Let’s rewind the clock a couple of months to Congress passing the Lindsay Graham sanctions bill. I said back then that I assessed it as extremely unlikely that Trump would ever implement the provisions in the bill. Why? Because Trump’s close ties to Russia and Putin that have evolved since the 1990s simply run too deep. If it hadn’t been for Russian money, Trump would have gone broke and I doubt his business empire would have ever come off the ground, if it hadn’t been for Russian oligarchs and mobsters directed by Putin and his intelligence services.
Therefore, in reality Trump is a Russian asset as I concluded in the book “Subverted” which was released in February this year. Many intelligence professionals, researchers, academics and journalists have concluded the same, not least my good friend Black Man Spy – Malcolm Nance. This is not conspiracy theory. The “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax” was no hoax. The relationship is documented and if you understand how the Russian agencies operate, Trump’s status as a witting asset is quite obvious. That’s why I like many others have repeatedly said, there was not a snowball’s chance in hell that Trump would “get tough with Putin” or make “a pivot to Ukraine” and whatever enonsense has been peddled over the last year and a half.
Hope you like the front page:-) Subverted isn’t out in English yet, but it will be soon. Read it and you will understand the diesel deal and much more. You can pre-order by sending me DM.
On Friday, Trump showed his true colours under the guise of ending the soaring diesel prices for US voters. Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries have a very limited impact on the price of diesel and especially global oil prices. The blame on Ukraine is simply false. The soaring prices are overwhelmingly the result of Trump’s own making due to his disastrous Iran war.
Another important aspect is the fact that the amount of diesel covered by the deal are far too low to have a significant impact. The first shipment amounts to less than US consumption for 24 hrs (as far as I can tell 15 or 16 hrs). Increasing US diesel imports from Canada by only 4% would give the US the same supply. Obviously, the Canadians have been branded “super villains” by the Trump regime, so a deal with a terrorist like Putin is preferable. The logic makes a ton of sense in the world of super villains.
There are other aspects that make this deal rather odd. Due to Ukrainian strikes Russia has passed a diesel export ban. 90% of the Russian regions report shortages and 75% of the regions have passed laws rationing sales of diesel. Due to the shortages, Russia has even imported diesel from South Korea.
Then why do the deal at all? Firstly, the Russian have wrapped a treasonous web of “kompromat” around Trump since the 1990s and especially during the 2000s. From Putin’s perspective this deal is likely seen as a way to strengthen the treasonous web. Why? That’s how the Russian agencies think and operate. We’ve seen Putin’s operatives, namely finance czar, Kirill Dimitriev, do this again and again. And by the way, Dimitriev was in Trump Tower, New York, on election night back in 2016, so this is no news at all. These relationships and thereby also “kompromat” have evolved even more since then. Former Goldman Sachs banker Dimitriev is always lurking in the shadows with billion dollar deals in hand. Always. You can check out the photos yourselves from all the meetings. I guarantee you, Dimitriev was there with deals.
Secondly, Putin sees this as a way to get Trump to put more pressure on Ukraine and end US intelligence support for Ukraine. Now, we know that this is precisely what Trump’s lackeys threatened the Ukrainians to do during the Miami “negotiations” on Friday. No surprise at all.
Regarding the Miami “negotiations” at Steve Witkoff’s estate were another “string along exercise”. That’s what it’s been all along. It started with the US-Russia meeting in Jeddah in February 2025. Again, if you check the photos, Dimitriev was there too, even though this meeting was portrayed as a meeting to start peace talks. Essentially, the alleged peace talks have been an exercise of smoke and mirrors with nothing to show. It was hardly a coincidence that Trump chose to announce the diesel deal while Kyrylo Budanov and the Ukrainian delegation were at Miami.
To underline the point, petroleum tanker “Minerva Zen” departed Saint Petersburg, Russia, already on 22 September. According to Vesselfinder the Minerva is destined for Wilmington, North Carolina. Whether this means that the diesel deal had already been made two weeks prior, we can’t conclude with certainty. On the other hand, it’s a distinct possibility that shouldn’t be overlooked. What’s the chance that a tanker carrying Russian diesel or other petroleum products would drift around the Atlantic for a couple of weeks waiting for a port call? And why would it drift close to US ports given the fact that Russian diesel has been banned in the US since 2022, if the shippers didn’t know the paperwork was forthcoming? It certainly doesn’t look random. Coincidence takes a lot of planning.
Now let’s turn to what else has been going on of late, which makes “the true colours” even more obvious. Behind the curtains of “the string along exercise” which took Witkoff and Kushner to Moscow (again) and a visit to Kyiv for once, it has been documented that there were intensive talks with not least Dimitriev (of course) about several energy deals. Again, peace talks were but a smokescreen.
One of these is the longstanding ambition of both the Trump inner circle and obviously the Russians to reestablish the Nord Stream pipelines transporting cheap Russian natural gas to Germany. For this to work, Trump and Putin’s men need a German counterpart. And who would that be? The radical right wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) that’s surging in the polls. AfD also champions the reestablishment of Nord Stream thereby promising Germans access to cheap energy and obviously also an end to aid for Ukraine.
So besides filling the coffers of Trump, Putin and their lackeys, the Nord Stream initiative would have the added benefit of increasing the election prospects of a fellow fascist party in Germany. Dimitriev (again) is scheduled to meet the AfD leadership early next year.
Another prospective deal involves buying Russian Lukoil’s foreign assets where Witkoff and Kushner have involved investors from the UAE and Qatar. A USD 20 billion deal would undercut the sanctions imposed by the US in 2025 on Lukoil. Obviously, the Lukoil sanctions were due to US domestic pressure and not a Trump preference.
Finally, there’s also the potash deal with Putin’s vassal in Belarus. Belarus has been under US sanctions since Lukashenko’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2021. By why keep up sanctions on Belarus when you can help a fellow dictator?
So there you go. This was to be expected. Trump wants his buddy and terror mastermind Putin out of the cold. Putin has wrapped a treasonous web around Trump that will only be tightened. It will only be if – and that’s a big IF – Congress finally shows balls and stops the treasonous path. I hope the latter, but as a European I urge decision-makers to take matters into our own hands. Then we can hope America comes to its senses. As long as the GOP is a cult run by a mobster, we cannot run the risk.
Trump appears to want to vilify Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky after striking a deal with Russia this week, as he now claims the Ukrainian leader “does not want to make a deal” to end the war.
The president also reiterated his age-old claim that the war would never have been started if he were in power at the time, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday about Zelensky, Trump said, “He could’ve settled this war many times, and he chooses not to …” adding, “If the election weren’t rigged and I would have been president, that war would have never started.”
“He wants to make problems for the world, he wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel, because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world….”
“… he better damn well stop,” he growled. He also claimed it was time for Ukraine to get a “new leader”.
In a separate interview later at night, Trump told reporters, “Russia would like to make a deal,” adding, “This is something that could have been solved many times, but for whatever reason, Zelensky does not want to make a deal.”
When asked what Russia’s President Putin told him during their phone call, Trump responded, “He’d like to see a settlement.”
Trump’s comments did not impress many people online, as users were eager to point out the realities of the war in Ukraine that the president seemed unaware of.
“Ukraine was invaded. Russia is the aggressor. But he’s blaming the victim? Wild,” replied one account.
“If I remember correctly….Russia started the war. Trump started the war in Iran,” another person acknowledged. “The fact that Trump is conspiring with Russia and China should be enough for Americans to reality check what is happening on the surface, but undoubtedly behind the scenes. The Trumps are growing their personal wealth at the expense of the American people.”
Someone else added, “Yeah, because it’s totally that simple, just give up your entire country and let a dictator roll right through because standing up for your people is apparently the real problem here, make it make sense.”
Upon hearing the news that the U.S. had struck a deal with Russia to import millions of tons of their oil, Zelensky expressed frustration, slamming Trump as “weak.” He described the deal as a “gift to Putin”.
Meanwhile, in stark contrast, the Ukrainian leader met with U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham over the weekend, as the British leader pledged his “complete solidarity” with Ukraine.
On Saturday, Zelensky wrote on X, “British leadership is always significant, and it matters that the U.K. will continue to ramp up sanctions pressure on Russia for its escalation. We discussed this and what could truly help diplomacy work. We are preparing the right joint steps and a meeting.”
Zelensky sets one condition for halting refinery strikes as Trump threatens intelligence cutoff
Story by IdahoPublicPress Editorial Team
• 2h
The dispute over Ukraine’s drone campaign against Russian oil refineries has spilled into open friction between Kyiv and Washington, with diesel prices, sanctions policy, and Zelensky’s own political fate now tangled together.
President Volodymyr Zelensky is standing by Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil refineries, rejecting President Donald Trump’s demand that Ukraine replace him as its leader. In a statement Sunday, Zelensky said Kyiv would halt the refinery campaign only if Russia stops attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and only with real guarantees behind any deal.
The tanker MINERVA ZEN, which, according to social media reports, is carrying Russian diesel fuel, left St Petersburg on 22 September — 17 days before Donald Trump announced an agreement with Vladimir Putin regarding diesel supplies. Vessel data indicates a route towards the US, but there is no documented link between this specific voyage and the agreement.
Briefly about the main points
MINERVA ZEN left St Petersburg on 22 September at 20:32 UTC.
VesselFinder forecasts that the vessel will arrive in Wilmington on 11 October.
TankerMap shows a different declared destination — Lake Charles.
OFAC has authorised certain transactions involving Russian diesel until 7 April 2027.
There is no documentary evidence to link the flight to the agreement between Trump and Putin.
CNN gained rare access by joining a convoy of residents permitted to move through that occupied territory to reach their homes in three predominantly Christian villages. They have been spared the fate of the surrounding Shia Muslim villages that now resemble a wasteland.
Israel invaded southern Lebanon in March after Hezbollah, a Shia Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, resumed strikes on Israel to avenge the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Since then, the Israeli military has occupied a band of territory about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) deep to establish what it calls a “security zone” to protect Israel’s northern residents from the threat of rocket attacks from Hezbollah.
Most villages have been systematically flattened by Israeli forces, and residents of the remaining Christian villages described hearing daily controlled demolitions in neighboring communities.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, more than 4,300 people have been killed by Israeli strikes since March 2, and the United Nations says more than 350,000 remain displaced since Israel’s occupation began.
As our journey continues, the road twists through apocalyptic terrain until, out of nowhere, life reappears. Buildings stand intact, cars move through the streets and children ride their bikes, as life appears to go on as normal.
A policy document is only as significant as the people behind it, and this is where the story moves from the abstract to the concrete. The lead author of the Free Alberta Strategy is a man named Rob Anderson.
Anderson is not a fringe figure. He is a former Wildrose MLA, a lawyer by training, and a long-time fixture on the hard-right flank of Alberta conservative politics. He has spent years inside the province’s political machinery, building relationships, honing arguments, and positioning himself at the intersection of policy and power.
The path from the publication of the Free Alberta Strategy in 2021 to Anderson’s current role reads like a political operative’s dream sequence. In 2022, he chaired Danielle Smith’s campaign for the leadership of the United Conservative Party. When she won, he chaired her transition team — the group responsible for shaping the new government’s structure, priorities, and personnel. And then, in the move that completes the circle, he became the chief of staff in the Premier’s office.
Follow the arc: a man co-writes a detailed strategy for prying Alberta out of Confederation. He then runs the leadership campaign of the woman who becomes Premier. He then takes over her office. The person who authored the separation playbook now holds the pen at the highest level of provincial power.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a matter of public record. Anderson’s role in Smith’s orbit has never been hidden. On her own podcast, recorded before she became Premier, Smith sat with Anderson and talked enthusiastically through the Free Alberta Strategy he had co-written. She called him one of the smartest policy minds in Alberta. She was not tricked into an agenda. She embraced it openly.
Trump Team Secretly Met With Group That Wants to Separate From Canada
January 29, 2026/11:14 a.m.
Senior Trump administration officials have held meetings with the Alberta Prosperity Project, a fringe separatist group that seeks to split the province away from Canada.
The Financial Timesreports that State Department officials have met representatives from the group in Washington, D.C., three times in the last nine months. The group’s counsel, Jeff Rath, told the publication, “We’re meeting very, very senior people leaving our meetings to go directly to the Oval Office.
“The U.S. is extremely enthusiastic about a free and independent Alberta,” Rath said.
The Times, citing unnamed sources, said that the group was hoping for another meeting in February to request $500 billion in credit to prop up the province if an independence referendum, which has not yet been called, were to pass. The State Department confirmed the meetings to the publication but said, “No commitments were made,” and a White House official added that “no such support, or any other commitments, was conveyed.”
Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent played up Albertan independence, calling the oil-rich province “a natural partner for the U.S.”
“They have great resources. The Albertans are very independent people. Rumor that they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not,” Bessent said to right-wing podcaster Jack Posobiec.
Podcaster and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon discussed Alberta breaking away from Canada in an episode in November, saying that President Trump sees Canada like Ukraine.
“The Chinese and the Russians are up there and they see the undefended northern territories of Canada, they’re going to take a bite,” Bannon said. His guest, right-wing commentator Brandon Weichert, expounded further.
“I know a lot of the people in charge of the Alberta separatist movement,” Weichert said. “The Albertans are ready to vote in the next six months. They’re going to get out of the Canadian union. They’re going to become an independent country. We’re going to recognize them, and that’s going to put them on the pathway to becoming the fifty-first state.”
In reality, polls show that the majority of Albertans would prefer to stay in Canada. Canadian leaders have denounced the APP’s meetings, with British Columbia Premier David Eby calling them “treason” and Ontario Premier Doug Ford saying that “going behind Canada’s back and negotiating is unacceptable.”
The U.S. is growing increasingly unpopular in Canada, thanks to Trump’s threats to make them the “fifty-first state.” The idea that his team would try to engineer a breakup of the country will only worsen the relationship, especially considering that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is already seeking to make Canada financially independent from the U.S.
In the end of July 2018, Steve Bannon made headlines when he announced “to boost populist parties enough to create a right-wing ‘supergroup’ following EU Parliamentary elections next May.”1 As the official vehicle for the project an already existing private foundation called “The Movement / Le Movement” was chosen, founded on January 9, 2017, by the Belgian far-right politician and lawyer Mischaël Modrikamen, his wife Yasmine Dehaene-Modrikamen and Laure Ferrari, an aide to Nigel Farage.2 The Brussels-based organization is to be staffed with 10 full-time employees in the forthcoming months, who will preliminarily focus on data analyses and surveys.3 According to Bannon the number might grow to 25, depending on the outcome of the 2019 European parliamentary elections.“4
“Bannon told Reuters The Movement will serve as a ‘clearing house’ in Brussels, at the heart of the EU, for the ‘populist, nationalist movement in Europe’, with the objective of boosting the anti-EU presence in the European Parliament…”5
The populist bloc could gather up to a third of the 705 deputies’ seats in the European Parliament in next year’s European election.4 “‘Everybody agrees that next May is hugely important, that this is the real first continent-wide face-off between populism and the party of Davos,’ he said, referring to the yearly economic summit of heads of state and business in the Swiss mountain resort.”1 “Right-wing populist nationalism is what will happen. That’s what will govern,” he told the Daily Beast. “You’re going to have individual nation states with their own identities, their own borders.”
That Bannon has made the right alliances to form such an EU parliamentary supergroup can be seen on the attached network map. Bannon has strong ties to Nigel Farage, co-leader of the right-wing, Euro-sceptic European parliamentary group Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD), of which politicians of UKIP, AfD, Débout la France, and the Five Star Movement are members. AfD’s Beatrix von Storch became a member of the EFDD in April 2016, forestalling her imminent expulsion from the European Conservatives and Reformists group, and remained active in the EFDD until her entry into the Bundestag in September 2017.
Bannon’s contact to Matteo Salvini constitutes a direct link to another important right-wing European parliamentary group, Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), which gathers MEPs from Rassemblement National, FPÖ, The League, and FPÖ. Via his DHI network, Bannon should have also access to contacts in the European Christian Political Movement (ECPM), such as Nirj Deva.
According to his description the organisation was founded in the beginning of last year as a side-project of the Belgian Parti Populaire to “unite the populist forces in Europe.” “Its goals, stated in a constitution lodged with Belgian authorities, were ‘to promote the rule of law, free enterprise, national sovereignty, effective national borders, popular consultation, the fight against radical Islam, a scientific and not dogmatic approach to climatic phenomena and the defense of Israel as a sovereign state on its historic land.’”7 But instead of embarking on these challenging goals, the project with an initial capital of a mere 2500 Euro, and registered at Modrikamen’s home address, was subsequently “put on ice”. Modrikamen stated, at the time he had sent a memo to likeminded parties in Europe and the United States, but it was not until sometime in July 2018 that Bannon got back in touch.5 The contact had been established by Nigel Farage, who told Modrikamen that Bannon would like to meet him. At a luncheon in London on July 15,5 Modrikamen stated it “clicked”, that they “absolutely shared the same convictions […] to give back to the whole world the sovereignty of the people and to be the voice of their voice, such as Trump is the voice of the ordinary man in the United States…”
. . . For more than 40 years, Canada has been a wellhead of Koch’s burgeoning fortune in oil, refineries, pipelines, petroleum products and financial trading as well as an expanding list of diverse interests — producing an estimated $115 billion in revenues last year, according to Forbes.
In Canada, Koch presides over an interlocking empire of interests, from the Alberta oil sands to fibre and fuel-additive producer INVISTA in Ontario and building products distributor Georgia-Pacific in Quebec. It employs, by its own account, 2,000 people, donates to charitable causes and supports the influential pro-oil Fraser Institute.
Amid Midterm Crunch, Trump Advisers Took Time to Help Russia-Aligned Government
What Happened: James Blair and Chris LaCivita, two of Trump’s top midterm advisers, traveled to Bosnia’s Republika Srpska to advise its government ahead of elections. The New York Times reported that each was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars through a D.C. law firm hired by the government run by Milorad Dodik’s Russia-aligned party.
Why It Matters: Two of Trump’s top midterm advisers were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to work for Putin’s allies in Bosnia. Trump has already lifted sanctions on Dodik and his associates. What else was happening behind the scenes between Trump, his cronies and Russia?
IAEA’s Grossi urges uninterrupted diesel supply for Zaporizhia NPP generators
18:09, 02.10.2026
2 min read
The Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is considering a further reduction in the number of emergency diesel generators (EDGs) kept in automatic standby as diesel fuel supplies at the site continue to be a concern, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said.
“The availability of sufficient and reliable emergency electricity generation capacity to supply safety-related equipment is essential for the safety of any nuclear facility. The continued lack of diesel deliveries to the ZNPP is exacerbating an already precarious situation,” his statement was quoted as saying in an agency statement.
“The prompt delivery of fuel to the ZNPP would have a large positive impact on nuclear safety at the ZNPP. I call on all sides to work with the IAEA to achieve this goal,” Grossi added.
According to the agency, diesel fuel reserves at the ZNPP remain low following an extended loss of off-site power in August and September, when the plant relied on EDGs for nearly three weeks. Efforts to replenish the reserves have been hampered by military activity in the area. The ZNPP has experienced 10 such losses since June alone and currently relies on a single off-site power line, the 330 kilovolt (kV) Ferosplavna-1 line.
On 29 September the IAEA team at the ZNPP was informed that planned maintenance of electrical equipment in the 750kV switchyard had been delayed due to the security situation. Maintenance of an EDG was also delayed due to the late arrival of contractors.
On 30 September the IAEA was informed of repair work required at the Zaporizhia Thermal Power Plant to increase the robustness of the power supply to the ZNPP. The IAEA is working with the Russian Federation and Ukraine on a ceasefire that should allow for the maintenance work to be carried out.
The ZNPP is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, with six VVER-1000 reactors. The plant has not generated electricity since September 11, 2022. All six ZNPP reactors are in cold shutdown.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said the United States will begin importing significant amounts of diesel fuel from Russia after an agreement reached with President Vladimir Putin, an extraordinary reversal of U.S. policy that lifts sanctions on Moscow in a bid to lower fuel prices before the midterms.
The move, announced less than one month before the Nov. 3 midterm election, comes as high fuel prices caused by the war in Iran pose major liabilities for Trump and Republicans as they try to hold onto power in Congress. The agreement upends years of U.S. efforts to cut off Russian energy from the global markets after Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Trump, in an Oct. 9 post on Truth Social, said the deal came together during a “highly successful discussion” with Putin. He said Russia will supply U.S. and global marketplaces with 300,000 tons of diesel fuel “immediately” and an additional 1 million tons in November. Trump said Russia will then deliver 3 million tons of diesel fuel “within a short period of time,” though he suggested it will be based on the condition of Russian diesel refineries.
“That is a big deal,” Trump later told reporters at the White House on Oct. 9, thanking Putin by name. “We have massive amounts of oil coming into our country, and it’s diesel, which is what we want.”
President Donald Trump said on Friday he secured an agreement from Russian President Vladimir Putin to supply markets with Russian diesel fuel as he works to bring down energy costs ahead of the midterm elections.
Energy industry analysts, however, say the agreement — which sparked anger in Ukraine — isn’t likely to lower diesel prices in any meaningful way.
Trump wrote on social media that Putin agreed to “immediately supply” more than 300,000 tons of diesel to global energy markets, with another 500,000 tons promised in November. Together, the amounts — equal to 6 million barrels of diesel fuel — would cover about a day and a half worth of US demand, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
Trump said millions more tons of Russian diesel would be supplied following the first tranches “based on the condition of their Diesel Refineries.”
“We are talking PERHAPS a 5-6% increase in supply between now and year end,” Dan Pickering, founder and chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners, said about the the president’s announcement in an email.
“Bottom line — this is helpful but not a needle mover for global diesel markets,” Pickering said. “Sidenote — there is a reason Trump talked about volumes in tons instead of barrels. The tons number looks bigger to a general observer. This is more politics than a game changer.”
Russia banned exports of diesel in early July, after Ukrainian drone strikes on its refineries triggered widespread fuel shortages across the country. This cut roughly 800,000 barrels per day from the global market — at a time when supplies were already tight because of the US war against Iran.
The ban was extended last month, aggravating cost pressures on energy.
According to the Kremlin readout of the phone call between the two leaders, Putin told Trump that Russia was “ready to supply oil and petroleum products to the US and global markets.”
“I am confident that this will have a positive impact on the entire global economy,” Putin said, according to the Kremlin.
Trump echoed that statement later on Friday, telling reporters at the White House that “oil prices are already dropping like a rock. So, we’re very happy to get it.”
But analysts — and commodities traders — raised doubts that Russia would be able to live up to that promise.
At the close of trading on Friday, diesel futures were down by about 4%.
But Trump’s announcement was met with anger in Ukraine. Kyiv has long advocated for tougher sanctions on Russian energy exports, arguing that oil and gas revenues are a major source of funding for Russia’s war machine.
Ukraine has also stepped up its attacks on Russian oil infrastructure over the past few months, refusing to stop despite calls from Trump to do so. Just this week, Kyiv has claimed strikes on four different refineries across Russia.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called the move to allow Russia to export diesel “a weak decision of strong partners.”
“This is additional money for this war, for the suffering, and of course against us. This is only fuels Putin and gives him the possibility to fight more,” he said on social media.
The past few months have been exceptionally deadly for Ukrainian civilians as Russia has managed to take advantage of Kyiv’s critical shortage of air defense missiles, launching near non-stop aerial attacks against Ukrainian cities. One such strike on a bus stop in eastern Ukraine killed more than 30 people on Thursday.
Zelensky has made it clear the timing of the announcement — just as a top-level Ukrainian delegation arrived to Miami for talks with US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — makes it all the more painful for Kyiv.
“In this exact moment when our team is talking to the American team in Florida, the US President has a conversation with Kremlin leader, with the leader of this war, the leader of this aggression,” he said.
Former US officials say it is unclear if Putin even has the amount of diesel that Trump cited to sell.
Richard Nephew, a former principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy at the State Department, noted that “the message it sends and the damage it does to the broader sanctions regime is very significant.”
“How does anyone take the sanctions regime seriously?” he questioned, noting that if the US is going to say that they need to use sanctions relief to address an economic issue, “how can we convincingly argue that anyone else shouldn’t use the same excuse?”
A former senior State Department official said it doesn’t matter if Putin can actually deliver the diesel because “now he’s achieved the result he wants” which is Trump thinking he’s gotten a pre-election bump and it might have an impact on the markets.
The timing of the call with the start of the talks with Ukraine is no coincidence.
“Putin is a lot of things, but he’s not stupid,” they said.
The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin’s sequel to The Social Network, asks how we got here. It is not about Twitter or The Odyssey, of course. It’s about Facebook and how it fueled the January 6th insurrection that attempted to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
See also
The Legacy of the “Facebook Revolution”: How did the Arab Spring shape citizen use of social media?
By Joud Walid, Researcher, Media and Journalism Policy Centre
#BlackLivesMatter; #AllEyesOnRafah; #MeToo. While the relationship between social media and activism may seem obvious and inextricable today, the use of digital platforms to organise and mobilise on a mass scale is a recent phenomenon, one that only solidified itself in the early 2010s, following the Arab Spring. But how did these digital platforms, once considered nothing but engaging social diversions, evolve into such powerful tools for mobilisation, especially in times of political upheaval? Furthermore, if social media was truly so central to the Arab Spring, to what extent has its legacy shaped our use of social media today?
The Arab Spring: A Case Study of Mobilisation
Often dubbed the “Facebook Revolution”, the Arab Spring is credited as the first instance where social media platforms were employed on a mass scale for the mobilisation and rallying of people across the Arab World. Widespread dissatisfaction, anger and frustration over the state of political repression, corruption, and economic hardship saw a series of pro-democracy uprisings and protests erupt in countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria, as Arab populations took to the streets to voice their grievances.
The call for liberty quickly seeped into the digital world. Erupting at a time where social media was beginning to play a more ubiquitous role in everyday life, protestors filmed themselves chanting at demonstrations, voicing their demands and capturing unfiltered footage of the injustices they were experiencing, all the while broadcasting it to the world on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. This citizen journalism, delivering real-time content on the ground, unedited and uncensored, transformed regular citizens from observers of activism to activists themselves, with a greater stake as leaders of unfolding events (Alterman, 2011).
The trend in citizen documentation was also monumental in invigorating protest. Notably, the fate of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouzizi- who self-immolated in protest of the violence and corruption of Tunisian government officials and law enforcement- was initially suppressed and censored by state television.
However, the harrowing images were captured by citizen journalists and shared widely on social platforms, triggering the very first protests of the Arab Spring in Tunisia (Lageman, 2020). Similarly in Syria, the brutal death of thirteen-year-old Hamza Al-Khatib, who was tortured and killed at the hands of the Syrian regime, sparked massive outrage that galvanised the Syrian protest movement in May of 2011- but only after pictures of his disfigured corpse began circulating on social media (Macleod and Flamand, 2011).
In facilitating this circumvention of state censorship, online platforms allowed the world to see the horrors of authoritarianism in the Arab world. Indeed, though these images were poor in quality, they were strong in content, and social media successfully disseminated them to audiences worldwide.
Another key role that social media played in the Arab Spring was the facilitation of mobilisation and organisation. In Egypt and Tunisia in particular, the ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘how’ of mobilisation was planned on Facebook prior to major demonstrations. The instantaneous communication allowed for the sharing of critical, time-sensitive updates and for rapid mass coordination, which citizens had found extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do in the past (Smidi and Shahin, 2017, 204).
For this same reason, social media campaigns such as the Facebook group ‘We Are All Khaled Said’ and ‘#Jan25’ were able to become viral, helping raise awareness of stories of injustice- such as the death of 25 year old Egyptian Khaled Said due to police brutality. This rapid spread of stories helped internationalise the conflict on an unprecedented scale, forming international solidarity ties and global activist networks.
A protester holds a placard in Tahrir Square, Cairo, highlighting the role of Facebook during the 2011 Egyptian revolution (Source: Wikimedia Commons / Essam Sharaf)
Key Takeaway: DRC President Félix Tshisekedi’s special envoy undertook a regional tour to rally support for the DRC’s plan to demobilize the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR).Three of the African Union mediators for the DRC peace process visited Goma and Kigali to meet with regional stakeholders.Pro-Congolese government forces retook Remeka town and claimed control of other areas in southern Masisi district in North Kivu as significant fighting continued into early October. The US-backed Ruzizi hydropower plant project is reportedly back in limbo after a Chinese firm withdrew from the project’s consortium.
Ex-UFC fighter Tim Kennedy among injured in Congo as Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s forces suffer heavy casualties
An ambush in the Democratic Republic of Congo has reportedly left former UFC middleweight contender Tim Kennedy wounded, according to emerging reports.
Tim Kennedy was reportedly among three personnel caught in a firefight last month, according to the outlet. He suffered several gunshot wounds and was subsequently flown to the United States for medical care, with his condition described as stable.
GOMA, Congo — In a makeshift nightclub in the hull of the overnight ferry from Goma to Bukavu, a handful of teenage boys are trying out some new moves. Some land, some don’t. When they don’t, the elderly man on the bench next to us nudges us and rolls his eyes, amused.
The DJ, who has so far been playing the usual Afrobeats hits and Congolese rumba, whips out a more unexpected Communist crossover: the Russian Internationale — the pre-1944 Soviet national anthem — mixed with a Congolese beat. People immediately pack the dancefloor.
Here in eastern Congo, enthusiasm is palpable for the “Russians,” a catch-all term for the roughly 1,000 Eastern European mercenaries stationed in Goma as well as actual Russian mercenaries embedded in other fragile states — and the Russian government, which said in March that it approved a tentative military cooperation agreement with Kinshasa.
The reason is simple. Since 2022, this area has been mired in one of the world’s most catastrophic conflicts. With Rwanda’s help, the M23 militia has raped and massacred its way through the North Kivu province and is edging nearer to the regional capital Goma — close enough that, the night before, we could hear the rumble of explosions outside the city.
The conflict has displaced millions, wrecked lives and livelihoods and destroyed the modest tourist industry. Even the endangered mountain gorillas, the area’s most lucrative draw for visitors, have fled the besieged Virunga National Park to neighboring Rwanda.
With international attention taken up by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, there is little interest in the crisis here and no hope of support from the West. The East African Community sent some soldiers early on, but the alliance quickly soured. Even the UN peacekeepers are packing up to leave.
Congo is desperate for help, and the only groups keen to step in are mercenaries, Russian and otherwise, circling to see what they can gain.
Wazalendo protesters are detained after a banned rally in Goma, North Kivu Province, Republic of Congo.Moses Kasereka / EPA / TASS
Increasingly, too, a complex web of military and commercial actors from Russia, China, UAE, the U.S., France, Bulgaria and Romania — the interests of which on paper should not overlap — appear to be working together to maximize this extraction.
Historically, inviting in foreign militaries and especially mercenary groups has gone spectacularly badly throughout Africa.
And while Russia may have pulled off an impressive PR feat by convincing Congolese citizens that it will be a genuine ally, its mercenary forces’ actions elsewhere on the continent tell a very different story.
“The Wagner Group and other emerging Russia-backed forces and ‘advisers’ exploit the resources and people of African countries for their personal gain. They are a threat to stability and prosperity in countries where they are present,” a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said in an emailed statement.
“These forces do not lower terrorism but rather exacerbate the threat by pursuing draconian, violent tactics. This results in dramatic increases of cyclical violence,” the spokesperson added.
As Western countries sanctioned Moscow following its 2014 annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin began frantically pushing to sign military cooperation deals with various African nations. This included a May 2019 military agreement with Congo’s neighbor, Congo-Brazzaville/Republic of the Congo, that saw Russia send military specialists to the country and help maintain its Soviet-made equipment. The Kremlin claimed it inked a similar agreement with Congo earlier this year.
Since 2017, Russia has also aggressively expanded its military presence across Africa through the Wagner Group, a collection of front companies and Russian mercenary outfits formerly owned by the late businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Once a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin launched the Wagner Group following the annexation of Crimea to further the Kremlin’s foreign policy goals even as sanctions piled up and the country became diplomatically isolated.
The U.S. designated the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization in January 2023, and the Treasury sanctioned connected individuals and companies.
But by May last year, it was believed to have around 5,000 mercenaries stationed in Africa — many of whom were former Russian soldiers and convicts.
Wagner troops have been detected in Mali, Sudan, Central African Republic, Libya and Mozambique, and its mercenaries have been accused of torture, rape, child abduction and summary execution of civilians. Wagner-linked companies are allegedly involved in gold smuggling and illegal mineral exploitation, using Cameroon as a logistics and transport hub. The group also engaged in election meddling (through AFRIC, Prigozhin’s fake election monitoring organization) in Congo, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa.
Ukraine Joins the Fight Against Russian Mercenaries in Africa
In brief: Ukraine is boosting ties with Africa by offering military training, aiding refugees, and countering Russian influence through diplomacy, humanitarian aid, and food security efforts.
light of this incident, the company has rebranded twice: once to Xe Services, and then to Academi.
The Wagner Group was recently identified as the perpetrators of a massacre in Mali, which killed at least 500 people. They have also been involved in questionable recruiting practices since the start of the War in Ukraine, such as recruiting convicted felons and criminals.
And we see thousands who have mobilised to protest in current times, many receiving right wing aggressive crushing of their efforts, but many succeeding within a democracy to let the people choose.
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