Freddie Ponton
21st Century Wire

On November 2, 2026, Valentyna Moloda arrived in medical clothing outside a private house in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, a village near Kyiv. She said men inside were being held against their will and abused. Within days, she was in custody. Courts ordered her and Tatiana Kireeva held for 60 days without bail. Ambulance driver Viktor Yen received the same detention order on November 5. Moloda faces allegations of obstructing the military, disclosing military locations and organising mass disorder. She said she would appeal, according to courtroom reporting cited by Ukrainska Pravda.

Official attention has centred on her actions and credentials, but those questions do not answer the claims she made. Four soldiers were hospitalised after the confrontation. Ukrainian MP Anna Skorokhod, who spoke to them in hospital, said all four reported beatings at the National Guard’s temporary location. She described seeing bruises and haematomas, and her account included allegations of punitive beatings and demands for money. She rejected claims that a spinal injury and a stoma resulted from violence at the house—yet the reports of beatings remained.

Among them was Andriy Kulishov, who said he was struck on the head, back and face, pressed to pay a fine for leaving his unit and denied another assessment by a military medical commission. He said he had not been held in a basement and had some telephone contact with relatives. Skorokhod could not explain why he had been kept at the location for weeks.

Ukrainian security institutions have previously held people whose confinement the authorities refused to acknowledge. Former prisoners described abuse, journalists found corroborating evidence, and UN investigators documented failures of accountability. The November 2 allegations raise the question of whether elements of that pattern persist at the National Guard location.

They said he was never there

Viktor Ashykhmin, a separatist-referendum organiser from Ukrainsk, was taken in December 2014. He told the Kyiv Post that armed men took him to the Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, in Kramatorsk. He described three days of torture, including blows to his heels with tubes filled with lead shot. His captors made him write a confession and recorded it on camera.

An investigator later told Ashykhmin that his case would not withstand a lawyer’s scrutiny and that he would instead be used in a prisoner exchange. Proposed exchanges repeatedly passed him by. He spent almost twenty months in confinement without appearing before a court or seeing a lawyer, while his wife, Nelia Shchogoleva, searched for him.

She wrote to law-enforcement bodies and human-rights organisations. Police listed him as missing and once asked her to identify a body. The SBU said it had no information about his whereabouts, but released captives told her he was in Kharkiv. When he finally returned home in July 2016, roughly 600 days had passed. Officers gave him travel money and told him to say he had been working abroad.

Mykola Vakaruk, also from Ukrainsk, was taken two days after Ashykhmin on suspicion of helping separatist artillery. He denied involvement in a conspiracy. He told the newspaper he agreed to sign anything after his captors threatened to make his wife scream like a woman he could hear in another room.

In October 2015, he said he developed kidney failure and was taken to a Kharkiv hospital under the false name Sergiy Ivanov. Doctors removed a kidney. Back in confinement, a fellow prisoner who was a dentist helped care for his surgical wounds. When Vakaruk returned home in July 2016, he had to introduce himself to his three-year-old son. The boy no longer recognised him.

The hospital staff recognised him

Journalists from hromadske interviewed former detainees, gained access to the Kharkiv premises and checked the interior against the men’s descriptions. They found holes in shutters that prisoners said they had made to see outside. Former detainees also recognised an alleged guard in footage filmed inside the building.

The journalists also took Vakaruk back to the hospital, where staff recognised him, corroborating his account of having been treated there.

The SBU maintained that the premises had served as officers’ accommodation. Its spokesperson suggested Hromadske’s evidence could have been fabricated, but offered no specific explanation in her reported response for the matching interior details, the holes in the shutters or hospital staff’s recognition of Vakaruk. Journalists also found that military prosecutors had closed their investigation and the SBU had closed its internal inquiry.

Dentist and councillor Kostyantyn Beskorovaynyi had spent approximately fifteen months in unacknowledged SBU custody, first in Kramatorsk and Izium, then mainly in Kharkiv. The joint Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch investigation recorded guards telling him and other prisoners “you don’t exist” and “we don’t even have a budget for you”.

Beskorovaynyi’s fight continued after his release. His status as a plaintiff was restored in February 2018, and a court ordered the criminal investigation reopened the following month. Investigations into four other former detainees’ complaints remained stalled. By then, all eighteen civilians had been unofficially freed from the Kharkiv facility, the last by the end of 2016, without the SBU acknowledging their detention, according to Human Rights Watch’s review of 2018.

What happens when no one is watching

In May 2016, the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture suspended its Ukraine visit after inspectors were denied access to detention locations. Delegation head Malcolm Evans said they had been prevented from entering places associated with serious allegations of detention and torture. He called the refusal a violation of Ukraine’s obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.

Beskorovaynyi described how guards concealed the prisoners. Before one visit, they moved the inmates upstairs with bags over their heads. Hours later, the prisoners returned to cells that had been cleaned and made to appear uninhabited. He said he overheard guards discussing a visit by representatives of an international organisation.

He also described the violence that preceded his long confinement. Interrogators accused him of planning to poison a water supply. He said they punched him, struck him with a heavy object and threatened rape, execution and retaliation against his family. After becoming seriously ill, he agreed to confess to anything. Interrogators dictated a confession and filmed him reading it.

Under the UN Convention against Torture, torture means the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering for purposes such as extracting a confession, punishment, intimidation or coercion, with the involvement, consent or acquiescence of an official. The definition does not require a permanent injury. Threats against a prisoner’s family and violence used to force a confession therefore concern more than the injuries left on the body. The severity of the suffering, the purpose of the acts and official responsibility are central.

The treatment documented in Beskorovaynyi’s case matches those elements. He described assaults and threats against his family during interrogation at an SBU facility, followed by a dictated confession filmed by his interrogators. His account connects the suffering inflicted to a specific coercive purpose—extracting a confession—and to official involvement.

In its 2021 thematic report, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights estimated that approximately 1,500 conflict-related detainees had suffered torture or ill-treatment by Ukrainian government actors between April 14, 2014, and April 30, 2021. It identified the SBU as the most common government perpetrator of arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment. The report documented violence used to extract confessions, force cooperation, punish, intimidate and extort money or property.

The report found that arbitrary detention became substantially less prevalent from 2016. From late that year through the end of its reporting period, investigators no longer observed long-term confinement in unofficial locations. They continued to document shorter periods, usually lasting several days in rented apartments or hotel rooms, before detention was formalised and prisoners transferred to recognised facilities.

Investigations were closed without victims being interviewed. Courts ordered cases reopened, only for investigators to close them again. Judges routinely ignored torture allegations in conflict-related trials. The report described prevailing impunity.

Journalists who documented the Kharkiv facility were listed as “enemies of Ukraine” on the Myrotvorets website and subsequently harassed by unidentified individuals, according to the UN. Investigations arising from former detainees’ complaints had not progressed since 2017.

DOCUMENT: The UN identified the SBU as the most common perpetrator of arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment among Ukrainian government actors in the eastern conflict, and described “prevailing impunity”. Much of the abuse predated Zelensky; the unresolved investigations and failures of accountability extended into his presidency. July 2021 (Source: UN Human Rights Office)UN Human Rights Office Doc 3

The findings under Zelensky

During President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration, UN investigators again documented civilians held in unofficial locations. A report published in June 2023, covering February 24, 2022, to May 23, 2023, recorded 65 such cases. Detention lasted from several hours to four and a half months, often without outside contact. The practice was reportedly used to coerce confessions or other incriminating statements.

Fifty-seven per cent of the detainees interviewed described torture or ill-treatment by Ukrainian authorities, predominantly in unofficial locations. Investigators also documented enforced disappearances in which officers, mainly from the SBU, detained people without court authorisation, denied them access to lawyers and withheld information about their whereabouts from relatives.

By the report’s May 23, 2023 cutoff, the UN knew of no completed criminal investigations into the relevant allegations of arbitrary detention or enforced disappearance by Ukrainian state actors.

DOCUMENT: Unofficial detention, coerced confessions and enforced disappearances involving mainly SBU officers—documented during Zelensky’s presidency. By the reporting cutoff, the UN knew of no completed criminal investigations into the relevant allegations of arbitrary detention or enforced disappearance by Ukrainian state actors. June 2023 (Source: UN Human Rights Office)UN Human Rights Office Doc 2

A follow-up published on September 23, 2025, again documented torture and ill-treatment by Ukrainian authorities and limited accountability. It drew on information collected between June 1, 2023, and September 10, 2025, including confidential interviews, observations, witness accounts, court documents and official records.

DOCUMENT: Continued documentation of torture and ill-treatment by Ukrainian authorities, alongside limited accountability, shows that abuses during Zelensky’s presidency were not confined to the period covered by the UN’s 2023 investigation. September 2025 (Source: UN Human Rights Office)
UN Human Rights Office Doc 1

Four men at the house near Kyiv

The National Guard announced an internal investigation after the November 2 events. The four soldiers’ accounts, relayed by Skorokhod, describe their treatment at the house, a separate matter from the allegations against Moloda.

Oleksandr Perminov said he left immediately after mobilisation because he did not want to serve in the Ukrainian military formation Azov. He said he was caught, taken to the location and beaten for leaving. Oleksandr Pavliuchenko distinguished a vertebral injury sustained during training from a subsequent beating at the house. Ivan Yareshko also reported being beaten.

Kulishov said two representatives of his unit demanded money as a fine for his absence. He sometimes received a telephone to contact relatives, but said he was not taken to hospital or allowed another military medical assessment.

Moloda’s qualifications and actions have received extensive scrutiny. That scrutiny does not establish what happened to the four soldiers or explain why Kulishov was kept at the house for weeks.

When Vakaruk returned home in 2016, he wanted accountability “so that it doesn’t happen to others”. A decade later, four hospitalised soldiers have reported beatings at a National Guard location near Kyiv, while people who publicised allegations about the house are in pretrial detention. Kulishov’s account raises questions about confinement, demands for money and access to medical care. Announcing an inquiry does not answer them.

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Host of Syriana Analysis, Kevork Almassian, talks with 21st Century Wire editor Patrick Henningsen about Trump and GOP’s Midterm crash-out and its implications going forward. Watch:

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Freddie Ponton
21st Century Wire

Trump is selling an end to Israel’s annual aid payment while Netanyahu pursues a partnership reaching deeper into America’s defence establishment. The grant has a familiar price tag, but the proposed replacement leaves American taxpayers without an accounting of the money, technology, and institutional influence at stake.

The United States provides Israel with $3.8 billion in regular military assistance each year, including $3.3 billion in financing grants and $500 million for missile defence. The funding falls under a $38 billion memorandum of understanding covering fiscal years 2019 through 2028, with Congress appropriating the funds annually.

Trump singled out Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, as he called the funding a “bad talking point” for Republicans. El-Sayed opposed unconditional military aid to Israel and argued that American funding should prioritise American citizens.

Trump did not specify which funding would stop or explain how his year-end cutoff would work while the existing military-aid arrangement runs through September 2028. His announcement also centred on a payment that accounts for only part of American military support.

The Annual Payment Was Never the Full Bill

In fiscal year 2024 alone, American military assistance and missile-defence funding reached approximately $12.5 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan office that supplies lawmakers with research. That was more than three times the regular annual package.

The historical commitment runs into hundreds of billions of dollars. Congressional research records approximately $174.97 billion in nominal federal assistance through fiscal year 2025. It separately puts assistance obligations during 1946–2024 at approximately $298 billion in inflation-adjusted 2024 dollars.

Reporting on Trump’s announcement, Israeli outlet Ynet put the historical value of American assistance at around $330 billion after adjusting past payments to account for inflation. That total includes missile-defence funding and was attributed to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Washington’s support also helped develop and produce Iron Dome, Arrow and David’s Sling, missile-defence systems that became central to Israel’s military capabilities.

American public investment and private philanthropy also finance Israel outside the federal aid package. The Israel Bonds Tracker, compiled by the Exposing Israel Bonds team with Tech for Palestine, documents purchases of Israeli government debt by states and public institutions. As of November 1, 2026, it recorded $780 million in cumulative purchases by Florida alone, with $700 million still held.

American donors also gave more than $2.65 billion to Israeli nonprofits in 2021, according to researchers at New York University and Tel Aviv University. Those donations fund Israeli nonprofits, while purchases of Israeli government bonds provide financing that Israel repays with interest. Ending the annual military grant would leave both financial channels untouched.

Trump’s announcement left the replacement unexplained, even though Netanyahu had already put his preferred model in writing.

Netanyahu Proposed the Replacement in June

On June 1, 2026, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote to Republican Representative Marlin Stutzman endorsing a shift “from aid to partnership.” In the signed letter, published on Stutzman’s congressional website, Netanyahu declared that the time had arrived for Israel “to move from aid recipient to partner.”

DOCUMENT: Netanyahu’s June 1, 2026 letter endorsing a shift “from aid to partnership.” (Source: Office of U.S. Representative Marlin Stutzman)
usa-rep-marlin-stutzman-defense-cooperation-1.6.26.pdf

Netanyahu proposed drawing down American military assistance “over the next decade” and replacing it with joint defence cooperation, co-development, coproduction and mutual investment. He named advanced missile defence, artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, cybersecurity and next-generation military platforms among the priorities.

Netanyahu’s timetable stretches over a decade, while Trump’s ends this December. Neither has explained how the gap would be bridged or whether annual grants would continue during the transition, joint-project funding would replace them immediately, or both would run alongside each other.

Those ambitions already had a legislative route through Congress, where lawmakers were considering a requirement for the defence secretary to designate a Pentagon executive agent to coordinate and expand defence cooperation with Israel.

The Replacement Has No Disclosed Price Tag

The House-passed fiscal year 2027 defense authorization bill includes a United States–Israel Defence Technology Cooperation Initiative. Section 219 would require the defence secretary to designate a Pentagon executive agent to coordinate that work, giving the proposed partnership an institutional home inside the American defence establishment.

A bipartisan effort to remove the provision never reached a separate House floor vote. Republican Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna sought to strike Section 219, but their amendment was not made eligible for floor consideration. The House passed the defence bill with the provision intact.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also urged lawmakers to reject the bill, describing the provision as an “existential threat to American sovereignty and democracy.” She accused it of seeking “to merge parts of our military with the IDF.”

The proposed cooperation spans artificial intelligence, quantum technology, cyber defence, electronic warfare and advanced sensing. It would also foster industrial partnerships and bring jointly developed technologies into American weapons procurement.

American contributions to those projects would come from annual defence appropriations, according to the Stimson Centre, a Washington security-policy research organisation. The initiative would expand cooperation under existing authorities while creating a Pentagon advocate for deeper industrial ties and funding for Israel’s defence sector.

The proposed shift also carries a strategic purpose, according to reporting by Aída Chávez in Capital & Empire. In July, Chávez reported that several American officials had described an intelligence assessment written primarily by the CIA that examined Israel’s efforts to secure support beyond the politically vulnerable annual aid package. Israeli officials sought to embed their country more deeply within American military, intelligence and defence industries, making the relationship harder for future administrations to unwind, according to the assessment described in her report.

Defence-spending researcher William Hartung warns that replacing a single annual aid package with numerous Pentagon contracts could make American support harder for Congress to track and influence. Research, development and production contracts would offer routes for funding to Israeli companies, with the spending spread across the Pentagon budget.

The shift from aid to joint investment could also let Washington sidestep restrictions on military support. The Stimson Centre warns that an administration could argue that projects partly funded by Israel are not American assistance and therefore fall outside human-rights safeguards such as the Leahy Laws, which prohibit assistance to foreign security-force units credibly implicated in gross human-rights violations. Ambiguities over whether joint projects constitute arms sales could also provide a route around congressional notification requirements.

The technology involved carries its own history of friction. Congressional research documents American interventions over Israel’s planned sale of Phalcon airborne radar systems to China and a subsequent dispute over upgrades to Chinese Harpy drones. Those disagreements disrupted defence cooperation, exposing the stakes of sharing sensitive technology with a partner whose export decisions have conflicted with Washington’s security interests.

Israeli licensing has also constrained transfers sought by Washington. In 2022, Israel rejected an American request to allow Germany to send Spike antitank missiles to Ukraine. The missiles were manufactured in Germany, but their Israeli technology license required Israel’s approval for transfer to another country.

Americans are being asked to accept a new partnership without knowing what rights they would retain over the technology their money helps develop. Neither Trump’s announcement nor Netanyahu’s letter explains who would own that technology, what access Israeli companies would receive or what restrictions would govern its transfer to other countries.

Ending the Grant Does Not Establish the Savings

Israel’s military spending reached an estimated $46.5 billion in 2024, equivalent to 8.8% of its economy, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Israeli economic officials quoted by Ynet warned that losing the two remaining years of assistance would create an approximately $8 billion gap.

“Where are we supposed to get that money?” they asked. “Obviously, through taxes on citizens.”

Trump’s announcement turns the visible $3.8 billion payment into the story while a deeper commitment takes shape inside America’s defence establishment. Netanyahu’s proposed partnership would tie Israeli companies and technologies more closely to Pentagon research, weapons development and procurement. The annual grant is a known sum, but the cost and reach of that integration remain undisclosed. Ending the payment would give Trump a political victory to claim after Republicans lost both the House and Senate. But it would not tell Americans how much money, technology, and institutional access Israel would receive instead.

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Olsi Jazexhi

The protests confronting Edi Rama’s government have become a test of Albania’s democracy. What began on 30 May 2026 as the Flamingo Revolution against Jared Kushner’s resort project in Zvërnec has broadened into a confrontation over corruption, Israeli investment and increasingly authoritarian government. Here is what the mainstream international are not showing you: this uprising has a geopolitical element at its core, as protesters are accusing an embattled Rama of “selling Albania to Israel.” His increasingly unpopular government has responded with a wave of police violence, mass arrests and increased restrictions on freedoms.

This an unprecedented political crisis for the country of Albania. For demonstrators, these grievances are connected: a government accused of protecting powerful business interests has resorted to the use of massive force against citizens demanding accountability.

Edi Rama’s relationship with Israel is central to that confrontation. Throughout Israel’s war on Gaza, he has maintained close ties with the Israeli government. In September 2024, he welcomed President Isaac Herzog to Tirana, and subsequently invited Israelis to settle in Albania. Israeli acquisitions of residency, passports, land and property, have since intensified accusations among the populace that Rama serves Israeli interests ahead of the Albanian electorate.

This untoward relationship has a longer security dimension. In 2016, Albania sheltered some 3,000 Iranian former fighters from the previously proscribed terrorist organization known as the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), which subsequently established its camp in town of Manëz. Allegations that the organisation conducted attacks against Iran from their protected compound—in coordination with Israel, form a major part of the controversy surrounding its presence.

In 2018, Benjamin Netanyahu requested that Albania “remove the Iranian presence in the country.” The Rama government then expelled Iranian diplomats that year, before severing diplomatic relations with Iran in 2022, and attributing a massive cyberattack to Tehran—an attribution which lacked evidence, and was challenged by critics of Rama.

Israeli defense tech and cyber infiltration in Albania

In October 2022, after the closure of the Iranian embassy, Rama made a three-day visit to Israel and invited Israeli companies to ‘protect’ Albania’s digital infrastructure. This cooperation was accompanied by a reported €100 million in government spending, with contracts channelled through Albania’s National Agency for Information Society (AKSHI).

The resulting procurement allegations raise serious questions about who benefited from this security partnership. Investigations by the Special Structure against Corruption and Organised Crime (SPAK) have centred on Rama’s handyman Ergys Agasi, AKSHI director Mirlinda Karçanaj, and businessman Ermal Beqiri. Allegations surrounding the affair include diversion of public funds, involvement by Israeli companies and contracts awarded without the required transparent and competitive tendering process.

Albania’s Kosovo-born intelligence chief, Vlora Hyseni, has also been drawn into the allegations, alongside claims concerning her relationship with Israeli businessman Ron Yeffet. Yeffet is the son of Isaac Yeffet, a former senior figure in Israel’s Shin Bet. These connections have sharpened concerns about the overlap between intelligence institutions, political power and commercial interests, and the real risks of Israeli infiltration into key nodes in Albania’s national infrastructure.

READ ALSO: Not Only Flamingos: Albania’s Revolt Against a Foreign Takeover

Defence procurement is another source of controversy. The notorious Israeli military and arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems, implicated in the genocide in Gaza, has since managed to secure large contracts connected with Albania’s state-owned KAYO. Questions surrounding KAYO, Yeffet and Timak Defense include claims about control of the companies, more than €30 million in state funding, and a projected €1.2 billion investment in Pashaliman port. SPAK has conducted searches and seized documents involving Yeffet, TIMAK and other state officials.

Increased Israeli money and control across society

The controversies extend beyond defence. A 2024 arrangement with Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has been criticised over alleged exclusive medicine-supply rights and the exclusion of Albanian suppliers. In June 2026, Albania signed agricultural investment agreements with 12 Israeli companies, a month after announcing the sale of 100,000 hectares to foreign companies. Albanian media reported that the land would be used for Israeli settlements, or kibbutzim.

In Vlorë, the $6.5 million Jewish Museum, whose construction began in February 2025, has become another focus of opposition. Residents protesting since 5 September 2026 argue that the project threatens the city’s historic identity, the Labëria Patriotic Club and the Ethnographic Museum they say it will replace.

The controversy intensified after Anna Kohen, an Israeli claimed that Vlorë had once been inhabited by “90% Jews and 10% Albanians.” Some residents interpreted the statement as supporting claims over their city by Israelis. Their objections to the museum have consequently become entangled with broader suspicions about Israeli investment.

The airport dispute has reinforced those concerns. On 13 September 2026, Kosovar businessman Behgjet Pacolli alleged that Rama’s government was seeking to terminate his company’s Vlorë Airport concession so it could be handed to the Israeli “businessmen” Ron Yeffet.

Meanwhile, Israeli property purchases have become a focus of anger over rising prices. During his Tirana visit on 12 October 2026, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced that 100,000 Israeli tourists had visited Albania that year. Israeli investment spans agriculture, tourism, medicine, defence, banking and other sectors, while Rama’s government has granted passports and residencies to many Israelis.

During Rama’s January 2026 visit to Israel, Netanyahu publicly encouraged Israelis to visit Albania:

“I can tell all Israelis that Albania is a beautiful country with beautiful people, so go there, number one.”

Protesters interpret these developments as evidence of a government placing foreign interests above their own. Some accuse Rama of turning Albania into a “second Palestine” and acting as Netanyahu’s agent. Their banners declare that Albania is not for sale.

Rama has answered by describing protesters as antisemites exploited by the “enemies of Israel and Albania.” He has blamed Iran, Russia, Antifa, left-wing groups, imams and mosques, portraying demonstrators as radicalised and ideologically manipulated. Such rhetoric turns disputes over government decisions into questions of national loyalty.

Corruption cases involving senior officials have deepened the crisis. Former deputy prime minister Belinda Balluku faces SPAK accusations concerning tender violations, corruption and money laundering involving construction contracts worth over €200 million. On 12 March, Rama’s parliamentary majority refused to lift her immunity and authorise her arrestby SPAK.

Erion Veliaj, Tirana’s evangelical Christian mayor and former minister, has been in pretrial detention since February 2025 over allegations involving €1.1 million in public funds. Former environment minister Lefter Koka was convicted in an incinerator case involving an alleged €3.7 million bribe. Former deputy prime minister Arben Ahmetaj faced prosecution and left Albania, while former health minister Ilir Beqaj was arrested over suspected misuse of EU funds.

WATCH: Kushner’s Island: Israel’s Takeover of Albania – Olsi Jazexhi talks to Patrick Henningsen

These cases, rising living costs and controversies over Israeli takeover of the country explain demands for Rama’s resignation, arrest and prosecution. Protesters see a governing system that protects Zionist American investors such as Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and other Israeli business interests, while treating opposition as a threat.

Rama has chosen not to follow the path of other European leader like Serbia’s Aleksandar Vučić, and has flatly refused to step down, call early elections or face corruption allegations in a court of law. Critics argue that Israeli political support has effectively shielded Rama and his government from international pressure, while he rapidly transforms Albania into a fully-fledged police state, using police violence to silence protesters.

These grievances have driven protests since May 2026. The unrest increasingly resembles urban guerrilla warfare, with young people clashing with police. The message from the crowds couldn’t be any clearer: Albanians want regime change.

Author Dr Olsi Jazexhi is an Albanian historian and political commentator, specialising in the history of Islam, nationalism and modernity, as well as work in area of counter-terrorism.

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Deep Dive host Lt Col Daniel Davis speaks with Patrick Henningsen about these and other key aspects of conflict with Iran. Watch:

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By

Just like Nazi Germany seized Czechoslovakia’s gold and its robust military-industrial complex in the run-up to World War II, so too is today’s Germany plotting to seize Poland’s gold and subordinate European NATO’s largest army to Berlin ahead of a possibly upcoming war with Russia by 2030.

Polish conservative firebrand Dominik Tarczyński recently explained liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s attempted judicial coup as being driven by him then wanting to seize control of the Central Bank, introduce the euro, and then finally transfer Poland’s gold to the European Central Bank (ECB) in Germany. As it turns out, Poland has the world’s 10th-largest gold reserves, and its 550 tonnes as of January were more than the ECB’s 506.5. The ECB would therefore more than double its reserves in that scenario.

That’s a significant motivation for what was assessed here to be Germany’s attempted takeover of Poland by proxy through Tusk’s armed seizure of the Constitutional Tribunal with all that could follow. It could also at least temporarily rejuvenate the euro amidst the rapid militarization that most of its members, the vast majority of whom use the euro, are engaging in to prepare for war with Russia by 2030. The bloc’s de facto German leader is far ahead of everyone with a planned €800 billion program.

Poland commands European NATO’s (E-NATO) largest military, and conservative President Karol Nawrocki is opposed to the EU’s “Security Action For Europe” (SAFE) loans that would also obligate that most of the equipment be purchased from the bloc’s members, not Poland’s American and Korean partners. He accordingly proposed the “Polish SAFE 0%” program for 185 billion zloty (~$46 billion), the equivalent of the loan that the EU is extending, which Tusk’s government agreed to despite Nawrocki’s disapproval.

If the ongoing attempted German takeover of Poland by proxy succeeds, and Poland joins the euro prior to more than doubling the ECB’s reserves by transferring all of its gold there, then Germany could much more easily advance its plot of federalizing the EU with itself as the most dominant force therein. Coupled with the rapid militarization of the EU as a whole, with the largest army in E-NATO then subordinated to Germany, the 1941-like threat that Dmitry Medvedev warned about would materialize.

The seizure of the Poland’s gold reserves is central to this scenario, ergo why Tusk is expected to support that through the introduction of the euro if his judicial coup succeeds, and there’s an historical precedent for his suspected German patron to pursue this policy that’s actually against Russia. Hitler seized Czechoslovakia’s gold reserves and its robust military-industrial complex in the immediate run-up to World War II, both of which were considered by historians to be indispensable to his war effort.

Likewise, in the run-up to the EU’s possible clash with Russia by 2030, today’s Germany is attempting to seize Poland’s gold reserves and subordinate the largest army in E-NATO to Berlin in dual moves that would be indispensable in the aforesaid scenario. Unlike back then when Germany led the invasion of the USSR from the front, it might instead task its Polish subordinate with sending Poles to die in Ukraine for perpetuating the NATO-Russian proxy war there or starting another one after the latest conflict ends.

Considering what’s at stake, namely the materialization of another 1941-like threat to Russia brought about by the German-dominated European Federation that could follow Berlin’s attempted takeover of Poland by proxy through Tusk’s judicial coup, Poland’s political crisis is of global significance. Its outcome could mean the difference between war and peace, without any exaggeration, since it’ll shape the post-war European order for years to come.

This article originally appeared at Andrew Korybko’s Substack

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Sir Julian Rose
21st Century Wire

The deliberate provocation of wars; the drive to make the imminence of war a daily anxiety; the diversion of national funds to prepare for war; the degree to which war is being made to seem inevitable – as a convenient outlet for rampant political egos; war as the primary guarantee of funds for failing national economies; war as a smokescreen for other nefarious hidden agendas.

Today’s acute obsession with war points to origins within the Yahweh-inspired Old Testament blood baths. A pertinent example being the story of how the Children of Israel were ordered by the Jewish god (Yahweh) to wipe out the citizens of Canaan in order to make way for their arrival in ‘the promised land’.

Such murderous behaviour is thematic of the Yahweh-ordered massacres that feature so strongly in the Old Testament, with frequent accounts of biblical bloodletting and sacrificial slaughters, all of which have formed the diet of Judeo-Christian religious education over decades.

Has this instilled a subconscious acceptance of large-scale murder and genocide in generations raised on it?

Why, in ‘democratic’ countries – where respect for peace is woven into the culture is there no serious concentration on the promotion of peace today?

The great majority of people of all ages, nationalities and faiths, want peace. So why has the promotion of peace and goodwill been relegated to an unacceptable aspiration in this day and age?

Ask anyone in any corner of the world if they want war – and all will say of course not. But political top brass will steadfastly proclaim that other ‘leaders’ are preparing for war “so we must be prepared for such an eventuality and increase our preparations for hostilities”

In a stark example of current Russophobia, the UK Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, recently announced: “One thousand days to prepare for war”. He was smiling in pictures that appeared in the British newspapers.

Nobody wants war, except that very small unhinged minority who suffer an extreme psychological sickness based upon a deep insecurity and profound lack of human empathy. Those who deliberately stoke the accusations that others are a threat to their way of life and resources.

Nobody wants war – so why is war, or the threat of war – playing such a dominating role in our lives today? Why have millions of ordinary mortals failed to rein in and silence that tiny clique of darkly insane demolition agents who hold the world in a fear-filled thrall?

Why has Benjamin Netanyahu been allowed to order the mass cull of innocent Palestinian men, women and children, and why does his army, many with their own families, unquestioningly carry through this cold-blooded genocide?

Why does the world look on in horror but leaves taking any action to a small number of brave humanitarian activists to form a convoy of boats to try to deliver aid and love to the tormented and tortured citizens of Gaza?

But the leading ‘powers that be’ on this planet, turn away their heads, muttering their shock and sorrow. Their preference is to ship billions of dollars worth of arms to a fascist worshipping cult in Ukraine, leaving Palestine to suffer total destruction under the gleeful leadership of Israel’s psychotic despots.

Is this really the best the world can do?

Why, in spite of a stark list of unbowed brutality and crimes against humanity, has Netanyahu been re-elected to carry further his fanatical determination to annihilate the Palestinian people and their culture?

Deep levels of fear are being enforced on the people of Israel, blocking any potential rise in conscious awareness that could unite them to overthrow the dictatorship of permanent war which rules their lives.

With consciousness comes the recognition of responsibility. The realisation that one is complicit in a crime of ignoring injustice and in turning away from involvement in acts of essential resistance and push-back against undisguised evil. Most of mankind does not want to accept this kind of responsibility. That is why things only get worse.

This refusal of consciousness is a denial of our roots as empathetic members of the family of man and is instrumental in why so many accept – rather than confront – the ubiquitous war propaganda of this era.

The corporate media further stirs such a defeatist attitude, gorging itself on the fear factor and ever lusting after the shock headline and any chance to send a shiver down the spine of its readers/viewers.

The top-down control agents play on the adrenaline that the public gets hooked on as the ongoing war state is reported in graphic detail, these days using explicit film and photographic images to further excite, shock and disgust the viewer. The control agents know that the resulting adrenaline eventuality gets absorbed, losing its power to trigger a push back.

So we are faced with a pornography of violence day in and day out, and it deadens our humanity and our outrage. Just like sexual pornography. Why is this porn so popular? Now one of the biggest industries in the world, an indulgence that plays to our lower instincts and search for self-gratification. A state closely associated with the base instincts linked to war.

There is just one power that dispels such narcissistic self-destruction and puts everything on its true course; that lifts the spirit into a vibrant state of joy; that embraces our collective humanity as fellow travellers on the road to freedom—and that is Love. Those who, out of fear, wish to destroy love, will ultimately discover its existence within themselves—and will be transformed.

Society is not constructed according to the primacy of love, but is built upon a drive for materialistic gratification. Benign social instincts exist in parallel and are even encouraged in some degree, but the system is rigged for the garnering of riches for the few and the slog of providing them, for the many.

So whatever temporary headway is made in averting disaster, be it ecological, spiritual or material, the underlying pattern and political structure of society remains rooted in ownership, aggression and envy.

That is why it is so easy for the warmongers to instil fear in the majority of the population.

When the drumroll of impending conflict is broadcast on every news channel in the Western world 24/7, they are easily seduced. Seduced to believe that an evil force—most commonly pinned on Russia these days—is planning to disrupt their lives, so they must accept that their financial contributions to the state (taxes) will increasingly be needed to ‘defend the nation’.

What a vicious hoax!

And where does that increase in taxed income land up?  Filling the coffers of the military-industrial war machine and the pockets of the gangsters who trade armaments for personal profit, as is the case of Ukraine. And of course, into the vaults of the banking empires that ensure their expanding ownership of the collateral of war-devastated zones of the world, as more and more citizens are driven from their homes and default on their loans.

Our taxed income is increasingly siphoned off in support of the depopulation and eugenics agenda that are major planks in the ambitions of the warmongers—architects of the Great Reset, Fourth Industrial Revolution, United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda 2030, Net Zero, artificial intelligence and transhumanism.

It is all ‘a war agenda’ and is rooted in a Satanic ambition to destroy the empathetic life force and replace it with a deathly brand of robotic cyber existence.

George Bush named it ‘the war on terror’ in 2002, and since then we are all terrorists and every conceivable form of surveillance and control is being placed in our path, so we ‘threats to the state’ can be arrested, disinvested or dispatched at any time and any place of their choosing.

It is a war on humanity, and at bottom it’s an expression of deep fear of a gathering wave of spiritual emancipation and enlightenment, whose harbingers are already at work in all spheres of society.

The warmongers have no weapons against this uprising, but they use their collaboration with dark occult energies to try to block any advancement of the awakening.

War plays on the lowest vibrational frequencies of mankind. Pain, fear and brutal death give off their own dystopian form of energy, feeding the demonic forces that depend on such emotions to sustain their attack on humanity.

War—and the threat of war—remains the chief ‘weapon of mass repression’ of our time.

This explains why it is never out of the news and why political scoundrels can manoeuvre an ever vacillating public sentiment into accepting continuous acts of devious deception that relentlessly steal our freedoms, fundamental human rights and creative aspirations.

Now we must all rise up against this theft of our fundamental birthright. Against the divide-and-conquer political media blackmailers whose untamed anti-life trajectory translates into a suicide mission for our priceless living earth and our Creator’s indescribable genius.

If these words move you, then let them unite us sentient and empathetic mortals into an unstoppable force directly feeding into the gathering wave of spiritual cleansing so feared by the agents of death, clinging to their crumbling citadels of power and control.

A hugely potent moment is at hand; we must rise up in support of its intent to bring about a dynamic cleansing of the cowardly residue holding back a great emancipation of warm-hearted, loving humanity.  A momentous event that will shake our societies to their foundations and bring down the final curtain on the madness of war.

Awaken the spiritual warrior that sleeps within. Don’t wait for others; motivate yourself to support the life force in all spheres of existence. Motivate yourself to become the truth you believe in.

Julian Rose is the author of ‘In Defence of Life’, John Hunt Publications, Earth Books, UK. He is an early pioneer of organic farming, a widely read essayist, broadcaster and international activist. Visit www.julianrose.info 

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Sunday Wire Radio Show Archives

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This week on the SUNDAY WIRE, host Patrick Henningsen returns this week  for our regularly scheduled program. Three critical elections – in Israel, the USA, and Serbia. We’ll tell you the likely outcomes and ramifications going forward. All of this takes place of the ‘Eve of War’, as the world braces itself for another illegal war of aggression by the Trump and Israeli regimes. But the great apocalypse is already here: the government’s psy-op has been revealed – and it’s an epic fraud: telling populations with total certainty to prepare for a major international catastrophe – clearly planned in advance. Which will be their catalyzing event of choice: a nuclear or conventional military war, a rehabilitating AI cyber attack, and another pseudo ‘pandemic’? We should ask the question: why do US military officers and soldiers continue to carry out illegal war crimes on behalf of the US and Israel’s corruption regimes? Will members of the military be held criminally accountable – just as the Nazis were after WWII – for their roles in these crimes against humanity? The answer may shock you. Later in the Overdrive hour, we’re joined by teammates Bryan “Hesher”McClain, Adam “Ruckus” Clark, and Basil Valentine for deeper look into these and other breaking developments. All this and more…

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This month’s featured music artists: The Real Anthem Band, Joseph Arthur, Peyoti for President, Peter Conway & Red Rumble, and Phil Zimmerman

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Sunday Wire Radio Show Archives

Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown faces resistance across the US, not just from migrants, but from residents fighting new ICE detention centers in their backyards. Meanwhile, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) north, plans for a Trump administration detention center holding up to 10,000 people sparked unexpected resistance in Social Circle. In this small town in Trump country, a progressive activist and a Trump supporter united to stop it from being built. Watch:

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Run time: 29 minutes
Written by: Patrick Tombola and Marco Chizzola
Produced by: Nicole Krättli
Production: DW Documentary / Deutsche Welle

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