#right-wing politics Romania

[latestnews-now]

Romanian ultranationalist George Simion is making waves as he aims to become Europe’s next hard-right leader. Inspired by Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump, Simion promises to reform the EU while defying rules that harm Romania. Learn how his rise could reshape Europe’s political future.

[wilwheaton]

Like Trump, Ross is also no stranger to controversy. He’s hosted Nick Fuentes, the antisemite and white supremacist, and Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer facing charges of rape and sex trafficking in Romania. Trump too has hosted Fuentes, at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 (Fuentes was a guest of fellow antisemite Kanye West, who is now being sued for mistreating workers and for sexual harassment, yet whom Trump described to Ross as having “a good heart”). But the biggest overlap is their respective fan bases: predominantly white, aggrieved, disaffected young men with Gulf of Mexico–size reserves of anger toward women. As Jonathan Haidt discusses in his recent book, The Anxious Generation, many of these young men grew up attached to screens and never developed the social skills to communicate with employers or women. Many are incels, addicted to porn and video games. (Ross himself was banned from Twitch after visiting the site PornHub while livestreaming the Super Bowl.) Threatened by diversity and the elevation of women in the workplace and society, they yearn for a return to a world of male domination. Many are also racist and antisemitic and hold extreme right-wing political views. So it is no surprise that they gravitate toward the only presidential ticket that represents their views. We might take inspiration from Tim Walz and call them “weirdcels.”

Trump Is Going All in on Weird, Lonely Young Dudes Who Hate Women

[odinsblog]

Musk reactivated the accounts of Brazilian far-right politicians Carla Zambelli, Gustavo Gayer, and Nikolas Ferreira. Ferreira, a Bolsonaro supporter, openly questioned the security of Brazil’s electronic voting machines, even though he won his local legislative race.

“All of these names have been problematic for years on social media,” says Flora Rebello Arduini, campaign director at the nonprofit advocacy organization Ekō. “They've been pushing for the far-right and election misinformation for ages.”

When Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, later renaming it X, many activists in Brazil worried that he would abuse the platform to push his own agenda, Arduini says. “He has unprecedented broadcasting abilities. He is bullying a supreme court justice of a democratic country, and he is showing he will use all the resources he has available to push for whatever favors his personal opinions or his professional ambitions.”

Under Musk, X has become a haven for the far right and disinformation. After taking over, Musk offered amnesty to users who had been banned from the platform, including right-wing influencer Andrew Tate, who, along with his brother, was indicted in Romania on several charges including with rape and human trafficking in June 2023 (he has denied the allegations). Last month, one of Tate's representatives told the BBC that "they categorically reject all charges."

A 2023 study found that hate speech has increased on the platform under Musk’s leadership. The situation in Brazil is just the latest instance of Musk aligning himself with and platforming dangerous, far-right movements around the world, experts tell WIRED. "It's not about Twitter or Brazil. It's about a strategy from the global far right to overcome democracies and democratic institutions around the world," says Nina Santos, a digital democracy researcher at the Brazilian National Institute of Science & Technology who researches the Brazilian far right. “An opinion from an American billionaire should not count more than a democratic institution.”

This also comes as Brazil has continued working to understand and investigate the lead-up to January 8, 2023, when election-denying insurrectionists who refused to accept right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat stormed Brazil’s legislature. The TSE, the country’s election court, is a special judicial body that investigates electoral crimes and is part of the mechanism for overseeing the country’s electoral processes overall. The court has been investigating the dissemination of fake news and disinformation that cast doubt on the country’s elections in the months and years leading up to the storming of the legislature on January 8, 2023. Both Arduini and Santos believe that the accounts Musk is refusing to remove are likely connected to the court’s inquiry.

“A life-and-death struggle recently took place in Brazil for the democratic rule of law and against a coup d'état, which is under investigation by this court in compliance with due legal process,” Luís Roberto Barroso, the president of the federal supreme court, said in a statement about Musk’s comments. “Nonconformity against the prevalence of democracy continues to manifest itself in the criminal exploitation of social networks.”

Santos also worries that Musk is setting a precedent that the far right will be protected and promoted on his platform, regardless of local laws or public opinion. “They are trying to use Brazil as a laboratory on how to interfere in local politics and local businesses,” she says. “They are making the case that their decision is more important than the national decision from a state democratic institution.”

Though Musk has claimed to be a free-speech advocate, and X’s public statement on the takedowns asserts that Brazilians are entitled to free speech, the platform’s application of these principles has been uneven at best. In February, on order of the Indian government, X blocked the accounts Hindutva Watch and the India Hate Lab in India, two US-based nonprofits that track incidents of religiously motivated violence perpetrated by supporters of the country’s right-wing government. A 2023 study from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard found that X complied with more government takedown requests under Musk’s leadership than it had previously.

In March, X blocked the accounts of several prominent researchers and journalists after they identified a well-known neo-Nazi cartoonist, later changing its own terms of service to justify the decision.

—Elon Musk Is Platforming Far-Right Activists in Brazil

[mariacallous]

American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo’s six-year “battle with the feds”—a fight that spans two dismissals, three appellate reversals, and an extradition and deportation from at least two countries—concludes today with his sentencing to federal prison for attacking ideological opponents at political rallies across California in 2017.

Along with several members of the Rise Above Movement, a fight club-cum-street gang Rundo cofounded with fellow extremist Ben Daley in Southern California during the peak of the alt-right movement, Rundo was convicted on 2018 charges of conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Riot Act for training and planning a series of attacks on political opponents at rallies across California and Unite the Right in Virginia the year prior. While Rundo may be locked behind bars for years, the movement he created is running wild around the globe.

In the interceding years since his initial arrest, indictment, imprisonment, and flight from the US after his case was initially dismissed in 2019, Rundo helped mastermind an international network of RAM clones known as “Active Clubs.” A transnational alliance of far-right fight clubs that closely overlap with skinhead gangs and neofascist political movements in North America, Europe, the Antipodes, and South America, the Active Club network is proliferating internationally. There are dozens of Active Clubs in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Holland, Scandinavia, Australia, and Colombia, according to the groups’ presence on Telegram and extremism researchers.

Seemingly harmless from the outside, Active Clubs are small groups of young men who go on hikes, train in combat sports, weight-lift, and build camaraderie—all part of the Rise Above Movement’s original program. But the darkness is in the details: The groups’ membership often overlaps with other extremist organizations like Patriot Front, criminal skinhead groups like the Hammerskins, and other violent extremists in foreign nations. Some US-based Active Clubs are branching out into political intimidation and violence, like the Rise Above Movement before them.

“I definitely do believe that in the future there needs to be a mass movement, a mass organization, but when it comes for that, do you really want a bunch of guys coming strictly from the online world to come join a mass movement without having any experience or skills?” Rundo said in a video posted online shortly before his March 2023 arrest in Bucharest, Romania. “Active clubs are a great local way to start guys off as they come from the online world into the real world, to learn actual skills.”

Hannah Gais, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center who has long researched Rundo and his associates, says the Active Club model stands out for its low barrier to entry, emphasis on positive community building to draw new blood from outside of extremist circles, and a ready-made international network. “The model has really made it easier to facilitate those transnational connections,” Gais says. “If you’re not an organization, then you can network with whoever you want.”

The Active Club network is seeing expanded breadth and growing significance in street politics (American members appeared alongside foreign counterparts at extreme right-wing demonstrations in Paris this May and Warsaw this fall), a fact emphasized by US prosecutors in their filing seeking prison time for Rundo. Federal attorneys scoured Rundo’s media output—which is considerable, ranging from a series of far-right “influencer” Telegram channels to the Media2Rise propaganda outlet that he ran in conjunction with stateside followers and members of Patriot Front—for their explanation of how seemingly innocuous fitness organizations like Active Clubs serve as vehicles for radicalization.

In a November 26 sentencing memorandum, prosecutors flagged Rundo’s description of the Active Cub network as “brush fire effect” that will be difficult for authorities to stamp out “because these clubs are generally small and local, helping to shield it from infiltrators and broader law enforcement actions.”

The Active Club ideology also leans heavily on young male grievances against a world that supposedly singles them out in favor of people of color and LGBTQ+ youth. “Defendant lamented that ‘[b]oy scouts no longer teach boys how to be men, instead softening them up, discouring [sic] any forms of competition, accepting girls, and promoting LGBT values,’ and encouraged Active Clubs to ‘put out propaganda’ to ‘let[] our own know the fight is not over,’ the government’s filing reads.

The Active Club network was not Rundo’s creation alone: He came up with the idea along with Denis Nikitin, a German-Russian neo-Nazi who started out as a soccer hooligan before moving into combat sports as a fighter, promoter, and organizer of far-right tournaments. According to exhibits filed by US prosecutors, Nikitin counseled Rundo on how to flee the US in 2018 while dodging what he believed to be his first arrest warrant, and sought to smuggle him into Ukraine with the assistance of the Azov Movement (a neo-Nazi political movement that has its own paramilitary forces integrated with the Ukrainian military and organizes with other similar extremist groups across Europe) and its allies in that country’s security services. Nikitin is not currently charged with an offense by the United States government.

Nikitin, whose legal surname is Kapustin, is one of Europe’s most influential neo-Nazi activists, starting out small with fight club events held in backwater Russian cities among amateurs from soccer hooligan and skinhead groups. In 2012, Nikitin’s MMA tournament promotion vehicle, White Rex, ran its first tournament outside Russia, in Kyiv. Soon Nikitin was hosting tournaments in Italy, Hungary, France, Germany, Greece, and elsewhere.

Nikitin also got his hands dirty. He allegedly participated in the hooligan riot during Russia’s 2016 European Championship clash with England in Marseille and trained British Nazis in armed combat tactics in 2014 at camps in England and Wales, as well as Swiss extremists in 2017. In 2019, he was reportedly banned from the European Union’s Schengen Zone for promoting extremism in several countries.

Nikitin currently leads a volunteer combat battalion of far-right wing extremists in association with Ukrainian command that spearheaded a surprise assault on Russia’s Kursk region earlier this year.

Since Rundo and Kapustin coined the concept of an Active Club in 2021 on an eponymous podcast, the neo-Nazi fight clubs have proliferated throughout Western Europe, Australia, and the United States, and are currently the preeminent organizing model for far-right streetfighters. Their members have been involved in political violence in the US and France, have been banned and arrested in Germany, and are a growing concern for UK and Irish law enforcement as the place of their recruiting has skyrocketed following this summer's riots.

Michael Vandelune, a research fellow at the American Counterterrorism Targeting & Resilience Institute, has long studied transnational networking by neo-fascist groups, including Rundo’s relationship with Nikitin. “Rundo was building on the Eastern European emphasis on hypermasculinity and physical fitness, and in many ways, he was a perfect Western mouthpiece for Nikitin and similar peoples’ ideas,” Vandelune says. Rundo’s devotion to Nikitin is apparent: While getting RAM off the ground, he repeatedly cited Nikitin’s white-nationalist clothing brand and MMA promotion company White Rex as inspiration, and got the company’s logo tattooed on his shin in 2018.

Along with members of the Azov Movement’s 3rd Assault Battalion who have been integrated into the regular units of Ukraine military intelligence directorate (HUR), Nikitin hosted a September conference in Lviv that gathered representatives from extreme right-wing organizations across Europe for a strategy conference. Italian fascist organization Casapound, which Rundo visited in 2018 and views as an exemplar, sent a representative, as did Germany’s openly neo-Nazi party Dritte Weg (Third Way).

Patrick Macdonald, a Canadian known as ‘Dark Foreigner’ who allegedly produced the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division’s eyecatching signature far-right propaganda at the end of the last decade, did the same work for the Active Club network, according to testimony given during his trial in Ottawa this month (Macdonald has plead not guilty to several charges, including participating in terrorist activity). Last year, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network identified Macdonald as a participant in Canada’s Active Club.

Outside of North America, the Active Clubs have proliferated most widely in France, the first European country to start such an organization. There are currently at least 50 such organizations in operation across the country, from Normandy to Provence and the Swiss border.

Sébastien Bourdon, a French journalist with Le Monde’s video investigations unit who authored a forthcoming book on that country’s far-right, says Active Clubs are the fastest-expanding facet of far-right militancy in France.

“When they launched the first Active Club in France in early 2022, within a few months they had 10 to15 groups. That’s already quite a lot. The fact that within two years they’ve grown from 15 groups to 50-plus groups throughout the country is mad,” Bourdon says. “Historically, most far-right groups in France have been active in big cities like Paris, Lyon, but if you look at some of the places they claim, some of them I’ve never heard of before.”

In France, where far-right street violence has a decades-long history despite authorities’ attempts to ban and dissolve organized groups, Bourdon says Active Clubs have proved effective at dodging legal crackdowns while appearing to have carried out acts of violence including an attack on an asylum center near Nantes last year. At least one founding member of the Active Club in Lyon has gone on to fight in Ukraine alongside other far-right volunteers.

As for Rundo, he will likely spend years in prison—a place he’s been before. He previously served nearly two years for stabbing a rival gang member in Flushing Queens in 2009. While he did radicalize during his stint at New York’s Greene Correctional Facility, starting a small white power gang, Rundo’s forthcoming prison term will mark his first federal term as a certified domestic extremist. But it remains unlikely that federal lockup will change his ideologies.

Rundo “has not renounced the violent extremist ideology that motivated that conduct,” US prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo. It’s also likely that Rundo will hold out for help from a friendlier government.

Prior to the US election in November, Rundo urged his supporters to vote for Donald Trump specifically in the hope that the Republican president-elect would pardon him and other extremists who plead guilty to federal crimes. Since the election, there has been a sustained pardon campaign from corners of the far-right internet, which is a possibility since Rundo will be serving time in a federal prison when the incoming administration is sworn in this January.

[aronarchy]

https://www.reddit.com/r/JewsOfConscience/comments/1aef2x5/comment/kk7prli

u/s_y_s_t_e_m_i_c_:

Top Members of Far-right Swedish Party With neo-Nazi Roots Meet Israeli Minister in Knesset (Haaretz, January 29, 2024)

I’m reminded of a study that Peter Beinart wrote about on European antisemitism and how it is moderated by support for Israel.

Beinart explains, citing the findings of a study by Andras Kovacs, a sociologist and professor of Jewish Studies at the Central European University, and Gyorgy Fischer, the former research director for Gallup in Hungary:

In Europe, the story appears somewhat similar, but with a disturbing twist. This fall, Andras Kovacs, a sociologist and professor of Jewish Studies at the Central European University, and Gyorgy Fischer, the former research director for Gallup in Hungary, published a fascinating study entitled, “Antisemitic Prejudices in Europe.” To some degree, the evidence they find resembles evidence from the US. As a general rule, for instance, Western Europeans like Jews more but Israel less whereas Eastern Europeans like Jews less but Israel more. For instance, Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic exhibit some of the continent’s highest rates of both support for Israel and hostility to Jews. In Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands, by contrast, sympathy for Israel is far lower and so is antisemitism.

The reasons for this aren’t a mystery. Kovacs and Fischer find a strong correlation between antisemitism and xenophobia. “Antisemitism,” they write, “is largely a manifestation and consequence of resentment, distancing and rejection towards a generalised stranger.” Which is why Europe’s most antisemitic countries are also the most Islamophobic. But the very xenophobia that leads some Europeans—especially Eastern Europeans—to dislike Jews can also make them admire Israel.

The Beinart Notebook - Are Zionists more antisemitic than anti-Zionists?

Beinart states that the reason for this contradictory support is xenophobia and an admiration of Israel’s policies.

Israel, after all, has exactly the kind of immigration policy that many European xenophobes want for their own countries: an immigration policy that welcomes members of the dominant group and keeps out pretty much everyone else. Moreover, if you’re a xenophobe who dislikes the Jews in your country because they dilute ethnic and religious purity, Israel offers them a place to go and be with their own kind. That’s one of the reasons Arthur Balfour embraced Zionism in 1917. He liked the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine in part because he wanted Eastern European Jews to go there and not to his country.

The Beinart Notebook - Are Zionists more antisemitic than anti-Zionists?

In a nutshell, the study found a “strong correlation between antisemitism and xenophobia”—and Peter noted that xenophobic countries admired Israel, because they wanted to emulate similar policies towards immigrants.

While this news article in-question is about a Swedish figure (and Sweden overall, Peter notes, is less xenophobic, less antisemitic and thus, less pro-Israel), I think the politics at play here makes it applicable to Peter’s thesis. The Swedish party in-question are categorically fascist, ultra-nationalists. So one could see why they would find common cause with the far-right in Israel who would like to expel the Palestinians.

In England, one can observe a similar phenomena with the alliance between the English Defense League (EDL), in particular Tommy Robinson, and right-wing Zionists. The EDL has a branch for British Jewish members—and notable pro-Israel activists are supporters of such right-wing groups.

Supplemental:

Haaretz - Why the U.K.’s neo-Nazis Are Posing With Israeli Flags

Robinson in particularly has been coddled by right-wing Zionists, who have paid his legal fees when he continually fucks up in life.

The Philadelphia-based think tank Middle East Forum is one of the British extremist’s biggest sponsors. Daniel Pipes, MEF’s president, confirmed to The Times of Israel that his group has spent roughly $60,000 on three demonstrations defending Robinson’s legal trial.

The Jerusalem Post - Why are US ‘pro-Israel’ groups boosting a far-right, anti-Muslim UK extremist?

[cowboymaterials]

"im not jewish myself but i think that the proper way to deal with the jewish population of israel would be—" please don't be so idealist. im unlearning zionism myself, but no one wanted us after the war and no one wants us now. we don't want to go back to france, romania, poland, russia... the antisemitism there never went away. it isn't better there. and my extremely left wing, pre-1967-borders-wanting cousins in israel are so far removed from our romanian roots that they would be strangers in a strange land there. the majority of israelis aren't even from europe but other middle eastern nations, to whom it's extremely unsafe to return.

i get where you're coming from but it's really, really not so easy.

I appreciate this message, thank you for sharing your perspective, but I do want to challenge you on this.

You are right, of course it is not easy. I never said it was. My post was a reflection on what justice beyond the settler colonial nation-state could look like. There are no easy answers to this, but the obligation to end colonial occupation globally requires us to try. Just because it is hard doesn't mean it is impossible. Just because it is hard doesn't mean it is necessary.

It is not idealist to call for the end of genocide, occupation, and apartheid. And calling for this requires thinking in new ways about what true justice and safety looks like for Jewish people, otherwise the state of Israel will seem to be the only place that Jewish people can be safe.

But are Jewish Israelis safe? Not physically: Palestinians fight back to reclaim their occupied territory, Israel makes war against its own people, forcing its people into military service, building homes in areas of conflict, promoting violent racism that results in crimes against Black and Brown Jewish people. Not emotionally: the trauma of permanent war and the ideology of racist militarized nationalism are scarring. Not culturally and spiritually: Israel's ethnonationalism privileges Orthodox Judaism and Ashkenazi tradition and the banning of Yiddish resulted in a loss of culture only being recuperated now.

The fault lies in the state of Israel and the antisemitic colonial powers that facilitated its creation and its continued existence. It is an injustice for Jewish people to be forced to replicate the same genocide, displacement, and dehumanization they face in order to feel safe.

Many of the countries whose antisemitism forced Jewish people into diaspora are supportive of Israel, and many of these countries are also colonizers. This is not incidental. Instead of real reparation, these countries chose to benefit from the displacement of Jewish people. The British created Israel not to bring justice for Jewish people but to widen their geopolitical sphere. British politicians called for the "restoration of the Jews" to Palestine in the 1840s, prior to the political zionist movement. This was motivated by antisemitism and by Britain's ambitions to expand their empire. Since its inception, Israel has fought colonial wars internally and externally, acting as a militarized arm of European imperialism. Exporting arms India to be used in the occupation of Kashmir, to Hutu militias carrying out the Rwandan Genocide, and to the Guatemalan army aiding in the massacre of Indigenous Mayans. Allying with Apartheid South Africa, training the Serbian soldiers carrying out the Srebrenica genocide (and then granting them citizenship to protect them), training US police (and FBI, CIA, ICE officers), refusing to recognize the Armenian genocide while arming Azerbaijan's military to continue ethnic cleansing of Armenians. This is not a complete list. There are many other explicit instances where Israel has supported genocide and police violence globally.

I say this to demonstrate how not only is Israel not safe, but Israel makes the rest of the world less safe too. Israel reinforces colonial conquest, not acting in service of Jewish people but in service of imperial powers.

I do think there is another question in here too: Where do Jewish people go if Israel does not exist? This is a question settlers globally ask in response to Land Back. The answer is varied. Pam Palmater speaks to this, while referring to Canada this can also be applied to Israel. Maia Ramnath offers some insight from an anarchist perspective, saying that decolonizing may result in the replication of the nation-state, but this is not symptomatic of the decolonial effort, but rather the global dominance of the nation-state form, requiring global revolution.

And FYI Majority of Israelis are from Europe.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[The Daily Don] :: If GOP polling means anything, I guess being an inadequate sex pest is a feature not a flaw.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 10, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 11, 2023

This morning, federal prosecutors charged Representative George Santos (R-NY) with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives, and one count of stealing public funds. The charges are tied to his campaign fundraising and unemployment fraud; prosecutors say he received about $25,000 in unemployment insurance benefits during 2020 and 2021, during the worst of the pandemic, when he was, in fact, making about $120,000 a year.

Santos pleaded not guilty and was released on $500,000 bail and immediately began to fundraise off his arrest.

This is another embarrassment for the Republicans. House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking Republican in the House, has championed Santos in ads as “the next generation of Republican leadership.” And today, while the House Republicans were in the midst of a press conference about their plan to crack down on unemployment fraud, news broke that one of their own has been charged with it. Ironically, Santos is a co-sponsor of the bill.

With the news about Santos this morning and the news last night of former president Trump’s liability for sexual abuse and defamation, the release this morning of a report from the House Judiciary Committee, led by Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), looked as if it was designed to be a distraction.

The report insisted that “that Hunter Biden’s laptop and emails were real”—by which the Republicans meant to say that the idea there was something incriminating on them was real—rather than possibly Russian disinformation, as a letter from former intelligence officials said when the story first broke. The report promised to prove that “senior intelligence community officials and the Biden campaign worked to mislead American voters.”

But the report was a bizarre effort. Despite the breathless allegations in it, the 65-page document seems to prove that the former intelligence officials who said the news story about the laptop had the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation effort believed what they were saying and went through the proper channels at the Central Intelligence Agency to clear their statement. The person who did appear to be trying to make a political statement was Trump’s loyalist director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe.

Journalist Marcy Wheeler carefully broke the report down piece by piece on Twitter (linked below if anyone’s interested), but she was one of the few media figures even to bother to mention it. Jordan is well known for crafting propaganda for right-wing media; perhaps that was his intention here.

A press conference the House Oversight Committee also held this morning got more attention than Jordan’s report, but it, too, was a fizzle. The committee announced the conference on Monday, May 8, when committee chair Representative James Comer (R-KY) promised supporters to unleash “judgment day” on the Biden White House. Republican members of the committee have made much of what they call “the Biden family’s influence peddling enterprise,” but today’s conference revealed nothing new: Biden’s son and brother and their associates worked with private companies that received about $10 million in investment from China and Romania. There is no evidence that those payments were illegal.

The “Biden family” is the term the right-wing Republicans are using to make it sound as if the president was part of the business dealings of his son Hunter and brother James, but they have turned up no evidence that President Joe Biden was part of their businesses or received any money in relation to them. Further, without evidence that the payments were illegal—and the Republicans have not charged that they were—they are relying on innuendo to smear the president.

The top Democrat on the committee, Jamie Raskin (D-MD), said that “there’s a lot of innuendo and a lot of gossip taking place and much of it is recycled from prior claims.”

When asked about the lack of evidence tying President Biden to corruption, Oversight Committee chair Representative James Comer (R-KY) said, “I don’t think anyone in America…would think that it’s just a coincidence that nine Biden family members have received money…. We believe that the president has been involved in this from the very beginning.” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) was clearer. He told Fox News Channel personality Maria Bartiromo, "You have to infer what's happening here...you're not gonna get necessarily hard proof."

The headline on a New York Times story about the report was hardly what Comer had hoped. It read: “House Republican Report Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by President Biden.”

Indeed, in the Washington Post, Philip Bump wrote, “The wider House Oversight’s net, the more often it catches Trump.” He noted that the Biden family doesn’t, in fact, have a family business. But, of course, the Trump family does have a business, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) estimates that Trump’s businesses made as much as $160 million when he was president. That doesn’t include the money his children—who, unlike Hunter Biden, were members of the administration—raked in both during his term and afterward, like the $2 billion investment a Saudi fund overseen by Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman made in Jared Kushner’s new private equity firm shortly after he left the White House.

In more substantive news, data released today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that inflation is continuing to slow down. April marked the tenth month in a row of slower price increases for an annual pace slightly under 5%. Housing prices were the biggest contributor to that inflation.

Biden was in a Republican-held New York state district today, at SUNY Westchester Community College, to warn about the dangers of the Republican threats to crash the economy by refusing to lift the debt ceiling. He had won that district in 2020, and the Republican who took the seat there in 2022, Mike Lawler, won by less than a percentage point. Biden made it a point to distinguish, yet again, between extremist MAGA Republicans and reasonable Republicans, calling Lawler one of the latter.

As Jonathan Lemire, Lauren Egan, and Danielle Muoio Dunn wrote in Politico, it seems Biden is hoping to break the Republican phalanx against raising the debt ceiling by reaching out to Republicans whose reelection is in doubt, although Lawler said Biden told him he was not there to pressure him. The journalists noted that the White House recently called out the toll that McCarthy’s recent bill would take on the 18 congressional districts that Biden won and where Republicans were elected in 2022.

Today, Biden emphasized the enormous costs of the cuts the Republicans insist they require before they will permit a raising of the debt ceiling, including, Biden emphasized, 30,000 federal law enforcement officers: “11,000 FBI agents, 2,000 Border agents, DEA agents, and so on.”

He warned that the Republican plan will also cut veterans’ benefits and noted that the Republicans keep calling him a liar when he identifies cuts they are demanding. While the vagueness in their language enables them to insist they would not cut particular programs, Biden pointed out that the math doesn’t add up without huge cuts. Anything they intend to protect, they would have identified in writing. Until that happens, the necessary math says that we should assume everything is on the table.

If they don’t get those cuts, they say, they will crash the economy, costing 8 million Americans their jobs, according to Moody’s Analytics.

“This is a manufactured crisis,” Biden said. “And there’s no question about America’s ability to pay its bills. America has the strongest economy in the world, and we should be cutting spending and lowering the deficit without a needless crisis, in a responsible way.”

In contrast, former president Trump tonight pushed the country toward default, ignoring that his own massive tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations sent the deficit skyrocketing and that Congress raised the debt ceiling without conditions three times during his term to cover those shortfalls. “I say to the Republicans out there, Congressmen, Senators: if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re going to have to do a default...Democrats will absolutely cave,” he said.

Trump was speaking at what CNN billed as a “Town Hall” in front of a crowd of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents, but the event quickly turned into a Trump rally. Trump played to the audience, which laughed at his attacks on E. Jean Carroll and cheered on the constant stream of lies that are by now a set performance. He steamrolled journalist Kaitlan Collins, who tried but could not counter his stream of lies.  When he finished, the audience gave him a standing ovation.

A CNN media personality told Daily Beast media reporter Justin Baragona, “It is so bad. I was cautiously optimistic despite the criticism. It is awful. It’s a Trump infomercial. We’re going to get crushed.” A senior Trump advisor told senior NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake that the campaign team “is thrilled with how the night went.” The person called the event a “home run” and said “when the lefts melting down, we know it was a good day.”  

Maybe. But according to legal analyst Andrew Weissman, Trump’s embrace of the January 6 rioters and promise to pardon them if he’s reelected feeds a potential case against him. He made similarly revealing comments about his theft and retention of documents marked classified. It was that very kind of indiscretion that enabled Carroll’s lawyers to beat him in court.

More important, though, while Trump’s base will love his performance, watching his lies and cruelty while his supporters laugh and cheer him on will remind voters of exactly what they worked so hard to reject in 2020. A Biden campaign advisor told NBC News White House correspondent Mike Memoli: “Weeks worth of damning content in one hour….  It was quite efficient." It might turn out that, as journalist Ana Navarro-Cárdenas tweeted, “[Joe Biden] is the winner of tonight’s town-hall.”

As Biden tweeted after the performance: “It’s simple, folks. Do you want four more years of that?”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[duchessofostergotlands]

Do you know if Muslim royals would be allowed marry into European royalty or would that be controversial in their countries.

It is absolutely allowed. It’s rare but there was one not long ago. Can’t for the life of me remember who because it was one of the ones I don’t follow like Liechtenstein or a deposed one like Romania? But it was literally just in the last few years. And marriage of Muslims to non-royal Europeans and Americans is common. Someone would probably have to convert, especially if they plan to have kids or are senior royals, but in many countries that would be the case if they were marrying someone who was just a different denomination of the same faith!

Whether it’s controversial is a different matter and I would imagine it depends. It can be hard to know what is controversial in some of the Muslim monarchies because they have such a tight grip on the press. And on the European side there is a lot of Islamophobia in Europe so I can definitely imagine it would cause controversy with the right wing media and political leaders, but the degree would probably depend on the situation.

[ukrfeminism]

People must be “vigilant” to violent misogyny and other forms of extremist content online perpetuated by the likes of influencer Andrew Tate, counter-terror police have said.

Senior officers said the hatred of women was prevalent across terrorist ideologies, from jihadism to the far right, and was becoming “mixed in” with other belief systems.

Assistant commissioner Matt Jukes, the head of UK counter-terrorism policing, told a press conference that officers were seeing rising numbers of cases involving incel culture.

“Non-violent extremism creates an environment from which terrorists are spawned,” he said on Thursday.

“We need vigilance in the digital world, we need people to be alive to extremist content online.”

Asked about Andrew Tate, a prominent misogynistic influencer who is currently under criminal investigation in Romania, Mr Jukes said: “I’m concerned about anyone who advocates violent misogyny. 

“I’m concerned about the effect of that kind of rhetoric in the minds of young boys. Men are dominant in our terrorist casework and young men and boys are increasingly present. 

“Anything that introduces that kind of toxicity has to be a concern, whether or not that’s a direct concern for counter-terrorist police.”

It comes after official figures showed a rising number of suspected incels being referred to the Prevent counter-extremism scheme, albeit in much smaller quantities than far-right extremists and jihadists.

Concerns about the online subculture peaked after the 2021 Plymouth shooting, where self-described incel Jake Davison murdered five people in Britain’s worst mass shooting in over a decade.

Short for “involuntary celibate”, incels believe they are unable to have romantic or sexual relationships with women, and men identifying with the movement have carried out several mass shootings in the US and Canada.

Mr Jukes said there needed to be a “wider societal response” to the issue, and that police would learn any lessons from the ongoing inquests into the Plymouth shooting.

Police did not declare the mass killing a terror attack because they believed that Davison was primarily driven by mental health issues and personal grievances, rather than a “political, religious, racial or ideological cause” that would meet the UK’s legal definition of terrorism.

MI5’s position is that incel ideology should not be treated automatically as terrorism, but recognised as a “potential terrorist motivation” and assessed on a case-by-case basis.

“Self-initiated terrorists”, who are not directly affiliated with any group and may be partly motivated by personal grievances and vulnerabilities, are currently deemed the dominant attack threat in Britain.

“It is making the threat harder to spot, its individuals harder to stop,” Mr Jukes said. “The hateful acts we see bring together complex drivers, sometimes including mental ill health, and often the influence of online material.”

Islamists still make up the majority of more than 800 live counter-terror investigations in the UK, but the senior officer said the extreme right wing was continuing to grow and officers were also responding to “new threats”.

But around a fifth of the work of British counter-terror police now relates to hostile state threats, including Russian, Iranian and Chinese activities against dissenters, as well as espionage and war crimes investigations.

Mr Jukes said his officers were handling an “unprecedented” amount of work in the area, with hostile state-related cases quadrupling in the past two years.

They include plots to assassinate, kidnap or forcibly repatriate political opponents, with at least 15 such attempts linked to Iran since January 2022, as well as alleged Chinese “overseas police stations” and a range of malicious activity by Russia.

“The oppression, intimidation and violence directed at people because of their perceived opposition to a state will not be allowed on our watch,” Mr Jukes said.

“Although the number [of hostile state investigations] is in the dozens, the intensity of the investigations and the capabilities we need are a step-change.”

British police are also supporting the International Criminal Court investigation into war crimes in Ukraine, and are assessing more than 100 reports received by Ukrainian refugees and other people currently in the UK.

[partisan-by-default]

Georgescu, who unexpectedly won the first round of Romania’s presidential election and tops opinion polls ahead of this Sunday’s runoff, has expressed admiration for Russian culture and described President Vladimir Putin as a man who loves his country. Georgescu has also strongly criticized the European Union and NATO, with his victory potentially spelling trouble for both alliances. 

The declassified Romanian documents allege that paid influencers, along with members of extremist, right-wing groups and people with ties to organized crime, promoted Georgescu’s candidacy online. The documents don’t directly state that Russia tried to swing the election but strongly suggest it.

Liberal President Klaus Iohannis agreed to release the files on Wednesday following a request from Romanian journalists and civil society groups. 

The documents appear to contradict Georgescu’s claims that he didn’t receive any foreign campaign support and came first in the Nov. 24 election simply because his message resonated with the Romanian people.

A Georgescu spokesperson said the documents didn't present anything new.  "The fact they declassified the files is just another try of the political system to stop him from winning by using the media and the fake news programs."

[magpiejay1234]

For French politics, there isn't much to say.

Far right will eventually win, but a Frexit is effectively pointless for Russia to support, since it will immediately cause Italy to become the second major country in EU, and Italy remains under USA influence.

It is much more wiser to keep France in EU as a Trojan horse, like Hungary, than force it to forge its own independent path, which Russians also don't want, as they seek to fill in the power vacuum in Africa.

Unlike Meloni, who has no ideology besides homophobia, and xenophobia, Le Pen actually has a vision for France, even if it is incoherent. This fact, and the fact that she has an ideology unlike other fascists, and fascist-adjacent parties makes her rather unpalatable as a Russian vassal, since she won't respond to the Russian astroturfing, when French national interest is threatened.

(There is also the broad support for Ukraine militarily, though just not as an EU member.)

Melenchon has no electoral path to presidency. Attal, current leader of Macron's party, is too controversial to become the next president.

While it is still unlikely that Le Pen will become the president by 2027, due to how French internal politics works, whoever becomes her challenger will not be an establishment politician we currently know.

Within French internal politics, there really isn't any desire to make adjustments for France's internal government, so anti-incumbent sentiment will rage on. France, due to being the de facto foreign policy head of EU, is much more concerned about France's rapidly declining grandstanding in the world, and no politician can really reverse that, only provide temporary painkillers.

If France leaves the EU, this will likely turbocharge the accession process, much like how Brexit caused the accession process to speed up, as French consider Islam, and to a lesser extent Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the Balkans to be anti-civilisational (though some parties are more nice about it), so this will actually backfire for Russia. Italy would be the next head of foreign policy, followed by the Netherlands if Italexit happens. Spain is unlikely to be given this assignment, both due to general left-wing politics of Spain, and Spain's belief in inviolabity of territorial integrity, which makes Spain an extremely unserious partner for self-determination movements the West backs. Spain's recent pro-Palestinian stance also too much of a break from USA.

(Recognising Palestine is also why Poland, and Romania will never be given the foreign policy assignment, though besides the core 3 countries of current EU, there aren't that many non-recognising states remaining, among those that do, there is strong support for recognition.)

Edit: Fixed some issues.

[fromtheothersideby]

The First-Round Surprise in Romania's Presidential Elections: Decoding the Georgescu-Lasconi Race

In an unexpected turn of events, Romania's presidential elections witnessed a significant shift with Calin Georgescu securing the lead in the first round. This surprising outcome has not only reshaped the political landscape but also highlighted a growing trend of right-wing populist sentiment in the nation.

The Election Outcome

On election day, with a turnout of approximately 52%, Georgescu emerged with over 22% of the votes, positioning him as the frontrunner. This result was particularly shocking as pre-election polls had underestimated his support significantly. Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union Party (USR), advocating for liberal conservative values, narrowly secured second place, slightly outperforming the incumbent Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.

The elections underscored a palpable voter dissatisfaction with traditional political parties. Mircea Geoană, a notable figure and former NATO Deputy Secretary General, chose to retire from politics following his defeat, commenting on the electorate's frustration:

“The level of disappointment and anger is pushing society toward more radical choices.”

Media and Public Reaction

Western media described Georgescu’s lead with terms like “surprise,” “shock,” and even an “earthquake” due to his known stance against NATO and his skepticism towards European integration. His campaign's reliance on unconventional means like TikTok was a focal point, branding him as a "product of TikTok" by local analysts, reflecting his outsider status in traditional political arenas.

Who is Calin Georgescu?

Calin Georgescu, aged 62, represents the far-right spectrum in Romanian politics. With an academic background in agricultural and veterinary sciences and national defense, his career trajectory took him from academia to significant roles within Romania's Ministry of Environment and as a representative in UN environmental programs.

His political ambitions have previously been aligned with the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), though his endorsement for Prime Minister was withdrawn due to his controversial historical references. Georgescu has openly praised figures like Ion Antonescu and Zelea Codreanu, leading to legal scrutiny for glorifying war criminals.

Georgescu's Political Stance

Georgescu’s rhetoric includes strong criticism of NATO, notably calling the missile defense system in Deveselu a "diplomatic disgrace." He advocates for Romanian neutrality in international conflicts, particularly regarding the situation in Ukraine, arguing:

“It is clear that the situation in Ukraine is being manipulated… for the interests of the U.S. military-industrial complex.”

His vision for Romania emphasizes sovereignty, neutrality in global conflicts, and a return to national resource utilization, often summarized in his call for a strong, independent state.

Elena Lasconi: The Liberal-Conservative Voice

Contrasting Georgescu, Elena Lasconi, a former journalist turned politician, has positioned herself as a staunch supporter of NATO and the ongoing support for Ukraine. Her public statements reflect a commitment to democratic values and regional stability:

“1,000 days of courage, sacrifice, and the fight for freedom. Romania must continue to stand by Ukraine.”

Lasconi advocates for an increase in NATO presence in Romania as a deterrent against aggression, highlighting her alignment with pro-European and Atlanticist values.

Ideological Clash and Broader Implications

The election pits two starkly different ideologies against each other, reflecting not just Romanian but broader European political trends. Georgescu's campaign taps into a growing sentiment favoring national sovereignty and skepticism towards supranational bodies like the EU and NATO. Conversely, Lasconi represents continuity with Western alliances, emphasizing integration and cooperation.

This polarization in Romania echoes similar political divides in other Eastern European countries, where economic issues, political instability, and questions of identity play significant roles. While allegations of Russian influence are often cited, the real drivers of voter preference appear to be rooted in tangible domestic and regional issues rather than foreign interference.

Conclusion

The substantial vote difference in the first round signals a notable shift towards right-wing populism in Romania, challenging traditional political narratives. As these elections progress to the runoff, they will not only decide the presidency but also reflect Romania's direction in its relationship with Europe and the West. Analysts and observers will need to look beyond simple narratives of foreign meddling to grasp the complexities of Romania's evolving political landscape.

[head-post]

NATO critic emerges as favourite in Romania’s presidential election

The surprising outcome of the first round of Romania’s presidential election saw little-known right-wing candidate Calin Georgescu take the top spot with 22.9 percent of the vote, while Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, considered the favourite, dropped out of the race, results showed almost complete on Monday.

Georgescu is followed by centre-left Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu with 20.2 percent. Reformist candidate Elena Lasconi has 18 per cent, while another right candidate, George Simion, lags behind with 14.1 per cent support, according to data from 96 per cent of precincts.

An early exit poll suggested Lasconi was set to make it to the second round of the presidential election, but Georgescu’s numbers rose sharply on Sunday night, foreshadowing a result that is set to upend Romanian politics.

“The 35-year economic uncertainty imposed on the Romanian people has become today an uncertainty for the political parties,” Georgescu said in his first reaction after polls closed. He called the result a “surprising awakening” of the Romanian people.

Georgescu, an extremely religious man, campaigned on reducing Romania’s dependence on imports, supporting farmers and increasing domestic food and energy production. He also argued that the EU and NATO did not properly represent Romania’s interests and claimed that the conflict in Romania’s neighbouring Ukraine was the result of manipulation by US military companies.

In 2022, he argued that the US missile defence shield located in the southern Romanian village of Deveselu was part of a policy of confrontation rather than a peaceful measure. He said at the time that he had no support from Russia but felt close to its culture. Georgescu also said he admires Hungary because of its skill in international negotiations. Georgescu is a university professor and international consultant on sustainable development who has worked in various United Nations organisations for more than a dozen years.

He used TikTok to rally voters around him. “He managed to convince them with a combination of a messianic speech delivered elegantly to capitalise on people’s frustration,” said political analyst Radu Magdin. Georgescu has been mentioned several times over the past decade as a potential prime minister by various parties, including Simion’s AUR party.

Turnout nationally and among the Romanian diaspora was 52.5 per cent, slightly higher than the 51.2 per cent who voted in the previous presidential election in 2019. The second round of the presidential election is scheduled for December 8, following Romania’s parliamentary elections next Sunday.

Read more HERE

[beardedmrbean]

Bulgarian voters are once again being asked to decide on the country’s government, as they prepare for snap national elections on Sunday. It is the seventh time that elections have been held in the EU’s poorest nation since mass anti-corruption protests in 2020 toppled a coalition government led by the centre-right GERB party.

Since then, a series of elections — two with just three months between them — have led to unstable coalitions led by multiple centrist and right-wing parties. Some observers have labelled the past few years as a period of "revolving-door governments," which has led to considerable apathy amongst voters.

At the last national election in June, the centre-right GERB-SDS coalition emerged as the largest group with 68 seats in the 240-seat parliament, ahead of the centrist DPS, which has historically represented Bulgaria’s sizable Turkish minority, with 47.

The far-right and pro-Russia Vazrazhdane or Revival party won 38 seats. Turnout stood at a record low of 34%, compared with 75% in the 1990s, soon after the fall of the Soviet-backed regime in Bulgaria.

After months of coalition talks, initially led by members of GERB, ended in deadlock, this October election was triggered.

A history of distrust and apathy

The eastern European nation of 6.7 million has a long history of voter apathy, according to the polling company Gallup, which has been monitoring distrust in elections across Europe for almost two decades.

Bulgaria has consistently come bottom of its list. After reaching a peak of 36% in 2006, voter confidence has dramatically declined to 10%, a record low. The figure is a third of the next-lowest EU country, Romania. It is also six times lower than the current EU average.

It isn’t just elections. Distrust amongst the Bulgarian electorate pervades many public institutions. Confidence in the judiciary stood at just 17%, under half the figure for its next closest rival, Malta. Approval for the EU also reached an all-time low, at 46%.

Some analysts believe this disillusionment has created a perfect storm for the far-right in the country.

The Revival party only entered the parliament in Sofia three years ago in 2021, passing the 4% threshold needed to gain seats. In these elections, it is polling in third place, on 14.2% of the vote, and could even come second.

Since entering parliament, Revival party MPs have pushed for a controversial "foreign agent" law, similar to a bill that caused mass demonstrations in Georgia earlier this year. It also successfully passed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation to ban "propaganda" supporting "non-traditional sexual orientations."

Its success comes as part of a rising tide of ultra-conservative parties across the continent, with large gains made by the far right in national elections in France and Austria, as well as the European Parliament this year.

Observers of Bulgarian politics believe that Revival’s power in coalition building could be unprecedented after Sunday’s vote, especially as the DPS party has split into factions.

[mariacallous]

The Kremlin’s hysterical responses to Europe’s actions reveal Moscow’s growing inability to shape the world to its liking.

As Russia’s war against Ukraine grinds on, the Kremlin’s desperate attempts to mould reality to its liking are falling increasingly flat. Whether it is trying to discredit democratic processes, undermine civil society movements, or tarnish European institutions, Moscow’s spin and clumsy fabrications keep clashing with the facts on the ground.

The Kremlin’s manipulations targeting Georgia

The Kremlin’s playbook is getting tediously predictable in its attempts to discredit legitimate protests in Georgia. As Georgians have taken to the streets following the Georgian government’s decision to suspend EU accession talks(opens in a new tab) and allegations of electoral fraud in the October 2024 parliamentary elections, pro-Kremlin mouthpieces have immediately reached for their favourite bogeymen: ‘Western-engineered coups’ and ‘colour revolutions’.

While President Salome Zourabichvili has raised serious concerns(opens in a new tab) about electoral irregularities, the EU called for a transparent investigation of reported violations and has expressed serious concerns about Georgia’s democratic backsliding(opens in a new tab). Meanwhile, Moscow’s mouthpieces were busy recycling their decade-old conspiracy theories about Ukraine’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity.

This Kremlin narrative is not just stale – it is part of a deliberate strategy to pre-emptively discredit Georgian civil society, with pro-Kremlin outlets having spent months warning about an imaginary ‘upcoming colour revolution’ to poison the information space ahead of likely protests against the ruling party.

… and Romania

The Kremlin’s inability to accept democratic realities is also evident in its attempts to interfere with Romania’s presidential election process. The pro-Kremlin TV channel Zvezda, run by Russia’s Ministry of Defence and under the EU’s restrictive measures(opens in a new tab), is trying hard to spin the first-round results into evidence of widespread pro-Russian sentiment in Romania.

After a full recount of 9.4 million ballots(opens in a new tab), right-wing candidate Calin Georgescu, whose campaign included reducing Romania’s support for Ukraine, will face reformist Elena Lasconi in the second round on 8 December.

The Kremlin vs the new European Commission

The approval and the start of the second von der Leyen Commission(opens in a new tab) has triggered an uncharacteristically intense wave of attacks from pro-Kremlin outlets. As we recently reported, Russian state mouthpiece RT is frantically pushing narratives about ‘EU militarisation’, while Konstantin Gavrilov, Russia’s representative at the Vienna arms control talks, speculated about the EU transforming(opens in a new tab) from a ‘purely economic and political association’ into a ‘military threat’.

Moscow seems particularly triggered by the new Commission’s composition, with Dmitry Medvedev dismissing its members as ‘non-entities with inflated self-esteem’.(opens in a new tab) Pro-Kremlin outlets have been especially hostile toward former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as High Representative and former Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius as Defence Commissioner, dubbing the latter the ‘Commissioner for War against Russia(opens in a new tab)’.

Our monitoring of Russian-language pro-Kremlin outlets and mouthpieces revealed a major spike in hostile messaging. On December 2, we recorded 179 news mentions – a whopping 1105% increase from the daily average. Unsurprisingly, the coverage was overwhelmingly negative, with 75% of non-neutral mentions expressing negative sentiment – a staggering 5800% increase from typical levels. The narratives focused heavily on HRVP Kaja Kallas, whose name appeared in 141 mentions, alongside frequent references to security policy matters.

The Kremlin henchmen’s hysterical rhetoric, ranging from calling von der Leyen ‘Queen Ursula(opens in a new tab)’ to attacking new commissioners and spinning conspiracy theories about Brussels seizing power from Member States, reveals Moscow’s growing anxiety about a more assertive European Union and frustration with the Kremlin’s dawning irrelevance.

More pro-Kremlin disinformation this week that deserves our collective facepalm

A pro-Kremlin outlet in the Spanish language is recycling one of the Kremlin’s all-time favourite narratives about Western sanctions backfiring, falsely claiming they’ve led to astronomical US debt and Europeans freezing rather than affecting Russia. While US public debt has indeed reached 36 trillion dollars(opens in a new tab), attributing this to military support for Ukraine is a mathematical sleight of hand. Military spending represents roughly one-sixth of yearly federal spending(opens in a new tab), or an estimated total of 916 billion US dollars(opens in a new tab), while security assistance to Ukraine represents just a fraction of that(opens in a new tab), or 64 billion US dollars over the ten-year period since 2014. The Kremlin’s doom-and-gloom predictions about freezing Europeans also clash with reality: EU gas storage stood at 95% capacity(opens in a new tab) ahead of November 2024, and 42% of EU energy consumption is now met through domestic production. The Kremlin’s wishful thinking about Western economic collapse continues to fall flat, while Russia’s own economy shows clear signs of sanctions-induced strain, with the ruble taking a nosedive and inflation spiking(opens in a new tab) in November 2024. Narratives such as this serve a dual purpose: to discourage Western support for Ukraine by grossly exaggerating its economic costs, while simultaneously masking the real impact of Western sanctions and restrictive measures on Russia’s economy.

Another poorly crafted hit piece in the French language targeting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, has emerged, this time falsely alleging they purchased an 88-million-euro luxury hotel in Courchevel. As reported by Random osint(opens in a new tab), the supposed ‘French media report’ turns out to be a video by unidentified individuals speaking French with Russian accents, complete with forged documents and a fake website(opens in a new tab) registered just days before the disinformation story broke. The fraudsters even added the word ‘hotel’ to a legitimate domain name in their clumsy attempt at deception. This fabrication follows a familiar pattern, reminiscent of last year’s ‘Jules Vincent’ disinformation campaign about Zelenskyy allegedly selling Ukrainian land to Soros. See also our debunking of Zelenskyy’s alleged purchase of Hitler’s Mercedes. These desperate attempts to paint Ukraine’s president as corrupt demonstrate the continued deployment of Kremlin tactics aimed at undermining Zelenskyy’s presidency and Western support for Ukraine.

In a particularly cynical attempt at atrocity disinformation, the known pro-Kremlin information manipulation network Pravda is now spreading baseless claims in Polish about Polish ‘punishment squads’ allegedly executing civilians in Selidovo. This fabrication follows a well-worn Kremlin playbook: accuse others of the very war crimes Russia has been documented committing, while simultaneously pushing baseless hostile narratives about foreign volunteers supporting Ukraine. Notably, when Ukraine invited the UN and ICRC to investigate the situation in the Kursk region(opens in a new tab) in September 2024, the Kremlin’s response was telling. Peskov, Putin’s mouthpiece, quickly labelled these requests as ‘provocative’ and made it clear international observers would not be welcome. This latest disinformation piece, which joins earlier disinformation claims of French soldiers allegedly hanging children, serves multiple propaganda goals: deflecting attention from real war crimes that Russia commits and attempting to discredit Ukraine’s international supporters.