By Gordon Hahn, Website, 3/16/26

We often here that Russians are imperialistic, militaristic, aggressive, expansionist, paranoid in relation to foreigners and foreign states, especially the West; that Russian President Vladimir Putin carried out an ‘unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine,’ and is engaged in a massive military buildup in preparation for an invasion of Europe: ‘If he wins in Ukraine, he will not stop.’ Commentators refer to Putin’s ‘fortress Russia.’ This is a reference to an intentional government propaganda effort to convince Russians that they are being surrounded by NATO and so the country must hunker down, crush opposition, and maximize its military production and prowess, making the coubntry extremely militaristic and exceptionally aggressive. At the same time, the universal Western meme is that Ukraine is a democracy and a passive victim of that ‘bad Russia.’ Putting aside Kiev’s initiation of a civil war in Donbass in April 2014, Ukraine’s powerful and now well-armed neofascist movement, and its NATO-backed military buildup prior to the February 2022 Russian effort at coercive diplomacy, a global opinion survey shows that Russia is no outlier, even with compared to the ‘alliance of democracies’ with regard to its national secuerity culture, and where it is it is it deviates in a direction counteropposite to expansionism, militarism, and aggressiveness. Ukraine and Ukrainians turn out to be more militaristic and aggressive than Russia and Russians, refuting what the media-academia misinformation complex so tirelessly exclaims.

The Alliance of the Democracies sponsored a global opinion survey this year, the results of which were published in a report called the ‘Democracy Perception Index’ (DPI) It asked numerous questions regarding national security among the populations of almost all countries (https://allianceofdemocracies.org/democracy-perception-index and https://146165116.fs1.hubspotusercontent-eu1.net/hubfs/146165116/DPI 2025.pdf). The survey’s results demonstrate this ‘counter-intuitive’ conclusion, made counter-intuitive by decades of Western propaganda. For example, the survey asked respondents how concerned they were that their country might be invaded. Slightly more than a quarter of Russians answered they were very or extremely concerned about this (DPI, p. 31). Russian President Vladimir Putin’s alleged efforts to create a ‘fortress Russia’ mentality in the Russian populace apparently is not going well. One explanation for the relative lack of concern among Russians is confidence in the Russian leadership and military to handle any foreign challenges that may arise.

On the other hand, Russians are not prone to rely on military power as the key instrument in guaranteeing their country’s national security, according to the DPI. Respondents were given a choice between: (1) military buildup; (2) maintaining or developing nuclear weapons; (3) strengthening ther country’s alliances and partnerships; and (4) implementing or expanding mandatory military service. The option most often chosen by Russians strengthening ther country’s alliances and partnerships—the only non-military response available. By contrast, Ukrainians most often chose ‘maintaining or developing nuclear weapons as a deterrent’; Ukraine was the only country in the world to choose this answer the most. Poland, Turkey, and China were the only countries on the Greater Eurasian landmass to choose military buildup most often. The rest of Europe and all of the Americas, except for Cuba, chose to rely on alliances as the Russians did (DPI, p. 32).

Respondents aged 18-55 were also asked about whether they personaly would be willing to fight if their country were attacked. A little over half in Russia responded positively, while in the US slightly less than half did so. In Ukraine, only a third responded positively. In Europe, the figure falls to 41%, with higher percentages willing to fight found in Norway, Greece, and Sweden. Globally, some of the weakest willingness to fight were France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, where less than a third responded positively. Middle Eastern and North African countries responded positively on an average of 69% — “the highest regional average in the world.” (DPI, p. 33). In sum, Russian society does not register as extremely militaristic or aggressive, and its government propaganda is not yeilding one, regardless of whether it is attmepting to do so or not.

Some might retort that I myself have written that Russia has a security vigilance culture, suspicious of external and internal national security threats emanating from the West [Gordon M. Hahn, The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (Jefferson: McFarland, 2021)]. This is true, but security vigilance has little to do with militarism and agressiveness, and might devolve into them only in response to a deep, existential crisis to the Russian nation or state. To the extent Russians seems ‘aggressive’ and its government ‘militaristic’, this is a misperception of Russia’s historically learned defensiveness. Moreover, the security vigilance culture is situational, born by historical experience and heightened by concrete contemporary circumstances impacting the level of national security and Russian perceptions thereof. It waxes and wanes, becomes dominant or recessive within Russia’s security and political cultures to the extent threats emerge from the West.

The DPI’s results reflect all of this. Russians are moderately conscious of the threat environment and do not uniformly fear invasion no less exhibit some irrational paranoia. Russians prefer building alliances to massing arms. They are willing to fight for their country but not inordinately so. This is because they perceive the security environment as a result of centuries of Western lessons on invasion, intervention, domestic interference, and manipulative, ontologically threatening cultural influence. If Russians see their government takes the required measures to address potential and kinetic threats, they are less inclined to succumb to militarism and aggressiveness and more inclined to hold to a more or less healthy patriotism and security vigilance.

By Sylvia Demarest, Substack, 4/5/26

PLEASE NOTE: The effects of this war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are already being felt in Asia and parts of Europe with shortages and rationing. When the war started tankers were in route from the Middle East to Asia, the EU, and the US. The last of these tankers will unload in the next 10 days.

Newsworthy Items

On Easter morning, our President delivered this threat to Iran:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day and, and Bridge Day, all wrapped into one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait you crazy bastards or you will be living in hell—JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Did you get that? Tuesday will be a day when US war crimes against Iran will expand from bombing schools, hospitals, police stations, civilian homes and neighborhoods, the Pasteur Institute, and universities, to the destruction of Iran’s civilian infrastructure.

Pope Leo delivered his Easter message:

“Brothers and Sisters, this is our God, Jesus -King of Peace who rejects war who no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war but rejects them saying ‘even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.’”

Earlier this week, the president’s spiritual advisor Paula White-Cain. “advised” that American Christians should tithe their gross incomes and give 10% of their money to Israel to avoid “disobeying God.” At a lunch at the White House later in the week she also compared Jesus Christ with Donald J Trump.”

On Good Friday, it has been alleged, that the “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth, ordered a “Protestant only” mass at the Pentagon and instructed the organizers to prohibit the attendance by Catholics. Signs were posted to that effect outside the gathering. According to a Friday report from HuffPost, Defense Secretary PeteHegseth’s Pentagon held a Protestant-only Good Friday service at its in-house chapel, with no Catholic Mass scheduled for one of Christianity’s holiest days.

“WE GOT HIM!” President Trump Announces Rescue of 2^nd Airman

The president reported that a US special forces raid and aerial operation had recovered the second crew member from the F-15E jet, shot down in Iran on Saturday. US officials have also confirmed that the downed pilot has been “recovered” in Iran following a “heavy firefight” – according to Al Jazeera, Axios, and others.

The good news—President Trump says we rescued the A-15 officer. The bad news we lost several aviation assets in the process. US losses: 1) The initial downed F-15 Strike Eagle. The F15 was downed by what Western sources say was s Sayyad-4B missile, fired from the Bavar-373 air defense system; 2) an A-0 Thunderbolt II. The A10 was apparently hit over the Strait probably by a Project 358 loitering missile; 3) 2 HC-130J Combat King II. The Iranians say they knocked them down—the US says the US destroyed them. 4) 2 MQ-9 Reapers We have now lost at least 14; 5) A Hermes 900; 6) 2 UH-60 Black Hawks; 7) 2 MH-6 Little Birds.

The operation cost at least $1 billion. The Americans say there were no US casualties but 100s of Iranians were killed. The Iranians disagree saying there were US casualities. Bottom line—it does not appear that we have air supremacy over Iran.

Brief Status Report on Standoff Weapons

Given how many JASSM-ER missiles were used in the first four weeks of the war, only about 425 are estimated to remain available globally, with roughly another 75 considered unserviceable. The Pentagon has issued orders to move missiles from other regional stockpiles, including the Pacific, to US Central Command bases and the UK’s Fairford base to sustain the fight.

Lockheed Martin’s scheduled production rate for 2026 is 396 units, although it can be scaled up to 860. Replacing the expended inventory will take several years.

The situation is much the same for the balance of US standoff weapons and for interceptors. Once the supply of these weapons is exhausted the US will have to use B-2’s, B-26’s and other bombers who will have to fly over Iran to deliver “dumb bombs”. This is when we will find out if the US and Israel has achieved “air supremacy” over Iran’s skies.

The Two-Week Window That Could Break Global Commodity Markets

From Oil Price

Below is the entire article–time is running out.

• Markets appear stable on the surface, but underlying stress is building across interconnected commodity chains—oil, gas, petrochemicals, fertilizers, helium, and logistics—raising the risk of a systemic breakdown.
• The key shift is from pricing risk to deliverability and access risk, with supply chains losing flexibility and physical shortages beginning to emerge beneath still-functioning paper markets.
• The next two weeks are critical: if disruptions persist, cascading failures could trigger inflation, supply shortages, and a broader global economic shock.

The familiar assumption used by markets remains in place, at least according to financial analysts: what has been priced is what matters. Oil is still elevated but not yet showing a disorderly pattern. LNG is tightening but still trading within a recognizable or conventional range. Freight rates are rising, insurers are repricing risk, and policymakers continue to signal control. On the surface, all these signs are showing a stressed but functioning system.

The coming weeks will reveal which systemic risks-such as chain desynchronization or supply chain coupling-policymakers must prioritize to prevent cascading failures, guiding targeted proactive measures.

The real situation in the market has clearly shifted from disruption to early-stage system strain. Recognizing how oil, gas, naphtha, fertilizer, and helium are interconnected will help policymakers and analysts feel the system’s fragility and the risk of a widespread shock.

This coupling of commodity chains could lead to widespread economic impacts, including inflationary pressures and supply shortages, emphasizing the urgency for stakeholders to prepare for systemic disruptions.

For media and most analysts, oil and gas are the visible front line. Physical flows have not recovered to pre-crisis levels, while, much more importantly, confidence in their stability has eroded and will continue to do so. Even where volumes are partially moving, the market is treating them as unreliable. That distinction matters, as it will shift behavior from trading to securing.

Until now, an illusion has been in place, holding markets together over the past weeks: cargoes in transit, delayed physical impact, and the expectation of rapid stabilization. This will be fading as refiners begin to adjust intake assumptions. LNG buyers are moving from portfolio optimization to a clear new strategy: outright procurement urgency. Strategic reserves are being discussed not only as precautionary tools but also, given the facts on the ground, as potential necessities.

The divergence between paper and physical markets is widening. Benchmarks still reflect liquidity and sentiment. When looking at physical cargoes, there is clearly scarcity and risk. This gap is a precursor to dislocation and should already be recognized.

Shipping is accelerating this transition. War-risk insurance constraints are tightening further. It has also been changing as behavioral risk is rising. Owners are not only reacting to premiums; they are also slowly but steadily reassessing their exposure entirely. The result of this change is that there is a reduction of available tonnage in practice, even where fleets exist on paper. For all, deliverability, not production anymore, is the central constraint.

Oil and gas, however, are only the entry point.

The second chain, showing early signs of stress, is naphtha. Petrochemical margins have become increasingly compressed due to feedstock uncertainty and rising costs. It is not yet a full disruption, but the shift is visible: reduced operating rates, cautious procurement, and early signs of pricing pass-through.

The naphtha situation is critical as it sits at the core of industrial transformation. Plastics, chemicals, packaging, and solvents all depend on the availability of stable feedstocks. While there will not be an immediate shock, it will create a broad, creeping constraint across manufacturing systems.

And it is beginning.

The third chain, fertilizer, has already entered its critical window as gas-linked production economics deteriorate. At the same time, producers have begun adjusting output expectations. At present, the market is not yet recognizing all of it, as it is still treating fertilizer as a secondary risk because physical shortages have not yet materialized.

That is the mistake.

The fertilizer risk is already delayed and will remain that way for weeks or months. It needs to be recognized that production decisions made now will determine availability weeks and months ahead. All signs are already on red, with tightening margins, cautious production, and early signs of reduced forward supply becoming visible by the day. Once this translates into agricultural input shortages, the system will have very limited ability to respond.

Food inflation will not start today. But the conditions for it are being set now.

Helium, the fourth chain, has already made some headlines. It is moving quietly but decisively into risk territory. Gas processing disruptions are beginning to ripple through helium availability, with early signs of supply tightening in specialized markets.

Policymakers and analysts should understand that the industries that are exposed to this development, such as healthcare, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing, are not marginal economic sectors; they are critical. And they do not have easy substitutes.

The fifth chain, logistics, has moved to the forefront; it is no longer a background variable. Its role as a primary driver of system stress should make industry leaders and policymakers aware of the urgent need for action to maintain supply flexibility and prevent disruptions.

This is the shift markets are still underestimating.

The system is not only losing supply. It is losing flexibility.

Multiple risks are now moving to reality, no longer a theoretical background noise. As oil and gas constraints increase energy costs and uncertainty, it directly feeds into naphtha and fertilizer production. Due to this system stress, petrochemical and agricultural systems begin to tighten. The total at the same time is amplified by logistics constraints, which limit response capacity.

Each chain does not fail independently. Each one accelerates the stress in the others. The result is not a series of shocks, but a system that loses its ability to absorb them.

At present, markets are still anchored in linear thinking, so no pricing for this situation is evident. Recognizing the coupling of these chains and their thresholds is crucial; delays could lead to rapid, uncontrollable shifts, urging policymakers and analysts to act now rather than wait for confirmation.

Markets and policymakers should understand that waiting for confirmation is the most expensive strategy. When all five chains show clear signs of disruption, an adjustment will already be underway, as prices will have moved, availability will be constrained, and decision-making will shift from optimization to allocation.

Looking at the system at present, there are clear signs that this shift is already in place in parts of it.

Looking at the impact of this total shift, the regional implications are becoming clearer as this transition unfolds.

When looking at Europe, it is clear that the continent is entering a renewed phase of exposure. It is directly placed in the path of a multi-chain stress situation due to its reliance on global LNG markets and its industrial sensitivity to petrochemicals and fertilizers. At present, the ARA hub remains a critical buffer, but it is increasingly functioning as a balancing mechanism rather than a stabilizing one.

While the media will focus on immediate shortages, the real risk for Europe is progressive constraint. Europe’s industrial users will have to face rising input costs and potential supply uncertainty. Southern Europe, however, is particularly exposed due to its greater import dependence and limited flexibility. Taking the option of tightening multiple chains simultaneously, the continent will face a scenario in which inflation returns alongside an industrial slowdown.

Asia’s behavior is already shifting, as seen in more aggressive procurement strategies, especially among major importers. In Asia, the transition from price sensitivity to security-driven buying is underway. It not only increases competition for available cargoes but also pushes the system toward fragmentation. The real risk for emerging Asian economies is sharper, as these countries are not only exposed to higher prices but to reduced access. Demand destruction, power shortages, and industrial curtailment are no longer hypothetical but emerging risks.

At the same time, and largely forgotten, North Africa is being pulled into the system from both sides. Import-dependent countries are facing rising costs and growing exposure to fertilizer and energy constraints. Egypt, already dealing with reduced Suez Canal flows, is under increasing economic pressure. Regional producers, however, are also seeing increased demand from Europe, which creates an opportunity. Still, most of this is, however, constrained by infrastructure, domestic needs, and geopolitical risk. North Africa is not insulated; it is being integrated into the stress.

Overall, what should be recognized without delay is a persistent mismatch between system dynamics and policy framing. Responses are still focused on price, on reserves, on diplomatic signaling. These are tools designed for cyclical disruptions.

This is not a cyclical disruption.

When using strategic reserves, it should be understood that they can only alleviate short-term oil shortages. They will never address LNG competition, petrochemical feedstock constraints, fertilizer production risks, or helium supply. SPRs are also not solving logistics. They do not restore flexibility.

The next fourteen days are therefore not just another period of volatility, but a first and dangerous compression phase.

If nothing fundamental changes, such as stabilizing flows, easing logistics, and the return of confidence, the total system will move from stress into breach conditions. Not everywhere at once, but across enough chains to alter overall behavior. In such scenarios or realities, markets will soon stop clearing through price alone; they will clear through access. It is a fundamentally different system.

For companies, these implications will be immediate. Exposure to Hormuz-linked flows is no longer a scenario but an operational risk. Supply chains need to be reassessed, logistics secured, and contingencies activated. Waiting for clarity on all is no longer a neutral choice but will be a cost.

The warning is now sharper than it was even days ago.

Five chains are moving, not in isolation, but together. Buffers are eroded. The system still appears stable because those buffers have not yet fully run out. In the coming days, they will be running out.

When this happens, the adjustment will not be gradual, but abrupt, non-linear, and difficult to reverse. It should be understood that, in systemic risk, the most expensive moment is the one just before recognition. This is when signals are clearly visible, but no action is taken.

That is where the market stands now. In the next two weeks, it will be determined whether this remains a severe disruption or, if the signals are there, a systemic break.

How long can Iran hold out

Iran did not start this war. The Iranian people are being bombarded daily by the full force of the US and Israel. Iran’s cities and heritage are under attack. The US has gone from claiming to want to “rescue the Iranian people from a brutal regime” to threatening to bomb the country back to the stone age. Putting aside the illegality and complete immorality of this war and the US/Israel “leadership” behind it, it is time to ask: how are Iranians doing?

The example of Ali Larijani a PhD scholar, philosopher, military officer and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council assassinated by Israel on March 17^th as he visited his daughter. He did not try to hide–but neither did the Ayatollah. The Israel’s wiped out an entire neighborhood to kill him, including women and children.

Larijani’s estate has been settled. He had a small house, an old car, and virtually no savings. Contrast this to the US/Israeli elite, most of whom use their office to enrich themselves–do I need to give examples?

One of the objections to war in the west is that our leaders and our elite never suffer from war. The US and Israel have killed dozens of Iranian leaders often wiping out entire neighborhoods to kill them. The Iranian leadership elite have suffered along with Iranian citizens.

I recently saw a tweet of a sign on the door of a supermarket–the sign said, “take what you need, you can repay me after the war.”

When the time comes–and it will come, how will we act?

Sociologist Mohammad Ali Senobari’s account of the war days 20 March 2026, 02:01 Tehran time. “For years we have spoken of the “social resilience” of the Iranian people, a concept which, until recently, remained abstract for many, confined to sociological theories. But these days, on the streets of Tehran, this concept is no longer theoretical; it is alive and visible in everyday life.”

“When I leave the house in the morning, the first thing that catches my attention is not the distant sound of explosions, but the queues for bread: people standing there as always, exchanging jokes and everyday conversation. It almost seems as though life itself has decided not to give up. Even amidst reports of air strikes and the pressures of war, a large part of the population remains in the capital, striving to preserve a sense of normality and rushing, almost enthusiastically, to do their shopping for Nowruz (the New Year festival, according to the Persian calendar, ed.).”

“On the streets, taxis are full, shops are half-open and cafés still serve tea and coffee until late at night. Perhaps there are fewer customers, but even this minimal presence carries a profound meaning: “life goes on”. In sociological terms, this is what we call “everyday resistance”.”

“At night, the atmosphere in the streets and squares becomes even more evocative. From early afternoon until almost dawn, the city’s main avenues and iconic squares fill with private cars. Families, waving the tricolour flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran, form long convoys of cars.”

“When they reach the central squares, people get out of their cars, forming massive gatherings – tens of thousands in every square – waving flags and singing epic hymns in unison. I am now 43 years old and I remember the eight-year Iran-Iraq War (1981–1988), yet I have never witnessed scenes like these. From 28th February 2026, when, in an unprecedented and criminal act of terrorism, my country’s Supreme Leader was assassinated, until tonight, 19th March 2026, millions of people across the country have supported this movement of passion and unity every single night.”

“What strikes me most, however, as an observer, is how people react to the “sound of war”.”

“A few evenings ago, around sunset, an explosion rang out in the southern part of the city. There was a brief pause – not the silence of fear, but a momentary pause, like a comma in a sentence. Then life resumed. No one ran away, no one screamed. People turned their heads, perhaps muttered something under their breath, and then carried on with what they were doing.”

“In my writings I have always maintained: “Fear is a social phenomenon, not merely a psychological one”. Now I see how a society can learn to manage fear. In Tehran today, fear exists, but panic does not. Anxiety is present, but there is no collective psychological breakdown.”

The charge of the light brigade

In 1854 during the Crimean War Lord Cardigan led a calvary charge, “the Light Brigade” against Russian cannons in the Battle of Balaclava. I visited “the valley of Death” when I went to Crimea in 2017. This battle marked the end of one form of war and the beginning of war marked by cannons, repeating rifles, tanks, artillery, and ultimately by aircraft, aircraft carriers, and missiles. Horses and mounted units became obsolete. Are we witnessing another shift in how war is conducted today?

The Ukraine war has been characterized by the use of drones making any concentration of troops and equipment suicidal. Drones were also used to destroy tanks, personnel carriers and even aircraft. This is one reason the Ukraine war has lasted so long. Has the US adapted to these changes? It has been said that the U.S. is fighting a 19th Century war, with 20th Century weapons, against 21st Century Powers. True or false? If this war does not end soon, we will find out. Below is a poem written by Lord Alfred Tennyson about the Battle of Balaclava and the Charge of the 600.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“Forward the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

Someone had blundered.

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabers bare,

Flashed as they turned in air

Sab’ring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

All the world wondered.

Plunged in the battery smoke

Right through the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reeled from the saber stroke

Shattered and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not,

Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came through the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honor the charge they made!

Honor the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

Happy Easter- -pray for peace

---

By Uriel Araujo, InfoBrics, 3/30/26

With the prospect of war involving Iran, Western analysts have rediscovered the South Caucasus, now rebranded as a “strategic bridge” linking Europe to Asia. The narrative is simple enough: as instability engulfs the Middle East and relations with Russia remain frozen, Europe can bypass both by investing in a so-called Middle Corridor through Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

This vision, however, is arguably less a strategy than a projection of necessity: what is presented as a corridor is, in fact, a geopolitical fault line of sorts.

To begin with, this Middle Corridor rests on quite fragile foundations: the South Caucasus is notably a region marked by unresolved tensions and shifting alignments. The shadow of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict still haunts the region, even after Azerbaijan’s military victory and the mass displacement that followed. Peace processes, occasionally encouraged by NATO and the EU, remain highly uncertain.

And yet, European policymakers increasingly treat it as a given. The logic is easy to spot: as ties with Russia deteriorate, alternative routes for energy and trade become a strategic priority. Azerbaijani gas, transported via the Southern Gas Corridor, has thus been elevated to near-mythical status in Brussels. Europe Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen has described it as a “backbone” of EU energy security. But this pivot is structurally insufficient, for a number of reasons: for one thing, Azerbaijan’s production capacity is limited, and its export infrastructure cannot realistically replace Russian volumes. As a matter of fact, Europe’s “diversification” has largely meant swapping relatively cheap pipeline gas for more expensive LNG — often sourced from the United States, with all the strategic dependencies that implies.

No wonder, that murmurs about re-engagement with Moscow persist. As I have argued elsewhere, energy remains the most obvious entry point for a recalibration. Reports of quiet contacts over the possible reactivation of pipelines such as Nord Stream suggest that, despite political taboos (and technical challenges), economic realities are harder to ignore: politics, like pipelines, can indeed be repaired when incentives change.

It is precisely this contradiction that lies at the heart of Europe’s approach to the South Caucasus. The continent basically seeks to bypass Russia while still implicitly relying on the stability that Russian power historically provided. For decades, Moscow functioned as the ultimate security guarantor in the region, freezing conflicts and deterring escalation. Even its limited peacekeeping role after the 2020 ceasefire helped prevent a wider war.

Today, however, that stabilizing presence has decreased, not least due to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. The result is not a newfound opportunity but heightened volatility instead. In this context, Europe’s attempt to instrumentalize the South Caucasus as a substitute corridor risks exacerbating the very instability it seeks to circumvent.

The situation becomes even more precarious when viewed through the prism of the current war with Iran. Far from enhancing the region’s role as a neutral transit hub, such a conflict should likely militarize it. The South Caucasus would transform into a frontline buffer zone, with increased intelligence activity, military deployments, and geopolitical competition. Regional actors such as Turkey — a NATO member with its own ambitions — and Russia would inevitably feel pressured to assert themselves, while Western involvement would deepen under the guise of “security support”.

Under these conditions, the notion of a “stable corridor” becomes untenable, to put it mildly. Infrastructure always requires political order. And order, in the South Caucasus, has always been contingent on a delicate balance among larger powers, including Iran itself. To imagine that this balance can be bypassed or engineered away is to misunderstand the region’s very nature.

Armenia’s recent trajectory offers a telling case in point. Disillusioned with Moscow after the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, Yerevan has explored closer ties with the West, including NATO and the EU. Yet, as I have previously argued, this pivot risks undermining Armenia’s strategic position rather than enhancing it. The Caucasus has never rewarded rigid alignments, and a small, landlocked country cannot afford to alienate both Russia and Iran while betting on uncertain Western guarantees.

Indeed, even Azerbaijan has avoided such a one-sided approach, maintaining a multi-vector foreign policy that tries to balance relations with Moscow, Ankara, and Western capitals. This pragmatic strategy has so far allowed Baku to maximize its leverage — something Europe’s “corridor” narrative tends to overlook.

The broader picture is therefore one of systemic transition. The rise of BRICS and the gradual reorientation of Eurasian trade flows — through initiatives such as the International North-South Transport Corridor — point toward a multipolar order in which Western Europe is no longer the central node. In this emerging landscape, the South Caucasus matters less as a bridge to Europe than as a component of wider Eurasian integration processes.

Paradoxically, then, the region’s growing “importance” is not really a sign of opportunity but a symptom of a crisis. It reflects Europe’s failed attempt to decouple from Russia, its exposure to Middle Eastern instability, and its uncertain position within a shifting global order. The more Brussels insists on bypassing Moscow, the more it is forced to rely on precarious alternatives — thereby increasing pressure on a fragile enough region.

In the end, the South Caucasus is not becoming more stable or more central in any straightforward sense. It is potentially becoming more contested, more militarized, and more unpredictable. The safe corridor that Western strategists envision exists largely on paper. On the ground, what we see instead is a fault line of sorts — one that runs through the heart of Eurasia and reflects the deeper fractures of our time.

By Filipp Lebedev, Gleb Stolyarov, Ryan McNeill, Mari Saito and Anastasiia Malenko, Reuters, 3/26/26

Blazing trains, burning tracks, black smoke.

Footage posted online by Ukrainian fighters documents their repeated sabotage attacks on a vast railroad system being built by Russia across the occupied territories of Ukraine. But their efforts are not nearly enough to hold back the tide of Moscow’s rapid industrial expansion.

The attacks on Russia’s supply chains have made scant impact, and tightening Russian control is snuffing out opposition efforts, said one Ukrainian fighter, Orest, using his military call-sign for security reasons as he operates behind enemy lines in the Donetsk region. “The railroad is hundreds of kilometres long,” he told Reuters. “We’re not all-powerful, unfortunately.”

According to the Kremlin, these occupied regions represent “Novorossiya”: New Russia. And it’s buzzing with activity.

Even as Moscow pursues a devastating war against Ukrainian forces to the west, it’s pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into an aggressive, years-long buildout of transport and trade infrastructure in the areas it has captured in the east and south, a Reuters investigation has found.

The spending spree, which dwarfs the development funds allocated to other Russian regions, facilitates the transport of troops and military equipment, as well as grain and mineral resources, the reporting shows. The construction projects also serve a longer-term goal of Moscow: weaving the seized territories into Russia, including the Donbas area whose fate lies at the heart of U.S.-backed talks to end the war.

A large-scale program of socio-economic development has been launched, essentially a program of reviving our ancestral, historical Russian lands.

Reuters reporting provides the first detailed picture of the transformation of Russian-held Ukraine taking place under the occupation. This examination draws on an analysis of thousands of satellite images, official Russian tender documents, public statements, export and freight data, as well as interviews with more than three dozen Ukrainian officials and former residents of the occupied areas.

When asked about Russia’s infrastructure buildup in the occupied territories, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy used Crimea as an example, saying Russian investments there are a “facade” that don’t benefit residents of the Ukrainian peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. “It doesn’t look like some modern resort,” he said in an interview. “It’s all militarized.” Zelenskiy’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on the full findings of the Reuters investigation.

A White House official said U.S. President Donald Trump is working very hard to end the war and wants to end the senseless killing.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters the four territories are an integral part of the Russian Federation and “subjects of Russia”, adding: “It is written in the constitution of the country.”

Work is well underway on the so-called Novorossiya Railways system, which includes a planned 525 km (326-mile) line started in 2023, the year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The route is to span the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which comprise the Donbas, and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

The Novorossiya Highway is, meanwhile, carving its way across those seized territories as part of a 1,400 km “Azov Ring” superhighway loop that will hook the regions up with Russia and strategically important Crimea.

Occupied Ukrainian ports that were largely inactive in the first years of the war have been revamped and reopened under Russia’s flag on the inland Sea of Azov, which connects to the Black Sea. Satellite images taken last August of the city of Mariupol in Donetsk show a new silver-domed facility about the length of a football pitch has sprung up on the docks during the Russian occupation. Also visible nearby is a mountain of what looks like coal being readied for export.

The satellite analysis, conducted by Reuters, used a machine-learning model to crawl through thousands of optical and radar images to identify major construction. It found that more than 2,500 km of railroads, highways and roads have been newly built, repaired or upgraded between 2022 and 2025 across the four occupied territories and the nearby Russian areas they have been connected up to.

The scale of investment and long-term nature of the infrastructure projects shows the Kremlin has no intention of returning the territories to Ukraine as part of any future peace settlement, according to Karolina Hird, a national security fellow at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

“The way Russia’s investing very heavily in industry and the economy in occupied Ukraine, so it can reap profits off of the occupation, also financially entangles Ukraine into Russia,” she said.

That’s bleak news for Ukraine and its European allies. They have insisted that Moscow return the captured land and have roundly rejected U.S. calls for Kyiv to cede control of the whole of the Donbas as part of any deal to end the four-year-old conflict.

Moscow has also put dozens of prized commodity assets in the occupied areas up for sale, Russian state auction documents show. These include mines and agricultural land – such as the rights to develop one of Ukraine’s biggest gold deposits, which were snapped up by a Russian mining company in April 2025.

The Russian transport ministry and Novorossiya Railways, a Russian state enterprise created in 2023 to oversee rail construction and maintenance in the occupied territories, didn’t respond to queries about the progress of the infrastructure projects.

Moscow makes no secret of what it views as its historical claim to eastern and southeastern Ukraine or its ambitions to recombine the regions with what it deems the motherland. And President Vladimir Putin has grand plans for “Novorossiya” – a term from Russia’s tsarist imperial past that modern nationalists use to describe the territories.

Russia has allocated about $11.8 billion of federal cash to develop the four occupied territories in Ukraine between 2024 and 2026 as part of a program for priority national development projects, according to a Reuters analysis of government data published online. That is almost three times as much as the combined money allocated to about 20 other federal regions targeted for such projects, the data shows.

Putin outlined his vision for the territories in a public address on September 30 to celebrate the third anniversary of their “reunification” with Russia. The regions had suffered from the ravages of war and decades of neglect, the president said, and Russia had laid 6,350 km of roads there over the last three years.

“A large-scale program of socio-economic development has been launched, essentially a program of reviving our ancestral, historical Russian lands,” Putin declared.

Moscow currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine, including the bulk of four regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. And it has formally claimed, opens new tab the entirety of all four as part of Russia.

Russia’s move to annex the territories has been condemned by Ukraine and its Western allies as an illegal land grab.

The new road and rail connections being built already allow vehicles and trains moving people and goods in and out of Ukraine to circumvent the Crimean Bridge, according to local and Moscow authorities. The bridge had previously been Russia’s only road and rail link to Crimea, enabling the transport of troops, fuel and equipment to Ukraine via the peninsula. It has proved a chokepoint for Russian military and trade flows, with repeated Ukrainian strikes causing delays and disruption.

Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy chief of Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency, which has been monitoring the enemy activity, said the Russian focus was on building out supply chains to support their war effort.

“The most critical consideration for the Russians is infrastructure. It is the transport infrastructure,” he added.

SATELLITE IMAGERY REVEALS NEW RAILWAY

Since 2023, Russia has spent about $425 million on the construction and maintenance of the railway network in the occupied territories, according to statements posted online by Novorossiya Railways and the Russian rail watchdog in August last year.

The centrepiece project is the main line to connect southern Russia to Crimea via the occupied territories, according to the official media outlet of the Russian government. It didn’t specify the planned full cost.

Satellite imagery taken between July 2023 and November 2025 shows the gradual process of a section of the line being newly laid, a 60-km connection between the towns of Novoselivka and Kolosky in Donetsk region, north of Mariupol.

A Ukrainian intelligence official who monitors Russian activity said this connection is an example of how Russia is building new rail links further from the front line, at a safer distance from possible Ukrainian strikes, to safely deliver ammunition and military vehicles to its troops. Reuters couldn’t determine if the line is in operation.

The Russian roads program is also soaking up hundreds of millions of dollars, led by the Novorossiya Highway project, state tender documents show.

A total of 20 tenders related to the building of the highway, worth more than $214 million, have been awarded to contractors, according to Russia’s state procurement website. The projects range in scope from engineering surveys to bridge maintenance. The Russian transport ministry said late last year that an extra $123 million would be spent on the road in 2026.

UKRAINE OFFICIAL: IT’S LIKE CRIMEA BUT FASTER

The route is a mix of new and upgraded roads to connect stretches of existing highway. It will run for 630 km once finished, according to Russia’s federal road agency and transport ministry. They haven’t given a planned completion date.

The construction and repair of bridges and interchanges, the widening of roads, and even the clearing of brush along roads are visible from satellite imagery.

Road crews have completed most of a 100 km section between Taganrog in southwestern Russia and near Manhush in occupied Donetsk, according to the Reuters analysis. Russia is also constructing a major new bypass road around Mariupol, which was largely levelled by fighting early in the war, the analysis shows.

The Novorossiya Highway forms the occupied territories’ leg of the giant Azov Ring. Russian officials say they plan to complete that highway in 2030, linking Russia’s Rostov-on-Don to Mariupol in Donetsk and cities in Zaporizhzhia and Crimea.

Olha Kuryshko is Ukraine’s presidential representative for Crimea, tasked with monitoring the rights of Ukrainians living there. Kuryshko said Russia’s drive to roll out economic infrastructure in eastern and southern Ukraine was similar to what it did in annexed Crimea – except this time it’s happening much faster.

After Moscow seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, it embarked on a series of ambitious projects there including the Crimean Bridge, a monumental 19-km road and rail span, as well as a new highway and two power stations to provide stable electricity to the peninsula after the annexation, when the region was cut off from Ukraine’s energy supply.

“The Russians have accomplished as much in three years of occupation of the new territories as they have in 10 years in Crimea, according to our analysis,” said Kuryshko. “They’ve carried it out so rapidly, spent so much money, taken everything up a notch from what they did in Crimea,” she added. “Crimea was their training ground.”

KREMLIN COMMANDEERS UKRAINE’S PORTS

Russia has also moved to harness Ukraine’s occupied ports on the Sea of Azov, a shallow inland sea bounded by Russia and Ukraine that connects to the Black Sea via the Kerch Strait. The Sea of Azov has been a major trade route for centuries.

In August, Moscow added Mariupol and Berdiansk on the Azov sea to a public list of Russian ports open to international vessels, a move denounced by Kyiv. Both hubs are being dredged and the canals leading to them deepened and widened to allow larger ships to navigate them once again. Those projects are among construction tenders for the two ports worth more than $13 million that have been posted on the Russian state procurement website since 2023.

Two veteran dock workers at Mariupol, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the port has become significantly busier in recent months. Vessels are coming and going loaded with grain and coal, they said, while adding that activity remains below pre-war levels.

Between July and November last year, 18 cargo vessels operated by Russian and foreign companies have been recorded departing from Mariupol and Berdiansk ports, with most bound for ports in Turkey, according to an analysis of LSEG vessel-tracking data. Reuters couldn’t determine what was transported by the vessels. Turkish authorities did not respond to a request for comment on the journeys.

In 2024, no vessels entered or exited the two ports, according to LSEG data.

The Russians are extracting valuable natural resources from the occupied territories.

Russian customs data, provided by a commercial trade data provider, shows that between March 2022 and March 2025, at least 508,500 metric tons of coal, coke and anthracite worth $13.2 million were exported from the occupied regions. The main buyers of Ukrainian coal during that period were trading companies from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, according to the data. The commodity was also shipped to companies in India, Indonesia, Egypt and Algeria.

Indonesia’s foreign ministry said the country’s trade relations are conducted through transparent mechanisms and that it imports coal from several countries, including Russia, Australia and China. None of the other destination countries responded to requests for comment.

GOLD MINE IN EASTERN UKRAINE

Moscow has also been expanding Russian control over the seized Ukrainian territories’ natural resources via state auctions.

Dozens of assets, ranging from mines to quarries and farm land, are being placed on the block in online state auctions, according to public auction documents reviewed by Reuters. Among assets sold so far are the rights to extract sandstone, crushed stone, granite and chalk from four mines in the Luhansk region.

One of the biggest sales to date has been the rights to develop the Bobrykivske gold mine in Luhansk. It was snapped up for $9.7 million by Alchevskpromgroup, which is controlled by Russian mining company Polyanka, according to documents of the sale. Polyanka mostly develops mines in the far east of Russia.

Bobrykivske’s reserves contain about 1.64 tons of gold, which would be worth almost $260 million based on current spot prices, according to the auction documents.

Australian mining company Korab Resources had previously been developing the site. But Korab halted its work in 2014 when the area was seized by Russian-backed separatists, making it impossible for the company to access the region, which came under Western sanctions, and it wrote off the value of the project, according to Executive Chairman Andrej Karpinski and publicly available Ukrainian corporate records.

A satellite image taken of the deposit in September showed what appeared to be tire tracks all around the site. When asked by Reuters to compare the image with shots taken in June 2024, Karpinski told Reuters that work had already begun at the site. He pointed out what appeared to be an excavator in the main pit and shipping containers set up at the foot of a stockpile of rocks extracted from the mine.

UKRAINE-CRISIS/RUSSIAN-INFRASTRUCTURE

Alchevskpromgroup, Polyanka and the Russian mineral resources ministry didn’t respond to questions related to Bobrykivske’s sale and whether work had started on the site.

Hird, at the Institute for the Study of War, said there are significant costs to occupying such a large amount of territory. Russia’s ability to harness the natural and industrial resources of the regions could prove important for its finances, which have been severely strained by the war effort and international sanctions, she added.

“That can start tipping the scale to the point where the occupation actually becomes profitable to Russia,” Hird said.

By Craig Murray, Substack, 3/21/26

What if Trump’s apparently chaotic thought processes and intuitive decision making are all a blind, a charade? What if we are really witnessing, in the Middle East and more widely, a carefully constructed plan with very definite objectives? Has Trump in fact “planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway”, while flinging the chaff of apparent chaos? I realise that this is not intuitive, but bear with me…

What kicked off my thinking was the revelation by Lockheed Martin that they had been instructed by Trump, months in advance of the attack on Iran, to massively increase production of interceptor missiles, with a short term goal of quadrupling capacity of THAAD. In January, before the start of the current conflict, Fox News was already reporting on various deals, including a trebling of PAC3 MSE interceptor deliveries, having been finalised between Lockheed and the Department of War.

While obviously there are supply chain and production line constraints on the ability to ramp up production within months, the urgency of this activity—almost entirely focused on interceptor missiles—that started in 2025 is in hindsight a clear indication that early war with Iran was expected. It is plain evidence of premeditation.

The second thing that triggered my thought that this is all carefully planned, is the nature of the breakdown of the nuclear deal talks. It appears there was a broad consensus that Iran offered concessions which made a deal very practical, in particular giving up its stocks of enriched uranium into trust (a proposal Iran had historically rejected when Putin offered to hold the material). Both the hosts, Oman and the British thought a deal was there.

The failure of the talks is being spun as due to the incompetence and lack of technical knowledge of Witkoff and Kushner. But I just don’t buy this. The sending of unqualified negotiators was part of a ploy to use the negotiations as cover for an attack—the second time in a year that the United States had pulled the same trick.

They didn’t need competent negotiators, because they had never intended a good faith negotiation.

The attack on Iran was always planned by Trump. He was not “bounced into it” by Israel. It had been in gestation for months. That fact had been held within a very tight circle to avoid both political opposition and institutional opposition from the US military and intelligence community.

January’s protests in Iran found ordinary people genuinely ready to protest, motivated by economic hardship caused by sanctions. But they were guided and abused by Mossad and CIA agents among the Iranian people, who committed and encouraged violence and initiated pro-Shah chanting.

There was never the slightest possibility the protests would bring regime change, but that was not the intention. The purpose was to incite an over-reaction by the Iranian government that could “justify” the planned attack on Iran. The dead protestors have been great martyrs for Trump’s—and Israel’s—wider cause.

The planting by Western state-sponsored individuals and organisations of ludicrous claims throughout Western state and corporate media of thirty to forty thousand killed, was a deliberate and considered plan to reduce domestic opposition in the West to the forthcoming war against Iran.

Now factor in another apparently random act by Trump—the astonishing kidnapping of President Maduro of Venezuela on 3 January, a month before the attack on Iran.

Trump’s naval blockade of Venezuela’s oil has secured a US monopoly of its sale and distribution. As with Iraq, only US-approved contractors can buy the oil and payments are made to a Trump-controlled account in Qatar, from which revenue is given to the Venezuelan government entirely at Trump’s discretion.

This audacious imperialist grab of the world’s largest oil reserve further insulated the USA against the effects of the forthcoming closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Again, the narrative is being spun that Trump did not foresee the closure of the Strait by Iran. That is plainly a nonsense—every commentary on a potential Iran war for half a century has focused on the Strait of Hormuz. The only possible explanation is that Trump does not mind the closure.

While, as Trump says, the United States does not need the oil that comes through the Strait, the apparent weakness in his case is that higher oil prices are universal and hit Trump’s support, particularly as Americans fill their Gas tanks. But to concentrate on this is to make the fundamental error of imagining that Trump cares about what is good for the American people. He does not. He cares about what is good for Donald J. Trump and his immediate circle.

Here is the Chevron share price over the last month:

And here is Lockheed Martin. Note that the start of the 40% leap in share price coincides with those instructions last year on massively ramping up interceptor production.

Not to mention, of course, that the really big fortunes will have been made in oil and derivative commodity futures by those who knew this war was coming (acting through proxies).

The $200 billion Trump is requesting from Congress to continue the war is going to make an awful lot of well-connected people even richer.

So the plan is the making of fortunes, the strengthening of the military-industrial complex and the ratcheting up under cover of national cohesion in war of the authoritarianism that has reduced freedom of speech and outlawed dissent against Israel across the Western world.

To benefit Israel is the other predominant motive.

Trump’s thrashing about to articulate objectives for the war in Iran is performative, a blind to cover his true and steadfast objective—simply the annihilation of Iran as a functioning state, the infliction of the maximum amount of death and infrastructural damage, the reduction of Iran to the condition of Libya.

It goes without saying that the seizure of control of Iran’s hydrocarbons by the US is the ultimate endgame of this destruction, exactly as in Libya and in Iraq. But a linked and crucial objective is the elimination of the source of the only physical resistance to the expansion of Israel. Iran and its allies in Yemen and Lebanon have been the sole support of the Palestinians for years.

The colonial settler state of Israel is central to the projection of imperialist power in the Middle East. Its expansion is an essential part of the plan.

Destruction of Iran on the scale envisaged will take years of hard pounding. Again, it is planned—you don’t ask Congress for an instalment of $200 billion for a war you plan to wrap up in a month. Again, Trump’s taunts about having already won, objectives being achieved and about possibly finishing soon, are all just smoke and mirrors. The scale and horror of what is planned for Iran has to be obfuscated to limit a public revulsion that would be echoed in parts of the state apparatus.

Netanyahu yesterday revealed an interesting part of the endgame—construction of an oil pipeline that brings Iran’s oil out to be shipped from a Mediterranean terminal in Israel. That is a breathtakingly audacious plan, but absolutely aligns with Netanyahu’s and Trump’s actions.

Which brings us to the Greater Israel side of the project. Israel is not going to put any of its ships or soldiers in harm’s way in Iran—that is the American contribution. But while the world is primarily watching Iran, Israel is starting a large-scale invasion of Lebanon with the aim of annexing all of Southern Lebanon permanently, even beyond the Litani River and including the cities of Tyre and Nabatieh, both currently under Israeli evacuation orders.

This land of course adjoins the annexed Golan Heights and the much larger area of Southern Syria that Israel has annexed in the past year with the acquiescence of Zionist puppet “President” al Jolani.

It is essential not to lose sight of the bipartisan nature of the United States’ long term plan. In a very real sense Trump is continuing—if greatly accelerating—the policy under Biden, who protected and enabled the Genocide in Gaza. The success of this US policy is phenomenal. Just consider that only 18 months ago the Zionist “Presidents” al-Jolani of Syria and Aoun of Lebanon were not in power. Both were brought to power as a result of US-aligned military action, by Israel against Hezbollah and by the CIA- and MI6-sponsored HTS forces. Put in place by Biden, they are now central to Trump’s strategy.

Aoun and al-Jolani are now united in threatening Hezbollah in the rear as it fights a desperate action against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Meanwhile Israel officially occupies over 60% of the Gaza Strip—under cover of Trump’s “Board of Peace”, and continues to murder, blockade and starve the inhabitants of the remnant, while the de facto expansion of Israel into the West Bank and the levels of settler violence are escalating to levels of the utmost barbarity.

Iranian resistance is noble and Iran’s resilience has surprised many. It will be able to make any ground invasion, or even limited incursion, extremely costly for the United States. But as in Gaza or Lebanon, if the US and Israel are content simply to pound from the air for years with devastating force, and with no concern whatsoever for civilian casualties, ultimately all Iran can do is hang on and try to survive.

Given another year of destruction at the current levels of intensity, I do not believe that Iran would effectively be sending many missiles and drones back in self-defence. In a week or two we will hit the period of maximum Iranian effectiveness, where depletion of US-supplied interceptor missiles coincides with Iran retaining significant strike power. Israel’s fragile civilian morale will then be tested severely for a few weeks.

Iran’s capacity to defend against massive, years-sustained aerial bombardment is limited. We should not blind ourselves to that fact out of current joy at the Americans and Israelis getting a bloody nose.

It is comforting to see Trump as a buffoon, to accept the facade he presents of a blustering and ill-educated ignoramus, who swings wildly between policy options, and who does not understand the world of geopolitics.

But that is nonsense.

I have no hesitation in characterising Trump’s genius as evil, focused on personal gain and willing to inflict any amount of death, maiming and deprivation on innocent civilians to attain his goals. But he is indeed attaining his goals on the world stage.

Trump has forced the Security Council to underwrite his Board of Peace. This was a quite astonishing diplomatic triumph over a helpless Russia and China, both of which decided that other negotiations with Trump were more important. Trump has presided over Israel expanding on the ground by the day. Trump has taken Venezuela’s oil, the largest reserves in the world. Trump is currently killing people of Iran and destroying their infrastructure, while feigning indecision.

You should hate Trump: but he is no clown.

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