Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Georgian intelligence investigates planned coup d’état

Published 28 July 2024
– By Editorial Staff
Bidzina Ivanishvili speaks during a party meeting.
2 minute read

Georgia’s National Intelligence Service confirms that it has launched an investigation into an alleged plot by “former high officials” to “violently overthrow” the government and assassinate Bidzina Ivanishvili, honorary chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party.

While details are scarce, at least six people have reportedly been summoned for questioning, and local media report links to Ukraine. Georgians living in Ukraine have also been accused of plotting a coup against the government in Tbilisi.

“The aim of the criminal activities is to violently overthrow the state government by destructive forces in the midst of creating unrest in the country and weakening the government”, a statement said.

“Active investigations and operative-search measures are underway in which specific persons are sent to the investigative body for questioning”, it added, according to Al Jazeera.

The statement accused “former high officials” of being behind the plot, and local media reported links to Ukraine. In the past, unnamed Georgians living in Ukraine have also been accused of plotting a coup.

The Georgian government has good relations with Moscow and Bidzina Ivanishvili, who has been identified as the main target of the coup plotters and is the country’s richest man. He founded the ruling party in 2012, served as prime minister between 2012 and 2013, and is still believed to have considerable influence over the party.

Limiting “foreign influence”

The allegations of a planned coup come shortly after Georgia introduced a law to limit “foreign influence” over the country – requiring media outlets, NGOs and other non-profit groups to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad.

The government says the law is necessary to curb malicious foreign actors seeking to destabilize the country in various ways – but its critics say it is instead aimed at limiting independent media coverage and debate ahead of parliamentary elections later this fall.

Opponents have dubbed it the “Russian law” because it resembles in many ways recent measures pushed by the Kremlin to counter what they say are influence campaigns by media and organizations serving foreign interests.

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Trump urges Zelensky to attack Moscow

The war in Ukraine

Published today 6:55
– By Editorial Staff
2 minute read

Donald Trump has secretly urged Ukraine to carry out attacks against the Russian major cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg – as a strategy to force Russia to the negotiating table, according to the Financial Times.

The conversation reportedly took place on July 4 between American and Ukrainian representatives, where Trump posed direct questions to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky:

– Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow? . . . Can you hit St Petersburg too?

According to the newspaper’s sources, the plan is to make Russia “feel pain” in order to pressure a settlement. Trump has previously expressed frustration over the war’s duration and said:

– I’m disappointed in President Putin because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago.

At the same time, it is reported that Zelensky has received a list of long-range weapons that Trump wants to deliver through intermediaries – to circumvent Congress’s ban on direct military aid.

Escalation in the war

The revelations come at a sensitive time. The Kremlin has repeatedly warned that Russia could strike against the West if its weapons are used against Russian territory.

President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Russia has the right to “use our weapons against military facilities in countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities”.

In November 2024, Russia tightened its nuclear doctrine, which now allows nuclear response if Russia is attacked with conventional weapons by “non-nuclear states supported by nuclear powers”.

So far, Ukraine has primarily used domestically produced long-range drones in its attacks inside Russia. Neither the White House nor the Ukrainian government has commented on the revelation.

Over 100 killed in Gaza over the weekend

The situation in Gaza

Published 14 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Ruins after bombings in Gaza, archive image.
1 minute read

On Saturday alone, at least 70 people were killed in Gaza and 208 were injured, reports the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

At least 40 more people were killed in new attacks on Sunday, including six children who were killed at a drinking water distribution point, according to a spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defense authority to AFP. Representatives from Al-Awda Hospital confirm that they received ten bodies following an Israeli attack on a water collection point in nearby Nuseirat. Hospital staff estimate that the actual death toll is 129 and that 33 of those killed were queuing for humanitarian aid.

The Israeli military, which has recently intensified its operations in Gaza, has according to Defense Minister Israel Katz received orders to establish a concentration camp that they refer to as a “humanitarian city” in the southern part of Gaza, where they aim to eventually house Gaza’s entire population.

According to health authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza, the death toll now exceeds 58,000 people.

North Korea declares “full support” for Russia

The war in Ukraine

Published 14 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during their meeting in Wonsan, North Korea.
1 minute read

North Korea is providing its “unconditional support” to Russia in the war against Ukraine. This was declared during a meeting between Kim Jong-Un and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Wonsan on Saturday, according to North Korean state media.

Kim Jong-Un informed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the country stands ready to provide strong assistance in the conflict against Ukraine during a meeting that took place on Saturday in the coastal town of Wonsan on North Korea’s east coast, a location that the country has recently attempted to market as a tourist destination.

According to the North Korean news agency KCNA, Kim Jong-Un told Lavrov that North Koreans have “expressed full sympathy and support for all the measures taken by the Russian government to remove the root cause of the Ukrainian conflict”.

The North Korean leader is also said to have expressed his “firm conviction that the Russian army and people” will triumph and “achieve the sacred cause of defending the country’s dignity and fundamental interests”, KCNA reports.

Before the meeting with Kim Jong-Un, Lavrov met with his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Choe Son-Hui, earlier in the day.

Deepened military cooperation

Lavrov’s visit to North Korea marks increasingly extensive military and political ties between the two countries, which have accelerated in connection with the war in Ukraine.

Pyongyang has previously sent thousands of soldiers to the Russian border region of Kursk to participate in fighting against Ukrainian forces that occupied parts of the area.

War hawk: Trump will send “record amounts of weapons” to Ukraine

The war in Ukraine

Published 14 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
War hawk Lindsey Graham with Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo to the right in a meeting in Helsinki, Finland in August last year.
2 minute read

The US will send more weapons than ever to Ukraine. These are the tones being heard around the Trump administration as NATO chief Mark Rutte now visits Washington.

A large part of Trump’s voter base is generally considered to be voters who voted for him in hopes that he would reduce US involvement in foreign wars, partly because he promised during the campaign that he would end the war in 24 hours. However, these promises seem to be becoming increasingly distant for the American president.

On Monday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is scheduled to meet Trump in Washington, and Rutte can be pleased that more weapons than ever are now heading to the war in Ukraine. This according to information from, among others, the neoconservative war hawk Lindsey Graham, Republican senator and close ally of the Trump administration.

In the coming days, you’ll see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves, says Graham on CBS’s program “Face the Nation”.

European countries foot the bill

A central part of the escalation is that NATO countries, including Sweden, have pledged to increase their weapons purchases, which in practice are largely procured from the American military-industrial complex.

Graham believes that the US escalation of weapons deliveries to the war in Ukraine is part of a “massive effort” to force Russian President Vladimir Putin into peace negotiations. It should be added that Russia has in many different contexts over a long time emphasized that they have been open to negotiations as well as being open about their peace conditions, which primarily revolve around guarantees of Ukraine’s neutrality.

Trump has signaled that he will make a “major statement” about Russia during the day.

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