Ukrainian armed forces have abandoned the strategicallyimportant town of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region this week. Control of this eastern town is considered important by both sides due to its position on elevated ground and its place at the intersection of the eastern and southern battlefield fronts, giving it added significance for supplying both sides’ forces, according to Reuters. Vuhledar’s strategic importance is further heightened by its proximity to a rail line connecting Donbas in the east to Crimea in the south, according to Al Jazeera.
When asked by FT what he would propose to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Jens Stoltenberg demurred, then suggested a historical comparison. “Finland fought a brave war against the Soviet Union in ’39. They imposed much bigger costs on the Red Army than expected… The war ended with them giving up 10% of the territory. But they got a secure border,” said Stoltenberg, who served as NATO’s general secretary until Oct. 1.
Russia’s Defense Ministry will soon have the authority to determine whether the conditions for using nuclear weapons are met, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sept. 29, according to MT. The Russian presidential spokesman said that the amendments to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which were announced by Putin last week and which would liberalize Russia’s conditions for nuclear use as the U.S. deliberates whether to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied longer-range missiles against targets in Russia, will be legally formalized soon. When asked to comment on Putin’s announcement, his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters at the U.N. in New York, “We expect that those who are interested in our approaches will listen… When it finally becomes clear whether they allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons or not, we will see how they understood what they heard.”
Russia plans to increase state spending on national defense by a quarter in 2025 to 6.3% of GDP, marking a new post-Soviet high, according to draft budget documents published this week and seen by Reuters. Defense spending will rise to 13.5 trillion rubles ($145 billion) next year, according to these documents. Russia lags behind the U.S. and China in terms of defense spending last year, as measured by SIPRI in current dollars and exchange rates. If measured in purchasing power parity terms, however, the gap between the U.S. and Russia in defense spending would be substantially narrower.*
Barely noticed in the U.S. — but very much noticed in Germany — was an agreement between Washington and Berlin at the NATO anniversary summit in July.
For the first time since the 1980s, Germany agreed to the stationing of three types of U.S. missiles (under U.S. command) on its territory, starting in 2026: The Tomahawk Block 4 cruise missile, with a range of just over 1,000 miles; the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), with a range of 230 miles, and intended chiefly for an air-defense role; and a Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHP) which is still under development, and will have a range of more than 1,800 miles.
Two of these missiles will be able to strike deep into Russia, and both will be able to hit Moscow. They are conventionally armed, but nuclear-capable, though to convert them to this role would require a new agreement. This agreement however said nothing about whether Germany will have any control over the missiles on its soil.
The stationing of the Tomahawks and LRHPs is in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear (INF) Treaty of 1987, which bans the stationing of ground-based missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,000 kilometers (310-3,400 miles). However, the Trump administration withdrew from the INF in 2019, and Russia then suspended its own compliance. The Biden administration has made no attempt to negotiate a return to the treaty.
Both the Trump and Obama administrations alleged that the Russian SRBM Iskander ballistic missile (nuclear-capable but not nuclear-armed), with a declared range of under 500 km (within the INF treaty limit) and stationed in Kaliningrad (the isolated territory on the Baltic Sea, adjacent to Poland and Lithuania and 327 miles from Berlin) in fact had a longer range and thus violated the treaty. But this allegation was never independently confirmed, and, after the Russian seizure of Crimea in 2014, the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations made it impossible to resolve this question through negotiations.
Rather strangely (in a democracy), the latest German government agreement to station the new missiles was made without any prior discussion in the German parliament, the Bundestag, or any prior national debate. This has contributed to the resulting controversy in Germany. The foreign and security establishment, and most of the political establishment, are firmly in favor. The right-wing Alternative fuer Deutchland (AfD) and left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) are strongly opposed.
Meanwhile, the Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the largest party in the ruling coalition, is split on the issue, though the general assumption is that the dissidents will eventually fall in line behind the government.
The German public is divided. According to the latest poll, 49 percent are opposed to the missiles and 45 percent in favor. However, in eastern Germany the percentage opposed to the treaty rises to 74 percent, with only 23 percent in favor. In three state elections in eastern Germany this month, the AfD and BSW, who are both advocates of a compromise peace in Ukraine, saw a tremendous surge in support. This issue is therefore contributing to regional tensions in Germany, and it can be expected that it will play a major role in next year’s national elections.
This controversy recalls in certain respects that in the 1980s over the stationing of U.S. Pershing II medium-range nuclear ballistic missile. Its deployment was made in response to the Soviet development of the RSD-10 Pioneer missile and led to an intense political crisis in Germany. Rather comically, as it now appears, opposition (sometimes violent) to the stationing of the Pershings contributed greatly to the rise of the anti-nuclear German Green Party, which, 40 years later, is now among the strongest advocates for the stationing of the Tomahawks.
It is notable that the Greens suffered crushing defeats in the latest eastern German elections. The Social Democratic Party, which now leads the German government, also opposed the stationing of the Pershings.
The US embassy in Moscow was lit up with the Russia Today (RT) logo days after Washington slapped sanctions on the Russia-owned state media. The facade of the US embassy was lit up with a green colour RT News logo along with a message reading “We are not going away.”
A new poll finds that 66% of Americans want a NATO-U.S. push for a negotiated settlement in the Ukraine War and less than 24% believe that weapons and aid should be given to Israel unconditionally in its war on Gaza.
But interestingly, not Ukraine, Gaza, or even China, are the biggest foreign policy issues on the minds of Americans this election season, at least according to a new survey by the Institute of Global Affairs (IGA). In fact, ahead of those hot button conflicts and global pressure points, immigration (39%), climate change (34%), and terrorism (32%) are ranked among respondents’ top three concerns. Israel’s war in Gaza (18%), the rise of China (16%), and the Ukraine war (13%) were far down in the list.
But that doesn’t mean Americans don’t have strong opinions — many along partisan lines — about the U.S. role in the world, its military footprint, and who they trust to do a better job as the next president.
IGA and YouGov polled a national sample of 1,835 voting-age Americans between August 15 and 22 with over-samples in swing states in the Rust Belt (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin) and the Sun Belt (Georgia, Arizona and Nevada) regions. Questions covered an array of foreign policy topics from ongoing wars and conflicts to more general issues of militarism, immigration and soft power.
The poll found that a slight majority of voters on a national level (53%) trust Harris more to represent America’s interest on the global stage. However, voters in swing states trust Trump more not only in this category (53%), but also in his ability to reform immigration (56%), end the Ukraine and Gaza Wars (58%), and respond effectively to a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan (58%).
Also according to other results, 58% of Harris supporters stated that the U.S. should maintain or increase its number of overseas troops, while 58% of Trump supporters think that number should decrease. Some 75% of Americans agreed that the president should be required to obtain congressional approval before ordering any military action overseas, a check required by the Constitution but increasingly ignored in the post-9/11 era.
Another point of agreement among most Americans across party lines centers on the U.S. and NATO pushing for a negotiated settlement as a means to end the war in Ukraine. 70% of Republicans, 71% of Independents and 60% of Democrats marked support for this approach.
Stark ideological divides made themselves clear, however, regarding the situation in the Middle East. A strong majority of Democrats said the U.S. should either stop supporting Israel’s war efforts entirely or make that support conditional on a ceasefire (67%) — compared to just 41% of Republicans. While only 23% support unconditional aid to Israel, this too split along partisan lines, with only 8% of Democrats and 42% of Republicans agreeing with the idea.
Age also came in as a factor, with twice as many voters under 30 as those above 65 (23% vs. 11%) thinking the U.S. must stop supporting Israel’s war in Gaza altogether.
Opinions on President Joe Biden’s foreign policy record as he exits office are mixed. Americans cited NATO expansion and the release of American prisoners from Russia as key successes, with addressing climate change being the top choice among Democrats specifically. Republicans and Democrats saw immigration as Biden’s top foreign policy failure, and Democrats pointed most often to his administration’s handling of the war in Gaza as a key failure. Republicans widely see Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and bringing the troops home as his biggest failure next to immigration.
On China, a majority of those polled (58%) say the U.S. should prepare for a Cold War, including 52% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans. As far as Taiwan goes, 40% say the U.S. should defend the island if militarily attacked by China, though 39 percent say they have “no opinion.”
The rights of journalists and publishers within Europe are “seriously threatened” by “transnational repression,” declared WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “The criminalization of newsgathering activities is a threat to investigative journalism everywhere.”
Assange further stated, “I was formally convicted by a foreign power for asking for, receiving, and publishing truthful information about that power while I was in Europe. The fundamental issue is simple: Journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs. Journalism is not a crime; it is a pillar of a free and informed society.”
He urged the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s (PACE) Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights to act now to protect journalists, publishers, and others from the attacks on freedom of expression that have fueled a climate of censorship.
It was Assange’s first public remarks about the United States Justice Department’s prosecution since his release from the Belmarsh high-security prison in London, where he was detained for a little more than five years. The world had not heard him speak in this manner for at least six or seven years, and certainly not as a free man.
Assange was invited to speak to the PACE committee as part of its inquiry into his detention and conviction and the chilling effect that it has had broadly on human rights. The next day the committee planned to vote on whether to designate Assange as a political prisoner.
The WikiLeaks founder defied the justifiable paranoia or reservations that may have discouraged him from leaving his home country of Australia. As Assange said in his statement [full transcript here], “The gravity of this occasion and the weight of the issues at hand” compelled him to speak to parliamentarians directly.
On his left sat WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson and on his right sat his wife Stella Assange. Their presence helped guide him and put him at ease as he dealt with nervousness compounded by over a decade of trauma and harassment from lawfare (in addition to constant demonization in the Western press).
Assange wore spectacles that accentuated the fragility of a former prisoner still in recovery. “The transition from years of confinement in a maximum security prison to being here before the representatives of 46 nations and 700 million people is a profound and a surreal shift. The experience of isolation for years in a small cell is difficult to convey. It strips away one’s sense of self, leaving only the raw essence of existence.”
“I am yet not fully equipped to speak about what I have endured, the relentless struggle to stay alive physically and mentally, nor can I speak about the deaths by hanging, murder, and medical neglect of my fellow prisoners.”
Indeed, Assange avoided offering any detailed account of the horrors and tragedies that he had observed and personally survived in Belmarsh, even though they were relevant to the PACE committee’s inquiry.
Assange was honest and open about his vulnerability. “I apologize in advance if my words falter or if my presentation the polish you might expect from such a distinguished forum. Isolation has taken its toll, which I am trying to unwind, and expressing myself in this setting is a challenge.”
While delivering a prepared statement, Assange cleared his throat repeatedly. It was as if the anxiety of the moment was bearing its weight down upon him, and he was fighting reflux that was making it difficult for him to speak. Yet he powered through the discomfort, and the reaction of parliamentarians at the meeting suggests that his statement had a profound impact.
The statement from Assange covered a range of issues that are familiar to anyone who closely followed his case (or regularly read this newsletter), but now, he could speak for himself instead of through his lawyers.
On the CIA’s war on WikiLeaks, Assange shared, “We felt that something was going on at the time [in Ecuador’s London embassy]. There were many small signs that came together. But having an ominous feeling and some subtly put tips from a whistleblower in one of the security contractors that the CIA had contracted didn’t give a full and disturbing picture, which later emerged.”
Just as he did when pleading guilty to violating the Espionage Act in a U.S. territorial court in the Northern Mariana Islands in June, Assange spoke about being convicted for engaging in journalism.
“I am not free today because the system worked,” Assange proclaimed. “I am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism. I pled guilty to seeking information from a source. I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source. And I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was. I did not plead guilty to anything else.”
“As I emerge from the dungeon at Belmarsh, the truth now seems less discernible. And I regret how much ground has been lost during that time period, how expressing the truth has been undermined, attacked, weakened, and diminished. I see more impunity, more secrecy, more retaliation for telling the truth, and more self-censorship.”
“It is hard not to draw a line from the U.S. government’s prosecution of me—its crossing the Rubicon by internationally criminalizing journalism to the chilled climate for freedom of expression that exists now.”
‘Now Every Day There Are Livestreamed Horrors’
After Assange concluded his statement, parliamentarians asked him questions, and several of them seemed rather supportive if not sympathetic to his plight. He was much more relaxed, and his responses to their questions were fluid and detailed and showed that he is still capable of holding the floor in a room of esteemed individuals. He even demonstrated that his sense of humor was intact as he made a joke about his mother-in-law that made parliamentarians laugh.
The Israeli military, with the full support of the U.S. government, invaded Lebanon hours before Assange’s testimony. He displayed a keen awareness of the global issues of peace and human rights that are presently the focus of PACE and similar assemblies throughout the world.
Assange said, “Where [WikiLeaks] once released important war crimes videos that stirred public debate, now every day there are livestreamed horrors from the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza. Hundreds of journalists have been killed in Gaza and Ukraine combined. The impunity seems to mount, and it is still uncertain what we can do about it.”
Especially because the PACE committee has taken an interest in the application of the dangerous application of the Espionage Act to punish him, Assange spoke about what became clear in the final months of the case during his appeal.
“In my case, the U.S. government asserted a dangerous new global legal position: only U.S. citizens have free speech rights. Europeans and other nationalities do not have free speech rights. But the U.S. claims its Espionage Act still applies to them regardless of where they are.”
“So Europeans in Europe must obey U.S. secrecy law with no defenses at all as far as the U.S. government is concerned. An American in Paris can talk about what the U.S. government is up to, perhaps. But for a Frenchman in Paris, to do so is a crime with no defense, and he may be extradited just like me,” Assange added.
The role of the United Kingdom, a PACE member state, in his persecution was given attention. “There was an attempt to extradite me without any charge from the United Kingdom by Sweden. The U.K. government subsequently changed the law to prevent extradition without charge, but in its amendment to the extradition legislation, it included a rider to make sure that it didn’t apply to me.”
On the matter of support from news media publications, journalist unions, and freedom of expression organizations, Assange said, “Many of them went with their geopolitical alignment. So it was easy to gain support from media organizations in neutral states and obviously states hostile to the United States. Allies of the United States took longer.”
“Media organizations within the United States, the journalists there—not the lawyers, but the journalists—took longer still. It is a concern, and I can see a similar phenomenon happening with the journalists being killed in Gaza and Ukraine. That the political and geopolitical alignment of media organizations causes them to not cover those victims or cover only certain victims. This is a breach of journalistic solidarity.”
“We all need to stick together to hold the line. A journalist censored anywhere spreads censorship which can then affect us all. Similarly, journalists being killed or targeted by intelligence agencies need our firm commitment in writing or in broadcast.”
Then Assange addressed the persistent idea that journalists must not be activists and remain neutral.
“I understand that debate. I have tried in my work to be rigorously accurate. I believe accuracy is everything. Primary sources are everything. But there is one area where I am an activist, and all journalists must be an activist,” Assange stated. “Journalists must be activists for the truth. Journalists must be activists for the ability to convey the truth, and that means standing up for each other and making no apologies about it.”
Assange testified, as he noted, before the same assembly that produced a report on CIA’s secret detention centers in Europe and the renditions and torture that violated human rights and international law.
His presence before this group of European parliamentarians, who gave him a standing ovation, made it even more clear that his freedom was a defeat for the U.S. national security state that failed to obtain his extradition. The meeting offered a glimmer of the potential for European leaders to abandon the deference that they routinely show to the U.S. government when prioritizing American interests over peace, justice, and freedom.
For 50 minutes, Assange smoothly fieldedquestions before he felt exhausted and the chair of the committee informed him that he could end his testimony with a few closing remarks.
“I would just like to thank all of the people who have fought for my liberation and who have understood, importantly, that my liberation was coupled with their own liberation. That the basic, fundamental liberties which sustain us all, have to be fought for and that when one of us falls through the cracks soon enough those cracks will widen and take the rest of us down,” Assange concluded.
Below is video of Julian Assange’s full testimony and his responses to European parliamentarians.