By John Wight, Consortium News, 6/3/25

Russian President Vladimir Putin now finds himself at a monumental crossroads when it comes to his stewardship of Russia at a time when nuclear Armageddon has never been closer.

Ukraine’s devastatingly successful and audacious strike against Russia’s long-range strategic bomber aircraft stock marks a major inflection point in a conflict that evidences no sign of ending.

But let us not lose sight of the salient fact that Russia is not engaged in a conflict with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukraine. This is instead a conflict pitting the Russian Federation against NATO, with Ukraine a proxy of the latter. And NATO is taking advantage of Putin’s caution.

No consequential conflict has ever been won by half-measures. General William Sherman’s “March to the Sea” arguably did more to break the Confederacy than President Abraham Lincoln’s famed Emancipation Proclamation. The Allies firebombing of Dresden in February 1945 and the Soviets arrival on the outskirts of Berlin on April 25, 1945, did more to break the back of the Germans than Hitler’s suicide nine days later.  The Vietnamese won their national liberation with the fully-committed and symbolically important Tet Offensive of 1968 rather than all of the diplomatic machinations that came thereafter.

Russia’s military campaign at Putin’s direction has placed  a priority on avoiding escalation. But it is a posture that has invited escalation, evidenced by this latest major turn of events.

Vasyl Malyuk, head of Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, viewing satellite images of Russian military airfields, clockwise — Olenya, Ivanovo Severny, Ukrainka, Belaya, and Dyagilevo — and photos of strategic bombers Tu-95MS, left, and Tu-22M3, right. (Ssu.gov.ua/ Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 4.0)

Russia has been fighting the West diplomatically but not militarily, while Ukraine under Zelensky has been waging its conflict with Russia in the name of the strategic aims of NATO, rather than the interests of Ukraine and its people.

Russia is at a decisive point.  Does it continue its war carefully to avoid confrontation with NATO, while encouraging its continued provocations, or does it take the hardline approach of Yevengi Prigozhin, the late outspoken leader of Russia’s Wagner Group, who made repeated demands for national mobilization in the name of a speedy victory dictated by Russia’s far superior mass and weight of industrial potential.

Ukraine’s June 1 drone attack ona Russian airfield. (Ssu.gov.ua / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0)

Putin is a deft leader. Even his adversaries in the corridors of power in the West would grudgingly admit this given his long record in power in the Kremlin. It was he who dragged Russia out of the free market abyss into which the country and its people were plunged in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Putin’s Rebuilding of Russia 

In the process, Putin succeeded in restoring the primacy of the state over a new rising Russian economic oligarchy  —  one that had been happy to allow the masses of the Russian people into the arms of destitution and despair because of its own greed and corruption.

The Russian leader then set about rebuilding state institutions that had been destroyed in the name of the religion of free market capitalism, with the result that slowly but surely a new state emerged from the ashes of the old.  Russia regained pride in a new identity embraced the indispensable role of the Soviet Union in defeating the Nazis in World War II with respect for the pre-Bolshevik role of the Russian Orthodox church as a pillar of spiritual stability and social cohesion.

From the Russian standpoint, this is why Putin is credited as their historical version of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the U.S. president who likewise saved his country from the abyss during the 1930s, when the Great Depression was at its terrible and destructive zenith and then went on to lead the bulk of the U.S. war effort during World War II. 

But Putin has, it appears, misread the West’s resolve in this period of the rapidly shifting tectonic plates of geopolitics.  Putin’s reasoning has been the avoidance of escalation to direct military conflict with the collective Western powers. However those powers are already heavily involved in the arming, training and direction of Kiev’s war effort.

Zelensky at a meeting with Jens Stoltenberg, the former NATO secretary general, in Kiev in April 2024. (President of Ukraine/Flickr)

So where now and what now?

Ukraine’s devastating drone strike deep into Russian territory is a gauntlet thrown down. Will Russia under Putin’s leadership ever be able to persevere to the point of claiming a clear victory? Or has Ukraine under the leadership of Zelensky just changed the dynamic to the point of proving to the collective West that he is a leader worthy of continued support to the point of victory at all cost?

President Donald Trump’s dressing down of the Ukrainian leader in the Oval Office back in March was driven and motivated by the belief that Ukraine’s war effort was faltering. Zelensky in this context appeared isolated, adrift and weak.

Well, not anymore.

As these words are being written, reports of heavy Russian air and missile strikes against targets across Ukraine are emerging. The famous quote of the French revolutionary thinker and agitator, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just springs to mind: “Those who make revolution halfway only dig their own grave.” Substitute the word “war” for revolution and this is the point at which Putin and the Kremlin have arrived.  But how far can Russia go before all-out war with NATO and its potential, dreadful consequences?

Beware of small states, as throughout history it is they who have dragged the world into major conflict. Zelensky, when viewed in this light, knows that Ukraine cannot forever stand against Russia’s superior manpower and mass. He knows that to stand any chance of emerging from this conflict with a result at the end, he must drag the West into direct conflict with Moscow sooner rather than later.

World War III is the only road to victory that lies open to him. For the rest of us, it is the road to hell.

John Wight, author of Gaza Weeps, 2021, writes on politics, culture, sport and whatever else.  Please consider making a donation in order to help fund his efforts. You can do so here. You can also grab a copy of his book, This Boxing Game: A Journey in Beautiful Brutality, from all major booksellers, and his novel Gaza: This Bleeding Land from same. Please consider taking out a subscription at his Medium site.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

Russia Matters, 6/2/25

1. “Astonishing” is the adjective Economist and Politico writers used to describe Ukraine’s operation to smuggle some 150 drones into Russia and launch them in a June 1 attack on Russian long-range bombers and early-warning aircraft at bases across Russia, including one base 2,500 miles away from Ukraine. “Today’s operation is likely to be ranked among the most important raiding actions in modern warfare,” the Economist proclaimed in reference to the June 1 attack, in which an estimated record of 11 to 12 Russian long-range bombers were damaged or destroyed within one day.¹ “The Ukrainians rewrote the rules of warfare again,” claimed Max Boot in his Washington Post column. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy lauded the attack, calling it “brilliant,” and even some of Russia’s pro-war commentators conceded Ukrainian creativity in this instance. The June 1 attacks showed “the enemy is strong, cunning, technically savvy,” editors of the pro-war Russian telegram channel Dva Mayora wrote. Notably, both pro-Kremlin commentators, such as Georgy Bovt and Aleksey Zhivov, and opposition-minded Russian commentators, such as Alexander Baunov, discussed whether the June 1attacks could increase the probability of a nuclear strike by Russia. Pro-Kremlin commentator Sergei Markov warned against a nuclear response to Ukraine’s attacks, warning that “this would lead to real political and economic isolation in the world,” while “tactical nuclear weapons would not significantly change the military situation in Russia’s favor.” It should be noted that the June 1 strikes on Russian long-range bombers, which form the air leg of Russia’s strategic nuclear triad, could theoretically satisfy the criteria for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons per its 2024 Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence.”² That said, however, even if all of the estimated seven Tu-95 bombers damaged or destroyed in the attack could not be repaired, that would still leave Russia with an estimated total of 45 such bombers and 15 more advanced Tu-160 bombers, meaning the air leg of the Russian strategic nuclear triad would still have 60 aircraft. Thus, while the tactics used in the June 1 attack contain innovations, such as mass launches of UAVs against multiple targets from trucks, the losses this attack has caused are unlikely to have a decisive impact on either the Russian strategic nuclear triad (which mostly relies on ICBMs), or on Russia’s ability to launch cruise missiles at Ukraine.*
2. “Ukraine and Russia agreed to hold a new prisoner exchange and swapped memorandums on a possible ceasefire to end Vladimir Putin’s three-year war,” but remained “far apart on terms for a lasting ceasefire after a second round of peace talks in Istanbul” on June 2, Financial Times reported. Ukraine should pursue a peace deal in earnest because it is losing in the war of attrition, according to George Beebe, while Moscow should follow suit because “although Moscow can break Ukraine, it cannot fix it.” “Only Trump can deliver the kind of deal that can secure Ukraine, stabilize Europe and still address Russia’s core concerns,” Beebe writes in a commentary for Responsible Statecraft. See the texts of both memoranda in the section on “Ukraine-related negotiations” to compare Russia’s and Ukraine’s negotiating positions.

***

Zelenskyy’s Reckless Strikes Risk Undermining New START Treaty: The Role of Visible Nuclear Bombers

By Iain Muir, Substack, 6/2/25

The United States and Russia maintain their commitment to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), a vital framework for global nuclear stability. Signed in 2010 and extended until February 2026, the treaty limits each nation to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and 700 deployed delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.

A key aspect of compliance involves parking nuclear-capable bombers in open view at airbases, enabling verification through satellite imagery. However, Ukraine’s drone attacks on 1 June 2025, authorised by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and targeting Russian strategic bombers at bases such as Belaya, Diaghilevo, Olenya, and Ivanovo, have raised concerns about the treaty’s stability.

While reports claim over 40 aircraft were damaged or destroyed, only 8-10 losses or damages have been visually confirmed.

This article examines the reasons behind U.S. and Russian adherence to New START, the role of visible bomber deployments, the risks posed by Zelenskyy’s actions, and the possible sources of satellite imagery used for Ukraine’s strikes, including the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

New START Framework

Implemented in 2011, New START seeks to reduce nuclear escalation risks by capping the strategic arsenals of the U.S. and Russia. The treaty allows 18 annual on-site inspections, biannual data exchanges, and notifications for changes in delivery system status, such as converting a bomber from nuclear to conventional roles. According to the September 2022 data exchange, the U.S. reported 659 deployed delivery systems and Russia 540, both within the 700-unit limit. Heavy bombers, such as the U.S. B-52 Stratofortress and B-2 Spirit or Russia’s Tu-95 Bear and Tu-160 Blackjack, count as one delivery system each, regardless of warhead capacity.

Satellite imagery is central to New START’s verification regime. Bombers stationed openly at bases like Minot Air Force Base (North Dakota) for the U.S. or Engels Air Base for Russia allow both nations to confirm compliance with treaty limits without relying solely on inspections. Although not mandated, this visibility supports transparency. Ukraine’s recent attacks, approved by Zelenskyy and targeting openly deployed bombers, have sparked concerns about the treaty’s future.

Reasons for U.S. and Russian Compliance

The U.S. and Russia adhere to New START due to strategic, diplomatic, and practical considerations:

1. Strategic Stability: By limiting warheads and delivery systems, New START fosters predictability. Russia’s Tu-160 fleet at Engels, constrained by the treaty, assures the U.S., while U.S. B-52s at Barksdale offer similar reassurance to Russia. This mutual transparency stabilises deterrence, supporting a balanced strategic environment.

2. Robust Verification: The treaty’s mechanisms, including satellite monitoring and on-site inspections, ensure compliance. Openly parked bombers, visible via commercial satellite imagery from providers like Maxar, allow both nations to verify adherence to the 700-delivery-system limit. For example, the U.S. declares which B-52s are nuclear-capable, and Russia follows suit for its Tu-95s, with open deployments facilitating verification.

3. Diplomatic Credibility: Compliance strengthens both nations’ global standing. For the U.S., adherence highlights leadership in non-proliferation, reinforcing alliances and influence in forums like the United Nations. For Russia, it supports its position as a responsible nuclear power, enhancing diplomatic engagement. Visible bombers signal transparency, affirming commitment to the treaty.

4. Economic Pragmatism: Building additional bombers or warheads beyond treaty limits would require substantial investment. Both nations focus on modernisation within constraints—the U.S. with the B-21 Raider and Russia with the Tu-160M. Open parking avoids the high costs of hardened shelters or underground facilities, impractical for large fleets like the U.S.’s 66 B-52s or Russia’s 60+ Tu-95s.

5. Avoiding Escalation: Adhering to New START prevents actions that could prompt the other side to expand its arsenal, maintaining stability. Visible bombers reduce suspicions of covert buildup, as concealment could suggest non-compliance. Russia’s open deployment of Tu-95s at Ukrainka, for instance, aligns with treaty obligations, as does the U.S.’s approach at Minot.

Zelenskyy’s Attacks and Risks to New START

On 1 June 2025, Ukraine, under President Zelenskyy’s authorisation, launched a drone operation, codenamed “Web,” targeting Russian airbases hosting strategic bombers. The strikes, involving 117 drones, targeted aircraft at Belaya, Diaghilevo, Olenya, and Ivanovo. While initial reports claimed over 40 aircraft, including Tu-95s and Tu-22M3s, were damaged or destroyed, affecting a significant portion of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers, only 8-10 losses or damages have been visually confirmed through satellite imagery and other sources. Although Ukraine, a non-signatory, cannot directly violate New START, Zelenskyy’s decision to target these assets raises concerns about the treaty’s stability:

1. Exploitation of Transparency: New START’s Article VI requires observable strategic arms to prevent concealment, with Russia deploying Tu-95s and Tu-22M3s openly at bases like Olenya to comply. Zelenskyy’s strikes leveraged this visibility, using precise targeting data to hit bombers integral to Russia’s strategic forces. This could lead Russia to reconsider open deployments, potentially affecting treaty verification.

2. Potential Treaty Tensions: The attacks targeted aircraft linked to Russia’s strategic capabilities, which its nuclear doctrine (updated November 2024) considers critical. While Russia continues to engage with New START, Zelenskyy’s actions could prompt adjustments in deployment practices, complicating transparency and verification as the treaty nears its 2026 expiration.

3. Perceived U.S. Complicity: Despite Ukraine’s claim that the U.S. had no prior knowledge, suspicions of U.S. involvement, particularly through agencies like the CIA, may arise due to intelligence-sharing. Such perceptions could challenge trust, hindering future arms control discussions.

4. Strategic Imbalance: The confirmed loss or damage of 8-10 bombers reduces Russia’s delivery systems, potentially bringing it below the 700-unit limit. While not a violation, this could disrupt the treaty’s intended balance, possibly influencing Russia’s modernisation efforts within treaty constraints.

Ukraine’s Claim and Satellite Imagery Sources

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) asserts that the U.S. had no prior knowledge of the 1 June attacks, supported by reports from BBC and Axios indicating independent planning under Zelenskyy’s direction. The operation’s precision, targeting remote bases like Belaya (4,000 km from Ukraine), suggests access to high-quality satellite imagery. Possible sources include:

1. Commercial Providers: Companies like BlackSky, Maxar, and Planet Labs have provided imagery throughout the Ukraine conflict. For example, Maxar imagery from May 2025 showed 40 Tu-22M3s and 11 Tu-95MSs at Olenya, aligning with strike targets. Ukraine likely acquired such data, which offers sufficient resolution to pinpoint aircraft.

2. Ukrainian Capabilities: Ukraine’s advanced drone programme, with models reaching 3,000 km, likely conducted reconnaissance to complement satellite data. The SBU’s deployment of 117 drones, some launched from Russian territory, suggests additional on-the-ground or aerial intelligence.

3. Western Allies: NATO allies like the UK, which shared imagery of Russian naval assets in 2024, or Germany, supporting Starlink systems, may have provided indirect assistance. However, commercial sources are more likely given Ukraine’s claim of independence.

4. U.S. Intelligence, Including CIA: The U.S., potentially through the CIA or National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), has shared imagery with Ukraine since 2022, primarily for defensive purposes, as seen in the 2022 Moskva sinking. The CIA’s role in intelligence coordination could suggest its data was indirectly used for Zelenskyy’s strikes. U.S. officials, including Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, maintain that intelligence is not provided for offensive operations, and no direct evidence links CIA imagery to the 1 June attacks. Ukraine’s claim suggests any U.S. data was repurposed independently.

5. Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT): Groups like AviVector published detailed analyses of Russian airbases, such as May 2025 imagery of Olenya, shared on platforms like X. Ukraine’s intelligence, under Zelenskyy’s oversight, likely used such data for targeting.

The most likely scenario involves Ukraine combining commercial imagery from Maxar or BlackSky with drone reconnaissance and OSINT, enabling precise strikes without direct U.S. involvement. However, the CIA’s broader intelligence-sharing role could have indirectly contributed, potentially raising questions about U.S. neutrality in the context of New START.

Conclusion

The U.S. and Russia uphold New START due to strategic stability, robust verification, diplomatic credibility, economic pragmatism, and the need to maintain balance. Openly parked bombers at bases like Minot and Engels facilitate satellite verification, ensuring compliance with the 700-delivery-system limit. However, Ukraine’s 1 June 2025 attacks, authorised by President Zelenskyy, target this transparency, with only 8-10 aircraft losses or damages visually confirmed. These actions risk disrupting the treaty’s framework. Ukraine likely sourced targeting data from commercial satellite providers, its own drones, OSINT, and possibly indirect CIA or allied intelligence, supporting its claim of no U.S. prior knowledge. Zelenskyy’s provocative actions underscore the challenges facing arms control as New START approaches its 2026 expiration.

For further details on New START, consult the U.S. State Department or Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs treaty resources.

***

Russia’s talking heads discuss the Ukrainian attacks on air bases across the RF this weekend

By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 6/2/25

In an essay yesterday, I mentioned the Ukrainian drone attacks over the weekend on airbases across the Russian Federation from Murmansk in the North, to the Moscow region and Central Russia, across all of Siberia to the Baikal region (Irkutsk). My brief remarks were based on Western accounts, principally, The Financial Times, which in turn was re-transmitting what Kiev had to say about its daring and seemingly highly successful feats destroying Russian strategic bombers.

Note that the Ukrainians had stressed that the aircraft destroyed were being used to launch missiles that were fired on Ukraine. However, for our purposes in looking at the broader threat to Russian security that their destruction poses, should it have occurred as the Ukrainians say, these aircraft are key components in the Russian nuclear triad for strategic defense against the United States. The Ukrainians claim to have destroyed 40 such bombers, meaning one-third of the Russian fleet in this category of aircraft.

Last night, the Sunday edition of Vladimir Solovyov’s widely watched talk show featured a military expert panelist who told us a good deal more about what happened and in which directions Russian investigation of this calamity and thoughts of retaliation are headed.

Firstly, the Russians deny that the destruction was as extensive as the Ukrainians claim. They insist that their local air defenses neutralized most of the incoming drones. They speak of some damaged aircraft without specifying how many. On the other hand, they are considering a nuclear response in line with their nuclear doctrine of retaliation for attacks which endanger Russian national security. This in its own way is an acknowledgement that something awful did occur. The same panelist makes it clear that the ongoing investigation has already led to arrests of Russians who facilitated the attack by acts of commission and omission.

The attack this weekend took 18 months to prepare. The positive conclusion we may draw is that a follow-on attack is improbable if not impossible to carry out. Nonetheless, the events of the weekend highlight serious security problems that it will not be easy for Russian authorities to correct.

Specifically, it is now known that the Ukrainian drones were brought into the Russian Federation in truck-trailers. This means that the border inspections by Russian customs were strangely lax at more than one border crossing and on more than one date. Secondly it raises the questions about the complicity of the truck drivers, some of whom have now been arrested and who, under questioning say they had no idea what the containers held.

Then there are questions one must pose regarding the long time that these trailers were kept in place in the general vicinity of Russia’s most important air bases. How could their presence not have raised questions for local officials?

Finally, the investigation has revealed that Russian military recruits on the airbases under attack photographed what was happening and the destruction of planes, and then put these images up on social media. That they had kept their personal phones with them was itself a violation of military regulations. That they posted images identifying the strategic bombers which were damaged is itself punishable under Russian wartime law.

                                                                                ****

The next set of questions, for which as yet we have no answers, is how the Kremlin will respond to this attack that would appear to meet the criterion for nuclear escalation under the latest Russian doctrine.

Will President Putin now declare war on Ukraine, as his legalistic mind would suggest, to clear the way for destruction of the ‘decision making centers’ in Kiev, with or without all staff on board? Will he break off all peace negotiations, as logic would have it?

We will not have long to wait to get answers. I expect to see them in the coming week.

YouTube link here.

YouTube link to Redacted report here. This video was posted on 6/1/25.

Euronews, 6/1/25

An operation by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) on Sunday hit 41 miltary aircraft, among them various types of strategic bombers that were lined up at four airfields inside Russia.

“Enemy strategic bombers are burning en masse in Russia,” an official with the SBU said, adding that Ukraine was conducting “a large scale special operation aimed at destroying enemy bomber aircraft.”

The operation, dubbed Spiderweb (“Pavutyna”), targeted four airfields: Dyagilevo in Riazan region, Ivanovo in Ivanovo region, Belaya air base in Russia’s Irkutsk region, which is located in south-eastern Siberia over 4,000km east of the frontline, and Olenya air base in Russia’s Murmansk region, some 2,000km away from Ukraine’s border.

It included the clandestine smuggling of drones deep into Russian territory, hiding them and finally launching them remotely.

Russia’s Defence Ministry confirmed the attacks in a statement, as did the governors of Murmansk and Irkutsk. Murmansk Governor Andrei Chibis said “security measures have been strengthened.”

In March, Ukraine announced it had developed a new type of drone that can reach a range of up to 3,000 kilometres, but gave no details about its type or the size of its warhead.

Recent satellite images show various Russian strategic bombers at the four bases that were allegedly hit during the operation, including Tu-95, Tu-22M3, Tu-160 and A-50.

Tu-95, Tu-22 and Tu-160 are Russian heavy bombers regularly used by Moscow to launch missiles at Ukraine.

The Tu-22M3 is capable of carrying Kh-22 and Kh-32 cruise missiles, travelling at a speed of 4,000 km/h, exceeding Mach 4. 

Tu-95 — the oldest among them — is a Soviet-era plane, originally used to carry nuclear bombs but since modified to launch cruise missiles. 

A-50 is a radar detection aircraft, which can detect air defence systems, guided missiles, and coordinate targets for Russian fighter jets.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that he was meeting with the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs, as well as the General Staff and the SBU.

“We are doing everything to protect our independence, our state and our people,” Zelenskyy said.

He would be outlining “tasks for the near term” and will “define our positions ahead of the meeting in Istanbul on Monday,” Zelenskyy added.

Ukrainian and Russian officials are scheduled to meet in Istanbul on Monday for the second round of talks between the two sides.

Zelenskyy said Kyiv’s utmost priority is an unconditional ceasefire, followed by the release of prisoners and the return of Ukrainian children who Russia forcefully deported. 

***

Zelensky salutes drone attack on Russia: ‘Absolutely brilliant result’

The Hill, 6/1/25

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday touted the “absolutely brilliant result” of a large-scale drone attack on Russian strategic bombers.

“Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Maliuk delivered a report regarding today’s operation. An absolutely brilliant result,” Zelensky said in an afternoon post on the social platform X.

“A result achieved solely by Ukraine. One year, six months, and nine days from the start of planning to effective execution. Our most long-range operation,” he continued.

A military official told The Associated Press that the drones hit 41 planes stationed at military airfields on Sunday afternoon, including A-50, Tu-95 and Tu-22M aircraft….

***

Lavrov and Rubio discuss Ukrainian attacks on Russia

RT, 6/1/25

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the phone on Sunday. The two sides discussed the upcoming Moscow-Kiev talks in Istanbul and recent Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.

Just a day before the talks scheduled in Türkiye, two bridges collapsed in Russia’s Bryansk and Kursk border regions, leading to at least seven deaths and dozens of injuries. The incidents were caused by sabotage, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee.

Later that same day, drones targeted military airfields in Murmansk Region in the country’s north, Ivanovo and Ryazan regions in western Russia, Irkutsk Region in Siberia, and Amur Region in the Far East.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Rubio “expressed sincere condolences on the civilian casualties resulting from the bombings of railway infrastructure in the Bryansk and Kursk regions on June 1.”

Lavrov said the attacks would be thoroughly investigated and “the results will be published in the very near future.”

“The guilty parties will be identified and will inevitably face deserved punishment.” 

Lavrov and Rubio also “exchanged views on various initiatives concerning the political resolution of the Ukrainian crisis,” including the upcoming Russia-Ukraine negotiations in Istanbul scheduled for June 2.

In response to the Ukrainian raids, Russia launched several retaliatory strikes targeting Ukraine’s defense industry facilities, as well as military assembly points and warehouses. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, most of the strikes were successfully repelled, with some resulting in material damage. 

Ukrainian media claims that the strikes were part of what they called a “historic” operation codenamed Spiderweb. According to the reports, the strikes were prepared for more a year and a half and targeted Russia’s “strategic aviation.”

By Diana Johnstone, Consortium News, 5/27/25

Serbia is a small country which used to be a favorite of Western Allied powers like France and Britain for its heroic resistance to Austrian and German invasion in two world wars. 

They liked it so much that in redrawing European boundaries at Versailles in 1918, they enlarged it into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes which later became Yugoslavia.

Some Serb leaders at the time felt that this was too much, but at the time, Croat and Slovene leaders were glad to leave the Austro-Hungarian Empire and join the winning side. 

All this changed abruptly in the 1990s. Germany had been reunited and began to drop its humble post-World War II foreign policy.  With German support and encouragement, the Yugoslav republics (states) of Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence, with the intention of joining the club of the rich: the European Union.

This shift enabled the two richest Yugoslav states to stop paying development funds for poorer regions such as Kosovo and to receive development funds from the EU.  The debt crisis of the 1970s had strained relations among the republics.  

But according to the secessionists, their sole motivation was to escape from “Serbian nationalism.”  A great champion of this interpretation was the late Otto von Habsburg, an influential member of the European Parliament. As heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, dismantled as a result of World War I, he naturally held a personal grudge against Serbia.

As the Yugoslav disintegration grew confused and violent, Western media and government enthusiastically echoed the Habsburg line, not as such, but as defense of Western values and self-determination.

Western media put all the blame for everything on the Serbs, evoking the inevitable Hitler analogy to describe Serbia’s besieged leader, Slobodan Milosevic, as a “dictator” and to liken his failing efforts to keep Yugoslavia together with the Third Reich’s massive invasion of the rest of Europe. 

“Heroic little Serbia” was transformed into the Pariah of the Western World.

A Nation in Limbo

The concrete result of the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia was to transform the “defensive” alliance into an aggressive force; to deliver the historic Serbian province of Kosovo to armed ethnic Albanians; and to build an enormous U.S. military base in the province. 

But NATO nations framed it as conspiratorial to say that such were the aims of the NATO bombing. No, the official purpose was “the right to intervene” on grounds of human rights, to “save the Kosovars” from a “genocide” that was never a real possibility. That’s what everyone in the West has been told, over and over.

NATOland and “Western values” do not — not any longer — dominate the whole world. But Serbia is situated, geographically and psychologically, in the West. 

Serbia was part of Yugoslavia,  an independent, nonaligned socialist country, not part of the Soviet bloc.  But Serbs have an historic friendship with Russia, as fellow Orthodox Christians, dating back to Serbia’s struggle to free itself from the Ottoman Empire. Serbs are in fact torn between, or attached to, both East and West.

They are in a perfect situation to be friends with everyone, which is what the current government in Belgrade of President Alexander Vucic is trying to do.

From its history and natural inclinations, Serbia should be a bridge between East and West.

 Vucic with journalists during the 2018 European People’s Party Congress in Helsinki. (European People’s Party /Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 2.0)

Vucic was elected president of Serbia in 2017 and he and his Serbian Progressive Party have won a number of elections since by wide majorities. His economic development policies have made a bad situation better.

After Western companies took over Serbian industries only to shut them down, Vucic has welcomed Chinese investments which are reviving Serbian industrial production and mining. The economic growth rate accelerated to a comfortable 3.9 percent in 2024. Higher education for students who pass entrance exams is free, and Serbian universities enjoy high international ratings.  

In contrast to its neighbors, Serbs are staying in their native land, while others are leaving. (Bosnia Herzegovina has lost half of its population to emigration, relatively prosperous Montenegro 24.4 percent, North Macedonia 31.6 percent and Serbia only 7 percent, indicating that life prospects there are relatively promising.)

Serbia’s relations with China have long been friendly and profitable. Vucic’s foreign policy tries to balance between East and West, but the rise in hostility between the EU and Russia makes this difficult.

But the same Western supremacists who destroyed the natural “bridge” function of Ukraine by insisting on its “NATO destiny” are working to subvert all potential bridges to Russia — distant Georgia, Moldova and nearby Serbia. 

As an applicant to join the European Union, Serbia is kept under constant observation to see whether it is adapting to EU standards, economic and political. To satisfy Brussels, Vucic has supplied weapons to Ukraine but refuses to enforce sanctions against Russia, which provides Serbia with gas.

He has rejected EU demands to recognize the independence of Kosovo, as any Serbian leader must do to remain in office until tomorrow. But his domestic critics consider him not tough enough.

EU Parliament on Jan. 19, 2011, the day members approved a reform package, the EU-Serbia Stabilisation and Association Agreement, designed to move the country toward EU membership. (European Parliament/Flickr/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Vucic defied EU threats by flying to Moscow to attend the May 9 ceremonies celebrating the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany’s war of conquest.  Otherwise, he would have been hotly condemned at home for slavish subservience to the EU.  Instead, his enemies can cry “Putin’s puppet.”

Josip Tito’s policy of nonalignment was a great success and Vucic appears to emulate the former Yugoslavian leader’s approach. But his balancing act exposes him to criticism from both sides.

Protests Against…Whatever

Strangely, for months Serbia has been rocked by massive student protests and blockades, not over foreign policy or over any specific government policies, but primarily in response to tragic events with no obvious political significance.

In Belgrade on May 3, 2023, a 13-year-old boy armed with pistols and Molotov cocktails attacked his school, killing eight children and a security guard. The under-age shooter was eventually sent to a psychiatric hospital and the parents were charged.

On the evening of the very next day a 20-year-old man drove through two villages in central Serbia firing an automatic assault rifle, killing nine people and wounding 12 others.  He fled but was caught and eventually sentenced to 20 years.

This was shocking in a country where gun ownership is high but shooting incidents rare. Large protest demonstrations were held in major cities for several months. Opposition leaders created a protest movement “Serbia Against Violence” which blamed Vucic for creating “an atmosphere” responsible for the killings.

This is surely an exaggeration. In fact, police repression in Serbia is relatively mild, and Vucic can hardly be blamed for the mood of violence that prevails in the world today. Former Prime Minister Ana Brnabic also risked exaggeration by claiming that the protests were “fueled by foreign intelligence services.”

Candidates for “Serbia Against Violence” won 24 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections on Dec. 17, 2023, just half the 48 percent won by the coalition supported by Vucic. 

Serbia Against Violence, or SPN, coalition representatives in front of the National Assembly of Serbia on Nov. 3, 2023. (Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0)

In February 2024, a delegation headed by Marinika Tepic of “Serbia Against Violence” and Radomir Lazovic of the “Serbian Green-Left Front” went to Strasbourg to complain to the European Parliament that the elections had been stolen.  

Enjoying minimal legislative power, the European Parliament asserts itself mainly by adopting virtuous resolutions condemning human rights violations in foreign countries on the basis of often unverified complaints.

As was to be expected, by an overwhelming vote of 461 to 52 the European Parliament promptly adopted a strong resolution calling for an international investigation into “election irregularities” and threatening to stop EU funding. The main complaint was that by campaigning, President Vucic had unfairly influenced voters.

Marinika Tepic declared to Politico that “if something doesn’t change now, we will completely slide into a dictatorship.” 

EU’s Missionary Work

Protests against recognizing the December 2023 elections reached such proportions that many feared a replay of the 2014 Maidan demonstrations that led to war in Ukraine. 

Pavle Cicvaric, who had learned organizing skills in numerous programs and workshops funded by Western foundations, led the student protests in Belgrade. The young leader’s parents are both deeply involved in the work of NGOs. 

His mother, Dr. Jelena Žunic Cicvaric, is project coordinator of the NGO “Regional EU Resource Center for Civil Society in Serbia,” a key channel for the redistribution of European Union funds, allocated only to those actively working on raising awareness of “European values.”

His father, Radovan Cicvaric, a long-time politician campaigning for Euro-integration, is also promoting “European values” as director of the NGO Užice Center for Child Rights (UCPD) founded in 1998. 

While the UCPD focuses on children, another influential NGO, the Belgrade Open School (BOS), founded in 1993, sponsors programs for students and young professionals, including “training of social change agents.”

Both are part of the “Youth Umbrella Organization of Serbia” which receives significant funds from international donors such as USAID, the Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and various European Union programs. 

They organize workshops, training sessions, and projects aimed at strengthening the capacities of local NGOs and promoting European values. “Transition” countries applying for EU membership must listen to instructions on how to be worthy Europeans. 

This educational task is undertaken by the European Fund for the Balkans (EFB), a joint initiative of European foundations that envisions, runs and supports initiatives aimed at strengthening democracy and fostering European integration. 

Significantly, the EFB is sponsoring a “Joint History Project” to produce and spread a unified version of regional history, with the kind support of the German Foreign Office.  

The Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD) is a foundation based in Belgrade. It was founded in March 2003 by the German Marshall Fund, USAID, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Other donors include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Tipping Point Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and the foreign affairs ministries of Denmark and Greece. The BTD supports grant donation, policy dialogue, and leadership development. 

If you want to be a leader, you know where to go.

It is hard to imagine that these Western-financed organizations have not contributed to the zeal and skill of Serbian student protesters.

A Deadly Collapse

Novi Sad is Serbia’s second-largest city, a major stop on the new high speed railway route between Belgrade and Budapest being rebuilt with Chinese aid. 

As part of this project, Novi Sad’s 60-year old modernistic railroad station was recently renovated, leaving in place a long concrete canopy across its entrance side. On the morning of Nov. 1, 2024, the concrete canopy suddenly collapsed, killing a total of 16 people.

The Serbian government declared a nation-wide day of mourning, a number of officials resigned, including the Serbian construction minister and the mayor of Novi Sad. Investigations of the causes are continuing.  

Portion of the canopy of the main railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia, that collapsed onto people walking and sitting underneath on Nov. 1, 2024. (Mishyac /Wikimedia Commons/ CC0)

For the student activists, the collapse was seen as clear proof of corruption, not only in construction work on the station but throughout society. Declaring that what happened in Novi Sad is proof that Serbia is overwhelmed by crime, violence, corruption and despair, the students have given themselves the task of changing this “unbearable social reality” to build a new Serbia. 

An apparently leaderless movement organizes student plenums which privately decide by consensus what to do next. They have shut down university faculties and schools, preventing students from attending classes for months.

Students who want to attend classes are treated like traitors. Even hospitals have been blockaded. It has been observed that the activist students tend to come from well-to-do families and are not joined by working class youth.  It is an elite revolt calling for equality.  

Students blocking traffic are protected by police. The government clearly suspects provocation and has been avoiding the sort of violent repression used by the French government of Emmanuel Macron to put down the Yellow Vests movement.  

Transition to What?

March during the general strike in Belgrade on Jan, 24, 2025. The banner in the foreground says “Only Student Save the Serbs,” a play on the national slogan “Only Unity Saves the Serbs.” (SergioOren / Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 4.0)

Serbian students under 26 were not born when NATO bombed Serbia.  

Serbian youth has grown up torn between the scars of the NATO bombing and the persistent dominant Western view of Serbs as the guilty party for the destruction of Yugoslavia.  No wonder that this creates some confusion.

It is understandable that a portion of middle class Serbian, urban youth find it unbearable to be excluded from “the West” by Serbia’s imposed Pariah status.

Youth can be very conformist in their rebelliousness, seeking to join together in defiance of their elders. However confused the West may be, it still excels most in selling itself as something marvelous. 

A significant way it does this is through its massive web of non-governmental organizations. 

In April, EU auditors issued a report noting a “lack of transparency” in granting some 4.8 billion euros to some 5,000 NGOs during the 2021-2023 period, in addition to Member State grants of some 2.6 billion euros to around 7,500 NGOs from EU funding sources.  

It is not clear which countries benefited, but Marta Kos, the Slovenian EU commissioner for enlargement, has mentioned Serbia. 

Kos during confirmation hearings as European commissioner for enlargement, Nov. 7, 2024. (CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2024– Source: EP)

In a March 28 interview with Slovenian RTV, Kos rejected as “unacceptable” suggestions by President Vucic that EU-funded NGOs are encouraging student protests aimed to overthrow him. Kos nevertheless noted that she was “much more in contact with the NGOs I met in Brussels than with the Serbian government or its president.” 

She said:

“Many NGOs in Serbia would not survive without our support, and it is precisely because of the exceptional importance of NGOs that I have decided to allocate an additional €16 million to them for the period from this year until the end of 2027.”

“Without the participation of civil society, there can be no enlargement process,” Kos said, adding that she trusts the Serbian people to “guide their politicians so that Serbia can become a member of the European Union.” Kos feels qualified to provide guidance. 

Aleksander Vulin is a prominent Socialist who has held various ministerial posts.  But no more.  “I hope that Mr. Vulin will not be a member of the new government, because those who act in an anti-European manner cannot lead Serbia into the EU,” said Kos. She got her way. 

Among his sins, Vulin favors joining BRICS and had called for a law revealing NGO financing by foreign governments. (When Georgia adopted such a law, EU leaders mobilized to stop it, but failed.)  

On the other hand, Vucic defied dire threats by the EU against daring to attend the May 9 celebrations of the Allied Victory over Nazi Germany. He flew around Baltic States blocking his flight and showed up in Moscow, along with the courageous Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico.

 Vucic in Moscow on May 9, on his way to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Ramil Sitdikov, RIA Novosti, Presidet of Russia)

Such is the Vucic balancing act. As a result, Vucic is denounced as “pro-Putin” in Brussels while his domestic adversaries denounce him for weakly giving in to EU demands.

The student protesters are still more ambiguous.

They clearly don’t want to give credence to government accusations that they are manipulated by EU NGOs. The EU flag has been tacitly banned from the huge student demonstrations, with only Serbian flags being waved, as if to demonstrate national independence. 

However, this spring a contingent of student protesters created a spectacle by setting out to take their grievances to EU institutions, ostensibly on bicycles.  They were warmly welcomed as they complained that everything in Serbia was absolutely awful. 

On May 6, Serbia’s leading newspaper Politika reported that visiting Serbian blockaders in the European Parliament gallery listened meekly as they were lectured by a Croatian nationalist, Steven Nikola Bartulica, who told them that “European values mean also a confession of guilt for everything Serbia did to Croatia.” 

(In the summer of 1995, Croatia expelled about 200,000 Serbs from their homes in the Krajina region of Croatia, in the largest ethnic cleansing of the Yugoslav wars.) 

Bartulica claimed Serbia was not a European-style liberal democracy and would not be normalized until it accepted paying reparations to Croatia.

Members of the European Parliament expressed satisfaction that the students had chosen “Europe” against Russia, and called for overthrowing Vucic and Fico for having gone to Moscow.

At home, however, the protest demonstrations seem to be losing momentum, to the extent that students have stopped demanding everything! now! and are retreating to the demand for elections.

Boosted by his trip to Moscow, where his delegation held serious talks with President Vladimir Putin, Vucic held a patriotic rally in the city of Nis where he declared that the students’ demands are over and do not interest him any more. He dismissed the blockaders as a very loud minority of mobbing bullies terrorizing the majority of citizens who want peace, work and unity. 

By suddenly demanding snap elections, he assumed that they were simply seeking another opportunity for violent outbursts, since elections will always be declared stolen by the opposition.  Elections will be held normally in a year or so, he said.  

On May 22, Belgrade received a visit from Kaja Kallas, an Estonian chosen by Ursula von der Leyen to be high representative of the EU for foreign affairs.  Having no diplomatic experience, Kallas’ most visible qualifications are being a young woman with an unsurpassed hatred of Russia.

Kallas, center, EU high representative and vice president of the European Commission, at a NATO meeting in Brussels on April 4. (NATO /Flickr/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

While in Belgrade, the EU’s top diplomat met, in a strange twist, with the president and the prime minister to tell them what to do.  But she met  with representatives of student protesters to listen to what they had to say. 

She praised her meetings with “civil society” and youth activists. “I heard their call and their aspirations – for fairness, for accountability so that Serbia can fulfill its full potential,” she said. “Their energy is needed to find a way forward.” 

In contrast, Kallas scolded Vucic for meeting Putin in Moscow. Serbia’s future acceptance into the EU, she stressed, depends on the country’s “strategic choice” between East and West.

Putin, by contrast, accepts Vucic’s balancing act and has no objection to Serbia joining the EU. Variety is consistent with a multipolar world. But for the West, “you are with us or against us.” Between East and West, there are no bridges allowed.   

Perplexity & Fear

In Belgrade, some people think the protests are petering out. Perhaps, but in the past they have died down only to revive over some incident. Since the causes are unclear, so are the solutions. 

The difficulty, Dragan Pavlovic, a Serbian commentator, told me is that the protests are expressed in “very general demands for a ‘better life,’ which obviously does not offer any concrete basis for understanding what is essentially wanted or what should be done to calm the protests.” Such demands can go on forever. 

“It is probably an orchestrated, mass hysteria, caused by the nuclear threat, the genocide in Gaza, the prolongation of the crisis in Kosovo and the actions of non-governmental organizations,” he suggests. 

Journalist and writer Mara Knezevic Kern considers it impossible to understand these incredible events. “I do not believe that it is possible to describe this new variant of an attack on the state — it has not happened anywhere else yet.” In the 1990s, Yugoslavia served as an experimental laboratory for regime change.  Many fear that this is happening again, in Serbia.

Diana Johnstone was press secretary of the Green Group in the European Parliament from 1989 to 1996. In her latest book, Circle in the Darkness: Memoirs of a World Watcher (Clarity Press, 2020), she recounts key episodes in the transformation of the German Green Party from a peace to a war party. Her other books include Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (Pluto/Monthly Review) and in co-authorship with her father, Paul H. Johnstone, From MAD to Madness: Inside Pentagon Nuclear War Planning (Clarity Press). She can be reached at diana.johnstone@wanadoo.fr

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.