I’ve seen Iversen interview Koffler before on her show and I wasn’t sure what to make of her. I’ve concluded that she’s a mixed bag – some things she says are accurate and/or interesting and other things are not, such as her characterization of the Russian-Chinese partnership. Let me know what you think of her in the comments. – Natylie

YouTube link here.

Russia Matters, 10/3/25

1. Donald Trump recently signed off on allowing intelligence agencies and the Pentagon to aid Ukraine with long-range missile strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure, and U.S. officials are now asking NATO allies to provide similar support, The Wall Street Journal reports. “It is the first time, officials say, that the Trump administration will aid Ukrainian strikes with long-range missiles against energy targets deep inside Russian territory,”¹ according to this newspaper. In addition, the Trump administration is considering Kyiv’s request for Tomahawk cruise missiles, one of the most precise U.S. weapons, which have a range of around 1,500 miles, WSJ reported.  JD Vance disclosed that the U.S. was considering Ukraine’s request this past weekend, prompting Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov to ask, “The question remains: Who can launch these missiles, even if they end up on Kyiv regime territory? Can only Ukrainians launch them, or will the American military do so?” Peskov’s boss also warned the U.S. against supplying Tomahawks in his remarks on Oct. 2. Putin said that deliveries of U.S. Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would mark a “qualitatively new stage of escalation,” triggering a fresh crisis in U.S.-Russian relations.² In his reaction to these developments, Harvard University Professor Graham Allison warned that the “dangers [may] move up the escalation ladder.” “Now we will see whether the U.S. actually does it. And if so, how Russia responds,” he wrote in a short commentary for RM.
2. NATO must step up its response to Russia’s hybrid war, which is “only the beginning” and is aimed at dividing Europe, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said, following recent drone incursions that shut down Denmark’s main airport and which Copenhagen suspects may have been staged on Moscow’s orders. Following the incursions, which Financial Times reported to have also shut down multiple military locations, Denmark announced it would acquire long-range precision-guided weapons to deter Russian aggression and align Danish capabilities with larger NATO allies. Frederiksen claimed this move will represent a “paradigm shift in Danish defense policy.” “I hope that everybody recognizes now that there is a hybrid war… there is only one country… willing to threaten us, and it is Russia, and therefore, we need a very strong answer back,” Frederiksen was quoted by WSJ as saying. In his turn, Russia’s ambassador Vladimir Barbin called Denmark’s reaction “pure madness” and a threat against Russian targets. “No one, anywhere in the world, has ever considered publicly threatening a nuclear power,” Barbin warned. “From now on, we will have to assume that Denmark not only considers the possibility of a direct military confrontation with Russia, but is preparing for such a scenario,” the Russian diplomat said. In his reaction to these developments, Harvard University Professor Graham Allison wondered whether and which NATO members would be prepared to do anything that would increase the risk of Russia striking back. In his reaction, Allison focused on Denmark. “Denmark is clearly waking up. The question is what are they prepared to do? And my bet is that it will mostly be talk,” he wrote in a short commentary for RM.
3. In his annual address to the Valdai Discussion Club on Oct. 2, Putin dismissed Western warnings of a Russian attack on NATO as either incompetence or dishonesty, urging European leaders to “calm down.” He claimed the Russian armed forces are confidently advancing along multiple axes in Ukraine and dismissed Trump’s descriptions of Russia as a “paper tiger,” asserting that Moscow is managing to fight not just Kyiv in Ukraine, but the whole NATO bloc. As stated above, in his remarks, Putin also warned that deliveries of U.S. Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would mark a “qualitatively new stage of escalation,” triggering a fresh crisis in the U.S.-Russian relations. Putin also asserted that Russia remains confident in its nuclear deterrent, but has again reiterated Moscow’s recent proposal for Russia and the U.S. to jointly extend the central limits of the New START treaty before it expires in February 2026. He also warned Russia would resume nuclear tests if another nuclear power does so and repeated Russia’s long-standing position that U.S. calls for trilateral U.S.-Russia-China nuclear arms control negotiations will fall flat unless, among other things, the arsenals of Britain and France are factored in.³ That Putin and his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov have both urged the U.S. to consider Russia’s recent proposal to extend New START limits thrice in the past week and a half indicates that the Kremlin is now keen to preserve some semblance of nuclear arms control with Washington even as Russian leaders have not heard from Trump on the issue so far.
4. Russian missiles have increasingly evaded Ukraine’s U.S.-made Patriot air defenses, with officials saying upgrades allow Iskander-M and Kinzhal missiles to alter trajectory and perform end-phase maneuvers that “confuse and avoid” interceptors, Financial Times reported.
5. Shipments of Russian nuclear fuel to the U.S in monetary terms amounted to slightly less than $800 million in 2024, and they are expected to reach around $1.2 billion in 2025, according to Putin. Russia remained the top supplier of nuclear reactor fuel to the U.S. last year, data from the U.S. Department of Energy shows. Russia provided 20% of the enriched uranium used in America’s fleet of commercial reactors, down from nearly 27% in 2023, according a Sept. 30 report by the EIA cited by Bloomberg.

By Uriel Araujo, InfoBrics, 9/26/25

Uriel Araujo is an Anthropology PhD, a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki has recently stated on French channel LCI that “Poland should be part of the nuclear sharing program, it should have its own nuclear capabilities: energy and military”, as part of “Polish-French partnership.” Nawrocki added that, in the future, Warsaw could be “developing Poland’s own nukes” .

This rather underreported call for NATO’s nuclear-sharing program aligns, in a way, with US assurances to Poland and Estonia for bolstered Baltic defenses. Moreover, this development in fact signals a pivotal shift: Warsaw is no longer content with conventional arms but eyes atomic capabilities as a security cornerstone.

Back in June 2023 then Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was already expressing Warsaw’s interest in hosting NATO’s nuclear weapons under the Alliance’s nuclear sharing policy. And one may recall that early 2025 set the stage for today, with then-President Andrzej Duda urging US nuclear warheads on Polish soil to shift NATO eastward, while Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament Warsaw must “reach for opportunities related to nuclear weapons” in a “race for security.”

Amid doubts over transatlantic “friendship” in face of Donald Trump’s presidency in Washington, these statements reveal to what extent Poland seeks a deeper geopolitical play.

For years, Warsaw has chafed under Germany’s shadow, the EU’s economic heavyweight. As a matter of fact, tensions have flared into rivalry, as I’ve written, revealing cracks in Western unity. In 2023, Poland blocked Ukrainian grain imports, undercutting Berlin’s softer stance on Kyiv, while pouring billions into a military buildup to outpace Germany’s spending.

Warsaw’s accusations of German “hypocrisy” on energy and migration cemented its role as Europe’s anti-Russian bulwark. Poland’s elite thus sees nuclear options as a path to autonomy, thereby sidelining Berlin’s influence.

The US, ever the puppeteer, has fueled these ambitions quite skillfully, grooming Poland as a proxy to shoulder containment burdens. This allows Washington to pivot toward Asia (or toward a neo-Monroeist “America First” or what not) while Warsaw plays frontline enforcer. A nuclearized Poland would fit this script, be it through NATO’s sharing program or French deterrent talks.

Suffice to say, such moves skirt the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s spirit but align with America’s selective hypocrisy, as seen time and time again, with Pakistan’s arsenal and elsewhere.

The implications ripple beyond Warsaw. A nuclear-armed Poland would turbocharge its leadership bid, potentially tightening ties with Ukraine. One may recall 2022’s talks of a Ukrainian-Polish confederation amid anti-Russian fervor, a topic on which I also commented at the time.

By 2024, strains had emerged — for one thing, Polish farmers blockaded borders over Ukrainian grain, and far-right voices demanded repatriating draft-age Ukrainians, amid joint calls to end Ukrainian refugee benefits. Yet, 2024 security pacts allow for Poland to intercept Russian missiles and drones over Ukraine, albeit conditionally.

Underreported is how nuclear ambitions could revive such confederation ideas, with Poland eyeing a “Three Seas” bloc to counter Russia (and Germany, by the way), thus enhancing the spectre of EU fractures. The 3SI Warsaw summit has been seen by many as a potential platform to integrate nuclear energy projects, such as small modular reactors, and security pacts, reviving bloc ambitions under the guise of “united Europe” against Moscow.

From a Russian perspective, a nuclear Poland would be an existential red line, akin to Ukraine’s NATO bid. Russia sees Poland as a revanchist threat, with Warsaw’s 2023 moves in Ukraine’s west fueling encirclement concerns.

Polish facilities in such nuclear scenarios could thus be a major source of tension, to put it lightly. Poland’s elite calls this deterrence, but Russia’s arsenal dwarfs NATO’s European holdings, and any “win” invites mutual destruction at best.It is worth noting Moscow already lowered its nuclear threshold, in late 2024.

America’s drive to offload Ukraine’s “burden” onto Europe amplifies these dangers. Even as Trump now claims Ukraine could “regain” disputed territories, the fine print shows European taxpayers footing the arms bill, as I’ve recently noted. Meanwhile, Poland’s RARS agency is under EU scrutiny for 2024’s overpriced procurement.

At this point, Washington’s $283 billion in Kyiv aid arguably pales against EU commitments, yet Trump demands Europe pay more, echoing past “freeloader” gripes. So much for burden-sharing; Poland, the eager proxy, absorbs costs and risks. Tusk’s call for a 500,000-strong army and nuclear options, with only 10,000 US troops as a symbolic shield, lays it bare.

Today, Trump’s backing of Poland (and Estonia, by the way) is classic leverage to “bully” adversaries, using “allies” to prod Moscow — a hallmark of his brinkmanship, so to speak.

Provocative enough to thrill hawks, this courts disaster in many ways, a region primed for escalation. Poland’s nuclear path is no defensive reflex but a bid for great-power revival, egged on by a US keen to “delegate”. The allure — deterrence, German rivalry checked, Ukraine’s orbit tightened — is clear, from a Polish perspective.

Yet the perils — alliance cracks, and fiscal strain; not to mention “cornering” Moscow — make it a dangerous enough gamble. And History rarely forgives such bets. Poland’s “race for security” risks in fact the very war it supposedly aims to avert.

By Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News, 9/9/25

All those malign authoritarians, more than 20 of them, who gathered in Tianjin at the end of August for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization: This was a festival of anti–Americanism, you need to know.

No other way to understand it. Making it all worse, Xi Jinping then invited more than two dozen heads of state to Beijing to mark the 80th anniversary of the 1945 victory.

How dare the Chinese president organize an elaborate military parade to celebrate China’s role in the historical defeat of the Imperial Japanese Army. How dare he stir pride in the People’s Republic’s determination to defend its sovereignty while refuting the revisionism — nonsensical but prevalent — that airbrushes the Chinese Communist Party out of the Second World War’s history.

The temerity of this man to suggest it was other than the Americans and their corrupt clients, the Chinese Nationalists, who did the fighting and won the war. Let us not, for heaven’s sake, make any mention of the 12 million to 20 million Chinese — there is no precise figure — who died in consequence of Imperial Japan’s aggressions.

No, nothing to honor in any of this. Between the S.C.O. and the festivities in Beijing it was all faintly demonic, a thinly veiled challenge to what the United States and the rest of the West insists is a “rules-based order.”

I keep a file labeled “Sentences to love in The New York Times.” From it: “It shows how Mr. Xi is trying to turn history, diplomacy and military might into tools for reshaping a global order that has been dominated by the United States.”

The mainstream reporting on the S.C.O. and the subsequent gathering in Beijing went on obsessively for days. You would think the Chinese were on the brink of starting another Pacific War and “invading” Taiwan—“invading” in quotation marks because a nation cannot invade territory that historically belongs to it.

As I read through the coverage I marveled at the wall-to-wall West-centricity of it. The Chinese, the Russians, the Indians, various others, even the North Koreans: They think of nothing and do nothing that does not arise from their all-consuming animosity toward the United States and altogether the West. So you read in the reporting of these events.

Then along came Donald Trump, who addressed Xi on his Truth Social platform with this, referencing the Russian and North Korean leaders as he watched the proceedings live: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un as you conspire against the United States of America.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Pyongyang on June 18, 2024. (President of Russia)

There is no beating the Trumpster when it comes to stating the case forthrightly. The mainstream press can strike the pose of objectivity all it likes, but Trump, the id of the late-phase imperium, comes right out and says it: The non–West is against us. Anti–American animosity is its sole motivation, its very raison d’être.

I write here not of our dissolute press, whose mission these past two dozen years — I take the events of September 11, 2001, as the point of departure — has been to prevent Americans from seeing and understanding the 21st century’s realities. Neither is the blunt instrument now lodged in the White House my topic.

No, the press and the president are merely exhibits, symptoms of a national failing that transcends either of these. This is the problem of America’s self-absorption, the pervasive narcissism that, it now becomes evident, is a primary cause of our troubled republic’s increasingly hostile relations with others and, so, its swift descent into isolation.

In Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Narcissus is a youth of transcendent beauty who spurns Echo, the nymph who loves him, and becomes infatuated with his own reflection in a pool of water. He thereafter takes to rejecting all admirers.

Narcissus is thus blind, but not only to others: He is also blind to himself. This fulfills the prophecy Tiresias made on his, Narcissus’s, birth: He will live long, the mythical seer said, “so long as he never knows himself.”

The Newest Narcissus; or, The Hero of our days, a cartoon by Edward Linley Sambourne, Punch, or the London Charivari, April, 1892. (Project Gutenburg, Public Domain)

Narcissism is the open-and-shut condition of the elites who fashion and execute American foreign policy. They see only themselves when they look abroad at others. And they are utterly incapable of seeing themselves as they are or their country as it is.

It is dangerous to be America’s enemy, Henry Kissinger once remarked in an often-quoted comment, but it is fatal to be America’s friend. This is the United States as run by the narcissistic cliques who set the imperium’s course. Nothing and no one matters beyond their own power.

I think too much of Americans to assign this condition to them out of hand. No, it is the media’s task to impose this condition on Americans. Consider again how the press covered Tianjin and Beijing: We are encouraged in every sentence to see our reflections in those events, for they were all about us.

Read a few of these pieces carefully, I urge. You find correspondents in this or that bureau abroad who rarely quote Chinese or Russian or even European sources in support of the reporting. No, they call reliably conformist scholars or think tank denizens back in the States to tell them how to think about what is going on in China or Russia or wherever it may be.

See what I mean? Journalism this flaccid is a new one on me. If it is not American narcissism as it is in practice I do not know what else to call it. 

Did you read anything in the American press about Xi’s proposal for a “Global Governance Initiative” to assist in the pursuit of a more just and equitable world order?

What about the Chinese leader’s announcement in Tianjin of a new S.C.O. development bank, grants of 2 billion renminbi, $280 million, to S.C.O. members, and an additional 10 billion renminbi, $1.4 billion, in loans?

Or his speech calling for the historical record of the Pacific War — corrupted precisely as the West cravenly erases the Soviet Union’s decisive role in defeating the Reich — to be corrected?

Let me help you out. No, no, and no. The policy cliques are indifferent to these things and you are meant not to see them, blindness to our world the preferred condition. The policy people in Washington have been captivated by their own reflections ever since they set out to achieve global dominance almost immediately after the 1945 victories.

And so long as American power was hegemonic this did not matter. Diplomacy, as Boutros Boutros–Ghali memorably remarked after the United States forced him as out as the U.N.’s sec-gen, is for the weaker nations; the strong have no need of it.

There is need of it now, to state the obvious. And we find America to be self-blinded, stumbling, uncomprehending, and altogether incapable in this, a century of swift and momentous change.

Washington’s prevalent narcissism renders proper statecraft more or less impossible, as there has been, just as Boutros–Ghali astutely observed, no need of it for most of the past eight decades. And we cannot put this down to Donald Trump alone: This has been less obviously but just as true of the administrations that preceded his.

“[W]e find America to be self-blinded, stumbling, uncomprehending, and altogether incapable in this, a century of swift and momentous change.”

At this point the late-phase imperium is more or less entirely dependent on force as its mode of expression in the community of nations.

Parenthetically, this is how I read the Trump regime’s stunning decision to rename the Defense Department the War Department, just as it was called until 1949, when it was judged necessary to veil the arriving era of America’s imperial aggressions.

Military force, increasingly vicious varieties of coercion, sanctions that amount to collective punishment, in the case of Palestinians the refusal of visas: It is all Washington can think of doing as it responds so defensibly to the 21st century. It will, of course, lead nowhere but to further isolation and decline.

At a press conference in Beijing last Tuesday, as the days of diplomacy and celebration drew to a close, a correspondent asked Vladimir Putin what he thought of Trump’s “Say hello as they conspire against us” remark on Truth Social. The Russian president’s reply was a model of statesmanship and clear thinking:

“The president of the United States is not devoid of humor —  everything is clear, everyone knows it well….

I can tell you, and I hope he will hear it as well: It may seem strange, but during these four days of negotiations, both informal and formal, no one has ever expressed any negative opinions about the current American administration…. 

The activities of the SCO and those of our partners, including our strategic partners, are not aimed at fighting anyone, but rather at finding the best ways to develop ourselves, our countries, our peoples, and our economies.” 

It is a point that cannot be made too often, so commonly is it missed. The emergence of the non–West as a bloc of nations has not a shred of anti–Americanism in it. These nations would indeed welcome the United States, with its capital, its technologies, and so on, to participate fulsomely in building the new world order to which they are dedicated.

Only hegemons are unwelcome in this decidedly ecumenical undertaking. Only narcissists. Whether or not America can at last stop staring at its own reflection to see the world around it will determine its fate in our evolving century.

Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of Journalists and Their Shadows, available from Clarity Press or via Amazon.  Other books include Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been restored after years of being permanently censored.

TASS, 10/2/25

The division within the European Union is intensifying over a new initiative to establish a reparations loan for Ukraine backed by Russian holdings. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has urged Brussels to abandon excessive bureaucracy, while French President Emmanuel Macron and Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever warn of breaches of international law. Yet, only days earlier, France and Germany, within the framework of the Weimar Triangle, had voiced support for the idea of employing Russian assets. Attempts to seize Russian property will trigger a painful mirror response, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Izvestia.

“Whichever option Brussels ultimately chooses, manipulating frozen sovereign assets without Russia’s consent constitutes a gross violation not only of international law, but also of contractual law. Russia has not authorized any such operations. Actions that involve altering the legal status of Russian assets will no longer mean a freeze, but rather the unauthorized management of foreign property – in other words, essentially theft,” the Russian Foreign Ministry told Izvestia.

“The overwhelming majority of experts argue that the risks of outright confiscation for the dollar and euro systems are far greater than the potential benefits from employing these funds – primarily because of the precedent it would set and the erosion of trust in the financial jurisdiction of Western countries,” Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for International Studies of MGIMO, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Egor Sergeyev told Izvestia.

“In the short term, no consensus on this matter can be reached, if only because none exists even within the European Union. And in the United States, even under the Biden administration, it has been concluded that from a legal standpoint, this scheme is extremely precarious,” a leading expert at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies Pavel Zakharov told the newspaper.

According to Vladimir Vasiliev, Chief Research Fellow at the Institute for the US and Canadian Studies, Washington is unlikely to risk its reputation over $5 bln, but may well push Europe in that direction – in which case European capital will begin to flow into the United States.

“The initiators and participants of expropriation measures are guaranteed to face consequences. Moreover, in accordance with the principle of reciprocity, attempts to seize Russian property will provoke a painful retaliatory response. Russia has at its disposal a sufficient arsenal of countermeasures and the ability to deliver an appropriate political and economic answer,” the Russian Foreign Ministry told Izvestia.

First, the measures could be legal in nature, since what is at stake is a violation of international law. Second, the response could be purely economic. Moscow has already developed a system of specific steps, such as temporary management of the property of companies from unfriendly states, or the transfer of such assets to state ownership or to the Central Bank as compensation for any seizures, the newspaper writes.

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Russia Drafts Plan to Seize Assets If EU Acts on Funds (Excerpt)

Bloomberg, 10/2/25

Russia may nationalize and swiftly sell off foreign-owned assets under a new privatization mechanism in retaliation for any European moves to seize Russian holdings abroad, according to a person close to the government.

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed an order allowing for fast-track sales of state-owned assets under a special procedure.

The decree is intended to speed up the sale of various companies, both Russian and foreign, the person familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. Should the European Union begin seizing Russian assets, Moscow may respond with symmetrical measures, the person said.

Hundreds of western companies working in sectors from banking to consumer goods still operate in Russia, including UniCredit SpA, Raiffeisen Bank International AG, PepsiCo Inc, and Mondelez International Inc.

Putin acted as EU leaders meeting in Denmark build momentum for a plan to provide Ukraine with €140 billion ($164 billion) in loans from immobilized Russian central bank assets, ahead of a formal summit at the end of this month….

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Belgium Pours Cold Water on EU Plan to Use Russian Frozen Assets (Excerpt)

Bloomberg, 10/2/25

The European Union’s bid to unlock funding for Ukraine from frozen Russian central bank assets faced resistance as Belgium raised legal questions about the plan to raise financing from up to €185 billion ($217 billion) held on its territory.

Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever called the EU proposal to tap interest from the Russian assets a “big gamble” that required ironclad risk-sharing among EU member states. He signaled that the process would be time consuming, suggesting the bloc seek alternative financing for Kyiv.

“Every country will have to guarantee proportionally in the case that this goes wrong,” De Wever told reporters Thursday on the margins of a European Political Community summit in Copenhagen. The EU asset plan entails “huge amounts of money,” requiring guarantees for “a very long time,” he said.

EU leaders who gathered for a meeting Wednesday in the Danish capital offered a more upbeat assessment, saying that the bid to raise billions for war-battered Ukraine is gathering momentum and concerns would be allayed. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen assured that the risks tied to the plan would land on “broader shoulders.”…