President Trump made a personal commitment on November 19 to work on ending the war in Sudan and has since reiterated his aim to end the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in several public appearances and in his recently released National Security Strategy. The level of suffering in Sudan is staggering, with over 12 million people displaced and 21 million facing extreme hunger. The suffering will only grow without urgent effort, as another major armed showdown is looming in central Sudan, while a genocide is simultaneously unfolding in western Sudan—with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killing at least 60,000 people in the largest war crime of the war.
As Trump looks to end the war, there are two fundamental ways he can move toward securing an initial ceasefire. First, he can degrade both sides’ ability to wage war. Cutting external support would restrict the RSF’s and SAF’s ability to conduct drone strikes across Sudan and degrade their ability to undertake decisive offensives. Second, he can increase both sides’ buy-in to the peace process. Decreasing the factions’ ability to wage war would help toward this end by removing recourses to violence, but Trump can introduce more incentives—or carrots—to secure their cooperation.
The most straightforward way Trump can degrade both sides’ ability to wage war is by cutting the external support both sides receive. The UAE has been the most decisive external actor, providing equipment and weapons to the RSF, including Chinese-made drones that the RSF has used to strike civilian infrastructure. The support enabled the RSF to repel an SAF offensive in early 2025 and enforce a de facto partition with the capture of all population centers in Darfur by October. On the other side, Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar have all sent weapons and drones to the SAF, with the SAF also seeking anti-air systems from Russia to counter RSF drone capabilities.
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12/11/2025 00:00 ||
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Daniil Pelymov
[REGNUM] On December 10, 1981, film actress and Honored Artist of the RSFSR Zoya Alekseyevna Fyodorova was found shot to death in her Moscow apartment on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. The Soviet film star died ten days before her 71st birthday.
Fedorova shone in optimistic film stories and musical comedies of the 1930s and 1940s, and was a master of character roles in post-war cinema, from "Girl Without an Address" to "Wedding in Malinovka." Her personal biography included two episodes in the spy thriller genre (along with romantic drama). But after her death, Zoya Fedorova became the heroine of a non-classical detective story with an open ending.
Over the course of two years of investigation, nearly four thousand witnesses were interviewed and volumes were filled, but the case never reached trial. The elderly actress's death remains a mystery. As, indeed, did her life.
"WHAT HAPPENED, ZOYA?!"
On the night of December 9-10, 1981, Fedorova was at home. The actress lived alone, but not lonely. According to her family, she was talking on the phone with a friend that day, planning a trip to Krasnodar.
Zoya Alekseyevna stopped responding after midday: the door was locked, and the phone was constantly busy. Next, we need to look at the testimony—whether to believe it or not is an open question.
One of Fedorova's friends, Margarita Nabokova— an old friend, an assistant director at Mosfilm, who worked on Gentlemen of Fortune, among other things—gave investigators a detailed explanation.
Around 1:10 PM, she arrived at a friend's house at 4/2 Kutuzovsky Prospekt, went up to apartment 243, and rang the doorbell. According to Nabokova, she could hear the radio playing in the apartment and water running in either the bathroom or the kitchen. But no one answered either the knock or the ring.
Attached to the case is a note (which, according to Nabokova, she left on the door):
"What happened, Zoya? I rushed here in a taxi, and you weren't home! How could this happen? Margarita. 1:10 PM."
A Mosfilm employee told investigators that she spoke with Zoya Fyodorova from 1:45 PM to 2:10 PM. That is, after Margarita Nabokova's arrival.
Nabokova said that she arrived at Kutuzovsky a second time around 5:00 pm, and no one opened the door for her either.
A little later, the actress's nephew, Yuri Fyodorov, a party organizer at a Moscow factory, arrived. The short winter day had ended—the light in the apartment was visible from the street. According to Yuri, he rang the doorbell several times and, when no answer came, went back to his apartment to get a spare key. He returned and opened the door…
Zoya Alekseyevna sat in a chair, holding a telephone receiver in her hand, her head cocked to the side. The actress's face was covered in blood. Yuri called 911 and met the police at the entrance.
By the time the police arrived, the body hadn't had time to cool. "I took her hand and felt her pulse—there was no pulse, but the body was still warm," recalled Boris Krivoshein (chief of the criminal investigation department at Moscow's 123rd police station in 1981). This means the crime had been committed no more than a few hours earlier.
The case file contains expert testimony: the killer shot the victim in the back of the head at close range—approximately 10–20 centimeters; the bullet passed through, knocking out the victim's left eye and breaking the lens of his glasses.
There were no obvious signs of a struggle or resistance. There were no signs of a search: all the cabinets and safes remained intact.
During a visual inspection, only three valuables were found missing. A silver service, an original Matisse, and a gold ring, valued at approximately 50,000 rubles (the monthly salary of a skilled worker in the USSR in 1981 was approximately 180 rubles), were missing. Other valuables, including 2,400 rubles in cash, were still there.
An important fact: the door to Fedorova's apartment was not forced. The testimony contained in the case file contains a leitmotif: the actress was extremely cautious and rarely let in strangers. No one forced entry to the crime scene—the killer entered unhindered.
Judging by the evidence, Fedorova knew him. There were two cups and cakes on the table.
MUR officer and junior detective Sergei Butenin noted: "We saw that she was wearing torn slippers, threadbare wool socks, and an old robe. This suggests that someone she knew well had visited her."
The first clue: investigators also discovered numerous jewelry tags in the apartment. Furthermore, next to the body was a notebook containing over 2,000 phone numbers and over 1,500 mailing addresses of various people across the Soviet Union.
Judging by the size of her address book, Fedorova was well acquainted with people “from various social strata” – from antique dealers and trade workers to (something the police were unlikely to be happy to see) high-ranking comrades from party and business bodies.
A ballistics analysis revealed a second clue, and simultaneously a mystery. The killer used a Sauer 38H pistol, a 7.65mm caliber pistol—a weapon produced in Nazi Germany until 1945 (and used by Wehrmacht and SS officers).
THE FIRST SUSPECTS ARE RULED OUT
The material evidence immediately created complications for the investigation: the Sauer was registered to only three Soviet citizens, all of whom had airtight alibis. So, the weapon was unregistered?
No traces or fingerprints of the killer were found.
Next question: The concierge claimed she didn't see any other visitors heading to apartment 243, other than Margarita Nabokova and Yuri Fyodorov.
But Nabokova claimed she hadn't gotten into the apartment. And, indeed, no trace of her was found. Yuri, upon arriving, immediately called the police.
If he were the killer, who for some reason decided to call the police to the crime scene, the body would have been "fresh"—but here, several hours had clearly passed. Plus, Yuri had a more than convincing alibi: at the presumed time of the murder, he was at a meeting of the factory party committee.
Further investigation concluded that Margarita and Yuri had no motive.
Investigators speculated that the killer could have entered through an unlocked attic (building 4/2 adjoins the adjacent building, and judging by the context, there were no doormen in the entrances there). The perpetrator could also have left through the same door.
But the door hadn't been forced open, and the tea party for two once again muddied the waters. The analysis of what happened boiled down to the fact that Fedorova herself had opened the door, sat down in the chair, and during their conversation, someone had approached from behind and fired a shot.
THE STRANGE LIFE OF ZOYA FEDOROVA
It would seem that the direction we should be looking for is the addresses in the mysterious notebook. We'll touch on these clues below. For now, let's note that publications and books published as early as the 1990s have been pushing an exotic theory: the Soviet actress was killed by her closest relative, an American. And this seems plausible. After all, Zoya Fyodorova had a strange biography.
Thus, her rapidly developing film career was not hindered by her father's arrest: Alexei Fyodorov was "arrested" in 1938. But even after that, she continued to star in leading roles, and, what's more, received two Stalin Prizes, in 1941 and 1942.
A few words about my father. Biographies usually mention that he was a metalworker. Less often, they mention that in 1918, Alexei Fyodorov served as head of the Kremlin passport service.
It's believed that Zoya Fyodorova's nationwide popularity, which came after her film "Girlfriends" (1936), acted as a shield at the time of her father's arrest. They say they couldn't touch the nation's favorite actress.
Less well known is that Fedorova had already been arrested long before her film career began. In 1928, as she herself put it, "for foxtrotting."
A quote from the testimony of 19-year-old Z. A. Fedorova to an OGPU investigator: "In 1926–1927, I attended parties... where I danced the foxtrot... I met a serviceman, Kirill Fedorovich Prove." Prove was under investigation by the OGPU on suspicion of spying for Britain. But the key witness, Zoya, was unharmed. The document "removing Z. A. Fedorova from the case" bore the signature of OGPU Chairman Genrikh Yagoda.
Fedorova had many affairs under her belt—for example, with pilot Ivan Kleshchev, a hero of the Battle of Khalkhin Gol (in the pre-war years, military pilots were true stars). This was quite typical. But in 1945, at a reception at the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, the actress met Jackson Rogers Tate, a naval attaché at the US Embassy.
The diplomat and the artist allegedly successfully concealed their relationship.
That same year, 1945, Tate was expelled from the country at the request of the Soviet authorities—not because of his affair with Fedorova, but for some other reason. In January 1946, the actress gave birth to a daughter, Victoria, who later went on to have a successful film career of her own, first in the USSR and then in the United States.
Tate claimed he was unaware of Zoya's pregnancy. Zoya, concealing the foreigner's paternity, married composer Alexander Ryazanov. In December of that same year, 1946, Fedorova was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison for espionage. She was released nine years later, in 1955. Even before the "thaw," she returned to Moscow and filmmaking, and was reunited with her daughter.
"AMERICAN FIGHT" OR "KGB"?
Twenty years later, in the spring of 1975, Soviet actress Victoria Yakovlevna (as the name "Jackson" was Russified) Fedorova tracked down her father, Jackson R. Tate, a retired US Navy rear admiral, in the United States. She was invited overseas, as if the Iron Curtain didn't exist.
In June of that same year, 1975, a few days before her visa expired, Victoria Fedorova married a certain Frederick Powe, a Pan American pilot, and remained in the United States.
And this American son-in-law could well have been Zoya Fyodorova's killer. This hypothesis was publicly voiced in the post-Soviet era by the renowned screenwriter Eduard Voldarsky, who knew "Vika Fyodorova" well. Moreover, in 1995, he published a book about it, "Crime Without Punishment."
"Vika's American husband, a pilot, flew constantly between Moscow and New York. His salary was small. And after Zoya Alekseyevna's death, he suddenly went into big business. Was it with the Fedorov diamonds?" Voldarsky wrote. A story in the spirit of Agatha Christie—murder over an inheritance (the sole heir was "Victoria Jacksonovna").
More about the diamonds later, but for now let's note: this is Voldarsky's version, not the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs or the KGB.
In any case, it's not known that our law enforcement officials believed that Mr. Powe, having arrived in Moscow, decided to visit his mother-in-law, entering through the attic of a neighboring building, and shot her with a "fascist" pistol. After all, tracking the arrivals and departures of PanAm crews wouldn't have been difficult.
The murder of a Soviet citizen, the pride of Soviet cinema, by an American would have been a powerful propaganda plot during the final stages of the Cold War (remember, it was 1981). But no.
For his part, Christopher Povey, the son of Frederick Povey and Victoria Fedorova, claimed for many years that his grandmother was murdered by "KGB agents." The reason given was a darkly romantic: Zoya allegedly once refused Lavrentiy Beria himself. For this, he imprisoned her in a Siberian Gulag, and the murder was supposedly belated revenge by the KGB. It's a plausible theory, but there's no evidence to support it.
But rumors were circulating in Moscow at the time about the involvement of either the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or some high-ranking party officials. The American term "deep state" hadn't yet been adopted, but there were whispers of something similar.
The writer Yuri Nagibin, naturally, already during perestroika, published in the liberal Ogonyok the story " Afanasych " about how the murder of Zoya Fyodorova was personally ordered by the head of Brezhnev's Ministry of Internal Affairs, Nikolai Shchelokov : the minister's wife found out that the actress was keeping a unique diamond - and everything was done to get hold of it.
But let's move from speculation to criminal specifics.
"STONES," MONEY, FAKE MATISSE
A more thorough search turned the case around. A hiding place containing handbags was discovered in apartment no. 243. One contained three thousand rubles, another a gold chain, and the others were empty. Jewelry tags were also discovered. Recall that similar tags were found during the initial examination of the crime scene.
It seemed the apartment's owner was preparing to sell a large consignment of jewelry. The question was, to whom? Overall, the evidence pointed to People's Artist of the RSFSR Fedorova being involved in shady schemes involving the sale of precious stones, jewelry, and antiques.
Hence the tags, the notebook, the antique furniture, and the "crystal" in the three-room apartment on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. The killer was clearly not simply "visiting" a wealthy actress he knew, but rather had a specific goal in mind.
Fedorova could have been killed because of debts or unfavorable deals. Witness testimony indicated that the actress often borrowed money and didn't repay it, or took interest-free "advance payments" for her services (including assistance in smuggling items across the border). "There was a theory that she took something from someone and didn't return the money," recalled MUR officer Captain Butenin.
If Fedorova had paid for something dishonestly, she could have made a powerful enemy in the criminal or near-criminal world.
A separate story is the disappearance of a Matisse painting from an apartment.
It turned out that Fedorova had purchased the painting to send to her daughter in the States. It also turned out that the painting was a fake, and Victoria wouldn't get a cent for it. "Fedorova demanded a refund from the seller who had defrauded her. Perhaps she pressured him, or these people were afraid of being exposed. So they killed her. Politics wasn't involved, only crime," recalled Vyacheslav Pankin, former head of the Main Criminal Investigation Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Politics most likely had nothing to do with it, but the closest relative of the country's main politician ended up very close to Fedorova's case.
THE SHADOW OF THE "GYPSY PRINCE"
The investigation couldn't help but take into account the serial nature of the robberies: in November 1980, thieves "took" the apartment of Lyudmila Tolstaya, the widow of the "Red Count" Alexei Tolstoy. Less than three weeks after Fedorova's murder, thieves robbed the apartment of animal trainer Irina Bugrimova. The criminals were interested in jewelry.
In both cases, the soloist of the Romen Theatre, the “Gypsy Prince of the Soviet Union” Boris Buryatse, was detained.
He is also the lover of Galina Brezhneva, the daughter of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Galina Brezhneva was... Zoya Fyodorova's neighbor in the same building. So was the Interior Minister's wife, Svetlana Shchelokova. Both women were friends with the pre-war film star, who was part of the "inner circle."
The investigation, unraveling criminal connections, could have found a trail, but it seemed as if they had hit a brick wall.
Where the investigation could have been focused, again, is in the American direction. Fedorova applied several times for permission to travel to the United States to visit her daughter and son-in-law. Later publications alleged that the actress, in preparation for her departure, hastily sold off valuables, including paintings.
Later, a version circulated in the perestroika press: having been refused permission to leave the USSR, Fedorova could have blackmailed a high-ranking link in the “diamond” chain—and overdone it.
This, we emphasize, is speculation.
The fact is, Victoria Fedorova was denied entry into the Soviet Union for her mother's funeral. And the murder investigation... came to nothing. Two years of joint investigations by the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, four thousand interviews with suspects—and nothing. The investigation was never reopened. The Chekists and police investigators dutifully dug into the matter, but we'd venture to suggest that the word of those known as the party and economic nomenklatura carried more weight.
All that remains are legends like this one: shortly before her death, Fedorova called her daughter and casually said: “They’ll kill me soon.”
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Evgeny Balakin
[REGNUM] In an interview with Politico on December 9, Donald Trump took a swipe at Volodymyr Zelensky, praising his fraudulent qualities.
"He forced the crook Joe Biden to give him $350 billion. And look what it got him. About 25% of his country is gone." But the money is gone too.
"You know, he (Zelensky) is a great salesman. I call him F. T. Barnum,"
…that’s P.T. Barnum, for Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–1891), the American showman and businessman remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding with James Anthony Bailey the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus…
Trump "praised" the head of the Kyiv regime. And here, readers not only in Russia but also on our side of the Atlantic generally ask: "Who is this F. T. Barnum?"
In the United States, he's a household name, much like Ostap Bender in our country. Although, more likely, Goodwin, the Great and Powerful, is closer to Barnum in type. Or the American prototype—the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz—who was based on P.T. Barnum.
This Connecticut Yankee, born in 1810, was not a great man, but he successfully sold "horrible" shows that combined fun and displays of ingenuity.
MASTER OF DEMOCRATIC DECEPTION
Born into a family of farmers, Phineas Taylor despised hard work, preferring to achieve success through cunning and ingenuity.
By his twenties, he had dabbled in lotteries, newspapers, and real estate, but his real breakthrough came in 1835, when he "rented" an elderly slave, Joyce Heth, passing her off as George Washington's 161-year-old nurse —a complete scam that nonetheless helped Phineas fill the halls and line his pockets.
Barnum's business strategy can be summed up in one phrase: "There's a sucker born every minute."
He elevated the so-called humbug—a trick designed to entertain an audience—to an art form. "The greater the deception, the more the people like it," Barnum wrote in his autobiography, where he openly exposed his tricks but emphasized their harmlessness.
His American Museum in New York, opened in 1841, became a sensation, attracting 400,000 visitors a year with exhibits like the Fiji Mermaid (a monkey sewn onto a fish) and General Tom Thumb (a dwarf he took around Europe, even earning an audience with Queen Victoria).
Barnum's innovations—gas lighting, aquariums, and "great swindles," coupled with moral lectures—democratized entertainment, making it family-friendly and profitable. Justifying his approach to life, he asserted, "The public likes to be swindled if it's fun."
After his museum burned down in the 1860s, Barnum turned to politics and became a Republican state legislator for Connecticut (1865–1869), speaking out against slavery and supporting the Thirteenth Amendment. He then became mayor of Bridgeport (1875–1876), improving the city's infrastructure and promoting his circus along the way. He founded the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1881—"the greatest show on earth."
FARCE REPEATS ITSELF AS FARCE
Now let's move on to Kryvyi Rih, where Vladimir Zelensky was born in 1987. Raised in a family of military engineers, he chose to pursue success in show business.
He honed his wit in school theater before founding the Kvartal 95 troupe in 1997—a comedy group considered one of the best in the post-Soviet league of the "Club of the Funny and Inventive."
Zelenskyy made his mark in films like "Rzhevsky vs. Napoleon" and romantic comedies, but his crowning achievement was the series "Servant of the People" (2015–2019), in which he played a humble teacher who became president thanks to a viral video against corruption. The show wasn't just entertaining; it was a kind of "moral lecture" in the spirit of P.T. Barnum. It reflected Ukrainian society's disillusionment with oligarchs and bribe-takers.
And just like Barnum, the owner of the freak show and the tent show, at a certain point Zelensky decided to move into politics.
Zelensky, inspired by his television role, founded the Servant of the People party in 2018. In a landslide 2019 election, he won with 73% of the vote against then-President Petro Poroshenko *, dissolving parliament for early elections that gave his party a majority.
Following Barnum's principle of "profitable philanthropy" (who donated to hospitals while promoting his brand), Zelenskyy promised the West reforms, achieving EU candidate status in 2022 right in the middle of a war. Zelenskyy, like Barnum, gained power—but at a far higher price.
But while the "miracle games" in Barnum's tent were ultimately harmless (at most a dollar or two out of pocket for the pleasure of seeing a fake mermaid), the "presidential game" turned into a grim reality. And Barnum's "reign" in Bridgeport didn't cause any particular damage to the United States.
Zelenskyy, who promised peace, dragged the country into a protracted conflict, where his decisions led to hundreds of thousands of casualties. "We will fight to the end," he repeatedly declared, but he didn't specify that this would be the end of Ukraine.
But despite all the differences in the destructive consequences, the two showmen, businessmen and politicians have something in common.
BARNUM-ZELENSKY SYNDROME
Both characters are strong in persuasion—that's the main point of Trump's analogy—but in Zelensky's case, his "art" has led to tragic consequences.
Barnum was a marketing genius: for example, when promoting Jenny Lind's tour in the 1850s, he paid an advance of $187,500 (equivalent to $7 million today) and earned $500,000. He then wrote bestsellers like "The Life of F. T. Barnum," selling over a million copies, mixing fact and fiction.
Zelensky, who speaks Ukrainian, Russian, and English, is equally adept at manipulating facts: he portrays himself as a strong military leader, recording video messages from a bunker wearing a military T-shirt to sway Western sympathies.
It must be acknowledged that this trick worked: Zelenskyy has secured $175 billion in US aid to Ukraine since 2022 (these are the actual figures, according to the CFR, and they refute Trump's obvious exaggerations). As Simon Schuster notes in his book "Showman" (2024), Zelenskyy's improvisational skills from KVN help him in diplomacy, just as Barnum's tricks captivated crowds.
It's worth noting that Trump believes Zelenskyy is "better than F.T. Barnum. Because he came into the country and left with $50 billion every time," emphasizing how profitably the head of the Ukrainian regime "sells" the suffering of ordinary citizens.
However, this “benefit” comes at a price: repeated refusals to negotiate (for example, in Istanbul in 2022) only prolong the war and negate the very possibility of Ukraine’s existence.
Both Barnum and Zelensky have dark spots in their biographies. Barnum was criticized for exploiting "freaks" like Siamese twins, as well as for his own admitted cruelty to slaves.
It's worth noting that the "Barnum effect," named after him, describes the tendency in psychology to accept vague statements as truth: a great way to mislead people by using general (but seemingly personal) words, which Zelensky also uses.
Both characters undoubtedly left their mark on history. Barnum revolutionized mass entertainment, becoming a symbol of American-style capitalism.
Zelenskyy, named Time's Person of the Year in 2022, managed to draw Europe and the United States into the Ukrainian conflict by convincing them that Russia could be strategically defeated. But Trump's comparison, though witty, misses the mark: if Barnum was the king of deception, Zelenskyy is the proprietor of one of the deadliest "circuses" in history, where the price of admission is millions of lives.
There's also a difference in the length of the shows. Barnum's tent lasted until 2017. Zelensky's bloody show will end before our eyes.
[NavalNews] The vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, over 5,000 nautical miles across, protects the West Coast of the United States against Chinese naval forces in the event of a war. The appearance of new extra-extra-large underwater drones (XXLUUVs) changes this, providing China with low-risk options to directly threaten West Coast ports.
For decades American strategy in East Asia, focused on a potential conflict with China, have viewed the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean as both a challenge and an advantage. While the distances involved make logistics harder (known as the ‘tyranny of distance‘), the U.S. Navy’s superior conventional power and fact that it would be even harder for Chinese vessels to reach the U.S., insulate the West Coast of America from Chinese aggression. Any war would therefore be fought at arm’s length with U.S. forces only at risk in the immediate theatre of operations. But China may be finding ways to turn this traditional advantage into a disadvantage.
China is building the world’s largest underwater drones, the size of traditional submarines. The first stage of analysis established their existence, and that they are highly likely uncrewed. It is now time to consider why China is building them.
China is testing the two models of extra-extra large underwater drones (XXLUUVs) in the South China Sea. The largest underwater drones in the world by some margin, they rival crewed submarines in terms of size. The designs are likely diesel-electric, per a builders model shown at the defence show, and the same as the U.S. Navy’s much smaller Boeing Orca XLUUV.
EXTREMELY LONG RANGED UNDERWATER DRONES
Making underwater drones so large comes with clear challenges and disadvantages. They are inherently more expensive, more time consuming to build, harder to maintain, and require traditional port facilities. So, one or more of their strengths must outweigh these. Advantages might include a greater weapons load, or more powerful sensors such as towed sonar arrays. But the differentiating strength is likely to be the much greater operational range.
China’s XXLUUVs will have a range of approximately 10,000 nautical miles. This is based primarily on published specifications of a similarly sized conceptual XXLUUV displayed by Chinese shipbuilder at a recent defence show. It also aligns with rough calculations based on the size of the submarine.
The designs are likely diesel-electric, per the builders model shown at the defence show, and the same as the U.S. Navy’s much smaller Boeing Orca XLUUV. The defence show model was armed with torpedoes, mines and could carry smaller underwater drones. It had a diesel generator and unusually large bank of batteries replacing the crew space and taking up most of the hull volume.
10,000+ NAUTICAL MILE RANGE
That design boasted a 7,000 nautical miles on diesels, presumably snorkeling, which is comparable to traditional diesel-electric submarines. But the claimed 3,000 nautical miles submerged is much further; thanks to its massive bank of modern batteries it can sail approximately six times further than the best diesel-electric submarines underwater. This might be used for the final phases of the mission, but it might also prove useful to help the sub slip through anti-submarine defenses between the island chains which separate China from the open ocean.
Range could be further extended by increasing diesel fuel, more batteries, or simply towing them closer to the target before launch. The batteries specified in the defence show model are lithium-iron (LiFe PO4), which are safer than the better-known lithium-ion type (note the one letter difference). While still much more powerful dense than traditional lead-acid batteries, they are less power dense than lithium-ion. The underwater range could thus be doubled simply by swapping the batteries to a lithium-ion type. All these ways could extend the practical range beyond 10,000 nautical miles. And being an uncrewed platform, however expensive, it can be used as an expendable system which doubles the operational radius.
"Whee! Freedom from US oppression!"
"Pearl Harbor, but oil!"
"And discretion! We hardly killed any--"
"Except for that fenny."
"And tanked the Yanks into depression!"
"Er..."
[emergency council in session]
Europe is threatening to pull a financial trigger that fires backward and the panic behind that threat tells you everything.
Rumors that the U.K., Germany, and France might dump their official U.S. Treasury reserves if DC moves toward a Russia–U.S. peace deal reveals Europe’s… https://t.co/B3WzRxkbzJpic.twitter.com/2KWdM8aasN
Europe is threatening to pull a financial trigger that fires backward and the panic behind that threat tells you everything.
Rumors that the U.K., Germany, and France might dump their official U.S. Treasury reserves if DC moves toward a Russia–U.S. peace deal reveals Europe’s condition, this isn’t strategy, but the panic of a ruling class watching history turn the page without them.
Whispers circulate of a fantastical $2.34 trillion “nuclear option,” as if Europe commands a mountain of American debt it could unleash in retaliation. But that number is fiction.
The only reserves these governments actually control are roughly $550–600B, held by the Bank of England, Banque de France, and Bundesbank. The rest — the “trillions” — are custodial assets belonging to non-European investors. Europe cannot liquidate what it does not own.
So the great “nuclear option” is exposed, a bluff built on assets that aren’t theirs, and a threat that would collapse Europe before it inconveniences Washington.
Even dumping its real holdings would be fatal, for Europe. Washington could absorb it. Europe cannot.
Liquidation would trigger retaliatory selling of gilts, bunds, and OATs, the sovereign-debt scaffolding holding up Europe’s banks, pensions, currency, and illusions of stability. Yields would spike, the euro would sink, the ECB would face a continental margin call.
For 80 years Europe begged the U.S. to underwrite its security and prosperity. Now it whispers financial war against the very country that kept its elites in power. A continent built on US guarantees imagines it can blackmail America.
This is what happens when geopolitical irrelevance meets civilizational panic.
Because Europe isn’t acting from weakness, it is reacting to the fact that the real negotiation is happening without it.
Washington and Moscow probe endgame parameters. Europe’s role? Send three Stooges to London and pretend it still matters.
Macron’s line: “Europe has many cards in our hands” – collapses instantly. The only cards Europe holds are IOUs, frozen Russian assets, (the real kamikaze nuke) and threats that would incinerate its economies before inconveniencing America. It is the gambler who sold his chips and insists he’s still at the table.
Merz mutters skepticism. Starmer invokes a “coalition of the willing.” But none have negotiating power, leverage, no path to dictate terms.
Zelensky then delivers the script handed to him by European patrons: “Russia insists we give up territory. We do not want to give anything up. The Americans are looking for a compromise.”
That is where the facade ruptures.
Washington wants a deal anchored in the map as it exists and to take the offramp.
Europe needs the war prolonged, not for Ukraine’s sake, but to postpone its own reckoning and keep the graft flowing.
Europe shackled itself to a proxy war it cannot direct or survive. It gambled its future on fantasies of Russian defeat, sacrificed its industries on sanctions that detonated inward, and built politics on theatrics that disintegrated once Washington embraced a measure of realism.
And here is the truth behind everything from censorship to hysteria to threats of financial self-immolation... Europe fears its own population more than it fears Moscow or Washington.
That is why the DSA exists. Why dissent is criminalized. Why narratives must be centrally managed.
Because if Europeans ever connect the dots the economic collapse, the sanctions boomerang, the demographic unraveling, the proxy-war graft, the political decay, their rulers know exactly what follows.
So yes, they may be deranged enough to contemplate burning what remains of the post-1945 financial order. For Europe’s elites, the collapse of the system is less terrifying than the collapse of their authority.
Europe is not warning Washington.
Europe is begging not to be left behind.
And history, indifferent as ever has already moved on, with no seat reserved for those who mistook illusions for power.
The site’s disclaimer: This site is not linked to the Katters Australia Party in any shape or form but we support the common sense KPA policies because they represent the wishes of the majority. Apparently Mr. Katter’s personal political party is a small thing, getting him and one or two others into office on a platform agrarian populism: agrarian socialist economic policies and conservative social policies, whatever that means.
[CairnsNews] A 35-year military veteran and whistleblower, Harry Meyers, who apparently exposed a drug cartel rail tunnel linking to a border patrol agent in 1990, accidentally walked straight into what he believes was the final planning meeting for Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
The meeting took place on September 9th, 2025, the day before Kirk’s assassination, at the Joint Task Force Southern Border HQ, Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The information was detailed in an email sent to Candace Owens, who says it all checks out.
The link between the meeting and the Kirk event the day after was the alleged presence at the meeting of Kirk’s security chief Brian Harpole.
Fort Huachuca was compromised by Mossad agents in 2022, when they set up a laptop stand in a mall near the base to spy on American troops, according to independent journalist Patrick Howley.
Meyers, who is 56, said he saw a room of more than 12 lieutenant colonels (not normally seen outside the Pentagon) and and then recognised Harpole “walking out with a gray-haired man in glasses who was clearly running the show”.
Harpole recently appeared on YouTube on the Shawn Ryan Show, over his experiences on the day of the shooting, including his attempts to stop the blood gushing from Kirk’s neck wound.
But Harpole was pulled up over his claim that campus police did not allow drones, when it was revealed that TPUSA staff were showing drone footage of the site on the day to people traveling to the event.
There was also a commander in charge of the meeting named Captain Daniel R. Neff, who is believed to be related to Blake Neff, Charlie Kirk’s former producer at TPUSA and a former Fox News colleague and friend of Tucker Carlson.
Capt. Neff apparently detained and interrogated Meyers for seven hours, trying to label him a “bomb threat” and a spy, Project Constitution reports.
They threatened charges “and only let him go after verifying he wasn’t part of some counter-op.” While Meyers was flying home to Washington, his wife called him at a stop-over with the news that Kirk had been assassinated.
“This man has the incident report number, hotel receipts, call logs, timestamps – everything,” says Project Constitution. The information was initially sent to Owens.
“Candace verified what she could and says it’s 100% legit. This isn’t conspiracy theory, this is a decorated veteran who stumbled into the room where they allegedly finalized the hit on Charlie Kirk… and lived to tell it.”
So there is now a direct eyewitness who placed TPUSA leadership inside a classified military facility the day before Charlie was killed.
Project Constitution demanded that the administration immediately release their records of that incident report 8611-2025-MPC-446 and that there be a full investigation into Harpole and Captain Neff’s presence at that meeting.
They also called on Blake Neff to “come clean and tell us if he has any family members in the military that were at that base on that date” and that Brian Harpole publicly respond as to his whereabouts on that day.
Blake Neff also happens to be a former war games specialist for the US Marine Corps War College from 2016-2020 but got booted from the program after CNN exposed his “racist and homophobic posts”. Fox fired him too.
This connection raised the question as to whether “Captain Neff” was related, or just the most convenient cover in a family of military-adjacent insiders.
Cairns News is wondering whether the US military, like TPUSA, is now fully infiltrated by Israeli assets, who appear to have been operating in the US jointly with French and Egyptian intelligence assets through an operation reminiscent of the infamous Safari Club joint intel operation in Africa.
Two Egyptian-registered jets have been observed in US airspace on dozens of occasions. Nearly 70 of those US and foreign visits also coincided with the movements of Charlie and Erika Kirk, and one of the jets was parked at Provo Municipal Airport near Utah Valley University on several days leading up to Kirk’s shooting.
Meyers, after his encounter with the cartel tunnel, was put into witness protection after his ID was compromised. He was also placed on restricted duties which included no narco or border work, and a gag order until May 2025.
Meyers reportedly returned to Arizona on September 8th for some closure and stayed at the Candlewood Suites military hotel near Fort Huachuka. After he arrived at the base on the 9th, he accidentally walked into the building where the high-security meeting was taking place.
Meanwhile Erika Kirk has gone on a media blitz, attacking Owens and others indirectly for implicating her and Turning Point staff in covering up the investigation. Kirk likened herself to the Old Testament prophet Nehemiah who was rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem while certain people mocked.
#8
For those unfamiliar with Charlie heart, was a young, charismatic and smart, "happy warrior" Christian conservative who was key to recruiting the youth vote for Trump.
And that's why they killed him.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
12/11/2025 14:04 Comments ||
Top||
#9
The Kirk family needs to come down on there people - including Candace Owens - like the school shooting families hit the guy who said it never happened. I get Mrs. Kirk wanting to try and forgive and ignore it, but this is WAY too much. These ghouls need to stand up in a courtroom and make their case...so they can be bankrupted unto the 7th generation.
#10
For those unfamiliar with Charlie heart, was a young, charismatic and smart, "happy warrior" Christian conservative who was key to recruiting the youth vote for Trump.
And that's why they killed him.
And that's why you work to make sure the killer gets off by spoiling the trial. You lie to us about your overall motives while you lie to us about the details, and pretend you're fighting for what you're destroying.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
