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The Strategic Culture Foundation provides a platform for exclusive analysis, research and policy comment on Eurasian and global affairs. Official Telegram channel ✅
🪤 The electricity system of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania was part of the BRELL (Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) power grid, established in the 1950s during the Soviet Union era. Initially consisting of 16 transmission lines, this system connected the Baltic states to Russia through direct land links, lines via Belarus, and underwater cables in the Baltic Sea.
Even after the Soviet Union collapsed, these countries, which gained independence in the 1990s, could not control their energy infrastructure and relied on Moscow for frequency stabilization.
Following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, all forms of dependence on Russia, including electricity, were gradually severed. The final step in this process was taken at a ceremony held in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.
While the Baltic states’ “energy independence” is hailed as a geopolitical triumph, it risks turning into an economic burden.
💬 Read more by Erkin Oncan
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💡 European industry is being crippled by high energy prices, and we are told, this is Russia’s fault. But it is driven by self-defeating energy policies in Brussels and Berlin. The only answer is to boost global supply which may involve uncomfortable choices about Russian pipelines.
Mothballing Russian pipelines as putative punishment for the war in Ukraine is having the opposite effect.
💬 Read more by Ian Proud
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🇧🇾 Amid growing geopolitical tensions and constant criticism from the West, the figure of Aleksandr Lukashenko remains a central topic in international discussions. The president of Belarus has just been re-elected for his seventh consecutive term, consolidating his position as the longest-serving leader in Europe and the only one of his young nation, which emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
While Western countries consider him a “dictator”, in Belarus, the majority of the population sees him as a legitimate leader who has been able to stabilize and modernize the country, building a political and economic model that, although far from Western standards, has broad popular support.
There is no longer room for leaders loved by their voters within Western “democracies.”
💬 Read more by Lucas Leiroz @lucasleiroz
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🇺🇸🇺🇦 Are we witnessing the final days of caretaker President Zelensky?
Two recent media events where he clearly stated, some would even say ‘begged’, for a deal with Donald Trump might indicate that he is now in panic mode.
💬 Martin Jay writes
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🇺🇦 During the ongoing Ukraine’s war of aggression against the Russian Federation, numerous incidents involving the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) have come to light, highlighting grave violations of human rights and international law. However, the selective attention paid by the Western media to these events presents a stark contrast to the immediate and intense reactions that followed incidents such as the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, the Bucha flase flag tragedy, or other similar cases. A close examination of two such incidents — the crimes committed in Russkoye Porechnoye and Sudzha — raises crucial questions about the integrity of Western media narratives and the apparent double standards in responding to atrocities in the context of the Ukrainian conflict.
The torture and murder of civilians suggest a deliberate strategy to terrorize the local population and create chaos in Russian territories.
💬 Lucas Leiroz writes @lucasleiroz
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🦅 Since 1991, the collective West has actively promoted the concept of a “rules-based world order.” However, from the beginning, this concept has served mainly as a justification for unilaterally imposing U.S. interests on other countries, ignoring legitimate international treaties and conventions. Europe, which was complicit in this abrupt change in international law, now appears to be reaping the bitter fruits of its own choices.
The idea of a “rules-based order” has always been malleable, molded to suit U.S. interests.
The allies supported the United States in promoting the American slogan of the “rules-based order.” Now they are enjoying the consequences.
💬 Lucas Leiroz writes @lucasleiroz
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https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/02/11/keep-on-trumpin/
The real deal - from the Gaza Riviera Resort and Casino gambit to what Mr. Disco Inferno may offer to Russia on Ukraine after pocketing $500 billion in rare metals.
Great Thieves bingo? 🎯
@strategic_culture
🦅 Since 1991, the collective West has actively promoted the concept of a “rules-based world order.” However, from the beginning, this concept has served mainly as a justification for unilaterally imposing U.S. interests on other countries, ignoring legitimate international treaties and conventions. Europe, which was complicit in this abrupt change in international law, now appears to be reaping the bitter fruits of its own choices.
The idea of a “rules-based order” has always been malleable, molded to suit U.S. interests. What has become clear, however, is that European allies—as well as some puppet states in the “Global South” itself—have ended up ceding their sovereignty to Washington in the name of an alliance that, unsurprisingly, has weakened them politically. Greenland is an emblematic example of this new geopolitical reality. The island, which belongs to Denmark, was the target of an explicit attempt to buy it by Donald Trump during his previous presidency. Now, in his new term, Trump seems even more determined to “take” Greenland, not even ruling out the use of military force.
The allies supported the United States in promoting the American slogan of the “rules-based order.” Now they are enjoying the consequences ♨️
💬 Lucas Leiroz writes
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🗽 Trump has really thrown down the gauntlet to China, Denmark and the rogue state of Canada in getting Panama to immediately cede control, to his Washington regime, of the Panama Canal.
💬 Declan Hayes writes
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🔫 The recent announcement by Trump that he is going to hit the EU, Canada, China and even Russia with tariffs is worrying, not least of all because we now have a president in the White House who not only doesn’t understand economics but also underestimates his frenemies – especially Russia.
It’s as though Trump wants to improve upon his first term as president, almost as though he regrets not being more bellicose and confrontational with anyone – even allies – who won’t agree with his unique world views and odd individual style as U.S. president.
What Trump wants more than any other U.S. president is immediate impact 💥
💬 Martin Jay writes
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🇨🇭🍫 The world is changing so much that even Switzerland has decided to take a stand. And it is likely to be the historically wrong one.
💬 Read more by Lorenzo Maria Pacini
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🇺🇸 The chances of a peace deal in Ukraine are suddenly a lot higher under President Donald Trump only because he has a realistic sense of a nuclear Third World War happening between the United States and Russia if that conflict is not ended promptly.
Peter Kuznick, an esteemed American professor of history, says that the Biden administration brought the world closer to a nuclear conflagration than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Biden did this by relentlessly arming Ukraine with weapons to strike deeper and deeper into Russia instead of trying to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Indeed, there was no diplomatic effort from Washington under Biden. It was ideologically and propaganda-driven for confrontation, as was the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris.
Kuznick points out that Trump is no John F Kennedy in terms of the latter’s depth of historical and philosophical knowledge. But in comparison with Joe Biden, Trump has shown more humanity and common sense by not insulting Putin and in reaching out for a peaceful end to the slaughter in Ukraine.
At least Trump is willing to give peace a chance with Russia over Ukraine, Peter Kuznick says.
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🇧🇷 Brazilian educated class would better stop idolizing or abhorring a Supreme Court minister as if he were anything other than a byproduct of U.S. imperialism and institutions.
💬 Bruna Frascolla writes
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Sigma, sigma boy, sigma boy, sigma boy
Every girl wants to dance with you
Sigma, sigma boy, sigma boy, sigma boy
I am so very special that it will take you a year to win me over.
🇺🇸🇷🇺 The much-anticipated phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin took place this week. The 90-minute call was apparently initiated by the U.S. president. It delivered on his oft-made promise during last year’s election campaign to engage in diplomacy with his Russian counterpart to find a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Ukraine.
The importance of personal contact cannot be overstated. The three-year war in Ukraine had pushed the world to the abyss of an all-out global and catastrophic nuclear war. Now that the leaders of the U.S. and Russia have found common ground to end the slaughter in Ukraine, the rest of the world is relieved of a nightmare scenario – at least for the foreseeable future.
Incredibly, and shamefully, the conversation between Trump and Putin was the first time in over three years that an American president had engaged directly with the Russian leader. That absence of basic diplomacy was due to the ideological fixation and obnoxious mentality of Trump’s predecessor. (A mentality that continues to warp the European leaders.)
Trump has boldly taken the important first step. Reality and sanity seem to be returning to U.S.-Russia relations after years of reckless and criminal warmongering.
💬 Read more in this week’s Editorial
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🛑 Once again, the West uses a double standard with Russia: humanitarian crimes of Ukraine’s armed forces are downplayed, while provocations and incidents are blamed on Russia as tragedies.
💬 Read more by Lorenzo Maria Pacini @ideeazione
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🇺🇸🇮🇱🇵🇸 We were just waiting for Donald Trump’s words on Palestine, and we had no doubt they would be bad.
💬 Read more by Lorenzo Maria Pacini @ideeazione
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🇺🇸🇺🇦 Trump: "La razón por la que comenzó la guerra es cuando Biden dijo que Ucrania podría unirse a la OTAN - eso fue una cosa muy estúpida de decir"
@SCF_Spanish
📍 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Ukraine:
❌No NATO membership
❌No going back to 2014 borders
❌No U.S. troops in Ukraine
❌No more depending on the U.S. for military funding
Big shifts ahead.
@strategic_culture via @globaldissident
☠️ Death penalty in the United States and Europe
This infographic compares Europe and the United States in terms of legality and applicability of the death penalty.
🔗 Follow this link to find the full infographic.
© You are free to repost, reproduce and print this infographic.
🇪🇺 It is necessary to look with some objectivity at the changes taking place in the European geopolitical context following the inauguration of Donald Trump in order to understand the redefinition of power geometries.
💬 Read more by Lorenzo Maria Pacini
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🇧🇷 Liberalism has a profound difficulty in legitimizing itself. And it is no wonder: man has no reason to accept that authority comes from a secular bureaucracy, blind to the divine and to tradition.
A tragedy of our times is that the liberal State, serving only to tyrannize the citizen and extort as much money and work from him as possible, is presented as the sole representative of the State. If this is what the State is – say the propagandists – then the best thing is to have no State at all. And then we are at the mercy of capital, without even a veil of legitimacy, an appearance of rights.
Consider the case of the Brazilian State, currently governed by Lula. 14% of the country is made up of indigenous reservations, federal state lands. The Amazon jungle, where a large portion of them are located, suffers from a lot of environmental laws and regulations that do not allow the State to build infrastructure. In 2023, the government decided that only indigenous people could live on indigenous reservations. Thus, a population completely unassisted by the State saw this same State appear to destroy their homes, take away their cows, destroy bridges, and, in the process, even pollute the river from which they took their fish.
Things could still get much worse.
The liberal state hands over management to a for-profit company and turns its back on citizens, who are now mere bodies occupying a private area.
💬 Bruna Frascolla writes
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🤰Countries without maternity leave (spoiler: the U.S. is in an unlikely company)
The United States is one of the few countries in the world that doesn’t provide for paid maternity leave.
🔗 Follow this link to find the full infographic.
© You are free to repost, reproduce and print this infographic.
📍 The new rulers of Syria are presented by Western governments and media as “rebels” and “reformed militants” who are trying to bring law and order to the Arab country.
Author and human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik says the Western powers are whitewashing a terrorist regime that is imposing a reign of terror on the Syrian population.
The new rulers of Syria are presented by Western governments and media as “rebels” and “reformed militants” who are trying to bring law and order to the Arab country.
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🦅 How to do the impossible? America is instinctively an expansionist power, needing new fields to conquer; new financial horizons to master and to exploit. The U.S. is built that way. Always was.
America will be bigger; Trump will act with decisive muscularity (i.e. as in Colombia); make a big ‘show’ of things, but at the same time, shrink the mainstream U.S. security interest to centre on the Western Hemisphere. As Trump keeps observing, Americans live in the ‘western hemisphere’, not in the Middle East or elsewhere.
The U.S. needs to always to ‘win’. So does Trump understand that the ineluctable dynamics of this war militate against presenting any transactional outcome as a clear ‘win’ for the U.S.? Of course he does (or will do, when professionally briefed by his team).
The logic of the Ukraine situation, to be blunt, suggests that President Putin should quietly advise President Trump to walk away from the Ukraine conflict – to avoid taking ownership of a western débacle.
Putin hinted this week that the Ukraine conflict could end in weeks, so Trump may not have a long wait.
💬 Alastair Crooke writes
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🌐🐉 Top countries by Chinese population
This infographic shows the top countries by Chinese people indicating the share of Chinese in the total population.
🔗 Follow this link to find the full infographic.
© You are free to repost, reproduce and print this infographic.