If Russia continues fighting this “war of attrition” for years to come instead of decisively ending it soon, then it’ll be more vulnerable than ever to the “cordon sanitaire’s” invasion threats around 2030, thus compelling it to either capitulate or resort to nuclear weapons in self-defense.
RT drew attention to Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko’s recent assessment that “we proceed from the premise that [NATO is] really preparing for a military clash with Russia somewhere around 2030.” This followed the National Defense Strategy declaring that “European NATO dwarfs Russia in economic scale, population, and, thus, latent military power”, but these resources must be properly managed in order to unleash their full potential. The US seeks to fulfill this management role for the EU.
Accordingly, it was concluded that “The EU Poses A Much More Credible Threat To Russia Than The Inverse”, which preceded former President and incumbent Deputy Chair of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev warning about the 1941-like threat posed by Germany’s remilitarization. Earlier this month, former top Russian spy Andrey Bezrukov raised awareness of the “new war” that he believes that Russia is in and which might last decades, one primary goal thereof being to neutralize its nuclear capabilities.
Grushko’s assessment coincided with the start of Trump 2.0’s “war of attrition” against Russia, so taken in sequence, it’s arguably the case that the US hopes to atrophy Russia through Ukraine prior to the EU becoming powerful enough to threaten a then-weakened Russia with invasion. The “cordon sanitaire” that formed around Russia over the past year largely due to Trump 2.0’s Neo-Reagan Doctrine could also lead to Turkiye and/or Japan threatening the same in order to obtain maximum concessions from Russia
This US-organized geostrategic construct was built in the Arctic-Baltic through UK-led efforts, Central Europe through Polish-led efforts, along Russia’s entire southern periphery through Turkish-led efforts, and in Northeast Asia through Japanese-led efforts. If Russia’s nuclear capabilities are neutralized or severely degraded by that time, then it might be coerced into selling controlling stakes in its state natural resource companies to the West for pennies on the dollar, which is Trump 2.0’s grand strategic goal.
Given this goal and the modus operandi of first trying to achieve it through the incipient “war of attrition” against Russia before threatening the use of force by around 2030 if that fails, Russia’s urgent interests are as follows. It must swiftly end the Ukrainian Conflict on as many of its terms as possible in order to then focus on preparing for potentially impending clashes with the US-led “cordon sanitaire”. Remaining embroiled in the “war of attrition” will sap its strength and make it relatively weaker by then.
Between now and then, Russia must also employ creative means for breaking this “cordon sanitaire” or at the very least preventing it from extending to Kazakhstan, which could potentially involve prioritized intelligence operations against shadow NATO member Azerbaijan or even another special operation. In parallel, it might also leverage its influence with North Korea to embolden Kim Jong Un to carry out more missile and possibly nuclear tests, hoping to abruptly shift the US’ focus from Europe to the Asia-Pacific.
If Russia continues fighting this “war of attrition” for years to come instead of decisively ending it soon, then it’ll be more vulnerable to the “cordon sanitaire’s” invasion threats around 2030, thus compelling it to either capitulate or resort to nuclear weapons in self-defense. Neither scenario is favorable, but both would be due to Russia failing to restore deterrence by then. It’s therefore imperative to immediately restore deterrence, swiftly win the Ukrainian Conflict, and then break this new “cordon sanitaire”.
Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 06:30The US military is still conducting attacks inside Syria, at a moment its close regional ally Israel is gobbling up territory in the south, and Golan region, with IDF ground forces holding territory within dozens of miles of Damascus.
"A senior Islamic State leader was killed by an airstrike last week, Central Command announced on Wednesday, as the region grapples with a fraught security landscape amid U.S. base closures in Syria and the escape of ISIS personnel from detainment," Defense News writes based on a fresh Wednesday Pentagon statement.
via ReutersHussein Al-Alawi has been identified as the target killed in northwestern Syria in the special forces operation.
"The attack is part of our continued efforts to disrupt terrorist activities and to target those who seek to plan attacks on the United States of America and its interests both domestically and internationally," CENTCOM stressed in its statement.
"The continued collaboration with the regional partners in the fight against the group," added the statement.
"CENTCOM and its partners remain committed to defeating the last remnants of ISIS and to guaranteeing its demise," stated Admiral Brad Cooper, US Central Command commander.
The over decade-long proxy war to oust Assad, which heavily involved the CIA and Gulf states, as well as Israel, has long been discussed as part of the 'pipeline wars' theme, and has for years been an open secret.
President Trump, who helped put new Syrian self-declared President Sharaa in power, and vouched for him when they first met in Saudi Arabia, is expected to attend the G7 summit.
But despite Damascus under Sharaa now being a willing puppet of Washington, economic relief for the war-ravaged Syrian population has remained illusory, as one Middle East outlet previously underscored:
Because Syria had been under crushing sanctions since the start of the 14-year war that began in 2011, many expected the economic situation to improve after Sharaa toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government and western nations began easing sanctions.
However, “attracting foreign investment and restoring normal banking ties have proven slower and more difficult than many officials had hoped,” Reuters noted. More than 90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line and have suffered from major increases in the price of fuel, electricity, and food in recent months.
All the while, looming large in the background is the fact that the Syrian government is now full of Sunni extremists, who have repeatedly targeted Alawites, Druze, and Christians for being "unbelievers".
Thousands have died at the hands of ISIS-style Syrian government-linked military members, who have sought to cleanse the country of its ancient Christian and Alawite communities.
Israeli officials have of late lumped Turkey and Syria into an 'axis' which threatens Israel and its interests in the region. Also, Washington has been putting pressure on Damascus to move against Hezbollah, and yet the reality remains that Syria's defenses have been largely obliterated - ironically enough through Israeli strikes in the wake of Assad's exit.
Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 05:45Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,
Major LNG suppliers say the EU’s methane regulations are too burdensome to comply with and could lead to reduced gas supplies.
The U.S. and Qatar contend that tracking methane emissions across complex gas supply chains is technically difficult or impossible.
With nearly 60% of its LNG imports coming from the U.S., the EU risks straining relations with key suppliers as it pursues stricter climate policies.
The United States and Qatar have once again warned the European Union against doubling down on climate policies seeking to penalize the LNG industry, saying that if it continues on this course, the EU will face a gas crunch and higher prices.
“There is no viable path to compliance with the regulation”, the top energy officials of the U.S. and Qatar, Chris Wright and Saad al-Kaabi, wrote in a letter quoted by the Financial Times.
“Because legal compliance remains paramount, exporters and importers alike are unwilling to enter into contractual agreements that knowingly violate EU law,” the U.S. energy secretary and the Qatari energy minister also wrote. “Significant supply and price impacts are a certainty.”
The letter comes ahead of a meeting on Friday when the energy ministers of EU member states will discuss the policies of the bloc. It was also signed by two other large gas suppliers to the European Union, Algeria and Nigeria, the FT also reported.
The so-called methane regulation, adopted by the European Union two years ago, aimed at reducing not only the bloc’s own emissions of the greenhouse gas that constitutes almost 100% of natural gas but also forcing countries outside the EU that do business with the bloc to cut their emissions as well, notably gas suppliers.
The regulation, starting this year, extends to all energy suppliers to the EU, and these suppliers were anything but happy about it.
Both the United States and Qatar have already repeatedly warned the EU that they are unwilling to do business with it under the methane regulation that requires gas producers to track their methane emissions from the wellhead to the liquefaction plant and the LNG carrier after that, report them, and take pains to reduce these emissions, or face financial penalties.
Qatar was blunt about it, saying last year that if the EU was so concerned about methane emissions, they should look for some other source of LNG because Qatar would stop selling to the bloc. Secretary Wright also said last year that the methane regulation was impossible to implement and described it as “a critical non-tariff trade barrier that imposes an undue burden on U.S. exporters and our trade relationship.”
In response, Brussels caved partially, saying it will not enforce the penalties stipulated in the regulation until 2030. LNG exporters are still not happy with this option, insisting on what would effectively be the cancellation of the regulation—and they are not alone because there are EU member states that are not really eager to pay the additional cost of low-methane LNG, which would be inevitable, as pointed out by Wright and al-Kaabi.
Not only are higher gas prices for European buyers inevitable, but Secretary Wright was not exaggerating when he said the regulation would be impossible to enforce in the U.S. shale gas patch. The reason is quite simple: U.S. natural gas is produced by multiple companies that then feed their output into a complex gas network that takes the gas to the liquefaction facilities on the Gulf Coast. Tracking every molecule to ensure it was produced and shipped with as few methane emissions as possible is quite literally, physically impossible.
According to energy consultancy Rystad Energy, however, there is no problem with the EU methane regulation, because there are three times as much compliant natural gas available in the world as the EU imports, it said in a study commissioned by climate outlet the Environmental Defense Fund, as cited by the FT. One wonders, however, if that is indeed the case, why would both Qatar and the United States, which together account for a pretty solid portion of global LNG output, claim compliance is impossible, meaning there is not enough compliant gas in the world.
The EU, for all its power posturing, is not in a position of strength. Bloomberg’s Javier Blas reported in a recent column that the bloc buys some 59% of its LNG from the United States, with the figure going all the way to 64% in April. As a result, Blas wrote, some in Brussels are starting to worry that the EU has become too dependent on a single supplier of a vital commodity—and it does not exactly have many alternatives should anything strain relations, such as, perhaps, an ill-conceived methane regulation.
Yet it appears the purpose of the methane regulation is not necessarily to make sure the gas that Europeans buy is “clean”. The purpose, as described by the FT and attributed to proponents such as the Environmental Defense Fund, is to reduce gas consumption, apparently by making the conditions for purchasing that gas unpalatable. For those proponents, reducing gas consumption would improve the EU’s energy security. European industrial energy consumers beg to differ. Who will prevail should become clear pretty soon.
Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 05:00After his Oval Office visit today, an affair dominated by foreign reporters speaking truth to power by clamoring for more global military spending, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had to defend his alliance’s often-touted moral assertion: that NATO is defensive in nature.
Asked by ZeroHedge whether NATO’s good deeds in Libya and Iraq (a de facto NATO "coalition of the willing") operation) qualified as defensive, Rutte had this to say:
NATO chief Mark Rutte often refers to his alliance as “defensive.”
I asked whether Hillary Clinton’s regime war in Libya or Cheney’s Iraq — both NATO operations — were defensive operations. pic.twitter.com/sa8X1qcsFt
Rutte: Again, NATO is there to defend 1 billion people living in NATO territory, from California up to and including Turkey, and everything in between. This is a transatlantic, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Alliance. It is extremely powerful. It is the strongest defensive alliance in world history. And we have our discussions, as you have seen this afternoon. There are always debates. These are democracies.
ZH: But what about those wars? What about Libya and Iraq?
Rutte: I'm not going to comment on everything, but I can assure you, NATO is there to defend. But if we would be attacked, you can be assured, that if we get attacked by anyone, for example the Russians or whoever, that our reaction would be devastating.
One million Iraqis may be dead. Libya may no longer be a cohesive country, with sub-Saharan slave auctions returning post-NATO liberation… but hey! It was debated. We’re democratic.
Libya was infamously a Hillary Clinton operation, something she reportedly believed would be a slam dunk victory and propel her into the presidency in 2016. Instead, after killing Gaddafi, Benghazi happened, where embassy officials and CIA contractors were murdered in a surprise attack.
Most know of this scandal but few know why there was a secret CIA compound still located in Benghazi, Libya after Gaddafi had been murdered. As investigative reporter Seymour Hersh broke in 2014, it was to smuggle weapons from the no-longer-needed Libyan “rebels” to the freedom fighters in Assad’s Syria… a regime change that would eventually be achieved and was publicly celebrated by Israeli PM Netanyahu, who took partial credit.
Western values:
Hillary Clinton,on hearing about Gaddafi's death in Sirte, Libya.
20 Oct 2011.
Hillary Clinton: "We came, we saw, he died!"
Q:"Did it [Gaddafi's death] have anything to do with your visit?
Clinton: "Nah...I'm sure it did (giggles)"
🤔 pic.twitter.com/QoUQS0sp4d
Mark Rutte has been successful at ratcheting up weaponry spending across Europe, combining his ability to flatter Trump and by leveraging Trump’s threats against NATO members to “pay their fair share”. Rutte is apparently an aspiring Lindsay Graham as he approaches 60 years of age with no kids, wife, nor girlfriend and a seemingly singular focus at prolonging wars.
His latest attempt, today, to seduce Trump included a posterboard-demonstration featuring the global increases in European NATO spending that has occurred under Trump’s terms:
Rutte's presentation Wednesday in the Oval. Screenshotted from White House feed.Nothing like cheerful, childless men trying to drag you into World War III while they constantly remind you of their moral virtuosity. Reminiscent of the Biden years.
Trump and Vance deserve great credit and support as they try to resist the warmongers in the Levant. Let's hope they can resist the ones in Brussels as well. And yes, yes.. Trump started the war in Iran. But, to anyone paying attention, it was against his will and now he and Vance are entering uncharted territory in their defiance towards Israel. To reference Sey Hersh again, from his latest Substack post:
“Last week President Donald Trump walked away from a postwar alliance dating back almost eight decades by telling Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that America’s romance with Israel is over. The bond between the two nations, officially dating back to 1948, when Israel was recognized by the United Nations, was shredded. Perhaps forever. Trump has told the New York Times and its columnists who bemoan what they fear will be a bereft and vulnerable Israel, in constant peril from a potential Iranian nuclear weapon, that Israel is on its own.
It had been an American political ritual, like kissing babies when campaigning, to support Israel in all things, as did President Joe Biden”
Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 04:15