Ukraine

UN: drone warfare threatens Ukraine aid response

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher warned that the recent rise in the use of drones poses a risk for aid operations in multiple conflicts around the world. He emphasized that international humanitarian law, which prohibits attacks on humanitarian workers and civilians, continues to apply to drone warfare regardless of how sophisticated or autonomous the weapons become. Fletcher spoke during a visit to Ukraine for World Humanitarian Day. After two days in Kherson, he described the city as "saturated by the use of drones against civilian areas." He said that humanitarian workers as well as civilian residents live under the constant peril of these weapons. Fletcher observed that as remote pilots move farther from their victims, so do accountability and justice. (Photo: Bahareh Asadi via Wikimedia Commons)

Russia sentences anti-war politician to prison

A Russian court sentenced politician Lev Shlosberg to 11 years and one month in a penal colony on charges of "discrediting" the Russian military and spreading "false information." Amnesty International called the charges "blatant reprisals for exercising his right to freedom of expression to call for peace," and demanded his immediate and unconditional release. Shlosberg, 63, is deputy chair of Yabloko, the only registered Russian party openly opposing the war in Ukraine. On the same day as his sentencing, Russia's Supreme Court rejected Yabloko's appeal of its removal from the upcoming State Duma ballot on dubious charges of campaign finance violations. (Photo: Yabloko via Amnesty International)

Podcast: geopolitics of The Odyssey

The righties are apoplectic that Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey famously portrays a Black Helen—displaying their ignorance of the actual intercourse between Africa and the ancient Greek world. But apart from the cultural politics of the movie, the geopolitics of the Trojan War have all too much to say about the contemporary world crisis. Then, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles constituted the strategic chokepoints at issue, just as the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb do today. And the Bosphorus & Dardanelles could suddenly become critically strategic if Turkey becomes embroiled in either the Middle East war or the Ukraine war—or both. The current world crisis could bring about a civilization collapse far more decisive and complete than the Bronze Age Collapse that followed the Trojan War. In Episode 341 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down. (Map: BestQuest)

UN warns of global spike in food prices

The United Nations reported that the cost of key foods increased in July as a result of searing heatwaves and ongoing geopolitical instability, which have affected crop yields and global energy prices amid persistent hunger risks in multiple countries. This situation is attributed to recurrent heatwaves, predicted effects of El Niño on this year's harvests, and growing uncertainty resulting from geopolitical tensions that have impacted the price of oil and disrupted global supply chains. (Photo: officials inspect dry rice fields in Philippines. Credit: Sen. Kiko Pangilinan via Wikimedia Commons)

US to seek dismantling of International Criminal Court

The US will launch a diplomatic campaign aimed at dismantling the International Criminal Court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced. In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Rubio wrote that the US will work alongside allied governments to take the Court apart "brick by brick, if necessary," using all tools at the government's disposal. He said the campaign's message to other governments will be a choice of "sovereign states over globalism," and pledged that the administration will protect US service members from ICC jurisdiction. (Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons)

Russian strike hits historic Kyiv cathedral

The Pechersk Lavra, one of the most important historical and religious sites in Ukraine, was hit in Moscow's latest barrage of drone and missile attacks on Kyiv, in what President Volodymyr Zelensky called "one of Russia's most serious crimes against Christian culture to date." Images circulating on social media show flames rising above the UNESCO World Heritage site, which contains structures dating from between the 11th and 18th centuries, including the gold-domed Dormition Cathedral. The head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epiphanius, confirmed that the roof of the cathedral caught fire in the attack, calling the strike another Russian crime "against humanity, against history, against Christianity." Some 42,000 Kyiv residents spent that night in the capital's metro stations to escape the aerial assault on the city. (Photo via Wikipedia)

Russia unlawfully seizes civilian property in Ukraine

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports that Russian authorities are unlawfully seizing civilian property belonging to Ukrainians in occupied areas of the country, in violation of international law. HRW analyzed some 8,000 cases involving property seizures filed in 25 courts in occupied areas, with court records showing "consistent disregard of evidence of ownership and efforts by owners to assert their rights." The seizure of property has affected millions of displaced Ukrainians or those who refuse to re-register their properties under Russian law, as they are stripped of shelter, income, or the means to sustain their lives. (Map: PCL)

Podcast: Hasan Piker & the pro-fascist pseudo-left

The administrative subpoenas issued for Hasan Piker and Medea Benjamin over their participation in the Cuba caravan are to be opposed—in part because the subpoenas will only give their sinister politics greater cachet among neophyte activists! Piker's shameless shilling for the dictatorships of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin invisibilizes the victims of their ethno-supremacist detention states—such as the Uyghurs of Xinjiang and the Crimean Tatars. This more critical point is obscured in the endless outrage over his supposed anti-Semitism. And with Xi and Putin joining with Trump to build a fascist world order, Piker's brand of campist pseudo-opposition (however overheated) is compromised from the start, mirroring what it ostensibly opposes—subpoenas notwithstanding. In Episode 330 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down in his typically unsparing manner. (Photo: Xinjiang Judicial Administration via The Diplomat)

Ukraine: fund to repair drone-damaged Chernobyl shield

With aid from the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD), Ukraine has opened a special fund for the restoration of the protective structure over the entombed reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The €30 million agreement was signed on April 26 during a Chernobyl International Conference on Recovery & Nuclear Safety, actually held at the site of the disaster that took place on that date in 1986. The "New Safe Confinement" structure has since 2016 provided a second layer of protection over the "sarcophagus" that Soviet authorities built to entomb the exploded reactor after the disaster. It was breached by a Russian drone strike on the site in February 2025. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Ecological devastation in Great Game for Russian oil

A $106 billion EU emergency loan is now on its way to Ukraine, following the fall of Hungary's strongman Viktor Orban, who was holding it up. However, as a condition of the loan, Kyiv is obliged to re-open the war-damaged Druzhba pipeline, which sends Russian oil through Ukrainian territory to Hungary, Poland and Germany. Kyiv is cooperating in getting the pipeline operational again—but is meanwhile drone-bombing Russian oil facilities on the Baltic and Black seas, in hopes of diminishing how much petrol Moscow will have to export through that pipeline. The strikes have caused "apocalyptic scenes" in the Black Sea port of Tuapse—air thick with toxic fumes, a huge column of smoke blotting out the sun, black rain falling from the sky. Russia, unwilling to sacrifice its own oil revenues but seeking to punish Europe for backing Ukraine, has announced that it will cut off the flow of oil from Kazakhstan through the Druzhba pipeline. (Image: Soviet postage stamp celebrating oil pipeline. Via Wikipedia)

Podcast: Trump to The Hague! II

International law scholars are warning that Trump may have committed war crimes in Iran, and that his ongoing threats to bomb civilian targets may constitute self-incrimination—by the same standards that US prosecutors used to gather evidence against Russia in Ukraine (before Trump suspended cooperation). Additionally, his exterminationist rhetoric may represent a step on the ladder of escalation toward genocide. In Episode 324 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to make the case—political, legal and practical—for sending Trump to a prison cell at The Hague. (Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons)

Ukrainian robots break through Russian lines

Ukrainian forces have captured a Russian position using only drones and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), President Volodymyr Zelensky boasted, describing the operation as a milestone in the evolution of modern warfare. "For the first time in the history of this war, an enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms—UGVs and drones. The occupiers surrendered, and this operation was carried out without the participation of infantry and without losses on our side," Zelensky said in a video statement. The video showed Zelensky speaking in a room full of various drones and UGVs. He did not give a precise location for the territory taken in the operation. (Photo via Nashaniva.com)