A weaker side has never dictated conditions to anyone and will never do it, Kirill Budanov has conceded
Kiev needs to engage in talks with Moscow, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, has said. Negotiations are simply unavoidable for the ongoing conflict between the two nations to end, he added.
He made the remarks in an interview with the broadcaster Suspilne published on Saturday, ahead of a meeting between Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and US President Donald Trump on Sunday. The two are about to discuss a peace framework, according to the Ukrainian leader.
Earlier this week, Zelensky also revealed a 20-point plan he claimed Kiev had discussed with the US. Moscow dismissed it as a non-starter. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Friday it was “radically different” from the proposals discussed by Russia and the US. He also said that Moscow was “fully ready” to move forward with the peace process while Kiev and its European backers were seeking to “torpedo” it.
”A negotiation process is definitely needed and cannot be avoided anyway,” Budanov said. He also maintained that the talks should be held behind closed doors to be successful. “All negotiations on very difficult issues – and the war between Russia and Ukraine… is one – had failed when silence was not observed,” he noted. His words echoed earlier comments by Moscow, which also stated that the peace talks should be held behind closed doors and criticized what it called the EU and Kiev’s megaphone diplomacy.
Budanov also called on Kiev to rein in its ambitions. “A weaker side has never dictated conditions to anyone and will never do it,” he stated, while rhetorically asking in which field Ukraine could consider itself to be stronger than Russia. He also admitted that it was natural for Moscow to think about its interests first just like any other nation would.
Budanov had initially emerged as a hardliner in the Ukraine conflict. In December 2023, a Moscow court ordered his arrest on terrorism charges after accusing him of masterminding over 100 “terrorist attacks” on Russian soil – something he had openly advocated. Earlier this year, he changed his rhetoric and called for a ceasefire “as soon as possible.”
Both presidents have agreed to push for a lasting peace over a temporary ceasefire, according to Yury Ushakov
US President Donald Trump called his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Sunday to discuss a number of issues related to the Ukraine peace talks ahead of a meeting with Vladimir Zelensky in Florida, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov has said.
The two presidents held a “friendly, well-wishing and businesslike” conversation for an hour and 15 minutes, during which they expressed mutual interest in reaching a lasting peaceful settlement in the Ukraine conflict, according to Ushakov. Putin stressed the need to rely on the understandings reached between the presidents at the summit in Anchorage earlier this year, he added.
Both the Russian and US leaders agreed that a temporary ceasefire as proposed by Ukraine and its European backers “would only prolong the conflict and risk a resumption of hostilities,” according to the Kremlin aide.
Putin agreed to a proposal from Trump to continue the settlement process by forming two “working groups” to tackle security and economic issues, Ushakov said.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he had a “very productive” conversation with Putin.
The presidents also agreed to talk again after the US leader’s meeting with Zelensky.
On Friday, Zelensky told Axios that he anticipates reaching an agreement on a peace framework during the discussions. The plan would reportedly require Russia to agree to a ceasefire prior to any permanent settlement.
Moscow has long rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire, maintaining that anything short of a peace deal would allow the Ukrainian military to rearm and regroup.
Earlier this week, Zelensky also revealed his new 20-point peace proposal, which he claimed had been discussed with US officials. Moscow dismissed it as a non-starter, calling it radically different from the plan discussed by Russia and the US.
On Saturday, Putin said during a meeting with top generals that some “smart people” in the West were offering Kiev “decent” peace terms that included “good framework security guarantees,” an economic recovery scheme, and a roadmap for restoring relations with Russia. However, Kiev is still in “no rush” to settle peacefully despite the favorable terms, he said.
If the Ukrainian authorities eschew a peaceful resolution, Russia will achieve its goals on the battlefield, Putin warned.
A Soyuz rocket successfully blasted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome on Sunday
A Russian Soyuz-2.1b rocket has successfully launched 52 satellites into orbit, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos reported on Sunday. The payload included three Iranian remote-sensing satellites.
The three-stage rocket, also carrying two Russian Aist-2T satellites, blasted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the country’s Far East and was broadcast live.
Vahid Yazdanian, head of the Iranian Space Research Institute, told IRNA that their low-orbit observation satellites will take images that can be used in agriculture, water resources management, and environmental protection.
The joint Russian-Iranian initiative is part of a growing civil space cooperation program between the two countries.
Moscow and Tehran signed a 20-year comprehensive strategic partnership agreement in early 2025, which encompasses space and peaceful energy, science and technology collaboration.
The UK’s crackdown on protests against the Gaza genocide is the worst example of the authoritarian trend evident in Western Europe
The UK is witnessing the largest and most significant prison hunger strike since 1981. Since the beginning of November, a total of eight activists in pretrial detention for standing up against the Gaza Genocide, have been protesting against Israel’s continuing mass murder, Britain’s complicity, and their own abusive and petty treatment by, as it happens, the same infamous legal and incarceration system that used to torture Julian Assange on behalf of the US.
The hunger strikers’ demands also include releasing documents showing how Britain’s extremely powerful Israel Lobby has been influencing the government and an end to the absurd proscription of the activists’ own Palestine Action organization as ‘terrorist.’
The charges against the activists refer to two cases: the break-in at a British branch of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems and infiltration of a Royal Air Force base to damage two planes with red paint and crowbars. Elbit is one of the many Israeli and multinational companies that are deeply involved in Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its ceaseless other crimes elsewhere, as UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has shown in her recent report“From economy of occupation to economy of genocide.”
Britain’s Royal Air Force has besmirched itself by flying reconnaissance missions over Gaza, supporting Israel and its genocide there. Official denials, insisting that these operations have exclusively served the rescuing of hostages, are “preposterous,” as Matt Kennard who has been tracking and analyzing the flights systematically has concluded. In addition, since the flights are embedded in Israeli intelligence gathering, which is notorious for routinely relying on torture, the flights also make the UK an accomplice to that specific crime.
Ages ago, as an undergraduate history student at Oxford, I could see with my own eyes the great, persisting pride still attached to the memory of Britain’s ‘finest hour,’ when the country faced off against the threat of invasion by a surging Nazi Germany that had just mauled France. Over a thousand brave Spitfire pilots who fought in World War Two must now be turning in their graves. They defended their country against a fascist, genocidal German regime. Now the Royal Air Force is helping a Zionist, genocidal Israeli regime commit mass murder.
What an incredible shame. By now – very, very late – some former officers of high rank, and with a minimum of a conscience and a sense of honor left, are finally raising their voices to demand that Britain end its self-degrading support for and cooperation with Israel.
The core of terrorism for reasonable people, is the deliberate use of violence against civilians, usually on a large scale, to produce a climate of fear and insecurity in pursuit of political aims. That definition does not cover – by any stretch of the imagination – what Palestine Action has been doing. Treating its activists as the equivalent of Al Qaeda and ISIS operatives is ludicrous. Indeed, the normal definition of terrorism is a much better fit for Israel’s behavior, which uses extreme violence against civilians in pursuit of a strategy of ethnic cleansing.
The hunger strike has faced official stone-walling, with Justice Secretary David Lammy quite literally ducking away from the participants’ relatives. As always now in NATO Europe, the mainstream media have followed the government line to the extent of almost maintaining a blackout. Physically exhausted and at high risk of dying, some of the activists have recently suspended their hunger strike, others are continuing. Meanwhile, they have found public support despite the severe risk of police-state repression by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s regime.
For the Starmer regime is engaged not ‘merely’ in viciously going after a few to make examples of them, even while risking their death in detention. Rather it is applying a strategy of mass repression. According to Amnesty International, 2,700 peaceful protesters have been arrested simply for daring to protest the banning of Palestine Action. This “is a violation of the UK’s international obligations [and] disproportionate to the point of absurdity,” they point out.
Often, those arrested, including the elderly, infirm, and impaired, are picked up for holding up a sign. This is not even ‘draconian,’ it is vile. It is the opposite of fair play. Those British police officers executing these orders now will face their own children’s questions of how they could stoop so low, if not now, then in a few years. No less than those Berlin police officers who have been impressing at beating up anti-genocide protesters. Mumbling “just following orders” and “we didn’t know any better” won’t be enough.
In addition, critical journalists, a former member of parliament, NHS doctors, and others have been hounded by the same British police-state methods, using the pretext of anti-terrorism policing for political repression designed to cover the Starmer regime’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.
But now a group of seven UN experts have called on this regime to not only respect the “fundamental rights” and protect the very lives of the hunger strikers, but note that reports of ill-treatment “raise serious questions about compliance with international human rights law and standards, including obligations to protect life and prevent cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
The same experts have “previously raised concerns with the UK Government regarding the application of counter-terrorism and security frameworks to acts of political protest that are not genuinely terrorist […] and warned against the criminalization of conduct that falls within the protected exercise of the rights to freedom of assembly, association, and expression, and the suppression of legitimate political dissent, including advocacy related to Palestine.”
Inevitably, these UN experts “have also expressed serious concern” about the Starmer regime’s bizarrely broad definition of terrorism, “the proscription of Palestine Action […] and the subsequent mass arrests and criminal charges, including terrorism-related offenses, brought against individuals for alleged support for Palestine Action.”
Keir Starmer knows what he is doing. He prides himself on being a human rights lawyer by training, which is a perverse choice for a power-hungry man without a conscience. One who runs a de facto police and propaganda state, and once misinformed the British public that Israel had a “right” to impose on Gaza what he must have known amounted to a starvation siege. But it still means he is in a position to understand just how wrong he and his regime are. That is one reason this is not a mere ‘scandal.’ It’s much worse. It’s evil, in the old, absolute sense of the word.
Britain now has an evil regime, led by evil men and evil women, supported by corrupt mainstream media, all under the influence of an Israel Lobby that promotes the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.
The hunger strikers are a small, emblematic group of men and women who have done what, since the Holocaust, we have all been told to do if similar crimes ever happen again and our own government is committing them or complicit in them: resist as best we can. They represent a much larger number of decent and courageous British citizens who also resist and often pay a heavy price.
Britain’s regime is abject. There is no hope for leaders who have lost their way so badly. It is also by no means alone in NATO-EU Europe. The trend toward authoritarian information control and suppression of dissent is everywhere, from Berlin to Brussels to London. If there is hope, it lies in the protesters.
Kiev’s European backers do not care about the issue as long as they can use Kiev against Moscow, the Russian foreign minister has said
European nations supporting Ukraine cannot be unaware of the scale of corruption in the country because of all of the scandals that have broken out recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Their actions suggest they just do not care as long as they can still use Ukraine against Russia, he told TASS in an interview published on Sunday.
Ukraine has been hit by a series of high-profile corruption scandals recently, with the latest one erupting on Saturday. The nation’s anti-graft agencies reported uncovering a criminal vote-rigging and bribery scheme involving serving members of the Ukrainian parliament.
Last month, the anti-corruption bodies revealed another scheme involving a close associate of Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, Timur Mindich. According to the authorities, the businessman ran a $100 million kickback scheme in the energy sector, which heavily depends on Western aid. The scandal cost two ministers and Zelensky’s influential chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, their positions but did not change the EU’s approach towards providing funding to Kiev.
Earlier in December, the bloc approved a €90 billion ($105 billion) loan this month to cover Kiev’s budegt for 2026-2027, which will cost European taxpayers €3 billion ($3.5 billion) in borrowing costs annually.
“Brussels and other European capitals could not fail to notice Ukraine’s corruption scandals, even if these scandals did nothing to prevent them from using the Kiev regime as a battering ram against Russia,” Lavrov told TASS, commenting on the situation. “Therefore, in this particular case, the eyes of the West are wide shut, as the saying goes.”
Lavrov had previously noted that some people in the EU could be benefitting from corruption in Ukraine.
The EU’s actions drew criticism from some of the bloc’s members. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated in early December that Brussels did not want to expose Ukrainian corruption because it was “also riddled with a similar corruption network.”
Some EU nations even cut aid to other countries to focus on Ukraine. Sweden announced in December that it would discontinue aid to Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Liberia, and Bolivia to provide more funds to Kiev.
RT looks into the new tools at the disposal of the Russian military
Over the past year, Russia has unveiled multiple new weaponry systems, including those actively used in the Ukraine conflict, as well as new additions to the country’s strategic deterrent arsenal.
The new weapons include futuristic nuclear-capable and nuclear-propelled systems, anti-satellite weaponry, and glide bombs of exceptional range.
RT highlights the key 2025 additions to the country’s arsenal.
Oreshnik goes online
Russia’s cutting-edge medium-range Oreshnik hypersonic missile system is set to enter active duty before the end of the year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in mid-December. The system is among the new weaponry meant to “ensure the strategic parity, security, and global positions of Russia for decades to come,” the president said.
The nuclear-capable missile is believed to carry multiple individually targetable warheads, which retain control even during the final approach stage when they reach hypersonic speeds.
Oreshnik was unveiled in November 2024, when the missile – carrying conventional warheads – struck a major military plant in Ukraine. At the time, Moscow said the system had undergone a successful “combat test.” Its destructive power in conventional form has been compared by Russian officials to a low-yield nuclear strike.
Up to ten new systems are set to be deployed to Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, according to an agreement reached by Moscow and Minsk shortly after the initial battle test of the missile.
Burevestnik nuclear-propelled missile
In mid-October, Russia successfully tested its new nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile. The missile traveled more than 14,000km during the test and stayed airborne for about 15 hours, according to the Russian military.
The Burevestnik boasts a nuclear-powered turbojet engine and technically has unlimited range, which gives it unmatched global strike capabilities. Since its engine does not use any conventional propellant, relying on intake air and the heat generated by its reactor instead, it can remain in the air for extended periods, effectively limited only by the lifetime of its components.
The missile’s power unit is comparable in output to the reactor of nuclear-propelled submarines, albeit “1,000 times smaller,” President Putin said as he announced the successful test.
“The key thing is that while a conventional nuclear reactor starts up in hours, days, or even weeks, this nuclear reactor starts up in minutes or seconds. That’s a giant achievement,” the president said, pointing out the miniature power unit could also see potential civilian applications.
Simultaneously with the Burevestnik announcement, Moscow said it had successfully tested another nuclear-powered device – the massive torpedo-shaped Poseidon underwater drone.
In terms of power, Poseidon greatly surpasses Russia’s newest Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Putin said, apparently referring to the yield of the nuclear payload the drone can carry. Poseidon is also unrivaled “when it comes to speed and depth,” while being exceptionally quiet and stealthy, according to the president.
The drone is believed to be a true doomsday device, capable of devastating vast swaths of shoreline, as well as of causing a massive nuclear-tainted tsunami to go deeper inland.
Days after the announcement, Russia launched a dedicated carrier for Poseidon drones – nuclear submarine the ‘Khabarovsk’. The vessel had been in the works since summer 2014, and its purpose was revealed only now.
Over the course of the Ukraine conflict, the Russian military has gradually expanded the use of free-fall bombs fitted with Universal Correction and Guidance Module (UMPK) upgrade kits. The modules turn older munitions into glide bombs, capable of traveling up to 50km while boasting high precision.
Early this year, the Russian military began using an upgraded variant of the kit, known as UMPK-PD (extended range). Bombs fitted with the kit, which features more sleek wings and a body with larger tail fins, are reportedly capable of traveling distances of up to 80km.
Starting from September, multiple media reports suggested that the upgraded kit received a turbojet engine, which extended the range of the bombs even further to at least 150km. The expanded range allows them to strike targets deep beyond the front line, greatly expanding the capabilities of Russia’s frontline aviation and effectively turning the free-fall bombs into heavy cruise missiles.
Geran drone family grows
Over the past year, the Geran (Geranium) drone family has continued to grow, with multiple new variants undergoing combat testing. The delta-wing drones are playing an increasingly important role during the Ukraine conflict, becoming a key supplement for long-range missile strikes, as well as commonly substituting such sophisticated munitions.
The drones are produced at a sprawling manufacturing facility in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Russia’s Tatarstan Region. The facility was built from scratch after the escalation of the hostilities and has been touted as the largest drone manufacturing site in the world.
While the basic piston-propelled Geran-2 drone remains the backbone of the drone family, multiple new experimental variants have been spotted over the years. A new jet-propelled variant, known as Geran-3, has frequently been sighted during long-range strikes against Ukraine. More niche variants spotted over the year include a mine-layer Geran, which carries air-deployed cluster mines under its belly, and drones featuring cameras that can be apparently controlled in real time, as well as other variants.
The most exotic new variant of Geran reportedly emerged late in 2025 – an anti-aircraft drone carrying a homing missile to strike warplanes and helicopters trying to hunt it down. While it remains to be seen whether the idea actually works, the Geran family already has a handful of air victories against Ukrainian warplanes. Several fighter jets have been lost while hunting Gerans due to pilot error, friendly fire from the ground, and mid-air explosions of drones.
First S-500 regiment deployed
In late December, Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov revealed that the country’s military has deployed its first anti-aircraft regiment equipped with sophisticated S-500 systems. The regiment has become a unit within the freshly formed first air and missile defense division of the Russian Aerospace Forces, the minister said.
While little is still known about the new air defense system, the S-500 is said to be able to intercept hypersonic missiles and also strike targets in low Earth orbit, depending on the munition used. The system has been in development since the 2000s and is expected to supplement, rather than replace, the existing medium-to-long-range anti-aircraft weapons, such as the S-300 and S-400.
The S-500 is believed to fill an intermediate role between the strategic anti-missile shield and the army anti-aircraft forces. The system has successfully passed trials, and munitions of different types for it have reportedly entered the mass production stage since the early 2020s.
The exposé adds to a widening scandal over fraud in the state’s social programs linked to the local Somali community
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has come under renewed scrutiny after a YouTuber exposed alleged $110 million childcare and healthcare fraud in the state, adding fuel to a wider scandal over social service scams linked to the local Somali community.
A 42-minute video posted on X and YouTube on Friday by independent reporter Nick Shirley shows him visiting several Minnesota childcare and healthcare centers, including a Minneapolis site with a misspelled sign reading “Quality Learing Center.” The footage shows no visible activity despite the center being registered for 99 children and having reportedly received about $4 million in state funds.
Another segment shows Shirley visiting a building listed as housing 14 healthcare companies, none of which appears operational, before police escort him from the premises.
“Tim Walz and the fraudsters aren’t escaping this one,” Shirley wrote on X. “In one day my crew and I uncovered over $110 million in fraud – this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
🚨 Here is the full 42 minutes of my crew and I exposing Minnesota fraud, this might be my most important work yet. We uncovered over $110,000,000 in ONE day. Like it and share it around like wildfire! Its time to hold these corrupt politicians and fraudsters accountable
The video quickly went viral, prompting lawmakers and other high-profile figures to demand answers from Minnesota authorities and Walz personally.
“4 million dollars of hard-earned tax dollars going to an education center that can’t even spell learning correctly. Care to explain this one, Tim Walz?” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, the third-ranking House Republican and a Minnesota congressman, wrote on X on Saturday.
4 million dollars of hard earned tax dollars going to and an education center that can’t even spell learning correctly.
“Folks need to be arrested and prosecuted and the Governor of Minnesota needs to be held accountable,” Rep. Mike Lawler, R-NY, posted.
Donald Trump Jr. urged followers to watch the footage in full, writing on X: “This is what they’re doing to your country with your tax dollars!!!” Billionaire Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk also shared the video, captioning his post: “Prosecute @GovTimWalz.”
If you haven’t watched this yet. Watch it. All of it. Understand that this is what journalists are supposed to do, but no one in the mainstream media will even bother to look let alone actually publish it. This is what they’re doing to your country with your tax dollars!!! https://t.co/kmZKnI3QWY
The backlash comes as Walz’s administration grapples with billions of dollars in alleged social services fraud, including at least $1 billion tied to programs largely involving Minnesota’s Somali-American community. Reports suggest that some fraudulent payments were routed overseas through informal networks, with millions possibly ending up outside the US, including with Al-Shabaab, the Somalia-based Al-Qaeda-linked terror group. Multiple federal, state, and congressional bodies are investigating the allegations.
While Walz has pledged to jail fraudsters and launch a statewide scam prevention program with forensic auditors, President Donald Trump slammed him as “seriously retarded” and labeled Minnesota under his leadership “a hub of fraudulent money laundering.” He also announced he was ending Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in Minnesota, the legal safeguard against deportation for certain immigrants. Vice President J.D. Vance weighed in on the scandal on Saturday, calling the situation in Minnesota “a microcosm of the immigration fraud in our system.”
What's happening in Minnesota is a microcosm of the immigriation fraud in our system. Politicans like it because they get power. Welfare cheats like it because they get rich.
But it's a zero sum game, and they're stealing both money and political power from Minnesotans. https://t.co/AHLc0QuaiP
Shifting its focus away from global leadership, the United States is now claiming special rights in neighboring regions
If there was a single theme tying American foreign policy together in 2025, it would be a decisive shift away from the rhetoric of ‘global leadership’ toward an unapologetic assertion of privilege within its own geopolitical neighborhood. Donald Trump is ending the year much as he began it, signalling that Washington intends to redefine the way power is organized across regions.
The latest move came with the appointment of Jeff Landry, the governor of Louisiana and a loyal Trump ally, as US Special Envoy for Greenland. His mandate is explicit: find a way to bring this autonomous Danish territory into the United States. Trump floated this idea well before returning to the White House and has not retreated from it since.
How such an ambition sits with international law is, from Trump’s perspective, beside the point. The practical obstacles are immense: Denmark is outraged, most Greenlanders oppose the idea, and the prospect of one NATO member forcibly acquiring territory from another is inconceivable. On its own, the Greenland gambit might look like another eccentric flourish, but in the broader context of 2025, it reflects a deeper shift in the structure of international relations.
During the high period of liberal globalization, proximity was treated as a secondary factor. New technologies appeared to dissolve distance; partnerships could be forged across the world as easily as across a border. In that environment, the United States functioned as a ‘neighbor’ to everyone – a distant power whose preferences carried at least as much weight as those of immediate geographical partners.
The logic was summed up neatly by a Central Asian leader in the early 2000s, who remarked that his country had “three great neighbors: Russia, China, and the United States.” Washington’s influence was treated as naturally global. Some countries tried to balance between these powers. Others leaned eagerly toward their far-off protector, only to later discover that neglecting real neighbors carries its own political cost.
The Trump administration has broken with this philosophy. First in rhetoric, then in practice, and finally in doctrine.
At the start of the year, the White House began openly designating Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal as areas of special strategic concern. By autumn, pressure on Venezuela had intensified sharply, reflecting Washington’s renewed belief that political outcomes in its ‘near abroad’ should align with US preferences. And in December, the shift was codified in the new National Security Strategy, which formally revived a Trump-era reinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine as the organizing principle of US foreign policy.
Announced two centuries ago, James Monroe’s doctrine proclaimed the Western Hemisphere closed to European intervention. Although framed in anti-colonial language, it institutionalized the division of the world into spheres of influence, with South America effectively declared Washington’s backyard. However, open reference to this approach became unfashionable after 1945. The UN system elevated the ideas of sovereign equality and non-interference, at least at the level of public discourse.
Trump is not constrained by such niceties. Legal norms and diplomatic conventions do not shape his worldview – which is precisely what makes the current moment so revealing. Instead of presenting itself as a benevolent global manager, Washington now asserts privileged rights in its immediate region and treats the rest of the world as secondary.
This transformation has deeper roots than Trump’s temperament. The pandemic was a turning point. The sudden collapse of international connections in 2020 exposed how fragile long supply chains and sprawling interdependencies can be. In a moment of crisis, the only reliable partners were those physically close by. The world eventually recovered from the initial shock, but the strategic lesson remained: long-distance integration can disappear overnight, whether due to health emergencies, sanctions, political conflict, or economic pressure.
Now, every serious power plans for such disruptions, while prioritizing what is geographically and logistically secure. Security, broadly understood, increasingly outweighs market rationality. In this sense, 2025 marks a milestone in reordering priorities.
Power is no longer imagined as projecting from the top down through sprawling alliances and global institutions. Instead, it is being rebuilt from the ground up: first the neighborhood, then the region, then everything else.
The United States has set the tone, but it is far from alone. Israel is attempting to redraw the political landscape of the Middle East to guarantee what it considers existential security. Turkey is pursuing a trans-regional expansion framed through the language of the Turkic world. Other countries are moving in similar directions. Territory matters again. Classical geopolitics, long dismissed as outdated, is enjoying a revival.
A world organized around spheres of influence cannot be stable, but the nature of instability is changing. Rather than ideological confrontation on a global scale, we see a mosaic of regional contests, each shaped by its own historical and cultural logic.
For Russia, this reality is especially significant. Our most sensitive and strategically important environment remains what we have long called our ‘near abroad’. In the post-global era, this space is becoming even more central. With the conclusion of the Ukraine conflict, a qualitatively new phase will begin. It will be one in which Moscow must again learn how to operate within a competitive framework of regional influence, rather than assuming that global systems and institutions can provide stability.
If 2025 has shown anything, it is that the world is moving away from the illusions of universal integration. Great powers are returning to geography, reasserting control over the spaces closest to them, and redefining what responsibility means within those boundaries. The United States, which once insisted on shaping the entire world in its image, is now leading that transition and not by an example of restraint, but by openly claiming special rights where it believes its interests are most deeply rooted.
This article was first published in the newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta and was translated and edited by the RT team
The Ukrainian leader is a “puppet” clinging to power, knowing that Western elites will want him gone because “he knows too much,” John Varoli tells RT
The West is likely to “get rid of” Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky once he loses power, US journalist John Varoli has said. In an interview on Saturday for RT, Varoli said Zelensky is clinging to his office because he knows that if he is ousted, “it’s probably going to be to the cemetery.”
Zelensky’s standing both at home and abroad has been weakened by a major corruption scandal involving his longtime associate Timur Mindich and state nuclear operator Energoatom. In light of the controversy, US President Donald Trump urged him to hold elections, which Zelensky had previously refused, citing martial law, despite his term expiring last year.
Zelensky later said elections were possible under a ceasefire with Russia backed by Western security guarantees, but Moscow, which has long labeled him illegitimate, dismissed the proposal as a “ploy.”
Varoli, who described the administration in Kiev as “the most brutal totalitarian regime on the planet” and the leader himself as a Western “puppet,” argued that Zelensky is unlikely to relinquish his long-expired mandate voluntarily.
“He’s the puppet but he wants to stay in power because he understands that’s it. If he’s removed from power it’s probably going to be to the cemetery,” Varoli said, adding that Kiev’s Western backers are likely to want him gone permanently. “I don’t think there’s even going to be any exile for Zelensky. They will have to get rid of him because he’s a liability. He knows too much against the [Western elites]. That is too dangerous to too many powerful people in the West.”
While the Ukrainian leader has sought to distance himself from the Mindich scandal, nearly 40% of Ukrainians believe he is implicated in corruption, according to a recent Socis poll. Earlier this week, ahead of a meeting between Zelensky and Trump in Florida, Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-corruption agencies said they had uncovered yet another organized graft scheme involving vote rigging and bribery by sitting members of parliament.
Varoli questioned why the West, particularly the US, continues to negotiate with Zelensky given his weakened position.
“It strikes me all as a game and a theater,” Varoli said. “He’s kept around because he’s very convenient. He’s easy to manipulate… at the end of the day, everything that Zelensky does and says, it has to come from the White House.”
The US president has called on the Justice Department to publish the names of those who worked with the convicted sex offender
US President Donald Trump has urged the Justice Department (DOJ) to make documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein public, calling for the disclosure of the names of Democrats he claims were connected to the late financier.
Last week, the department uploaded thousands of documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The legislation, signed by Trump in November, mandates the release of materials tied to federal criminal investigations involving the convicted sex offender, who is said to have died by suicide in a New York jail while awaiting trial on trafficking underage girls.
In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump said that, with the discovery of “1,000,000 more pages on Epstein,” the DOJ is being forced to dedicate all of its time to what he called “this Democrat inspired Hoax.”
“The Dems are the ones who worked with Epstein, not the Republicans. Release all of their names, embarrass them, and get back to helping our Country!” he wrote, without naming specific individuals.
Previously released court records include documents and testimony referencing several prominent figures, including Trump and former US President Bill Clinton.
Those materials describe flights involving Clinton in 2002, including a trip from Novosibirsk to Khabarovsk and a separate journey with stops in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The former president has maintained that he was unaware of Epstein’s criminal activities and severed ties years before the financier’s arrest.
Trump, who has acknowledged a past social relationship with Epstein but distanced himself after his crimes became public, is also cited in records detailing flights he took on Epstein’s private jet.
The Justice Department has said allegations involving Trump contained in the Epstein files were “untrue and sensationalist” claims submitted to the FBI ahead of the 2020 election, adding that they would have been “weaponized against President Trump already” if they had any credibility.
