This posting is primarily a LINKS update for today, August 25th, but I want to introduce it by pointing out what seems to me a hardening reality in the wake of the recent but now stone-cold excitement over Anchorage and Washington meetings just a few days ago.
The positions of Russia and of Ukraine, in my view, have barely budged. You can parse all you want all those “Russian source” suggestions that maybe Putin will relent and not insist that Ukraine should withdraw its forces from Zapporizhzhia and Kherson if it withdraws from the Donbass, as a prelude to a ceasefire. But, as an “American source,” perhaps with a bit more credibility than those anonymous “Russian sources,” I can assure you this is all garbage and that attention had best been given to the recent statements from Riuissian FM Sergei Lavrov that provide as much clarity as one could wish.
This then sets the scene, following the usual venemous drivel from Senator Lyndsey Graham for a Trumpian return to tariff and sanctions threats that have all the potential for intimidation as a bluebottle fly in your bathroom.
Of much greater importance is growing evidence of long-range missile supply from NATO countries to Ukraine, or support for the building of such on Ukrainian territory - some of it already destroyed by Russian missiles - and the apparent growing successes of Ukrainian drones and missiles, some likely fired from Finland and/or the Balkans - on Russian oil and refinery facilities which some reliable sources are saying are having a significant impact on Russian oil supplies and prices within Russia itself and possibly on the international market, even as India is facing steep US-imposed punitive tariffs in retaliation for its continuing dependence on Russian supplies (some of which, I suspect, are now being routed through Chinese shipping). Also impacted are the European “dissident” states of Hungary and Slovakia. None of this has quite reached a level of existential importance but there is a whiff of this in the air. It moves in the direction not of a Russian climbdown, but of a Russian resort to missile strikes (even Oreshnik or nuclear) on Ukraine’s European ennablers.
The hardening on the Ukraine fronts (where Russia is mainly winning - despite some Ukrainian counteroffensive successes in recent weeks - most notably in Zapporizhzhia, Kupyansk, Kosiantynivka, and Pakrovsk, while also making advances on Lyman and Siversk - is coinciding with a build-up towards more confrontation between Israel/US and Iran, with both sides now anticipating recommencement of hostilities in September, preceded, as we have seen over the past day, by a concerted Israeli attack on the Yemeni capital in a bid to put an end to Yemeni control over Red Sea trade and its diminishment of Israeli ports.
So we have an increasing reddening glow in the embers of the ever-smoldering bonfire of World War Three potentiality. There are parallel significations from Taiwan, but here I will just note increasing dependence of Iran on the supply of air defense and fighter jet capabilities from China which is a major client for Iranian oil while potentially subject to US sanctions that will further advise China to shut off all supply of rare earths to the US.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
LINKS 08/25/25
Planetcide
EU faces worst wildfire season on record as over 1mn hectares burn
Neocon Humanitarianism
How 'Human Rights' Became Western Weapon
NATO Proxy War Against Russia Over Ukraine
Ukraine drone hits Russian nuclear plant, sparks huge fire at Novatek's Ust-Luga terminal
War of words escalates between Budapest Brussels and Kyiv following the latest Druzhba oil pipeline attacks
Russian oil deliveries to Hungary off again after third attack on Druzhba pipeline as Ukraine ups attacks on Russian oil assets
Ukraine has made Russia’s refining sector a strategic liability
Why Haven’t Sanctions on Russia Stopped the War? The Money Is Still Flowing.
Fascism US
29 immigrant workers arrested and three injured in latest ICE raid in New Jersey; Democrats complicit
The Empire in LatAm