Saturday, September 13, 2025

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UN advisor: “The West forced the war”

The war in Ukraine

  • Prominent economist and geopolitical analyst Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University and long-time advisor to the UN Secretary-General, levels severe criticism at the Western handling of the conflict in Ukraine.
  • The conflict could easily have been avoided with a sincere willingness to compromise on the part of the West, Sachs stresses, pointing out that the war in Ukraine was in fact forced by the eastward expansion of the US and NATO.
Published 8 October 2023
– By Editorial Staff
Jeffrey Sachs slams US foreign policy.
6 minute read

In an interview with journalist Andrew Napolitano, former judge in New Jersey’s state court, Sachs shares his analysis of the war in Ukraine and the historical background to the conflict. The prominent analyst traces the conflict back to at least the late 80s when both the USA and Germany assured that NATO would “not move an inch eastward” in connection with East Germany’s accession to West Germany, in a pledge not to threaten Soviet-Russian security interests. However, this verbal promise was broken almost immediately after the final fall of the Berlin Wall, and the military alliance began to expand towards Russia instead.

I actually go back to the late 80s and early 90s because President Gorbachev asked me to help his economic team. President Yeltsin asked me to help his economic team. President Kuchma, the first president of independent Ukraine, asked me to help his economic team. So I’ve watched this close up, notes Sachs on the origins of the conflict.

He points out that already at that time, judging by influential geopolitical advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission along with finance magnate and ultra-globalist David Rockefeller, there were long-term plans from the West to encircle Russia by expanding NATO all the way to Georgia and Ukraine. Sachs emphasizes that the goal of surrounding Russia in the Black Sea is a strategic concept that can be traced back to the mid-1800s and the Crimean War, where Ukraine has long been viewed as the obvious geographical center of Eurasia.

The idea was that U.S. military forces would be in Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Georgia. And you look at the map, Saba Stoppel, the Russian base in 1783 is right there, and then it’s cornered. And the Russians knew this, and they were saying from the early 90s, “don’t do this”.

Ukraine was seen as a crucial piece in the global chess game by the American geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski. (Montage. Photo: TUBS/US DoD/CC BY-SA 3.0)

“The only red lines are American red lines”

NATO expanded through Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia as well as Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Slovakia – until Russia started to feel increasingly pressured. This led the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, to make clear at the security conference in Munich in 2007 that further NATO expansion couldn’t be accepted. He emphatically warned even then about the danger of an inevitable confrontation if the expansion continued on its current path.

President Putin at the Munich Security Conference really laid it out very clearly. He said, look, you guys promised in 1991, not one inch eastward, all you’re doing is threatening a new conflict stop. Well, I think the defining feature of American foreign policy is arrogance, and they can’t listen. They cannot hear red lines of any other country.

Sachs further notes that throughout the 2000s, the USA systematically carried out influence campaigns in Ukraine to bring the country into NATO. As early as 2004, he observes, the US-financed Orange Revolution took place in Ukraine to bring about a more pro-Western regime change, and in conjunction with this, the USA began publicly declaring that NATO should expand to include Ukraine. A multi-year power struggle ensued in the country, and in 2014, the democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, who advocated for a neutral Ukraine, was overthrown as a result of the so-called Euromaidan protests. These protests followed Yanukovych’s halting of negotiations over a free trade agreement with the EU because Ukraine already had a free trade agreement with Russia, and all three parties needed to resolve the issue before making a decision.

It’s pretty clear in early 2014 that regime change and a typical kind of US covert regime change operation was underway. And I say typical because scholarly studies have shown that just during the Cold War period alone, there were 64 US regime covert regime change operations. This is a, it’s astounding. Serious scholarship has devoted its time to tracing all the times the US overthrows or tries to overthrow other governments. Well, there’s no doubt. The US overthrows Yanukovych, Sachs continues.

The government that subsequently took power in Ukraine, Sachs notes, was handpicked by the United States, as evidenced by a phone recording of Victoria Nuland from the US Department of State, which displayed a very aggressive stance towards the Russian population. In response, Sachs continues, Russia organized referendums in the ethnically Russian part of the Crimea region and annexed Crimea to Russia. The oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk, with a predominantly Russian population, refused to recognize the new regime in the country and declared independence, leading Ukraine to respond with military action—a conflict that has been ongoing since 2014.

– They were demanding the use of the Russian language, the Russian Orthodox Church, the relations with Russia, the family relations, the travel, the open borders, and so forth, Sachs explains.

– The war began with essentially right-wing militaries like the Azov Battalion and so forth. The Banderistas, pretty fascistic ideologies in some cases attacking in the east. And a lot of people died, thousands and thousands of people were being killed, civilians, ethnic Russian civilians, he concludes.

Russia and the West ultimately negotiated two peace agreements, including the Minsk II agreement which was meant to secure autonomy for Donetsk and Luhansk. The agreement was embraced by both the Ukrainian government and the breakaway republics, and it was guaranteed by Germany and France. The agreement also received unanimous support in the UN Security Council, but was never implemented by Ukraine. According to Sachs, Ukrainian and Western leaders never intended to adhere to it. He refers to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s later acknowledgment that the main purpose of the agreement was to buy time to continue arming the Ukrainian military.

The intention of the Minsk agreement was not to achieve consensus – but to arm Ukraine’s army, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Photo: WEF/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

“It’s all terribly dangerous”

As recently as the end of 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a draft security agreement between Russia and the USA, central to which was a halt to NATO expansion to prevent the outbreak of war, a suggestion that was also ignored by American authorities. It was the USA that decided to terminate negotiations between Ukraine and Russia according to Sachs because they did not want to appear “weak” in front of China.

On February 24, 2022, Russia initiated its military operation, which, according to Sachs, was primarily a last desperate attempt to get Western leaders to resume negotiations. According to the main negotiator, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, this was very close to happening until the West decided to withdraw from peace negotiations. Sachs regrets that even at this stage, a diplomatic solution was abandoned in favor of a confrontation that has been particularly devastating for Ukraine.

I know the economic side, that the sanctions weren’t going to work. I understood the diplomatic side. I didn’t know the the military side, but this has been a predictable bloodbath and the Americans have known it, says Sachs, who worries about a full-scale confrontation with the world’s two biggest nuclear powers, the US and Russia.

We’re told, oh, don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it. But I’ve been studying this issue also for decades. We should always worry about what intemperate, dangerous, people in dangerous circumstances can do, how accidents can happen, how we can lose control of events. It’s all terribly dangerous.


Economist with an extensive CV

Jeffrey Sachs is a prominent economist, geopolitical analyst, and economic advisor who has been ranked as one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time Magazine on two occasions. He earned his PhD at the age of 26 and became a professor at Harvard University at just 29 years old, where he spent two decades before taking a position at Columbia University.

Sachs is the chair of the UN Network for Sustainable Development Solutions, co-chair of the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, an academician at the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and a commissioner for the UN Broadband Commission for Development.

He has also previously served as a special advisor to UN Secretary-Generals Kofi Annan, Ban Ki-moon, and Antonio Guterres, assisted Presidents Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Kutma, and has written a number of books that have made it onto American best-seller lists – including The End of Poverty and The Price of Civilization.

In total, Sachs has received 42 honorary doctorates and has also received honorary distinctions from, among others, the Presidents of France and Estonia.

Jeffrey Sachs, far right, at the World Trade Organization Forum. Photo: WTO/CC BY-SA 2.0

Watch the full interview here

The full interview with Andrew Napolitano and Jeffrey Sachs can be viewed here.

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Ukrainian weapons factory in Denmark – citizens barred from appeals

The war in Ukraine

Published 8 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The factory in Skrydstrup, Denmark, will primarily produce rocket fuel for the "Flamingo" cruise missile.
2 minute read

Ukrainian weapons manufacturer Fire Point is establishing a rocket fuel factory in Skrydstrup, Denmark. To expedite the establishment, the Danish government is using a controversial law that bypasses citizens’ right to appeal – and therefore does not need to consider local residents’ concerns.

Just on the other side of the fence from Skrydstrup Air Base, where Denmark’s new F-35 fighter jets are stationed, Ukrainian weapons company Fire Point is set to begin production of solid rocket fuel on December 1st. The announcement came during a press conference with Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen (Liberal Party).

— We are proud to welcome them to Denmark. As a country, we are now contributing to ensuring that Ukraine can fight the important battle against the superior power Russia, claims the minister, who has personally visited the company in Ukraine.

Fire Point is behind Ukraine’s new cruise missile “Flamingo”, which according to reports was recently used against a Russian base in Crimea. The weapon reportedly has a range of 3,000 kilometers and has been described by President Volodymyr Zelensky as the country’s “most successful” missile.

It is precisely the solid rocket fuel for this missile that will now be produced in Skrydstrup, where local residents have expressed strong concerns about potential security risks.

“Dialogue” to reassure citizens

To enable the rapid establishment, the Danish government is using the criticized law that removes citizens’ right to appeal and gives authorities free rein to bypass other laws when a project is deemed to serve essential national defense goals or civil preparedness purposes.

Local residents have reacted with concern about having a rocket fuel factory in their vicinity, and a public meeting is being held on Saturday, where both the defense minister and Business Minister Morten Bødskov (Social Democrats) will meet with worried citizens.

— I understand very well the many concerns that potentially arise in and around Skrydstrup, admits Troels Lund Poulsen.

Haderslev’s mayor Mads Skau (Liberal Party) is trying to balance between the government’s decision and dissatisfied citizens’ concerns.

— We will ensure that it remains safe for citizens to live in the area. We do this through dialogue. I have told the ministers that it is important they keep citizens informed about what is happening.

“Hundreds of jobs”

Business Minister Bødskov is careful to emphasize that the factory will create “several hundred jobs”, primarily for unskilled workers.

Despite using the controversial law, he insists that safety will not be compromised:

— The requirements that exist for safety distances to the surroundings we do not touch. The same applies to requirements for transporting rocket fuel. What applies today will also apply tomorrow.

Von der Leyen: EU could send tens of thousands of soldiers to Ukraine

The war in Ukraine

Published 1 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
According to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, it is obvious that the EU will continue financing Ukraine's military.
3 minute read

European leaders are working on what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calls “quite precise plans” for troop deployments in Ukraine following a potential peace agreement.

However, how this would be financed and what powers the troops would have remains unclear.

In an interview with Financial Times, von der Leyen claims the plans have full American support and that President Trump has promised American presence as backup.

— Security guarantees are paramount and absolutely crucial. We have a clear road map and we had an agreement in the White House and this work is going forward very well, states the European Commission President.

According to the EU leader, the troop deployment could involve tens of thousands of European soldiers, supported by American command and control systems. However, exactly how many countries would participate or what their mandate would be is not clear at present.

The plans are said to have been discussed at last month’s meeting in Washington between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders. The same group is expected to meet again in Paris on September 4th, this time at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Sudden confidence in Trump

After European leaders spent months worrying about Trump’s statements about quickly ending the war and reducing American support to Ukraine, von der Leyen now presents him as a reliable partner.

— Putin has not changed, he is a predator. Trump wants peace and Putin is not coming to the negotiation table. He has a negative experience with Putin, more and more Putin does not do what he says, she claims.

Defense ministers from the so-called coalition are said to have met last week according to von der Leyen and “worked out pretty precise plans”. At the same time, she acknowledges that troop deployments are among the most sensitive decisions a nation can make.

— Deploying troops is one of the most important sovereign decisions of a nation, but the sense of urgency is very high. It’s moving forward. It’s really taking shape, says von der Leyen.

Who will pay the bill?

The EU leader signals that EU taxpayers will have to bear a significant part of the financing of Ukraine’s defense even after a peace agreement. The European Commission will examine new funding sources for what she calls “sustainable financing of the Ukrainian armed forces as a security guarantee”.

— After any peace deal, Kyiv would need quite a sizeable number of soldiers and they need good salaries and of course, modern equipment it’s for sure the EU that will have to chip in, she continues.

In addition to existing support, according to von der Leyen “an extra payment” will be provided for the Ukrainian armed forces. Member countries are also urged to use a loan fund of €150 billion for continued weapons purchases for Ukraine.

Despite the ambitious plans, there are still no answers to fundamental questions about how long a potential deployment would last, under what legal framework it would take place, and what happens if not all EU countries want to participate.

Shocking reports about the Ukrainian army: 1.7 million dead, wounded, and missing

The war in Ukraine

  • Russian hackers claim to have accessed and leaked what they allege is information from the Ukrainian General Staff's databases.
  • According to this information, Ukraine has lost over 1.7 million soldiers in the fighting since 2022 in the form of dead, missing and wounded.
Published 29 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
According to the hackers' claims, the figure represents a total of 621,000 Ukrainian losses so far in 2025.
4 minute read

The hacker groups Killnet, Palach Pro, User Sec and Beregini claim to have gained access to several terabytes of sensitive information by infiltrating computers and local networks of the Ukrainian General Staff. The database allegedly contains full names of dead soldiers, descriptions of circumstances and locations of their deaths or disappearances, personal data, relatives and photos.

According to these figures, Ukraine is said to have lost 118,500 soldiers in 2022, 405,400 in 2023, 595,000 in 2024 and a record-high 621,000 during the first eight months of 2025. In total, this would amount to approximately 1.7 million lost soldiers.

Three wounded for every killed soldier

Grigory Kryukov, vice chairman of the Russian Union of Afghan and Special Operations Veterans and one of the developers of a mathematical model for calculating losses, emphasizes that the figures should be understood as total losses that include not only dead, but also wounded, prisoners of war and deserters.

According to his calculations, the number of irreversible losses – those who will never return to service – amounts to approximately 400,000. The remainder includes over one million wounded and a smaller proportion of deserters.

Kryukov explained that military assessments typically use a ratio of one to three, meaning that for every soldier killed, three others become unable to continue serving through injuries, capture or desertion.

Ukraine is estimated to be able to mobilize between 1.2 and 1.5 million people. Irreversible losses in the region of 400,000 could thus constitute a very serious problem and risk triggering a systemic crisis in the armed forces and even threaten Kiev’s survival.

Ukraine: “Absurd fake”

In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CBS News that only 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since 2022, with an additional 380,000 wounded. The figures from the hackers thus present a completely different picture than the losses previously reported from Kiev.

Analyses of losses in the Ukraine war otherwise vary very significantly, with the Russian military consistently reporting higher losses among Ukrainian soldiers than Western assessments. From Moscow’s side, they claim that losses increased particularly after Kiev’s failed counteroffensive in 2023 and that in February they calculated that more than 1.08 million Ukrainian soldiers had been killed or wounded.

Suspicions that Ukraine has concealed its losses have recently also appeared in conventional mass media in the West. For example, French newspaper Le Monde reported last month that “the real death toll is likely much higher” and cited Ukraine’s increasing efforts to build military cemeteries.

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) under the National Security and Defense Council completely rejects the hackers’ claims, dismissing them as lies.

“Kremlin-controlled propaganda outlets are spreading claims that Russian hackers allegedly breached the General Staff’s database and obtained information about ‘1.7 million dead and missing Ukrainian soldiers’ since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In reality, this is an utterly absurd fake, as Ukraine has never had a standing army of 1.7 million personnel throughout its independence”, writes the CCD in a statement.

“The goal of this fake is to demoralize Ukrainians, convince the world of the ‘exhaustion and ineffectiveness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,’ and weaken international support for Ukraine”, they further declare.

“Lost several generations”

Ukrainian parliamentarian Artem Dmytruk has also commented on the reported losses and his picture differs drastically from Kiev’s official position.

“The lists of the missing today contain more than a million people, and of course these people are most likely dead, while their families remain in complete ignorance. The situation is tragic, the situation is frightening”, said Dmytruk in an interview with Russian RT.

He warned that villages have been emptied of men, including elderly and disabled people, and that Ukraine faces “huge losses” and a “demographic crisis”.

“We have lost several generations”, he said, calling for peace on the grounds that both Ukrainians and Russians are dying unnecessarily.

It can meanwhile be noted that Dmytruk today has a very strained relationship with Zelensky’s government. He fled Ukraine in August 2024 and is currently wanted. The charges concern alleged assault of a soldier and a police officer as well as attempting to steal a weapon. From exile, he has taken an increasingly critical stance toward the Ukrainian government and their handling of the war and has often appeared as an expert commentator regarding Ukraine in Russian media.

Woody Allen added to Ukrainian “kill list”

The war in Ukraine

Published 29 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Woody Allen, 89.
2 minute read

American director and actor Woody Allen has been added to Ukraine’s controversial Mirotvorets list. The reason is said to be his video appearance at a film festival in Moscow.

Woody Allen, 89, has been placed on Ukraine’s disputed Mirotvorets database – also known as the “kill list”. The list describes Allen as an “enemy of Ukraine” and accuses him of participating in “a Russian propaganda event”.

The background is that Allen recently participated via video link in Moscow International Film Week. There he spoke primarily about his long career and his personal experiences as a filmmaker.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry condemned his participation and described it as “a disgrace and an insult to the victims among Ukrainian actors and filmmakers”.

Allen: “Putin is wrong”

As a consequence, the Lviv National Academic Theatre in western Ukraine has canceled planned productions of Allen’s musical Bullets Over Broadway.

The Oscar-winning director has defended his participation and emphasizes that his appearance was not political.

I believe strongly that Putin is totally in the wrong, Allen said, but stressed that artistic conversations should be able to continue.

Mirotvorets has existed since 2014 and lists people considered to threaten Ukraine’s security or participate in Russian propaganda. The site has long been criticized internationally, as several people added to the list have been subjected to threats, violence and even killed.

Banned from Hollywood

Woody Allen has been the subject of allegations of sexual abuse against his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow, which her mother Mia Farrow claims occurred in 1992.

The alleged abuse was investigated at the time by social services and police, but the case was dropped without charges due to lack of evidence.

In connection with the controversial #MeToo movement, the allegations gained new life and sparked extensive debate, although again without any actual legal proceedings taking place.

Allen has since been effectively banned from Hollywood, but has continued to release films internationally, including Rifkin’s Festival (2020) and Coup de chance (2023).

Fact: Mirotvorets "death list"

Mirotvorets, which roughly translates to "peacemaker" or "peacekeeper" in English, is a Ukrainian database that publishes names of individuals considered to threaten Ukraine's security or participate in Russian propaganda. The list was started in 2014 and is highly controversial, criticized for lack of transparency and linked to threats and violence against listed individuals.

Among examples of confirmed and notable names on the list are:

  • Alexander Ovechkin, Russian hockey player, listed for his support of Putin.
  • Roger Waters, musician and activist, after statements supporting Russia's position on Crimea.
  • Gerhard Schröder, former German chancellor, listed for "pro-Russian" statements.
  • Viktor Orbán, Hungary's prime minister, placed on the list in 2022.
  • Zoran Milanović, Croatia's president, added for "pro-Russian" comments.
  • Vasyl Lomachenko and Oleksandr Usyk, Ukrainian boxers, listed after participating in Russian projects.
  • Anatolij Shariy, Ukrainian opposition politician and journalist.

Sources: Wikipedia ("Myrotvorets"), UNIAN, OSCE, Human Rights Watch.

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