Saturday, July 19, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

US sends depleted uranium to Ukraine

The war in Ukraine

Published 8 September 2023
– By Editorial Staff
The ammunition will be used for M1 Abrams tanks.
3 minute read

Human rights groups, doctors and scientists have long been calling for a ban on depleted uranium weapons after warnings that they pose a major long-term danger to civilians and could lead to birth defects and cancer.

Despite this, the Biden administration is now choosing to send depleted uranium munitions to the war in Ukraine.

It has been 20 years since the US invasion of Iraq, but children are still being born with severe deformities and defects. These include neurological problems, congenital heart disease and paralyzed or missing limbs. The affected children often also have elevated levels of radioactive substances in their bodies.

The deformities are thought to be caused by the extensive use of depleted uranium and thorium weapons by the US during the 2003 invasion. Children born near the US-controlled Tallil Air Base are particularly affected by severe defects and disabilities.

– Doctors are regularly encountering anomalies in babies that are so gruesome they cannot even find precedents for them. The war has spread so much radiation here that, unless it is cleaned up, generations of Iraqis will continue to be affected, explained researcher Mozhgan Savabieasfahani in 2019.

”Definitely a war crime”

For decades, many voices have called for a ban on depleted uranium weapons and has tried to draw attention to the US use of uranium and the disastrous effects this has had on the civilian population in Iraq.

In Falluja, which was particularly hard hit by the US invasion, it has been noted that the number of cases of leukemia is 38 times higher than the average, the risk of breast cancer is ten times higher than in non-war affected areas and the risk of childhood cancer is 14 times higher.

Again, the use of uranium in ammunition, tanks and missiles is thought to be the cause of birth defects and cancer.

Francis Boyle, a lawyer and professor of international law, for example, has argued that the military use of depleted uranium is war crime and that the Americans responsible should be brought to justice.

Swedish Lieutenant Colonel: “world class”

Despite the risk of enormous and long-lasting civilian damage, the US has now decided to send depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine – something that the Swedish media has described in very positive terms.

It’s world class“, says the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, for example, which interviewed Lieutenant Colonel Johan Huovinen about the decision.

– It’s positive that they are getting the best they can get – it’s world-class ammunition, he says, but does not comment on the effects on the civilian population.

Swedish state channel SVT takes a similar approach and has interviewed Christian Ekberg, professor at the Department of Nuclear Chemistry at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg.

– Depleted uranium is an element and a heavy metal. The radioactivity is not dangerous at all, he claims.

The same article admits that depleted uranium has been linked to leukemia and birth defects among the civilian population in Europe, but stresses that “the link has not been proven”.

The controversial ammunition is for M1 Abrams tanks that the US will deliver to Ukraine later this year. They are described as “extremely heavy with a density almost double that of lead – increasing its ability to drill through armor, and it ignites on contact”.

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Hungary wants EU sanctions on Ukrainian forced conscription officers

The war in Ukraine

Published 16 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Hungarian Foreign Minister demands that those responsible must be held accountable for the murder and brutal assault of people who refused to go to war.
1 minute read

Following the Council of Europe report, the brutality surrounding forced recruitment patrols in Ukraine must be covered by EU human rights sanctions. This is the view of Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó.

Referring to the Council of Europe report titled Memorandum on human rights elements for peace in Ukraine, dated July 8, 2025 and signed by the EU Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, Szijjártó points out that conscription in Ukraine involves murder, torture, brutal assault and brutal treatment.

— It is a fact that people are dying in Ukraine because of the brutality of the conscription officers, because they don’t want to go to war.

— Where are the NGOs, where are the Soros organizations, where are the so-called independent journalists, where are the human rights organizations, why do they not speak out and say that this manhunt on the streets of Ukraine is unacceptable? asks Péter Szijjártó.

Szijjártó emphasizes that they view it as unacceptable and “shocking” that European politicians remain indifferent to the brutality and stresses that they demand the responsible recruiters be placed on the EU’s human rights sanctions list.

— This is a bare minimum that the EU must do in this issue, he emphasizes.

Trump urges Zelensky to attack Moscow

The war in Ukraine

Published 16 July 2025
– 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.

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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