The past several days have taken us on an emotional journey I still struggle to put into words. We’ve gone from joy, to heartbreak, and back again—reminded once more that God is great, and that even in the darkest moments, miracles still happen.
Just days ago, we witnessed one of those miracles. On Christmas, while most of the world was gathered around tables with family, Oleksandr filled his truck with generators, food, and humanitarian aid and drove straight toward the front lines—Kharkiv and Donetsk, among the hardest-hit places in Ukraine. Places without light. Without heat. Without certainty that tomorrow would come. Generator by generator, delivery by delivery, he brought hope where despair had taken hold.
Then came the phone call none of us were ready for.
The day after Christmas, while delivering aid directly on the front line—where most people would never dare to go—Oleksandr’s convoy came under fire. Witnesses told me that after the impact, Oleksandr crawled from the vehicle and began pulling generators and supplies away from the wreckage. Not to save equipment—but to save the people who needed it. As explosions echoed nearby, he kept going… until his body gave out. He collapsed and lost consciousness.
Oleksandr was rushed to a special military medical unit. The diagnosis was devastating: a major concussion, four broken ribs, and internal injuries. While fighting continued around them, we worked through the night to get him safely back to Kyiv, back to his family, and into a hospital where he could receive proper care.
And through it all—through the pain, through the injuries, through the chaos—the first words Alexander said to me on the phone were not about himself:
“We delivered the generators. We got the aid there. We got it done.”
That is what a true hero sounds like.
As he was being transported and treated, Ukraine endured yet another brutal night. Kyiv was attacked again. Sirens. Explosions. Darkness. Snow falling on streets without power. This is the reality Ukrainians are living in right now—and it’s exactly why we cannot stop.
While Alexander recovers, the mission must continue.
More generators are needed. More aid must be delivered. More voices must be amplified so the world does not look away while Ukraine is bombarded night after night. This is bigger than one man—but it is inspired by his courage.
Oleksandr asked me to share a message with you:
“Please don’t stop. Even if I’m healing, the work must go on. People are waiting in the dark.”
So today, I’m asking you—humbly and honestly—to help us carry this forward.
If you can donate, please do. If you can support, please do. And if you haven’t yet, become a paid subscriber so our platform can grow, break through the algorithms, and make our voices impossible to ignore—because right now, Ukraine needs all of us.
Most importantly, please contribute to our GoFundMe so we can keep funding generators, emergency aid, and the next missions:
Every contribution helps bring light where there is none.
Every share helps protect lives.
Every paid subscription helps us keep telling the truth when others fall silent.
Oleksandr risked his life so others could survive the night.
Let’s honor that sacrifice by making sure his work continues.
With gratitude, resolve, and faith,
Lev Parnas
P.S. If you haven’t yet, make sure to grab your copy of Shadow Diplomacy—at LevRemembers.com the book Putin and Trump don’t want you to know about. It’s the book that connects the dots to what you’re watching unfold right in front of your eyes. And please continue supporting Voice from Ukraine by picking up some great Voice from Ukraine merch—it helps keep this mission going
The US president said his Department of War had carried out “numerous perfect strikes” and that the US would “not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper”.
“May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues,” he added.
It is the latest round of military action by the US, following weeks of military buildup and strikes on boats around Venezuela’s Caribbean coast, casting increasing doubt over the President’s claim to be the “President of Peace”.
The Independent takes a look at why Trump has decided to strike Nigeria and what the reaction has been.
The U.S. launched a deadly strike against ISIS terrorists in Nigeria Thursday night, according to the Department of Defense (Department of Defense)
How did the US strike Nigeria?
The US military targeted Islamic State militants in northwestern Nigeria in a major escalation.
Nigeria’s overstretched military has struggled to contain Islamic terrorism for years.
The strikes were carried out in the strikes in Sokoto state, one of the areas where Nigeria is battling multiple armed groups. Lagos said the US strikes were part of an exchange of intelligence and strategic coordination between the two countries.
Officials did not say exactly which group was targeted, but security analysts said the target was likely members of a militant group called Lakurawa, which became more lethal in border states like Sokoto and Kebbi in the last year, often targeting remote communities and security forces.
Trump wished the ‘dead terrorists’ a ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS’ (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Why has Trump decided to strike Nigeria?
Trump said the strikes were against Islamic State militants he claimed were “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.”
The security crisis in Nigeria is affecting both Christians, predominant in the south, and Muslims, who are the majority in the north, residents and security analysts told The Associated Press.
The armed groups in Nigeria include two affiliated with the Islamic State. They include an offshoot of the Boko Haram group known as the Islamic State West Africa Province in the northeast, and in the northwest, the lesser-known Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) known locally as Lakurawa.
Lakurawa militants, who have been active in northwest Nigeria since around 2017 after being invited by authorities in Sokoto to protect against bandit groups, have now “overstayed their welcome, clashing with some of the community leaders … and enforcing a harsh interpretation of sharia law that alienated much of the rural population,” says James Barnett, an Africa researcher with the Washington-based Hudson Institute
According to CNN, residents of Jabo village in northwestern Nigeria described fear and confusion after debris from a U.S. missile strike landed near their only health clinic, despite locals and officials saying the area has no history of ISIS activity, even as Donald Trump hailed the attack as a “powerful and deadly strike” against militants targeting Christians. Nigerian authorities later acknowledged the intended targets were ISIS hideouts elsewhere in Sokoto state and said falling debris caused panic but no casualties, highlighting tensions between U.S. counterterrorism claims and local accounts of a peaceful community.
The Christian MAGA in the US would approve anything which appears to be protecting Christians.
Maga Christianity represents a self-serving, commercialized version of the Christian faith – putting power over service and empathy – and it is everywhere in our federal government. In February, Trump announced a taskforce led by Pam Bondi with the goal of rooting out “anti-Christian” bias. In September, Trump announced his plans to protect prayer in schools. Later that month, he issued a memorandum identifying anti-Christianity as a potential driver of terrorism. These are not just one-off incidents. This is a national effort to push the Maga Christianity agenda on Americans, and we’re already seeing the consequences.
Despite the Bible’s clear call to “love thy neighbor”, the Maga movement has used its version of the Christian faith to oppress immigrants, oppose the rights of women and condemn the LGBTQ+ community. At the same time, we’ve seen shootings at places of worship and arrests of faith leaders at peaceful protests.
We must never forget the launch pad for ISIS was the collapse of the Baath Party:
By: Kifah Mahmoud
The Middle East has witnessed major political changes in recent decades, most notably the collapse of the Baath Party in both Iraq and Syria, a party that ruled the two countries with an iron grip for decades and waged devastating wars that deeply affected the peoples of the two countries, especially Lebanon, Iran, and Kuwait, not to mention the countless victims whose numbers exceeded millions between the dead, wounded, detained, and displaced individuals.
These wars ultimately led to the disastrous downfall of both regimes, leaving their countries in near-total devastation. Without going into the details of what happened, the fall of the Baath Party and the collapse of its regime were followed by the emergence of political Islamist parties, with Shia parties dominating in Iraq. At the same time, the influence of Sunni Islamist factions increased in Syria, especially after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011.
The reason for this, in my opinion, is the immense frustration of nationalists in both countries and the extremism caused by their rule, which amounted to the racism that antagonized the various components of Iraq and Syria. This, in turn, resulted in a catastrophic conflict in Iraq, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of whom were either killed, displaced, or had their regions subjected to Arabization in both countries.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat has contributed an essay on Substack, here is an extract:
DOGE may seem like a failure, if we take on good faith Elon Musk’s claim that its agenda was greater government efficiency and savings. The architects of DOGE were never really interested in “efficiency.” That was just a ruse in the tradition of other “drain the swamp” initiatives by autocrats. A new New York Times investigation finds that under DOGE, federal spending increased, not decreased; DOGE’s boasts of cost-cutting were based on apparently false claims and dodgy bookkeeping.
If we look at things from an autocratic point of view, though, then DOGE has been all too successful. Many media outlets believed Musk when he announced in May 2025 that he was “stepping back” to focus on his ailing Tesla business and other concerns, even though President Trump stated on that occasion that Musk was “not really leaving.” In fact, DOGE has entrenched itself within the Trump administration and continues to exercise significant, unorthodox power as a parallel civil service loyal to Musk and his hand-picked associates.
DOGE has been the cover for an audacious strategy of autocratic capture and oligarchic infiltration of the nerve centers of a superpower to extract information. The apparent goal is to create a “single centralized database with vast troves of personal information about millions of US citizens and residents,” which could be used for government surveillance, as a report by Brookings warned. DOGE also gave Musk opportunities to dismantle agencies that were threatening his companies with investigations and fines, and to steer domestic and foreign government business toward his products.
DOGE has also furthered the Fascistic project of Russ Vought, a Project 2025 architect and Director of the Office of Management and Budget, of inflicting psychological pain on civil servants as part of destroying government as we conceive of it in a democracy. “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought stated in private speeches in 2023 and 2024 that were reported by Pro Publica.
You need only read this heartbreaking new Washington Postinvestigation, based on interviews with some of the 300,000 civil servants forced out of their jobs in 2025, to understand the awful human, social, and economic toll of achieving a “once-unthinkable transformation” of government bureaucracy.
With this in mind, it is useful to review how DOGE executed its “hostile takeover of the federal government,” as sociologist Brooke Harrington defined it in late February. The first step was Trump giving Musk a role in the new administration. Referring to this news in a December 2024 Lucid essay, I warned that “something sinister is unfolding at the heart of American government. Because it is dangerous in a new way, we lack the language to label it and communicate the extent of the threat.” And it was hard to understand the true threat DOGE constituted, precisely because it was an unprecedented entity in U.S. governance, as was the Trump-Musk power-sharing agreement in the first months of the administration.
We all watched as Musk’s operatives occupied government buildings, sometimes locking out members of Congress; fired thousands of government employees after barring them from their own computer systems; and physically removed those who sought to stop them from seizing digital property.
Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid was perhaps the first to name the developing catastrophe. “Elon Musk is staging a coup,” he wrote on Feb. 1 on his Substack. “Not with tanks in the streets of militias at government buildings, but with spreadsheets, executive orders, and a network of loyalists embedded in the federal bureaucracy.” On Feb.2, I wrote that a new kind of coup, was unfolding in America at the hands of Musk and his “plunder operation” DOGE. Soon after, TIME magazine showed Musk at the presidential desk in the Oval Office.
Last night, the US launched an all-out assault on the “global censorship industrial complex”, I respond with some deep breaths, solidarity and a vibey video (it’s all I have)
I had a plan: I was going to send out a short note this morning with a short film that was going to help explain my absence over the past couple of weeks (four events on three continents) and a huge message of thanks to everyone reading this who’s been supporting my work for the last year.
It was going to partly be a holding note, noting how the post-war global order has profoundly shifted in the last two weeks and how I plan to cover it and try – with you – to make sense of that in the coming weeks.
But fascism never sleeps. And last night – after European offices had closed for the holidays – the US state department announced “Actions to Combat the Global Censorship-Industrial Complex” and that it would be barring five individuals from the United States.
The so-called “global censorship-industrial complex” is a tiny world of academics and NGOs and journalists and policy wonks and lawmakers and disinformation researchers who for the last decade have been trying to understand the power and reach of the tech platforms, how they are invisibly controlling and manipulating our information spaces.
I first heard the term from a friend at a US university after she found herself described as such on a target list back in the summer of 2022. We had a good old laugh about it and have used it ironically ever since.
But the news last night was chilling.
The order states:
“The State Department is taking decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose. These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states—in each case targeting American speakers and American companies. As such, I have determined that their entry, presence, or activities in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
These “radical activists and weaponized NGOs” are my friends and colleagues and fellow fighters in the information trenches and this is a dramatic escalation. It’s Russia-level repression. It’s an all-out attack on civil society. And it’s specifically going after European efforts to legislate the social media giants for users in Europe. We are now the enemy.
Russia introduced a “foreign agent” law in 2012 to target NGOs and it was also one of the first escalations after the invasion of Ukraine when it labelled news organisations as such and made it impossible to continue reporting inside the country. This is where this leads. This is the same accusation couched in the same language.
The target here is a small group of researchers and policymakers who have understood the threat these platforms pose and have been doing the thankless and frustrating task of trying every possible route to work out how to hold them to account. And this order is perhaps the clearest signal yet of how the US government and Silicon Valley are one and the same and European liberal democracies are now the enemy.
That was what was revealed in the extraordinary National Secuity Strategy paper the US government published a week or so ago. Russia and China are no longer a threat to US national security interests. The enemy now is European democratically elected governments, especially those who seek to rein in Silicon Valley companies. And this is what this now looks like.
I was out last night, when the news broke and messages started pinging into the Signal group of the small NGO I set up in 2020, the Citizens, focussed on exactly these issues. We too are members of the “Global Censorship Industrial Complex”.
Initially, it wasn’t clear who the five individuals were and it could have been any of the many members of that group. But then, it was revealed. One of them – whom I know – is Imran Ahmed, a Brit living in the States and who, according to the order, will now be deported. He’s CEO of an organisation called Center for Countering Digital Hate and if you’ve heard of him – and this is a tell – it’s because he’s previously been targeted by Elon Musk, who’s sued him.
And another is Thierry Breton, a high-profile former member of the European Commission who was instrumental in the Digital Services Act, a piece of groundbreaking legislation that has real heft and that the Silicon Valley tech companies – and now their proxy, the US government – hate.
But perhaps, most chilling of all on a personal level, reading this news in London was how the US government chose to communicate this news. It was the under secretary of state, Sarah B Rogers, who released the names and she did so via the UK’s far-right GB News channel:
In the UK, we have legislation which means that it shouldn’t be possible to own and run a “far-right UK news channel”. But there you go. Rules and regulations only work if you enforce them and in GB News’s case, they’re not. And what this highlights and what hardly anyone in a position of any power in Britain seems to understand is how tightly bound up we are in the US’s technofascist plunge.
Because that’s what this is. I’ve mostly used the word technoauthoritarian rather than technofascism but the other thing I did last night after returning from a jolly Christmas celebration was to watch the banned 60 Minutes programme that was pulled off the air on Sunday night on the orders of Bari Weiss, the far-right founder of the Free Press who’s been parachuted in to run one of America’s most storied newsrooms.
If you’ve missed this story, the US investigative journalist programme, 60 Minutes, had completed a report on El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison where the US deported hundreds of untried Venezuelans on the flimsiest of pretexts. Weiss pulled it claiming it “needed additional reporting” and would “air in a future broadcast”.
What Weiss hadn’t realised was that the film was already available via CBS’s international partners and it’s now been ripped and shared online. You can watch it here, for eg.
I wrote about the prison earlier this year because it was emblematic of something profoundly disturbing. The Instagram images of Kristi Noem, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, touring the prison didn’t just showcase its cruelty and depravity, this was was cruelty and depravity designed to be liked and algorithmically shared: a a concentration camp designed for social media.
Compared to some of the footage and reports I watched at the time, the 60 Minutes film is relatively tame and restrained. It includes interviews with a former prisoner, sent there by the US government, and human rights researchers who have documented how the treatment of the prisoners, in their analysis, amounts to torture.
All credit to the correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, who spoke up to defend her work. It had been screened five times, she said, for CBS’s lawyers and editorial policy team and cleared for broadcast.
“It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
Which brings me, finally, to where I wanted to start. We have to keep reporting on what is happening in the world. We have to keep trying to track it and explain it. And we have to find new, creative ways to do independent journalism, to reach audiences, to convey the profound threats we are facing. And, always, to speak up, as Sharyn Alfonsi shows us, when necessary.
This is not politics as normal. And we can’t treat any of it as politics as normal.
I set up this newsletter after Trump’s re-election last November and as my own news organisation, the Guardian, was going through its own internal revolt. It had chosen to sell off part of it – the Observer, the oldest Sunday newspaper in the world – and get rid of 100+ journalists.
In the end it didn’t even sell it, it gave it away plus £5m in cash. But, the fact that just nine months on, with no external investment, a group of five of us – three editors, the creative director and me – have managed to set up a tiny new grassroots media outletis nothing short of a Christmas miracle.
I made my first reel to celebrate. It’s a cheerful watch, I promise, and it’s only been possible to do it because of the support I’ve had here. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. Grassroots, community-based efforts are, I believe, the best defence against what feels like an engulfing darkness. And that includes the media. Just look at CBS.
But we also have to have international networks of solidarity and last night’s news highlights that more than ever. If you are reading this is in America, we are not your enemy. We are your friends and allies now more than ever, Carole xxx
A note on what I’m doing and why. I’m an investigative journalist who worked for the Guardian for 20 years latterly investigating the intersection of politics and technology that included 2018’s exposé of the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal. The opaque and unaccountable Silicon Valley companies that facilitated both Brexit and Trump are now key players in an accelerating global axis of autocracy. I believe this is a new form and type of power that I’m committed to keep on exposing: Broligarchy.
This newsletter is funding my work. Thank you so much to everyone who subscribes
At some point, the fog lifts and the pattern becomes unmistakable.
The Trump regime’s latest move—sanctioning European lawmakers and civil-society leaders for regulating American tech platforms inside Europe—is not a diplomatic disagreement. It is not a trade spat. It is not a good-faith argument about free expression.
………..
This was not a mistake. This was not incompetence. This was not about speech.
This was the United States—under Donald Trump—acting as the global enforcer for an information ecosystem that overwhelmingly benefits the Kremlin.
Between 17 December 2025 and 20 January 2026, there will be one Humanitarian Situation Update issued every week. The next Humanitarian Situation Update on the West Bank will be issued on 23 December and the next Humanitarian Situation Update on the Gaza Strip will be issued on 30 December.
Key Highlights
Severe storm conditions have resulted in reported deaths, flooding incidents that affected nearly 55,000 households, and the evacuation of 370 families from shoreline sites.
Despite improved food access and restored operations, ongoing access and procedural constraints led to reduced food rations in early December to maximize coverage, the World Food Programme reports.
Access constraints facing Emergency Medical Teams have eased, with denial rates decreasing to about 20 per cent, compared with 30 – 35 per cent before the ceasefire, according to the Health Cluster. There are 343 EMT staff in Gaza, including 73 international staff and 270 national staff.
In a statement by the Humanitarian Country Team in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, UN agencies and NGOs call for the immediate lifting of impediments to humanitarian access and NGO operations.
Context Overview
The Israeli military remains deployed in over 50 per cent of the Gaza Strip, beyond the so-called “Yellow Line,” which remains largely unmarked on the ground and where access to humanitarian facilities and assets, public infrastructure and agricultural land remain severely restricted or prohibited. For example, in North Gaza, out of six once functional hospitals, four are inaccessible: the Indonesian, Al Awda and Beit Hanoun hospitals are beyond the so-called “Yellow Line” and Kamal Adwan Hospital is immediately adjacent to it, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Across the Gaza Strip, Health Cluster data indicates that 35 health facilities are located east of the so-called “Yellow Line,” including eight hospitals and 26 primary health care centres (PHCs) that are non-functional while the Emirati field hospital in Rafah is functional but inaccessible. Detonations of residential buildings and bulldozing activities continue to be reported, including east of and near the so-called “Yellow Line.” Access to the sea remains prohibited and the detention of Palestinian fishers at sea continues to be reported, including the reported detention of four fishers by Israeli forces off the coast of Khan Younis on 14 December. Across the Gaza Strip, airstrikes, shelling and gunfire continue to be reported, resulting in casualties.
Storm Byron, which struck Gaza on 11 December, resulted in widespread flooding, rain-related damage, and severe hardship for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians across the Gaza Strip. As tents were flooded, thousands of families have lost their temporary shelters or experienced loss of clothing, bedding and other essential belongings. Palestinian Civil Defense (PCD) reported that their teams were able to evacuate some families from dilapidated buildings at risk of collapse and continued to respond to distress calls, mainly in relation to collapsed buildings, water leakages, flooded tents and the displacement of families. On 17 December, PCD highlighted that they had received over 5,000 distress calls, 17 already damaged residential buildings have collapsed, and over 90 sustained precarious damage. On the same day, The Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza reported that a total of 12 people died following the collapse of walls and damaged houses and one child died due to hypothermia (a two-week-old child who died on 15 December).
The Site Management Cluster (SMC) has activated daily monitoring of flood-related incidents across managed displacement sites to facilitate rapid, joint response to flooding alerts. As of 16 December, SMC partners had received alerts of flooding incidents affecting 132 sites, impacting nearly 55,000 households across all five governorates, with Gaza city recording the highest number of reported incidents, followed by Khan Younis and Deir al Balah. SMC warns that the overall impact is likely significantly higher, particularly in high-risk, unmanaged sites, with hundreds of thousands of people living in low-lying, coastal or debris-filled areas exposed to flooding. According to SMC, since 10 December, at least 370 families were evacuated from shoreline sites to East Hamad city in Khan Younis (see more information below).
According to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, between 10 and 17 December, 14 Palestinians were killed, 84 were injured and seven bodies were recovered from under the rubble. This brings the casualty toll among Palestinians since 7 October 2023, as reported by the MoH, to 70,668 fatalities and 171,152 injuries. According to the MoH, the total number includes 277 fatalities who were retroactively added between 5 and 12 December after their identification details were approved by a ministerial committee. MoH reported that since the ceasefire, 394 Palestinians have been killed, 1,075 injured, and 634 bodies retrieved from under the rubble.
According to the Israeli military, between 10 and 17 December, as of noon, no Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza. The casualty toll among Israeli soldiers since the beginning of the Israeli ground operation in October 2023 stands at 471 fatalities and 2,992 injuries. According to Israeli forces and official Israeli sources cited in the media, more than 1,671 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed, the majority on 7 October 2023 and its immediate aftermath. As of noon on 17 December, the remains of one hostage is in the Gaza Strip.
No medical evacuations were reported between 9 and 17 December. In a press briefing, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), stated that, according to Gaza MoH records, 1,092 patients had died while awaiting medical evacuation between July 2024 and 28 November 2025, noting that this figure was likely underreported and not fully representative, as it was based solely on reported deaths. More than 18,500 patients, including 4,096 children, in Gaza still require medical evacuation, while only 260 patients along with 800 companions have been evacuated since the ceasefire. WHO called on more countries to welcome patients from Gaza, and for medical evacuation to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, to be restored.
In November, over 57,500 cases were logged through World Food Programme (WFP) feedback channels in Gaza, including hotlines, help desks and chatbots. This is compared with over 44,400 cases logged in October through the same channels. According to WFP, the increase is likely linked to the scale-up of operations following the ceasefire, including the expansion or resumption of activities, in addition to the restoration of connectivity services by the telecom operator. Cases were predominantly received from Khan Younis (22,901), followed by Gaza city (17,029) and Deir al Balah (15,792); 79 per cent of all cases were reported by male callers. More than 80 per cent of the cases were related to food and cash assistance by WFP, including distribution schedules, eligibility criteria and assistance duration. Shelter-related cases, as received via WFP feedback channels, increased sharply from 1,240 in October to 3,630 cases in November. Most of these cases involved requests for tents and basic repair materials.
Between 10 October and 16 December, the Cash Working Group (CWG) partners distributed Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA) to over 138,700 households, compared with 40,440 in September prior to the ceasefire. Each household received 1,250 NIS (approximately US$378) in digital payments, in line with the Minimum Expenditure Basket (MEB) transfer value. Cumulatively, more than 305,000 households in the Gaza Strip have received at least one MPCA transfer in 2025. According to the CWG, cash-out commissions continued to decline, decreasing from 14 – 16 per cent in late November to a stable 12 per cent between 4 and 7 December, marking the lowest level recorded in 2025.
Humanitarian Access
Between 10 October and 16 December, according to the UN2720 Mechanism, more than 119,000 metric tons (MT) of UN-coordinated aid were offloaded at Gaza’s crossings, of which over 111,000 MT were collected during the same period. Of the total dispatched, 55 per cent was via the Israel route (including through Ashdod and Ben Gurion), 30 per cent via the Egypt route, eight per cent via the West Bank route, and two per cent via the Cyprus Maritime Corridor. Humanitarian cargo coming from Jordan constituted about five percent of the total aid dispatched via the “back-to-back” modality while “government-to-government” modality remains suspended. As of 16 December, more than 172,000 MT of pre-cleared aid positioned across the region by 56 humanitarian partners are in the pipeline for transfer into Gaza, of which about 72 per cent are food supplies, according to the UN2720 Mechanism.
Between 10 October and 16 December, some 9,000 MT of aid supplies were rejected by Israeli authorities for entry into Gaza, mainly requests submitted by local and international NGOs on the grounds that the organizations were not authorized to bring relief items into Gaza, items considered by Israeli authorities to fall outside the “humanitarian” category, or items classified as “dual-use.” In November, such rejected requests included frozen meat, tropical fruit, biscuits, vehicles, power equipment, specialized machinery, multipurpose tents, and learning and recreational materials for children.
Humanitarian convoys by the UN and its partners inside Gaza continue to require coordination with Israeli authorities to and from crossings and in or near other areas where Israeli forces remain deployed. Between 10 and 16 December, humanitarian organizations coordinated 47 missions with the Israeli authorities, of which 30 were facilitated, 10 were impeded, and four were denied, while three missions were cancelled. During the same period, heavy rain reduced the accessibility for convoy movements along Al Rasheed Road, the Philadelphi Corridor to Kerem Shalom Crossing, and Al Rasheed Road to Zikim Crossing. The southern section of Salah ad Din Road remains closed, further constraining movement options. Overall, between 10 October and 16 December, 57 per cent of the 556 requested missions were facilitated, nine per cent were denied, 22 per cent were impeded and 12 per cent were cancelled. Missions requiring prior coordination with the Israeli authorities included cargo uplifts and monitoring; road repair works; search-and-rescue missions; assessment and clearance missions; staff rotations; medical evacuations and patient transfers; vehicle retrievals; and winterization distribution or assessments, among others.
According to WFP, while access to food has significantly improved, with WFP food operations and distribution networks restored across Gaza, “persistent access restrictions, inconsistent procedures, and sudden changes across all corridors continue to put at risk all the progress made.” This has led to reduced food rations in early December to maximize coverage, WFP reported. For the December general food assistance cycle, as of 15 December, Food Security Sector (FSS) partners have assisted about 550,000 people but had to reduce the family ration of two food parcels and one 25-kilogramme (kg) flour bag (which covered 75 per cent of the minimum caloric needs) to one food parcel, one bag of flour and 1.5 kg of high-energy biscuits per family (which cover 50 per cent of the minimum caloric needs). Calling for unfettered access to tackle winter hunger in Gaza, WFP’s Deputy Country Director in Palestine noted: ‘’We still have all the issues that we’ve been talking about for months and months – the logistical challenges, the fact we’re very limited in terms of the number of roads we can use, that we still have a very high level of insecurity, that bureaucratic processes are still impeding humanitarian delivery.’’ She highlighted that there are items that aid actors cannot bring into Gaza because they are considered “dual-use” items, such as tents with aluminium frames, mobile storage units, and spare parts for trucks.
A joint international and Palestinian NGOs report on humanitarian access constraints across the OPT found that humanitarian access remains severely obstructed, preventing predictable and scalable aid delivery across the Gaza Strip. The report highlights that 73 per cent of the 37 NGOs working in Gaza and surveyed reported having vital cargo blocked from entering Gaza due to restrictions by Israeli authorities, with repeated rejections affecting both life-saving supplies (food, shelter, health) and essential operational equipment, such as generators, solar panels, batteries, and water filtration units. In addition, 25 out of 37 NGOs reported security risks arising from airstrikes or shelling near their operations, limiting their ability to operate safely. In parallel, 24 out of 37 NGOs reported disruptions caused by the presence of unexploded ordnance, further restricting movement and access to affected communities.
On 17 December, UN agencies and more than 200 international and local NGOs under the Humanitarian Country Team urged the international community to take immediate and concrete actions to press the Israeli authorities to lift all impediments to humanitarian access and NGO operations across the OPT, especially in the Gaza Strip. They warned that restrictive policies, including a new international NGO (INGO) registration system with vague and politicized criteria, are undermining relief efforts and risk the collapse of the humanitarian response. The statement emphasizes that many essential supplies, such as food, medicine, hygiene items and shelter materials, remain stuck outside Gaza, that dozens of INGOs face deregistration and forced closure by year’s end, and that the loss of NGO capacity would severely disrupt lifesaving services, including health care, nutrition treatment, water and sanitation, and emergency shelter, at a time when needs are acute and alternatives cannot fill the gap.
Shelter and Winterization
Winter conditions have exacerbated safety risks linked to war-damaged structures and makeshift tents, leaving thousands of displaced families highly exposed to cold weather and heavy rainfall. According to the Shelter Cluster, since 10 December, 17 buildings are estimated to have collapsed and more than 42,000 tents or makeshift shelters are estimated to have sustained full or partial damage, particularly in 320 displacement sites and 43 areas, affecting at least 235,000 people. Rainstorms have additionally resulted in temporary disruptions to some humanitarian operations, such as the temporary closure of 16 community kitchens for one day and damage sustained by 35 safe spaces and service points for children. According to child protection partners, caregivers continue to report difficulties keeping children warm at night, rising stress levels and reduced participation in activities, while frequent movement in search of safer shelter is contributing to caregiver fatigue and increasing requests for additional winter items, counselling and access to safe spaces.
Despite challenges, partners continue to bolster emergency interventions where possible, including through the distribution of a range of shelter items (e.g. tents, blankets and winter clothing) to families and hospitals, reinforcing fragile shelters with sandbags, supporting local authorities in the evacuation of families from high-risk areas, conducting repairs of water and sewage systems, and expanding efforts to pump accumulated water and wastewater. In parallel, all partners continue to prioritize assistance to the most affected families. For instance, based on Shelter Cluster referrals, FSS partners have distributed hot meals and/or high-energy biscuits to more than 5,000 families affected by flooding, including families relocated from the shorelines to Hamad city, in northwestern Khan Younis.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), long-term shelter solutions are urgently needed to address deplorable conditions. As weather forecasts indicate further heavy rainfall and colder northerly winds early next week, humanitarian needs are anticipated to grow. Yet, available resources continue to fall short of addressing existing emergency needs. For example, the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) Cluster notes that partners face critical shortages of jetting and vacuum trucks, sewage pipes, manholes and cement which are needed to further scale up support to flood-prone areas and repair wastewater systems. The Shelter Cluster reports that, as of 17 December, only about 1,100 tents of those that have entered Gaza through UN coordination are available in stock, while about 1.3 million people remain in need of urgent shelter assistance.
Access to Healthcare
WHO is working to help keep newborns, children, and mothers warm and safe in hospitals and is supplying breastfeeding support items and materials for skin-to-skin care to protect pre-term and low-birth-weight infants during the harsh winter months. The Agency further reports that needs are growing. Within the context of dire shelter conditions, poor access to water and sanitation services and winter weather, children under five, the elderly and people with chronic illnesses are particularly at risk of contracting acute respiratory infections, hepatitis and diarrheal diseases.
According to the Health Cluster, between 30 November and 6 December, health partners carried out over 186,600 consultations, of which 20 per cent were related to communicable diseases. Acute respiratory infections (ARI) accounted for 56 per cent (over 21,700 consultations) of the total consultations while acute water diarrhea accounted for 31 per cent (over 10,600) of the total consultations. During the same period, skin diseases have increased to over 6,800 cases from over 5,700 cases the previous week. These included Chickenpox, ectoparasitic infestations common in overcrowded settings with limited access to water and hygiene services, and Impetigo, which is a bacterial infection common among children and often linked to poor hygiene and skin injuries.
Severe weather has additionally disrupted health service delivery, with several facilities affected by heavy rainfall and flooding, according to the Health Cluster. At Nasser Medical Complex, for instance, flooding in the Internal Medicine Emergency Department required the temporary relocation of patients and services to the hospital’s main building, placing additional pressure on other departments that are already overstretched.
According to the Health Cluster, access constraints facing Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs) have eased, with denial rates decreasing to approximately 20 per cent compared with 30 – 35 per cent before the ceasefire. Since October 2023, EMTs, both national and international, have played a critical role in sustaining the health response in Gaza, deploying specialized doctors and clinical staff to fill staffing gaps caused by massive losses and displacement. They have delivered millions of medical consultations, tens of thousands of emergency surgeries, and trauma and non-communicable disease care. As of 17 October, there are approximately 343 EMT staff in Gaza, including 73 international staff and 270 national staff.
Since 10 October, Health Cluster partners have supported the re-opening or establishment of 55 health service points across the Gaza Strip, including 37 in Gaza city and North Gaza governorate. Some tertiary-level services have resumed on a limited basis, including at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza city. Also in Gaza city, the International Medical Corps field hospital has recently installed 200 beds to function at full operational capacity, providing surgical, medical, pediatric, neonatal and maternal health services, with the ability to support up to 45 deliveries per day. Moreover, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) repaired and resumed patient care at Al Quds Hospital, with four PRCS hospitals providing emergency and support services to a monthly average of about 106,000 patients, as of October 2025. This is in addition to tens of thousands of people assisted by PRCS through first aid delivery, clinics and medical points, and the distribution of essential relief items, including food, water, hygiene kits, blankets and mattresses.
Overall health system functionality remains severely constrained, however. Only half of hospitals and less than half of primary health care centres are currently partially functional and face shortages of essential medical equipment and supplies. According to WHO, although approval rates for supplies improved, the process of getting medicines and medical equipment into Gaza remained unnecessarily slow and complex. WHO also faced challenges in bringing into Gaza laboratory reagents and critical lab machine components, as many items were classified as “dual use” and denied entry. For a population of over two million people, there are still no functioning magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines in Gaza, WHO noted, emphasizing that medical supplies must be given a blanket approval to enter Gaza and be expedited so urgent needs could be addressed.
Funding
As of 18 December, Member States disbursed approximately $1.6 billion out of the $4 billion (40 per cent) requested to meet the most critical humanitarian needs of 3 million out of 3.3 million people identified as requiring assistance in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, under the 2025 Flash Appeal for the OPT. Nearly 88 per cent of the requested funds is for the humanitarian response in Gaza, with just over 12 per cent for the West Bank. In November, the oPt Humanitarian Fund managed 128 ongoing projects, totalling $73.5 million, to address urgent needs in the Gaza Strip (89 per cent) and the West Bank (11 per cent). Of these projects, 61 are being implemented by international NGOs, 51 by national NGOs and 16 by UN agencies. Notably, 58 out of the 77 projects implemented by international NGOs or the UN are being implemented in collaboration with national NGOs. For more information, please see OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service webpage and the oPt HF webpage.
As Reuters put it, intelligence agencies continue to warn that Putin “has not abandoned his aims of capturing all of Ukraine and reclaiming parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet empire.” That stands in stark contrast to public diplomatic messaging suggesting that peace talks are gaining traction.
And Reuters reported:
Russian attack targets Ukraine energy infrastructure after Miami peace talks
Rather than addressing the underlying intelligence assessment, Gabbard took a strikingly public (for a DNI) and combative approach to discrediting the reporting itself. First she posted this:
And then, a little while later, in response to a comment:
This rebuttal didn’t quote or point to specific classified assessments — it framed the entire Reuters piece as a narrative weapon deployed against current
Kremlin Reaction
Moscow quickly seized on Gabbard’s framing. A Kremlin spokesperson dismissed the Reuters assessment as “absolutely not true,” insisting that Putin has no intention of conquering Europe and reprising the familiar claim that NATO expansion — not Russian aggression — is the real source of instability.
In parallel diplomatic messaging, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov offered to “legally confirm” that Russia has no intention of attacking the EU or NATO — an implicit rebuttal to Western security concerns, delivered with the air of magnanimous reassurance rather than defensive denial.
And so, not surprisingly — but still significantly — Gabbard’s public dismissal of the Reuters reporting became a line of rhetorical reinforcement for the Kremlin’s own narrative.
In sum, the Director of National Intelligence of the United States had just functioned as a validating conduit for Moscow’s preferred framing: that Western intelligence warnings are exaggerated, that concern itself is the provocation, and that the true threat to peace lies not in Russian behavior but in acknowledging it too plainly.
That alignment need not be intentional to be consequential, because when an adversary’s talking points are echoed from the highest levels of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, the signal received in Moscow is not ambiguity, but opportunity.
And now we must consider Trump’s designs on Greenland:
Greenland is not a member of NATO, but it is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which is a NATO member. The defense and foreign policy of Greenland are managed by Denmark, and Greenland has strategic importance for NATO due to its location in the Arctic. Wikipedia BBC
See:
Greenland outraged after Trump appoints envoy to make country ‘part of the US’
US president stated Louisiana governor Jeff Landry understands ‘how essential Greenland is to our national security’
Is this a plan to help Russia and US dominate this vital area of the Arctic Circle?
Then we see Russian sanctioned shadow fleet oil tankers move freely along the east coast of the US, but only the shadow tankers of Iran and Venezuela are being seized by the US coastguard.
the United States started seizing shadow fleet tankers carrying Venezuelan oil to enforce sanctions and apply even more pressure. With the declaration that all in and out-going vessels will be stopped by the US Navy, the captains of the Russian ships started to panic, understanding that they will be targeted next as they were sanctioned by the US as well.
Wendy Deng (then the wife of Rupert Murdoch) introduced them.
the former wife of Rupert Murdoch, who had introduced Dasha Zhukova to Ivanka years earlier and whose social and investment networks tied Russian oligarchs together with Silicon Valley capital, and Western media elites. Deng, Zhukova, and the Kushner brothers had previously co-invested in Artsy, an online art platform backed by Jared’s brother, Joshua Kushner, and in which Jared Kushner also held a stake before entering the White House.
From:
35. Midnight in Moscow: The Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Edition (2014) Substack
Trip to Russia: In 2014, Dasha and her then-husband Roman Abramovich invited Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner to Russia for a four-day visit. During this trip, they attended a fundraising dinner for Moscow’s Jewish Museum
This marks the beginning of their friendship, which has been noted for its duration and significance in social circles. Business Insider
BFFs: Ivanka Trump and Dasha Zhukova at the 2016 US Open.Photographer: Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images
Their meeting was months after Donald Trump staged the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.
When Donald Trump brought Miss Universe to Moscow
How a 2013 beauty pageant explains Trump’s love for Russia and obsession with Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump and Miss Universe 2012 Olivia Culpo show off on the red carpet at the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. | Victor Boyko/Getty Images
Abramovich, Bloomberg reported, was one of Putin’s most trusted associates, and the owner of Russia’s second largest steel company, plus the Chelsea football club. As I wrote in my post about Trump’s Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, that 2013 outing successfully embedded the Trump family inside a Kremlin-adjacent network that was built around Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov, and his son, Emin.
These meetings were important not because anything illegal took place or even that money was changing hands. Instead, the ties between Trump and Russia, which had been a series erratic and fitful contacts that took place over more than thirty years, were solidifying into cohesive relationships. Ivanka’s and Jared’s trip in 2014 attracted little attention in the United States, but it further strengthened those relationships and put the entire Trump family directly inside the same Kremlin network that had hosted him only a few months earlier, and that later became the target of investigations into Russia’s attack on the 2016 election.
From:
35. Midnight in Moscow: The Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Edition (2014) Substack
Dasha Zhukova:
How NYC socialite Dasha Zhukova lived large with oligarch Roman Abramovich
Art-world power player and celebrity pal Dasha Zhukova was married to sanctioned oligarch Roman Abramovich (with her, right) and apparently still has ties to him — creating a potentially uncomfortable situation for her.
NY Post photo composite
Two days after Vladimir Putin’s forces marched into Ukraine last month, New York art collector Dasha Zhukova postponed all of the exhibits at the Garage, her contemporary museum in Moscow, to protest “the brutal and horrific invasion.”
But while Zhukova, 40, has been emphatic in her condemnation of Russian aggression, she has remained silent about her ex-husband and the father of two of her three children, billionaire Roman Abramovich.
See more from Chris Ungar, here is another extract:
One reason the 2014 visit was so significant was that it took place just weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine and illegally annexed Crimea. In other words, the Trump family disregarded the growing risk of sanctions and continued to engage with the Kremlin’s oligarchs as they continued to pursue a real estate project that depended on Putin’s approval.
The February 2014 visit also placed Jared Kushner within oligarch networks that later intersected directly with U.S. politics. Viktor Vekselberg, who chaired the fundraiser, later drew FBI scrutiny during and after the 2016 election when investigators examined whether his companies and his associates played roles in Russian political influence operations to help Trump win.
Kushner’s presence during the Moscow trip was particularly significant, as he later established contact during Trump’s first term with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and with Sergey Gorkov, the head of the Russian state-owned development bank VEB. He also tried to establish a private backchannel between the Trump transition team and the Kremlin to avoid detection by U.S. intelligence.
The DOJ redacted Trump’s name from explicit sexual abuse allegations in the Epstein files. An unredacted version of Case 1:15-cv-07433 states a witness was told “Donald Trump liked flicking and sucking her nipples until they were raw” and that she “had sexual relations with Trump at Jeffrey’s NY mansion on regular occasions”—allegations completely blacked out in the DOJ’s public release. The same document, same page, same case number—one version names Trump, the version DOJ released does not. The unredacted version was already in the public record from the Giuffre v. Maxwell civil case. The DOJ chose to add new redactions to information that was already public. Rep. Thomas Massie warned “a future DOJ could convict the current Attorney General” for selective compliance with the transparency law. Epstein victim Marina Lacerda demanded the DOJ “stop redacting names that don’t need to be redacted,” asking: “Who are we trying to protect?”
Nev Shalev, Substack, Dec 22, 2025
I was 14 when Epstein recruited me. He demanded that girls show their school IDs
Paedophile wanted proof victims were underage and was ‘furious’ when 18-year-old was brought to him, victim says
Jeffrey Epstein would call high-profile friends while having a massage
Susie CoenUS Correspondent21 December 2025 3:14pm GMT
Jeffrey Epstein demanded that young girls show their school IDs to prove they were underage.
Marina Lacerda, who was abused by Epstein from the age of 14, said the paedophile was “furious” when an 18-year-old was brought to him, immediately sending her away.
Ms Lacerda, now 37, was forced to recruit other victims, and told The Telegraph that Epstein instructed her to only present him with girls who had a student school ID.
Global energy markets are deeply interconnected, and oil remains the lifeblood of modern economies. However, when geopolitical tensions lead to sanctions on major oil-producing nations, such as Russia, Iran, or Venezuela, these countries often seek alternative methods to keep their crude flowing to international buyers. One of the most controversial and opaque mechanisms enabling this is the so-called “shadow fleet”—a clandestine network of aging oil tankers operating outside traditional regulatory and safety frameworks. This article explores what the shadow fleet is, why it exists, how it operates, and the risks it poses to global trade, environmental safety, and maritime security.
Inside Venezuela’s growing arsenal of Iranian weapons
Iranian-made attack boats, missiles, drones, and Hezbollah-linked networks have given Venezuela a small but real combat capability in the Caribbean – and a new way for Tehran to poke at the United States.
A menacing ‘shadow fleet’ of Iranian-linked tanker ships is operating in the Caribbean, sparking alarm amid ongoing US military action in the region.
Despite a long history of brazenly transporting sanctioned Iranian oil, the vessels have been seen sailing just miles from the American coastline as President Trump continues his unrelenting bombardment of alleged drug boat
The Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners (KVNR) has revealed that several dozen vessels are fraudulently flying the flags of Aruba, Sint Maarten, and Curaçao. These ships, believed to be part of the so-called “shadow fleet,” are operating under false registrations, raising alarm over safety, environmental, and legal risks.
Flags Without Registers
KVNR’s weekly checks in August 2025 uncovered that a fluctuating number of vessels are sailing under the flags of Aruba, Sint Maarten, and Curaçao. However, none of these territories maintain a flag register for sea-going vessels or issue valid Certificates of Registry, making the practice fraudulent. This development is particularly concerning for Dutch shipowners who are legitimately entitled to fly the Kingdom flag.
And 6 years ago, the UK Conservative government, as an ally of the US::
Why is Venezuela’s gold still frozen in the Bank of England?
Four years ago, the UK government recognised Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s president. He’s now gone, but the Bank of England is still holding some of the country’s key assets.
President Maduro wants Venezuela’s gold back from Britain. (Photo: Hand out / Prensa Presidencial)
In late December, Venezuela’s leading opposition parties voted to oust Juan Guaidó as “interim president” and dissolve his parallel government.
This was clearly not the ending the UK government had in mind.
Four years ago, the British government made the bold decision to recognise Guaidó as Venezuelan president, and proceeded to facilitate his legal battle to seize roughly $2bn of gold held in the Bank of England.
Indeed, the UK government insisted at every turn that it recognised Guaidó – and not Nicolás Maduro – as Venezuelan president. In turn, Guaidó’s lawyers argued that he was authorised to represent and control the assets of the Central Bank of Venezuela held in London.
A long-running legal battle between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido over who should hold the key to more than $1.5 billion of gold stored at the Bank of England resumed at the London High Court on Wednesday.
The UK Supreme Court ruled last year that Guaido should be recognised as the Latin American country’s head of state, taking a lead from the British government’s position, and that he had the authority to determine the future of the 31 tonnes of bullion.
The High Court will now grapple with the novel question, over a four-day trial, about how to treat rulings by the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice (STJ) that say Guaido’s appointments to an “ad hoc” central bank board are invalid.
“At stake is the question of whether the English courts can sit in judgment on the validity of decisions made by another sovereign nation’s highest court,” said Sarosh Zaiwalla, a partner at law firm Zaiwalla & Co., who is representing the Maduro-led Banco Central de Venezuela.
Ukraine has recently attacked three tankers in the Black Sea that it says are Russian ‘shadow fleet’ vessels engaged in sanctions-busting
Guardian graphic. Source: MarineTraffic
“The shadow fleet itself is not a new threat,” said Gonzalo Saiz Erausquin, a research fellow at the finance and security centre at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank. “But [it] has expanded drastically after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. That saw what we call the shadow fleet explode to some 900-1,200 vessels globally.
Military oil spill: How the Kerch Strait tanker disaster is linked to Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ oil exports, 18 January 2025
…With Russia’s seizure of Crimea, its military and civilian activity in the area has increased, further worsening oil pollution in the Azov Sea and Black Sea.
Oil spills are clearly visible in satellite images made available in a review of the environmental consequences for marine ecosystems published by the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) and Zoi Network. In one case, the spills resulted from missile attacks on ChernoMorNeftegaz drilling platforms in June 2022.
Risks posed by wrecked ships have also increased, with roughly 100 additional ships, military and civilian, sinking or damaged since the war began. For example, evidence of a limited oil spill was visible from space at the site where the Moskva military cruiser sank. Most of its fuel reserves, which may exceed 2,000 tons, are probably still stored in its fuel tanks at a depth of 50 meters—a huge risk for the future…
At the same time, there is still insufficient direct evidence regarding the shadow fleet’s negative consequences for marine ecosystems. A review of tanker leaks around the world, published in October 2024 by Politico, lists just nine examples of oil spills likely associated with the shadow fleet (shown in the map below)…
On December 15, 2024, two small river tankers located at the southern anchorage at the exit from the Kerch Strait awaited transshipment to a large sea tanker. Both were caught in stormy weather and broke in half. On the Volgoneft-212, which sank completely, one sailor died from hypothermia and exposure, but the remaining 12 crew members were rescued. The stern half of Volgoneft-239, which also broke apart during the storm, managed to approach the shore and run aground 80 meters offshore. The entire crew was rescued.
According to various estimates, between 2,400 and 8,000 metric tons of mazut originating from the Saratov Oil Refinery spilled out of the damaged tankers into the sea…
The desire and capacity of the Russian Federation to ensure the safety of oil and gas shipping has diminished substantially during this war, hostilities which are fundamentally nourished by oil exports. However, even prior to this catastrophe, environmental safety in the oil and gas shipping sector has not been a priority.
The main reason for these accidents, according to an independent environmental expert who wishes to remain anonymous, is the careless disregard of the state and all its structures, as well as big business, for environmental safety. These tragedies occur because of irresponsible individuals and organizations, as well as gaps in legislation and deliberate weakening of environmental law in recent years (especially since 2021, when the requirement for constituent regions to maintain oil spill response plans (OSRs) was abolished), corporate lobbying lowering environmental standards and procedures, and stifling of the professional environmental conservation community and the country’s news media…
Dr Sian Prior, lead advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance told UWEC, “The Clean Arctic Alliance believes that other regions would benefit from following the example of theInternational Maritime Organization, through which a new ban (with notable caveats) on the carriage and use of HFO as fuel in polar regions came into force in July 2024.”
Cuba is a classic example of how economic sanctions cannot achieve their intended objectives. The U.S. has maintained an almost complete trade embargo against Cuba since Fidel Castro took power in 1959, aiming to push the country toward democracy and better human rights observance. Nevertheless, almost sixty years later, Cuba remains a one-party state under communist rule.
On the contrary, these very measures have worsened life for Cubans by drastically reducing the availability of goods, including humanitarian items such as medicines and other essentials for survival. Although the regime has exploited this situation to blame its internal problems on the embargo and to increase anti-American propaganda among segments of the population, it has not weakened its hold on power, all while compromising the welfare of ordinary citizens under sanctions. Successive U.S. administrations have, at times, failed to bring about democratization through adjustments in the sanctions.
Iran: Sanctions and Nuclear Ambitions
Iran has faced tough sanctions, particularly regarding its nuclear program, for many years. Sanctions on Iran’s energy sector and financial institutions are not new; major Western nations, including the U.S., have enforced them to compel the country to abandon its nuclear weapons aspirations, which are deemed unacceptable according to international standards of human rights and regional order. Like Cuba and Russia, achieving these objectives through sanctions has proven fruitless.
Consequently, despite skyrocketing inflation, unemployment, and shortages of basic commodities, the leadership refuses to conform to external pressures due to adverse economic conditions. Public support for the regime serves as an excuse for rallying nationalist sentiments among its people against Western aggression. Iran has managed to find new trading partners, such as China and Russia, allowing it to continue its nuclear program even after sanctions were imposed by multiple countries as a stance against its leadership. The ordinary populace in Russia, along with Cubans, has been worst affected, suffering more than those in power.
borderslynn 
You must be logged in to post a comment.