Turkey Demands Russia Sanctions Waiver From US For NatGas Ahead Of Winter
The US and UK have this month been stepping up efforts to thwart Russia’s sanctions evading efforts when it comes to energy exports.
This week the British government sanctioned 30 ships involved in Russia’s shadow fleet to disrupt its oil trade, and last week the Untied States moved against Russia’s largest remaining non-sanctioned bank, Gazprombank.
Gazprombank is known to handle payments from foreign customers related to those Russian natural gas supplies still going to Europe.
Turkey this week is seeking a sanctions waiver from Washington, arguing that it is essential for the country to keep importing Russian gas. It is warning of far-reaching repercussions to the economy if this energy lifeline is cut off.
“These sanctions will affect Türkiye. We cannot pay, if we cannot pay we cannot buy the goods. The Foreign Ministry is in talks,” Energy and Natural Resources Minister Bayraktar told a press briefing Monday.
Bayraktar said that a regular supply of natural gas is crucial headed into winter, and the country has long relied heavily on gas imports.
“Our industry and households need gas,” the energy minister said. “Within the framework of supply security, we depend on Russian gas.”
He specifically added that Turkey needs a waiver to make its payments through Gazprombank in order to secure necessary supplies.
“If such an exemption is not granted to Türkiye, it will directly impact us. At this point Russia is not the target, Türkiye is the direct target (of these sanctions).”
Interestingly, Bayraktar also lashed out at the lame-duck Biden administration for the poor timing of the sanctions. “The problem with sanctions is that they can be imposed overnight, but lifting them takes much longer,” he said, suggesting that this was done with an intent to thwart expected Trump efforts to deescalate with Russia.
“Their internal politics are not my concern. My priority is to ensure my country gets the gas it needs,” Bayraktar continued in reference to the recent US election. Russia remains Turkey’s top natural gas supplier.
Further evidence that surface temperatures across Greenland have been cooling for around 20 years has emerged with the recent publication of findings from a group of Thai scientists and mathematicians. Processing 31,464 satellite recording from 2000-2019 over the entire area, they found that the average temperature fell by 0.11°C. This is said to indicate a “non-significant change in LST [land surface temperature]”.
The latest evidence of actual cooling over a significant area of the Arctic will not be news in scientific circles since it backs up previous findings of recent temperature falls. But the information is of course kept out of the mainstream since it casts doubt on the key Net Zero scare about soaring sea levels caused by the catastrophic melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
There are some crumbs of comfort for alarmists since the Thai authors found that the ice-free sub-regions of Greenland are warmer than the ice-covered sub regions. But perhaps not – the authors attributed it to “population density”. Urban heat yet again corrupting the temperature data, even in Greenland. The illustration below charts the temperature record for all areas of Greenland.
The World Economic Forum recently reported on a study that predicted a “total collapse” of the Greenland ice sheet within a few months. This suggestion is only slightly more ludicrous than the scares routinely published to induce mass psychosis in populations with the aim of promoting a collectivist command-and-control Net Zero solution. The recent farce around the COP in Baku showed the conspiracy operating in plain sight. Stop the developing word developing with hydrocarbons, then invent a number of fake scares such as island states disappearing beneath the waves. Everyone knows this and most of the other scares are false as scientists have shown on numerous occasions, but no matter. Invent some ridiculous composite figure – say $250 billion a year, or $1.3 billion by 2035 – then pretend your taxpayers can be rinsed even though the only country that could conceivably afford it is leaving the party in January.
All of this means that genuine attempts to explain the science around the climate changing are stuck in a ‘settled’ narrative hellhole. The corals can grow like topsy in record amounts on the Great Barrier Reef and the Arctic sea ice can show a small decade-long recovery. Meanwhile, mainstream media and politics prefer to take their cue from characters like ‘Jim’ Dale, who points out of the window and attributes every puff of wind to a human cause.
Nowhere is this lack of scientific inquiry more evident than at the two Poles of the Earth. Antarctica has barely warmed during 70 years of detailed observations, while the situation in the Arctic, as we can see, is complex and open to many interpretations. The Thai mathematicians stick mainly to their statistics and find “no evidence of warming over ice-free and ice-covered areas”. But they do note earlier work by a group of Japanese scientists (Matsumura et al. 2021) that suggested the Central Pacific El Niño Southern Oscillation teleconnection played a “key role” in recent summer Arctic climate change.
The Matsumura team found a recent slowdown in Greenland ice loss and warming. The El Niño role is also thought to have helped the recent overall Arctic sea ice recovery. Changes around Greenland can be attributed to “natural variability, rather than anthropogenic forcing”, note the scientists. “Most climate models were unable to reasonably simulate the unforced natural variability over Greenland,” they added.
As we can see, Antarctica is another difficult place to get a good scare going due to a decades-long lack of any warming. Fears of a ‘tipping point’ are often heard after natural melting and ice breaks in western Antarctica. But late last year, the Daily Sceptic highlighted a paper by a group of international scientists that found significant recent cooling across the entire area. The paper was published by the American Meteorological Society and it observed a 2°C fall in the 20 years to 2018. During the spring season, the fall was a massive 1.84°C every decade, while the winter reduction came in at 1.19°C over the same time period. As is usual when temperatures drop, the carbon dioxide blame game is laid aside and answers are sought in natural climate variations. In this case it was noted that temperatures in the eastern Pacific equatorial region had dropped over the last 20 years under review.
Again don’t expect the climate models to have much idea about what is happening in the real atmosphere. There is said to be “no robust agreement” among the models on the important sea temperatures driving the western Antarctica air temperature.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in response to a question about his country’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific that this “will depend on the deployment of corresponding US systems in any region of the world.” This came less than a week after Putin authorized the use of Russia’s previously secret hypersonic medium-range Oreshnik missile in Ukraine, the strategic significance of which was analyzed here, and parallels newly deteriorating Russian-South Korean ties.
Seoul is considering arming Ukraine in response to unsubstantiated reports about Russia’s use of North Korean troops against that former Soviet Republic, which prompted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko to warn that “we will respond in every way that we find necessary. It is unlikely that this will strengthen the security of the Republic of Korea itself.”
The two triggers for Russia’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific are therefore the US doing so first or Seoul arming Kiev.
It’s important to point out that while China is Russia’s close military partner and Moscow believes that Washington is engaged in what Russian officials describe as a “dual containment” strategy against both, Beijing isn’t its military ally, unlike Pyongyang with which Moscow just recently signed a military pact. That document was analyzed here and amounts to updating a Soviet-era one. Its strategic significance is that each pledged to help the other if they come under aggression and such assistance is requested.
Accordingly, Russia’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific would be in defense of its own and North Korea’s security, with the first immediate consequence being that it could inadvertently worsen China’s by serving to justify and accelerate the US’ regional containment plans against it. To explain, Trump plans to “Pivot (back) to Asia” upon the end of the Ukrainian Conflict, whenever that might be and regardless of the terms agreed to, which is already troubling enough from China’s perspective.
To make it even worse, Trump is inheriting the Biden Administration’s achievement of having brokered the improvement of South Korean-Japanese ties to such an extent that the US’ long-hoped-for regional trilateral is finally on the brink of becoming a strategic reality. The deployment of short- and intermediate-range Russian missiles to the Asia-Pacific, especially the state-of-the-art Oreshnik, would naturally justify the aforesaid and accelerate all three’s convergence into a tighter triangle.
On the diplomatic front, these missiles could always be withdrawn pending a grand deal between Russia, the US, North Korea, and possibly also China, though the latter’s involvement shouldn’t be taken for granted. After all, an agreement could be reached between the first three in exchange for de-escalating tensions in Northeast Asia, which could then free up the US and Japan to concentrate on more muscularly containing China in Southeast Asia via Taiwan and the Philippines, which both are close with.
It’s premature to predict that this is exactly what will unfold, but the point is that Russia’s role in the emerging Asian front of the New Cold War could be leveraged for de-escalation purposes if its and North Korea’s security interests are met, which only requires negotiating with the US and not with China. Given these military-strategic dynamics, it’s possible that Trump might try to fulfill his campaign pledge to “un-unite” Russia and China by playing them off against each other, though that’s very unlikely to succeed.
All told, Russia’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific would be triggered by the US or South Korea, with the consequences being that it’ll solidify Russia’s role in that emerging front of the New Cold War while inadvertently worsening China’s security by justifying and accelerating the US’ “Pivot (back) to Asia”. The Kremlin wants to fulfill its allied commitments to North Korea and highlight its relevance in that part of Eurasia, both goals of which are driven by security, diplomatic, and soft power motives.
“Business As Usual”: NYT, Reuters, Vox Media Reportedly Have Zero Plans To Leave 𝕏
The New York Times, Reuters, Vox Media, and more than a dozen other media organizations have confirmed to Digiday their intention to remain on Elon Musk’s 𝕏. This follows the decision by some far-left folks, frustrated with the ‘free speech’ platform in the wake of Trump’s historic presidential victory, to migrate to Bluesky—a social media platform tailored for those infected by the woke mind virus.
Digiday reported:
Over a dozen major publishers — including The New York Times, Reuters and Vox Media — told Digiday that they didn’t have plans to leave 𝕏 anytime soon. About half declined to comment on the record. The other half confirmed that it was business as usual.
However, the media outlet focused on the future of media and marketing noted some corporate media outlets were planning to give Bluesky a try:
Last week, The Guardian joined NPR in vowing not to post on the platform anymore, citing the toxicity on Twitter 2.0 and 𝕏 owner Elon Musk’s political involvement. Meanwhile, 𝕏 alternative Bluesky received an influx of new users after the U.S. presidential election, with publishers like The Economist, The Week, Politico and Semafor following them there.
What’s certain is that 𝕏 was the number one app in the App Store as of Sunday. This comes as legacy media continues to implode, with how people receive their news shifting dramatically—from corporate media outlets to 𝕏, alternative news websites, and podcasters.
BREAKING: 𝕏 remains the #1 News App in the US in both Free and Grossing categories on the AppStore.
Meanwhile, major brands, including Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Brothers, Discovery, and Lionsgate Entertainment, have all resumed ad spending on 𝕏, an indication that the social media platform remains the top spot for news and current affairs.
The President Trump transition team has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to start the process of transferring control of the federal government. The landing teams from each of the cabinets will now begin to engage with their exiting counterparts.
There were many articles written about the delays in signing the agreements. However, President Trump waited until he has his cabinet fully assembled before signing the first part that permits the landing teams to engage. The second part with government provided offices and technology is NOT being accepted.
President Trump’s Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, announced the Trump transition team has refused to sign an MOU with the Government Services Administration (GSA), and will not be using cell phones, computers, offices or “any technology” provided by the GSA. This is a smart move to avoid the Deep State surveillance situation that was faced in the first term.
In the first Trump administration, the GSA had wiretaps, office bugs, and gave all the electronic communication information from the Trump transition to the FBI, IC and later Robert Mueller. In essence, the GSA spied on the Trump team, then gave all the data to the operatives who were in place to target them. The Trump team is not making this mistake again.
The Trump transition team is also not going to use the office space provided by the GSA and will instead have their own offices and security systems in place to coordinate the transition to power.
WASHINGTON DC – […] The Trump team’s unprecedented delay in signing these agreements, weeks after being declared the winner of the election, had alarmed former officials and ethics experts who warned it could lead to conflicts of interest and leave the new government unprepared to govern on Day One.
In the Tuesday announcement, Wiles suggested the Trump transition will not sign a separate agreement with the General Services Administration, which would have allowed them to receive federal funding, cybersecurity support and government office space, pledging instead to fund the transition with private dollars, run it out of private facilities, and deploy their own “existing security and information protections” for sensitive data.
The transition, Wiles said, “will operate as a self-sufficient organization, adding that declining government funding will “save taxpayers’ hard-earned money.”
And while Wiles also pledged in the Tuesday statement to publicly disclose the private donors to the transition and “not accept foreign donations,” there will be no legal mechanism to enforce those promises of transparency.
The lack of federal cybersecurity support could also make the Trump transition a softer target for foreign hackers — who already successfully penetrated the campaign earlier this year.
“That’s something that in 2020 was maybe the single most important worry of the [Biden] transition team — that they would be hacked, and all of this information, including intelligence information, personal information about job applicants, would be threatened,” said Heath Brown, an associate professor of public policy at CUNY’s John Jay College who wrote a book about Biden’s transition. “It’s imperative that the Trump Transition Team has installed the proper procedures to protect itself.”
White House spokesperson Saloni Sharma said the Biden administration is concerned about the ramifications of their successors forgoing GSA support, but remains “committed to an orderly transition.”
“While we do not agree with the Trump transition team’s decision to forgo signing the GSA MOU, we will follow the purpose of the Presidential Transition Act which clearly states that ‘any disruption occasioned by the transfer of the executive power could produce results detrimental to the safety and wellbeing of the United States and its people,’” she said.
In the White House memo, Sharma added, the Trump transition “agreed to important safeguards to protect non-public information and prevent conflicts of interest, including who has access to the information and how the information is shared,” and also agreed to publicly share the ethics agreements it is imposing on its own employees.
“This Looks So M16-Ish To Me”: Russian Special Forces Receive New Main Battle Rifle
Russian special forces, commonly known as “Spetsnaz,” are set to receive a newly designed main battle rifle that closely resembles the German Heckler & Koch 417 automatic assault rifle.
The Russian media outlet TASS News Agency reports that the new semi-automatic rifle is chambered in .308 caliber, described as “lighter than analogs” and offering “high precision.”
Named Titan, the rifle is reportedly “already engaged in the zone of the Ukrainian operation,” according to a media outlet citing the Russian arms company SWC.
“Semiautomatic Titan rifle of .308 caliber has been designed for Russian special task units. It can be used as a sniper or assault rifle. Experts say the new universal rifle has good characteristics and is in demand among scouts and commandos,” SWC stated.
SWC added, “The .308 caliber cartridge is powerful and reliable. Russia produces it in various options, including armor-piercing. Therefore, the rifle is popular among the Russian military.”
In October, the Russian media outlet Sputnik reported that the Russian Army received a new sniper rifle, the STM-308, to replace the Dragunov platform.
Earlier this year, the US Army began fielding its brand-new Next Generation Squad Weapon rifles: the Sig Sauer XM7, intended to replace the M4 carbine in close combat formations, and the XM250, which will replace the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.
The X account Defense Politics Asiacommented on the Titan, stating that it “looks so M16-ish to me.“
The U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI are alerting the public about widespread phone scams involving individuals impersonating law enforcement officials. Scammers are posing as U.S. Marshals, court officers, or other government agents in attempts to defraud victims by demanding payments to avoid arrest.
These fraudulent callers claim the victim has committed an offense such as identity theft or failing to report for jury duty. The scammers instruct victims to withdraw cash and transfer it to the government, purchase prepaid debit or gift cards, or deposit money into Bitcoin ATMs to “satisfy” alleged fines.
Scammers often sound convincing by providing badge numbers, names of real law enforcement officials and federal judges, and even spoofing caller IDs to appear as if they’re calling from a government agency or courthouse, the agencies said in a statement.
In Colorado, multiple incidents have been reported in which scammers use the names of actual U.S. Marshals, including U.S. Marshal Kirk Taylor, claiming there’s a warrant for the victim’s arrest unless a payment is made.
Victims across the state have suffered losses totaling tens of thousands of dollars, the agencies said. The U.S. Marshals Service receives daily inquiries from individuals targeted by these scams.
Authorities recommend scam victims file a report with local police and a complaint with the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. Callers can remain anonymous.
The law enforcement agencies said Americans should never divulge personal or financial information to unknown callers. The U.S. Marshals Service said it will never ask for credit or debit card numbers, wire transfers, bank routing numbers, or Bitcoin deposits for any purpose.
Authorities suggest hanging up and calling a local court clerk to verify any supposed court orders.
According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), more than $37 billion has been reported lost due to cyber-enabled crimes from 2019 to 2023. While not every report can receive a direct response, each submission helps law enforcement understand the broader threat landscape and can lead to actionable investigations.
The IC3 notes that tips are extremely valuable.
“Combined with other data, [tips] allow the FBI to investigate reported crimes, track trends and threats, and, in some cases, even freeze stolen funds,” the agency said. “Just as importantly, IC3 shares reports of crime throughout its vast network of FBI field offices and law enforcement partners, strengthening our nation’s collective response both locally and nationally.”
Trump Said To Be Weighing Direct Talks With North Korea’s Kim
During his first term in the White House, President-elect Donald Trump held three meetings with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. The First was in Hanoi, followed by a highly ‘controversial’ meeting at the Korean border, which was the first time in history that a sitting American president had stepped foot into the North Korean side of the border.
There was talk at the time of the two leaders falling “in love”—however, the past couple years of Biden’s Pentagon parking a nuclear submarine at a South Korean port has done much to undo these good will displays. Washington has requested that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons development, while Kim has demanded nothing less than full sanctions relief.
What will the policy be under the second Trump White House?
“US president-elect Donald Trump’s team is discussing pursuing direct talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, hoping a fresh diplomatic push can lower the risks of armed conflict, according to two people familiar with the matter,” South China Morning Post and Reuters report Tuesday.
While Trump’s transition team has said nothing official on the issue as yet, insider sources say a return to direct diplomacy is hopeful:
Several in Trump’s team now see a direct approach from Trump, to build on a relationship that already exists, as most likely to break the ice with Kim, years after the two traded insults and what Trump called “beautiful” letters in an unprecedented diplomatic effort during his first term in office, the people said.
As for the North Korean side, it doesn’t seem in any hurry, or at least is building leverage in anticipation of potential near-future Trump overtures.
The Wall Street Journal summarized Kim’s reaction as of last week as follows:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared to rebuff the prospect of reviving his nuclear diplomacy with President-elect Donald Trump, according to his first public remarks about disarmament talks since the election.
North Korea’s state media reported Friday that the 40-year-old dictator called the U.S. a superpower that operated by force rather than a will to coexist and belittled the value that previous talks had for his cash-strapped regime.
Kim was quoted in a speech days ago as saying, “We have already explored every possible avenue in negotiating with the US.”
He cited Washington’s “unchanging aggressive and hostile policy” toward North Korea, which has included stepped-up joint US-South Korean military exercises on the peninsula.
It’s possible that if Trump is able to oversee peace in Ukraine, which he is pledging to begin in earnest from day one of entering the Oval Office, things could stabilize with US-North Korea relations as well.
But looming large as a complicating factor is North Korea’s sending some 10,000 of its troops to Russia, where they are reportedly assisting Moscow forces in pushing back Ukraine’s occupation of the southern Kursk region. Kiev has used this to decry the ‘internationalization’ of the war, despite NATO having injected billions of dollars and heavy weaponry on Ukraine’s side.
Gensler, a staunch critic of the digital assets industry, confirmed on social media platform X last week that he will resign from his role the day of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Trump and Gensler possess contrasting views of crypto.
Gensler has cracked down on the crypto industry since he was appointed head of the SEC in 2021.
Speaking at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange and FinTech Conference in New York City last year, the outgoing SEC chief said the crypto frenzy has been rife with “Hucksters. Fraudsters. Scam artists. Ponzi schemes.”
“The crypto securities markets should not be allowed to undermine the well-earned trust the public has in the capital markets,” Gensler said. “The crypto markets should not be allowed to harm investors.”
President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to herald a change in federal crypto policy.
While he promised to fire Gensler on his first day in the White House, Trump has also proposed a plethora of pro-Bitcoin measures.
He wants to establish a national Bitcoin reserve, create a presidential crypto advisory council, and ensure all remaining Bitcoin is mined domestically.
“For too long, our government has violated the cardinal rule that every Bitcoiner knows by heart: Never sell your Bitcoin,” Trump said during a keynote address at the largest industry conference this past summer.
This is a reversal from Trump, who has called it a scam and a threat to the U.S. dollar.
“I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” Trump said in social media posts in 2019.
“Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”
Now that the new administration features pro-crypto officials, will the SEC’s regulatory pursuits change?
Winds of Regulatory Change
The agency’s fiscal year 2024 enforcement in the crypto industry resulted in fines and investor relief totaling $8.2 billion.
With the record-high penalties, the number of cases tumbled 26 percent compared to the previous year.
“The Division of Enforcement is a steadfast cop on the beat, following the facts and the law wherever they lead to hold wrongdoers accountable,” Gensler said in a statement attached to the announcement.
This comes as the SEC outlined its aims for the new year.
The report reiterated the SEC’s position to continue monitoring the crypto sector, including investment advisers, broker-dealers, and other financial intermediaries that sell digital assets or facilitate transactions.
“Examinations of registrants will focus on the offer, sale, recommendation, advice, trading, and other activities involving crypto assets that are offered and sold as securities or related products, such as spot bitcoin or ether exchange-traded products,” the report stated.
With a new regime set to take the reins, market watchers are bracing for change, especially with prominent crypto advocates leading various departments, including Scott Bessent as treasury secretary and Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary.
For now, industry experts are submitting recommendations in the suggestions box.
Stuart Alderoty, the chief legal officer of blockchain-based digital payment company Ripple, outlined several priorities the Trump transition team should consider when choosing the next SEC head.
On the new administration’s first day, Alderoty thinks the federal government should end non-fraud crypto litigation and ensure commissioners Mark Uyeda and Hester Peirce remain at the regulatory body, he said on X.
Uyeda and Peirce have been crypto’s allies at the SEC.
Uyeda, in an interview with FOX Business’s “Varney & Co.,” agreed with the president-elect that the “war on crypto needs to stop.”
“There are a number of things that we can do with respect to crypto to help make America one of the global leaders in crypto,” he said.
The SEC needs to provide clarity, produce safe harbors and regulatory sandboxes for investors, and advocate for a whole-of-government “cohesive and comprehensive approach to crypto,” Uyeda said.
“President Trump and the American electorate have sent a clear message. Starting in 2025, the SEC’s role is to carry out that mandate,” he said.
Peirce, speaking on the “CryptoCounsel” podcast this month, has touted more open dialogue between the crypto industry and SEC regulators.
The Ripple CLO has echoed this sentiment, supporting improved relations between lawmakers, regulators, and market participants.
“Collaborate with all financial regulators and Congress on clear and simple rules for crypto, but without presuming that those rules give the SEC primary jurisdiction over anything,” Alderoty wrote.
“Guarantee accountability and restore public trust by addressing past issues within the SEC by emboldening the Office of Inspector General.”
Alderoty also proposed rescinding the SEC’s 2019 Framework for Investment Contract Analysis of Digital Assets, which was published after the industry called for better regulatory clarity between securities laws and blockchain-based tokens.
This guidance, which is neither a rule nor a regulation, offers a blueprint for determining whether a digital asset possesses the characteristics of an investment contract (security).
With Republican control of Congress, lawmakers are likely to adopt a “principles and disclosure-based” approach to policymaking, says Dorothy DeWitt, a former director of market oversight at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Enforcement will also likely target high-risk areas of the crypto market, such as national security, fraud, and misconduct, she said.
“Finally, a path to regulatory clarity will almost certainly involve registration of exchanges, intermediaries and digital assets securities, and implementation of more extensive disclosure standards as well as formal compliance with agency-prescribed principles,” DeWitt said in a Nov. 18 post for the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum.
Despite the winds of change expected to blow through the crypto sector, industry parties should not anticipate significant policy and regulatory changes immediately.
Instead, DeWitt notes, these adjustments could “take place over a year or more, not months.”
Since Trump’s electoral victory, Bitcoin prices have rocketed to all-time highs and were a few hundred dollars short of reaching $100,000.
The growth in the chief cryptocurrency, which controls 58 percent of the market, has lifted other digital tokens, from stablecoins to altcoins.
A spokesperson for Securities and Exchange Commission declined a request for comment.
Niall Ferguson, Scott Horton To Debate Ukraine War Tomorrow Evening In ZeroHedge Exclusive
Despite Trump’s promises to bring a swift end to the war in Ukraine by negotiating with Russia, the war has escalated to a dangerous inflection point with long-range U.S., British, and French missiles being deployed deep in Russian territory and talks of deploying NATO troops in Ukraine. That… and anonymous officials in the New York Times saying what is impossible to believe:
“Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications,” the newspaper wrote.
Amid the chaos, ZeroHedge will be hosting preeminent historians Sir Niall Ferguson and Scott Horton to debate the history of the conflict and U.S. policy in the region. They will be joined by the Hoover Institute’s Peter Robinson (if you’ve seen a Thomas Sowell interview, it was probably his).
Join us at 7pm ET right here on the ZeroHedge homepage (as well as Twitter/X and YouTube channels) for an epic matchup that you won’t find anywhere else.
Ferguson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. He’s written over a dozen books on geopolitical and monetary history.
Horton is the founder of the Libertarian Institute and recently published his book, Provoked, on the history of the war in Ukraine and decades of rising tensions between the U.S. and Russia.
We hope you’ll join us on the eve of Thanksgiving. Recent war context included below:
***
Nukes for Ukraine?!
Days ago, The NY Times revealed that US and European officials have discussed a range of options they believe will deter Russia from taking more Ukrainian territory, including the possibility of providing Kiev with nuclear weapons. “US and European officials are discussing deterrence as a possible security guarantee for Ukraine, such as stockpiling a conventional arsenal sufficient to strike a punishing blow if Russia violates a cease-fire,” the report said.
The article then stated, “Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union.”
Former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the Security Counsel Dmitry Medvedev has responded by pointing out that if the West actually went forward with transferring nukes to Ukraine, this would be seen as tantamount to an attack on Russia. He explained that this is a key aspect of Russia’s newly expanded nuclear doctrine.
In a Telegram post on Tuesday, Medvedev specifically referenced the recent NY Times report, and said: “Looks like my sad joke about crazy senile Biden, who’s eager to go out with a bang and take a substantial part of humanity with him, is becoming dangerously real.”
Medvedev then stressed that “giving nukes to a country that’s at war with the greatest nuclear power” is so absurd that Biden and any of his officials considering it must have “massive paranoid psychosis.”
His biggest and most specific threat came as follows:
“The fact of transferring such weapons may be considered as the launch of an attack against our country in accordance with Paragraph 19 of the ‘Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence’,” Medvedev wrote.
Talk of NATO Troops
Prominent French publication Le Monde on Monday followed by saying serious discussions over injecting Western troops into the war have intensified in the last days:
As the conflict in Ukraine enters a new phase of escalation, discussions over sending Western troops and private defense companies to Ukraine have been revived, Le Monde has learned from corroborating sources. These are sensitive discussions, most of which are classified – relaunched in light of a potential American withdrawal of support for Kyiv once Donald Trump takes office on January 20, 2025.
Britain is once again at the forefront of urging NATO’s deeper involvement in the war, which threatens at any moment to explode into WW3 among nuclear-armed powers. Enter Keir Starmer… in the hawkish footsteps of Boris Johnson:
However, it was relaunched in recent weeks thanks to the visit to France of the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, for the November 11th commemorations. “Discussions are underway between the UK and France on defense cooperation, particularly with a view to creating a hard core of allies in Europe, focused on Ukraine and wider European security,” confided a British military source to Le Monde.
Jean-Noël Barro’s aforementioned words about ‘no options’ ruled out appears to have been a reflection on these continued ‘sensitive’ conversations.
There have been more reports of US-supplied ATACMS launches on Russian territory since their initial use last week:
Looks like Khalino airbase in Kursk, where Russia launches drones to attack Ukraine, just got a taste of ATACMS. The guy in the video seems pretty impressed! pic.twitter.com/ui8r0je74p
