West wants to escalate Ukraine conflict to global level -- Russian delegation in Vienna | Tass |

Those who are obstructing peace in Ukraine and sponsoring the war there cannot expect a place at the negotiating table to end it, Yulia Zhdanova added

The West is trying to escalate the conflict between Russia and Ukraine into a global confrontation, Yulia Zhdanova, head of the Russian delegation at the disarmament talks in Vienna, said.

"It is obvious to everyone that it is not Russia that is advancing its military infrastructure toward the borders of NATO member states. Russia does not deploy its military bases around the world and does not wage a proxy war against NATO members. Instead, the whole world is witnessing a new chapter in the anti-Russian policy of the collective West, which, by extracting money from its own taxpayers, is seeking to turn the conflict in Ukraine into a phase of global confrontation," she said at a regular meeting of a specialized forum of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

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Russia's Putin has started WW3 and must be stopped, Ukraine's Zelensky says | BBC News |

Propagating latest tested war narrative from London-Brussels contra Russia as other narratives MI6/CIA became stale and are put aside.

🇺🇦‼️ Odesa and Odesa region are preparing for possible threats: the development of a perimeter defense to counter attacks from land and sea is underway. Anti-tank ditches and other engineering elements are being built in the region, -- head of TRO South pic.twitter.com/S32MG5EbNt

— The Ukrainian Review (@UkrReview) February 25, 2026

Two years ago ...

📷 Defense fortifications are being built in Odesa Oblast. According to the head of the oblast, the direction is one of the main priorities. #RussiaUkraineWar #Odesa pic.twitter.com/RnhfeTbffn

— MilitaryLand.net (@Militarylandnet) March 18, 2024

From the diaries ...

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The Battle for Odesa: Ukraine's Culture War :: Divide between Ukrainian and Russian speaking citizens

FOREVER WARS MAKING UKRAINE A LETHAL NUCLEAR TERROR STATE

VOICES THAT LOST ALL CREDIBILITY ON WARFARE

Former SG: NATO Must Escalate to Defeat Russia

On how we can support Ukraine | Khristina & Jaap de Hoop Scheffer | Buitenhof - Dutch Former Dutch Christian Democrats leader JdeHS was major voice in the infamous NATO Summit of Bucharest in 2008 …

In December 2017 he wrote a mea culpa opinion piece in a major Dutch paper …

• Unbelievable ... Jaap De Hoop Scheffer | 8 Jan. 2018 |

"The West should respect the red lines of Russia."

Yep, just recently I met the former NATO secretary general while buying a book as Xmas present for a friend. JdHS is a former acquaintance long before he became Dutch foreign minister of the Iraq War Fame.

• Dutch Investigation: Iraq Mission Ruled Illegal | 12 Jan. 2010 |

Ever since I have seen the SG become more entangled in the web of right-wing intrigues of an aggressive NATO policy of the West. Just very recently a so-called independent policy group advised the Rutte cabinet on Dutch foreign policy issues. I was saddened by its neoconservative attitude. I was even more surprised to find JDHS as chair for the foreign policy forum, hardly an independent thinker after all those years of supporting military AngloSaxon policy for the West.

Here are a few snippets from his interview ...

Rutte, Palestine and NATO: Nepotism by the global elite used to further their own power

Murdoch’s Rag for Warmongering

"In the talks, now under way in Geneva, the U.S. negotiators were expected to make clear Iran must dismantle its three main nuclear sites—at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan—and deliver all of its remaining enriched uranium to the U.S., officials said. They were also expected to insist…

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) February 26, 2026

Geneva Talks Made Progress …

Oman’s foreign minister says Iran and US made ‘significant progress’ in talks | Arab News |

Iran and the United States made “significant progress” in talks in Switzerland on Thursday, Oman’s foreign minister said, at the end of the latest round of negotiations to avert a war between the longtime foes.

The Oman-mediated discussions follow repeated threats from Donald Trump to strike Iran, with the US president last Thursday giving Tehran 15 days to reach a deal.

While Iran has insisted the discussions focus solely on its nuclear program, the US wants Tehran’s missile program and its support for militant groups in the region curtailed.

“We have finished the day after significant progress in the negotiation between the United States and Iran,” Badr Al-Busaidi said in a post on X, adding that “discussions on a technical level will take place next week in Vienna.”

Addendum

THE END OF DEMOCRACY AS WE KNOW IT ⁉️
The Accelerating Process of Democratic Backsliding | Me Judice |

Liberal democracies are experiencing rough times. This is not only due to external pressures as a result of the new power play in the context of geo-political rivalry and the populist turn in Trumpian America, but also because of creeping internal democracy-undermining processes. In this book-sized essay, I reflect on what may explain the latter, developing the first building blocks of what I refer to as an ecological complexity perspective.

Without ignoring other explanatory forces, my focus is on the subtle interplay between five interrelated mechanisms.

• The first mechanism involves the overregulation that signals the State’s distrust in citizens, being partly driven by a regulatory reflex of the ruling elite to any incident or issue.
• The second mechanism has to do with the well-known explosive interaction between elected politicians and the hysteria-loving media.
• The third mechanism relates to the complacent anger that is easily triggered in a population pampered by a highly-developed Welfare State.
• The fourth mechanism is the well-established inequality-increasing impact of decades of neo-liberal policies.
• The fifth mechanism is driven by the isolating effect of the bubble- producing technology of social media.

These five mechanisms are involved in a deadly embrace, interacting in producing a downward spiral that slowly kills the liberal democracy as we know it. This downward spiral is provided with lubricating oil by the behavior of the political class, specifically mainstream center right. Initiated by the far right, the new political discourse is characterized by brutalization and normalization, which is perfectly in line with the modern-day culture of immediacy – of a permanent quest for instant gratification.

Latest advice from De Hoop Scheffer 🥹

Former NATO SG Warns Europe Is Threatened by America's MAGA | 26 Oct. 2025 |