably one of about a half dozen people—out of the hundreds in Congress—who actually understand the bond market. And his concern early this morning, whether it’s taken seriously by President Trump’s administration or the rest of Congress or not, is warranted.

For lack of more complicated jargon, the bond market has recently been “out of whack”. Yields are rising despite the Federal Reserve being in the middle of a cutting cycle, and bonds sold off at the same time risk assets sold off after Liberation Day (they would usually catch a bid in a ‘flight to safety’ selloff). If it feels like the magnetic poles of the bond market have reversed, it could be because they have.

What does this mean?

The bond market has traditionally been comprised of far more sophisticated and sizable investors than the equity market: foreign governments, giant institutions, and extremely wealthy investors, to name a few.

As bonds sell off with risk assets and as yields rise despite the Fed cutting rates, these influential and sizable investing world powers that be are sending the message that things are not OK the way they are going. The rising yield indicates a desire to be compensated more for holding U.S. debt—sending the signal that it is riskier than people think it is—and it also sends a message to our Treasury and the Federal Reserve that the country’s fiscal house is not in order.

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The bond market is, in essence, a collection of investors so sharp that they can’t help but realize exactly how precarious the country’s financial situation has gotten, no matter how much of a polish or gloss politicians and government officials try to put on it. In other words, the bond market can’t be fooled—and by the looks of it, isn’t.

And no matter what side of the argument you’re on for Trump’s big, beautiful bill, there’s no doubt that the bond market is going to settle this dispute. If the bill passes and bond yields continue to rise, it will continue to tighten the fiscal screws for the United States.

The bond market blowing up has no silver lining either. As yields rise, so will the amount of interest we pay on the national debt, and it’ll publicly broadcast a lack of confidence in U.S. paper. And if the likely scenario occurs where the Fed somehow steps in with printed money and utilizes big banks to steady the Treasury market (sometimes called yield curve control, or a version of it)—that could thrust the United States further down the stagflationary path it’s already on.

The one solution has always been very simple: spend less while keeping revenue the same, increase revenue while spending the same, or increase revenue and spend less at the same time. One way or another, the deficit has to be addressed—and the time for doing it is right now — not five years from now, not ten years from now, not at any other point in the future.

The bond market knows this and has been sending this signal clearly since early April.

MAGA supporters can channel all the hate they want at the libertarian Republicans in Congress, just as Republican hardliners can lash out at what they believe to be more irresponsible spending. But the only true adjudication of this debate the country is having is going to come from the bond market.

If you’re not already, it’s time to watch very closely.

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions. All positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

Early Saturday Russia and Ukraine completed their second round of a large-scale prisoner swap that was agreed to in Istanbul talks last week.

The deal will see 1,000 POWs exchanged for 1,000 POWs but has to be completed in phases given the logistics and sheer size of the swap, with the first round of hundreds freed having taken place Friday along the Belarus-Ukraine border. The Saturday exchange involved each side bringing home 307 soldiers.

But despite this ‘good faith’ gesture of a successful ongoing prisoner exchange, the war is still raging, with an aerial war ramping up, given the hundreds of drones sent across both borders over the last week.

This continued overnight, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky early Saturday condemning Russian strikes on several oblasts, including in the capital Kyiv.

Zelensky identified in a social media statement that the fresh aerial assault targeted the Odesa, Vinnytsia, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kyiv and Dnipro regions. He alleged that Russian drones and missiles “targeted” civilians. At least 15 were wounded in these attacks.

Update (1014ET):

X is back online after an hour of outages across parts of the U.S.

The big question: Was this early Saturday morning outage just another glitch—or a sign of a broader system overhaul? Time will tell, but it’s clear the platform has been unusually glitchy this past week. 

*   *    *

For all the early risers rolling over in bed on Saturday morning, reaching for their smartphones on the nightstand to fire up the X app and check if anything insane happened overnight — bad news: outage tracker Downdetector is reporting a surge in X outages across the U.S.

Downdetector reports a massive spike in X outages occurred around 0830 ET and persisted at 0930 ET.

The majority of the outages are being reported in the eastern half of the U.S., maybe because it’s still super early on the West Coast. 

Most outages have been reported on X’s app (69%). 

On the desktop version, we have received multiple errors, including this:

“We are having trouble connecting right now. Changes you make may not be saved.”

The X app has had similar issues for the last several days, but the X team resolved everything very quickly. If anyone else has noticed, X embeds have been challenging to extract HTML code over the last month. Perhaps this is something for the X team to read. 

*Developing… 

Is it humanitarian empathy, or a nihilistic death cult that desires a legal rationale for population control?  The legislative push for government assisted euthanasia in the western world is one of the most guarded topics in establishment media.  Nothing negative or critical can be said and all concerns are dismissed as “conspiracy theory”.  The government run suicide apparatus is a pure and loving function of progressive society…and how dare you suggest otherwise.

This month officials in England, Wales and Scotland will be considering legislation to legalize government assisted euthanasia (End Of Life bills), with laws similar to those passed in Canada in 2016.  

The legislation proposes letting terminally ill people end their life if they:     

– Are over 18, live in England or Wales, and have been registered with a GP for at least 12 months.   

– Have the mental capacity to make the choice and be deemed to have expressed a clear, settled and informed wish, free  from coercion or pressure.    

– Be expected to die within six months.    

– Make two separate declarations, witnessed and signed, about their wish to die.    

– Satisfy two independent doctors that they are eligible with at least seven days between each assessment.

This type of legalized suicide should be treated as distinct from the “physician assisted suicide” made available in the US in ten different states.  There is a stark difference between an individual going out on their own to seek a doctor to help them commit suicide while suffering a terminal condition, versus the government actively encouraging the public to commit suicide and helping them do it using your tax dollars.

There is plenty of room for debate in both cases, but without a doubt no government should be in the business of mass euthanizing the population.  There is far too much temptation for the practice to be expanded beyond people who are already dying.

Case in point: Canada’s euthanasia system has been in place for less than a decade and already the government is expanding suicide guidelines for people simply in need of treatment as well as people with mental health issues.  This is well beyond the scope of terminal illness.   

Keep in mind that the original argument for government euthanasia in 2016 was that it would only happen in very rare cases and only for people with severe illness and suffering great pain.  By 2017 after the first government suicide programs were put in place, officials were already arguing for wider application of the program, asserting that euthanasia could save their socialist medical system over $130 million per year in costs (this is one reason why socialist medicine is a bad idea).  In other words, killing people is much cheaper than trying to save them.

By extension, it’s also expensive to treat people for mental illness and mental illness could, technically, qualify as terminal suffering.  So why not offer them suicide options as well?  Canada has made mental illness legal grounds for government aided suicide, but the law does not go into effect until 2027.  That said, there are multiple reports of such measures being offered already, including accounts by Canadian military veterans with PTSD being told they could qualify for euthanasia.

But it doesn’t stop there.  Canadian lobby groups are calling for the legalization of government euthanasia for children; people they refer to as “Mature Minors”.  Such programs are currently in place in countries like Belgium and the Netherlands and there are efforts to do the same in Canada.  In 2022, the federally funded Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada paid for a study which argued in favor of MAID (Medical Assistance In Dying) for “mature minors”, or children over the age of 12 that were deemed mature enough to make personal medical decisions.

In other words, MAID programs start out as suicide for the terminally ill, then quietly tip-toe out to the mentally ill, and then children who are ill, and no doubt they will eventually apply to mentally ill children. 

We’ve seen this kind of Orwellian tip-toe before, but this is a highly sensitive and explosive topic.  For decades now, establishment elites have argued for carbon emissions controls and medical treatment controls in the name of supporting socialized medicine.  Government funded euthanasia is a natural consequence of these agendas.

Of course, the carbon pollution and climate change narratives are a farce (there is zero concrete evidence of causation between carbon emissions and climate change), and if socialist medicine requires a shrinking population in order to function then socialized medicine is a failed project that needs to be abandoned.

In terms of mental illness, it seems as though governments are taking advantage of people in moments of weakness and confusion and offering them an easy way out instead of a way to get better.  They don’t want the public to get better, they want you dead.

It’s interesting that the activism around legalizing suicide for minors coincides with the activism to give children medical independence without parental oversight. The transgender issue and the suicide issue appear to intersect when it comes to medical emancipation.    

Should Britain and the rest of the UK adopt government suicide programs like Canada, expect them to also exploit healthcare costs and mental health problems as reasons for more death.  As of 2024, 1 out of every 20 deaths in Canada was a government assisted suicide.  If they bring children and people dealing with mental illness into the equation, that ratio will skyrocket even further.  This is not a rare procedure, it’s a social mainstay.  

If the west continues on this path, forget about trying to reverse the decline in population growth.  Get ready instead for a swift population collapse.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

If you go to the Vancouver International Auto Show, you can see all the new models. However, if you want to see a Tesla, you must go down the road to check out a car without a political litmus test. The organizers are just the latest group to join the mob retaliating against Elon Musk for working with the Trump Administration to remove waste and fraud in government through his DOGE program. What was most striking was the pathetic rationalization of the organization for engaging in political retaliation.

According to the Canadian Auto Dealer, the organizers claimed a common rationalization for political discrimination: security. As we have seen on college campuses for years, where conservative speakers are barred due to security concerns, the Canadians claimed that they could not protect innocent parties if a single Tesla was allowed on the floor. Furthermore, they blamed Tesla, insisting the company was given “multiple opportunities to voluntarily withdraw.”

In other words, we only cancelled Musk when he refused to cancel himself.

Tesla already had a booth set up and had to take it down.

So, the solution to extremists is to give them precisely what they demand.

After all, some on the left are committing political violence and claiming that they were triggered by the mere appearance of Teslas or other symbols. This week, another person wearing a MAGA hit was assaulted. The woman was triggered by the hat on the head of a 72-year-old man so she attacked him.

The Canadians appear willing collaborators in this retaliation. Rather than simply posting proper security, they banished the victim of the political violence. By blaming it on Tesla, they can throw up their hands and say “we tried” but Tesla was unreasonable.

It is the same rationalization heard from those arrested for political violence.

For example, Natasha Cohen, 46, is a New York therapist, was arrested for vandalizing Teslas and explained that she is “living in terror every day.” It is a familiar refrain as the rise in political violence becomes undeniable. On Friday, New York Times Chief White House Correspondent and MSNBC Political Analyst Peter Baker came under fire for admitting that leftist violence is on the rise, but noting that Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric “might excite people to take action.”

Cohen explained that it is all Elon’s fault:

“Every time I see those cars, I see Elon Musk saluting the country as a Nazi…I made a mistake because I’m basically living in terror every day that the country is turning into Nazi Germany. I’m truly terrified, because Elon was unelected and they’re deporting migrants without a trial.”

However, people like Cohen are now safe from being triggered at the Vancouver International Auto Show. The organizers are only banning those who refuse to ban themselves.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Putin warned in March 2024 that Russia might set up a “security zone” inside Ukraine in response to cross-border strikes and raids, which it then began to do two months later that May after Russian troops made a fresh push into Kharkov Region at the time. Regrettably, the incursion didn’t penetrate too deeply, and later that summer Ukraine launched a sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region. It was only earlier this year that Russia finally expelled all Ukrainian troops from there with North Korean assistance.

Nevertheless, Putin just announced late last week that “a decision has been made to create a buffer security zone along the Russian border” with Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk Regions, thus meaning inside the corresponding Ukrainian regions of Kharkov (once again), Sumy, and Chernigov. Unlike last year’s attempt, this latest one might be more successful due to the very different context within which it’s being pursued, particularly as regards the conflict’s new diplomatic and military dynamics.

Regarding the first, “The Devil’s In The Details As Trump Announced ‘Immediate’ Russian-Ukrainian Ceasefire Talks” right after his latest call with Putin, the details of which readers can learn more about from the preceding hyperlinked analysis. Its relevance to Putin’s newly announced buffer zone plan is that his declaration might initially be intended as a form of pressure upon Zelensky to coerce him into having Ukraine finally comply with Russia’s demanded concessions for politically resolving the conflict.

As for the second, it was assessed in mid-March that “Russia Might Expand Its Ground Campaign Into Sumy, Dniepropetrovsk, And/Or Kharkov Regions”, with Dniepropetrovsk being mentioned instead of Chernigov since Russian forces are approaching its border from Donbass after going around Pokrovsk. Crossing that administrative frontier into a region that Russia doesn’t (yet?) claim as its own could circumvent Ukraine’s formidable defenses in central Zaporozhye and lead to that region’s swift capture.

In connection with these dynamics, RT chief Margarita Simonyan clarified that the Russian delegation in Istanbul didn’t threaten that their country would claim an additional Ukrainian region if Ukraine doesn’t withdraw from the four disputed ones, but four more for a total of eight regions (not counting Crimea). These could conceivably be all or part of Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov, and Dniepropetrovsk Regions given Russia’s latest buffer zone plan unless Ukraine agrees to its demanded concessions before then.

With that plan in mind and seeing as how those four regions, Kiev, Cherkassy, and Poltava are either entirely or partially east of the Dnieper, Russia might add to its list of demands by calling for the creation of a totally demilitarized “Trans-Dnieper” region controlled by non-Western peacekeepers. This could either complement its original demand for demilitarizing the entirety of Ukraine or be presented as a compromise in exchange for letting Ukraine do whatever it wants on the other side of the river.

Regardless of whether that proposal is put forth, Putin’s newly announced buffer zone plan shows that Russia is expanding its goals, which makes sense considering that it’s winning and that Ukraine still refuses to comply with its demanded concessions for politically resolving the conflict. The longer that Ukraine refuses to agree to peace on Russia’s terms, the more land that it stands to lose, which might ultimately be much more than anyone expects if the US soon abandons Ukraine in order to cut its losses.

Another ballistic missile fired from Yemen has targeted Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport in central Israel on Friday, in reportedly the third such attack on Israel within 24 hours.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree announced the fresh attack in a televised statement, saying “The Houthi forces targeted Ben Gurion Airport with a hypersonic ballistic missile” and that the attack “successfully achieved its goal.”

While the Houthis have repeatedly claimed “hypersonic” missile attacks over several weeks, there’s as yet no evidence that they possess this advanced technology. Still, it has become clear that Israel’s advanced air defense systems at time have trouble intercepting the inbound projectiles, as a May 4th attack demonstrated.

The Houthis spokesman claimed of this new Friday attack that it caused “millions of Zionist settlers to flee to shelters and halted airport operations.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged an inbound missile, which set off warning sirens in central Israel, but did not indicate any ground strikes or damage:

Early on Friday morning, sirens blared across Tel Aviv as a result of the Yemeni missile. The Israeli army said in a statement that it intercepted the missile. 

A Yemeni missile was also intercepted by Israeli air defenses on Thursday afternoon, following an earlier missile attack, which Tel Aviv also said it intercepted.

The Houthis have been stepping up attacks on Israel in recent weeks, and after a few major waves of Israeli strikes on Yemen, which destroyed the international airport in Sanaa. 

While such Israeli retaliation has clearly caused much damage and death inside Yemen, the constant Houthi fire is also impacting Israel – at least on an economic and logistical level. 

Times of Israel reports Friday on more foreign carriers suspending operations at Israeli airports:

British Airways joins the growing list of companies extending their cancellation of flights to and from Israel following the Houthi missile strike near Ben Gurion Airport at the beginning of the month.

Hebrew media reports that British Airways has extended its suspension until the end of July.

Below is a montage of images from the May 4th ballistic missile strike on Ben Gurion Airport:

The fact that the US military is drawing down its Red Sea anti-Houthi operations, after the Trump-proclaimed ceasefire earlier this month, appears to have freed up the Houthis’ ability to focus more firepower directly on Israel.

Last Friday the Israeli government announced an expansion of Gaza operations – so these missile attacks out of Yemen will likely only grow. The Houthis have further said they have added Haifa port to its target bank.

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

On the road in Iran – The International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) is one of the most crucial geoeconomic/infrastructure projects of the 21st century. 

It unites at its core three key BRICS nations – Russia, Iran and India – branching out to the Caucasus and Central Asia.

When fully operational, the INSTC will offer a full trade/connectivity corridor sanctions-free, cheaper and faster than the Suez canal to a great deal of Eurasia. The geoeconomic consequences will be staggering.

To re-visit Iran in these times of geopolitical trouble, relentless “maximum pressure”, red lines on uranium enrichment and bombing threats could not be more pressing – and enlightening.

Total Connectivity: Highway, Mosque, Bazaar

By an auspicious turn of events, the old school reportage/investigation actually became the plot line of a documentary, produced in Iran, shot by an outstanding crew, and to be broadcast in several parts of Eurasia, including Russia. Here we offer the broad strokes of our travel to the heart of the INSTC.

We started with a series of interviews in Tehran, with Central Asia analysts and most of all Mostafa Agham, the top expert of Behineh Tarabar Azhour, a transportation and logistics firm specialized in Eurasia railway corridors. These analyses offered contrasting points of view on where the INSTC should go next and what are its main challenges.

Travel along Iran’s main artery, from Tehran to Bandar Abbas, was a must – as it will conform the trans-Iran north-to-south highway axis of the corridor. That doubles of course as a cultural and spiritual pilgrimage, which in our case featured plenty of auspicious overtones.

We arrived at fabled Isfahan past sunset, which allowed us to visit the Masjed-e Shah – or “Royal” – mosque virtually undisturbed. The Royal mosque – one of the highlights of Islamic architecture – sits on the south side of the Naghsh-e square in Isfahan, one of the most extraordinary public squares in the history of art and architecture, rivaling, and arguably surpassing San Marco in Venice.

A visit to the Isfahan bazaar is also inevitable. I was looking for an old friend who sold nomad carpets – in the end, because of slow business, he relocated to Portugal – just to find his sort of heir, young, energetic, who apart from pointing me to a spectacular, rare tribal rug from northeast Iran close to the Afghan border, gave me a crash course on the effects of sanctions and the perpetual demonization of Iran in the West (“Turkey has 40 million tourists; we have two or three”). Isfahan’s neat and extremely organized bazaar offers quality handicrafts to rival Istanbul, but there’s essentially domestic tourism, sprinkled with a few foreigners mostly from Central and South Asia and some from China.

On the way back to Tehran we learned that, being a Tuesday, the revered Haram of Fatima Masumeh, the daughter of the 7th Imam Musa, in Qom was open all night. Nothing prepares the pilgrim for an arrival at nearly two in the morning to an apotheosis of gold and crystals in the heart of Qom, Iran’s second most sacred city after Mashhad. Only a few pilgrims paying their respects, some strolling around the shrine with their families or reading the Quran. A moment of quiet illumination.

Afterwards it was time to hit the Caspian, and the port of Bandar Anzali, the proverbial “international bridge” where, in theory, cargo ships from Astrakhan in the Russian Caspian, as well as other Caspian-bordering states will start arriving ern masse via the INSTC. In Bandar Anzali, Iran essentially imports petrochemicals, construction materials, minerals, and iron products and exports grains (soybeans, corn, barley, wheat) and crude oil.

In Tehran, Mostafa Agham, the connectivity expert, had explained in detail that perhaps the multimodal drive of the INSTC across the Caspian may not be the best idea. The Russians prefer to build a railway bordering the western margins of the Caspian; and another possibility is to use a network of already functioning railways from southcentral Russia, across Kazakhstan all the way to Aktau, by the Caspian, and then connecting across Turkmenistan to Tehran.

It’s only via a close up on Bandar Anzali that one understands the Russian rationale. One of our cameramen, in delightful broken English, coined an instant hit: “Port no exist”. Translation: the infrastructure has not been upgraded in decades, which brings us to the devastating effects of sanctions, visible in several nodes of Iran. China will have a lot of work to do as part of their 20-year strategic partnership, where energy-for-infrastructure is a central plank.

Break To The Border!

Bandar Abbas, in the Persian (italics mine) Gulf, is a completely different story. That’s Iran’s main port, and a key node of the INSTC, to be connected to Mumbai and already connected to the big ports in eastern China. We had all the hard-to-get necessary permits to explore Shahid Rajae-i Special Economic Zone, crammed with containers from shipping firms such as West Asia Express and unloading scores of Chinese container cargos. The uber-strategic Strait of Hormuz is only 39 km to the south. A few days after our visit, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian went straight to the point, referring to proverbial Trump threats: “Block our oil, and we’ll block the world’s energy.” Iran can do it – in a flash; were that to happen, the collapse of the global economy is guaranteed.

Additionally, port authorities explained that the recent explosion on Shahid Rajae-i – attributed to “negligence”, still under investigation and somewhat mired in controversy – was not in the port itself, but in a storage area 10 km away.

From the Persian Gulf we fly to the Sea of Oman – and infrastructure problems ride again: there are only two flights a week. We arrive at a minuscule military airport outside the future superstar of the INSTC: the port of Chabahar in Sistan-Baluchistan province. Baluchis are exceedingly cool, cousins to the ones on the other side of the border, in Pakistan. In bustling Chabahar, the lineaments of a boom town are quite visible.

A long walk in the port side by side with Alireza Jahan, a logistics expert and then a conversation with Mohammad Saeid Arbabi, the Chairman of the Board and Managing Director of the Chabahar Free Trade Zone could not be more enlightening.

Jahan explains how Chabahar is essential to Iran’s East Axis, serving over 20 million people not only in huge Sistan-Baluchistan but also three other Khorasan provinces, and further on to Kerman. So Chabahar is the port for an enormous hinterland, while its competitor, Gwadar in the Arabian Sea in Pakistan, only 80 km away or so, is virtually isolated.

Jahan also explains Indian investment. Tehran is investing heavily in the infrastructure and superstructure of Chabahar port, while India is investing in equipment: the Italian cranes around the port came from India. Arbabi, at the Free Trade Zone, expands on the international profile of Chabahar, which will be an absolutely key node not only for landlocked Afghanistan but also the Central Asian “stans”.

And that brings us to the local highway saga: Chabahar to Zahedan, in the Afghan border, 632 km, already an “acceptable road”, and with a companion railway to be built within the next three years, everything 100% financed by the Iranian government.

Progress at the port is steady – slowly but surely. For the moment Chabahar receives three ships from India a month and two ships from China, plus three from the Persian Gulf. The distance from Mumbai is only 4 days, and from Shanghai, 15 days. The potential for expansion is limitless.

From Chabahar, it’s on the road bliss along the spectacular, strategic, oil-drenched, semi-desert Makran coast, bordering the immaculate Sea of Oman all the way to the Arabian Sea. History looms large: this is where Alexander the Great lost as much as 75% of his army to dehydration and starvation when he was retreating across the desert to Macedonia after his tortuous two-year invasion of India.

Due to a concert of economic and ecological reasons, there have been plans for quite a while to relocate the capital, Tehran, to the Makran coast. Chabahar in this case would be the ideal candidate: free port, INSTC connectivity between Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. India – which needs to step up its geoeconomic game – has noticed it. And China certainly did; Chinese companies are bound to invest massively in Chabahar – the de facto key node for South Eurasia integration.