Britain is ‘participating in and intensifying’ Ukraine conflict – Kremlin

Britain is ‘participating in and intensifying’ Ukraine conflict – Kremlin

RT

Britain is directly participating in the Ukraine conflict and actively working to prolong it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, after London announced it would grant Kiev access to classified technical information needed to assemble long-range cruise missiles domestically.

The UK government has authorized European defense manufacturer MBDA to release classified information concerning British-made components for SCALP, the French-produced version of Britain’s Storm Shadow. The air-launched missiles use shared French and British technology and have a range exceeding 250 km.

“The UK was the first to gift long-range weapons to Ukraine back in 2023,” he said, referring to deliveries of Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles. “I am pleased to confirm today that I have approved” Kiev’s request to share the missile-production technology as well, the prime minister added.

Responding to the announcement, Peskov said Britain is “participating in this war on the side of the Kiev regime” and is “methodically and regularly adding fuel to the fire and scheming to prevent any development of the peace settlement process.”

Moscow has maintained that the UK and other suppliers of weapons to Kiev are directly responsible for the deep-strike campaign, which it says has frequently hit civilians.

According to the Sunday Times, drones manufactured by BAE Systems and another unnamed British company have been used to hit targets in Russia over the past six months, including two oil refineries. The UAVs reportedly include the Nyan, a jet-powered drone produced by a BAE Systems subsidiary.

In a statement last week, the Russian Embassy in London called the UK “an accomplice and co-perpetrator of the bloody crimes and terrorist attacks” committed by Ukraine. It warned that “the deeper its involvement in the conflict and the greater its support for Kiev’s terrorist machinery, the higher the price it will pay.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that London will face consequences if it continues supplying drones used by Ukraine for strikes deep inside Russia.

“We have every right to regard the proudly proclaimed direct involvement of British missile forces in strikes against Russia as participation in the war, with all the consequences that entails,” Lavrov said.

How close are Russia and the UK to war?

How close are Russia and the UK to war?

RT

Russia just pulled its ambassador to the UK, as British Prime Minister Andy Burnham doubles down on open involvement in the Ukraine conflict. The risk of open war has never been higher, but Burnham is writing checks that he can’t cash.

Relations between Russia and the UK are at an “unprecedentedly low level,”Moscow’s embassy in London said in a statement on Sunday, after it emerged that ambassador Andrey Kelin had left his post in late July and would not be immediately replaced. In a follow-up statement to the Sunday Times, an embassy spokesperson said that Kelin had made “considerable efforts to preserve contacts and channels of communication” between the UK and Russia, but the UK had clearly chosen a “path of confrontation.”

“He left Britain in the hope that a more constructive and respectful dialogue could eventually be restored, should the UK reconsider its policies towards our country,”the spokesman added.

Moscow has viewed the UK as one of Ukraine’s most bellicose foreign backers since the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson intervened to scupper a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev that April; Britain supplied Ukraine with ‘Storm Shadow’ cruise missiles for long-range strikes on Russia a year later; and in the latest revelation by the British press, Ukraine utilized a plethora of British-made drones in its campaign of long-range attacks on Russian civilian targets this year.

On August 17, the Russian embassy in London warned Britain that “the deeper its involvement in the conflict and the greater its support for Kiev’s terrorist machinery, the higher the price it will pay.” 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov added that Moscow has “every right to regard the proudly proclaimed direct involvement of British missile forces in strikes against Russia as participation in the war, with all the consequences that entails.”

Neither statement seems to have deterred Burnham. Later that day, the British PM proclaimed that the UK would continue “to support Ukraine 100%.” Six days later, his office announced that it would provide Ukraine with classified information enabling it to produce Storm Shadow cruise missiles on Ukrainian soil. 

 Burnham followed this up with a visit to Kiev on Monday, where he compared the conflict to Britain’s struggle against Nazi Germany in World War II, and promised to supply Ukraine with anti-air missiles to repel Russian strikes on its energy infrastructure.

Russia’s kinetic response to Burnham’s missile data sharing plan is straightforward. In a statement to reporters on August 24, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “our armed forces are carrying out the relevant work and obtaining the necessary data in order to identify the production sites for such missiles and other military equipment, and are taking measures to destroy these locations.”

Destroying missile production sites in Ukraine is a far easier task for Russia now than at any point since 2022. Ukraine has no ammunition for its Patriot air defense batteries left, nor does Kiev have any money to buy more. In a post on X on Sunday, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky admitted that his military used all of its 2026 budget in the first six months of the year buying and building drones to attack civilian infrastructure in Russia. 

As a result, Russia has been dismantling weapons plants, ports and ships used to import arms, and energy targets across Ukraine with impunity since July.

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The Clock Is Ticking: Trump Wants To Wait - But Iran May Not

The Clock Is Ticking: Trump Wants To Wait - But Iran May Not

 PNW STAFF

The most dangerous period in the conflict with Iran may not be determined by missiles, aircraft or troop movements. It may be determined by the calendar.

President Donald Trump appears increasingly willing to slow the military tempo and let economic pressure do the work. His administration is preparing what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has called the "toughest sanctions in history," targeting Iran's oil revenues, financial networks and countries that continue doing business with Tehran. Trump himself recently described the approach as "low-keying it," signaling that, at least for now, he prefers economic warfare to another major round of strikes.

That strategy requires something Washington believes it has: time.

Iran may be reaching exactly the opposite conclusion.

If Tehran believes the sanctions campaign will steadily weaken its economy, limit its ability to rebuild damaged military capabilities and increase internal pressure, then waiting until winter could leave it with fewer options than it has today.

And hanging over both calculations are two dates: Israel holds its national election on October 27. The United States holds its midterm elections exactly one week later, on November 3.

That creates a potentially explosive window in which Washington has powerful reasons to avoid escalation--and Tehran may have powerful reasons to provoke it.

From Washington's perspective, another large-scale military offensive carries substantial risks.

It could produce American casualties. It could trigger larger Iranian retaliation. It could further disrupt the Strait of Hormuz and send oil and gasoline prices higher at precisely the moment voters are deciding control of Congress.

Economic pressure offers Trump another option.

The administration believes months of warfare have left Iran substantially weakened and that sanctions may now accomplish what earlier financial pressure could not. The United States can squeeze Iranian petroleum exports, banking relationships and international trade while maintaining military pressure in the background.

The strategy is essentially: Why risk another costly military campaign today if Iran might be significantly weaker several months from now?

There is also an obvious political advantage to patience.

Even if the White House never publicly says it wants to avoid major escalation before November 3, presidents understand that wars are politically unpredictable. A successful operation can strengthen public confidence. A failed raid, captured American soldiers, rising gasoline prices or an unexpected regional escalation can dominate an election overnight.

Trump therefore has every reason to keep his options open while avoiding unnecessary surprises.

Iran, however, understands the same calendar.

Iran's best opportunity to create leverage may be before the elections rather than after them.

Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has warned specifically about the possibility of an Iranian "October surprise"--an operation deliberately timed around the Israeli and American elections. His argument is not that anyone knows precisely what Iran will do, but that Tehran has an unusually strong incentive to exploit this narrow political window.

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Indiana’s Blackout Exposes America’s Decaying Power Grid

Indiana’s Blackout Exposes America’s Decaying Power Grid

Martin Armstrong

Tens of thousands of people in northwest Indiana have been living without electricity for more than a week, yet this disaster received little national attention until residents had already entered what they described as “survival mode.” 

The blackout began after an August 11 derecho produced winds approaching 99 miles per hour, destroying power lines, transmission equipment, and utility poles across the region. More than 300,000 NIPSCO customers initially lost service, representing over 60% of the utility’s system and the largest outage event in its history. As of August 20, approximately 68,000 customers reportedly remained without power, with parts of Gary warned that full restoration could take until August 25.

This is not merely an inconvenience caused by a summer storm. Schools have closed, businesses have lost inventory and revenue, families have thrown away spoiled food, and people who depend upon refrigerated medicine or electrically powered medical equipment have been placed at risk. Traffic signals stopped working, communications were interrupted, and residents were forced to line up at community centers for hot meals and a place to charge their phones.

The national media will discuss an outage when it affects an airport, Wall Street, or a wealthy neighborhood. When working-class communities in Gary and Lake County lose power for more than a week, the story remains largely local until the suffering becomes impossible to ignore. There has been reporting, but the scale of the national response bears no relationship to the severity of what happened. If 68,000 customers in Manhattan had remained without electricity for nine days, every network would be broadcasting live from the streets and Congress would already be demanding hearings.

NIPSCO says the damage was unprecedented and that crews must replace or repair approximately 300 distribution poles and 44 transmission poles in Gary alone. More than 600 line workers have reportedly been involved in restoration efforts. Nobody should diminish the severity of a derecho with hurricane-force winds, nor blame crews working in dangerous conditions. The problem is that a natural disaster has exposed how little redundancy exists in the system. When a single series of storms can knock out electricity to most of a utility’s customers and leave tens of thousands disconnected for more than a week, the grid has become a single point of failure for the entire community.

America has built an economy in which virtually nothing functions without electricity. Food cannot be preserved, fuel pumps cannot operate, electronic payments fail, mobile phones eventually die, and many modern appliances become useless. Hospitals and emergency facilities possess backup generators, but ordinary households and small businesses are expected to fend for themselves. The government promotes the electrification of vehicles, heating, cooking, and transportation while the grid required to support this dependence remains vulnerable to trees, flooding, aging poles, overloaded transformers, and severe weather.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has repeatedly identified the country’s energy infrastructure as requiring massive investment. Much of the national transmission and distribution network was constructed decades ago for a completely different economy. Demand is now increasing from data centers, electric vehicles, manufacturing, air conditioning, and the attempt to electrify still more activities. The government cannot simultaneously increase dependence upon electricity and ignore the physical system that distributes it. That is not an energy transition; it is building society around a vulnerability.

Ancient cities protected their wells because water represented survival. Industrial society must treat electricity with the same seriousness. A power grid is not merely another corporate service. It is the infrastructure supporting food, health, banking, transportation, communications, public safety, and employment. When it fails for days, civilization quickly contracts to generators, canned food, cash, and neighbors helping one another.

Indiana was struck by an extreme storm, but the prolonged blackout is a warning to every American city. The country is increasing electricity demand while its transmission and distribution systems remain fragile, centralized, and expensive to repair. Politicians speak endlessly about creating the grid of the future while residents in Gary are waiting for the grid of the present to turn their lights back on. The storm caused the blackout, but years of neglect determined how difficult it would be to recover.

Setting The Stage For The Invasion Of Ezekiel 38

‘Antisemitic Dictator’: Turkish Military Entrenchment In Syria And Erdogan’s Ongoing Plot To Annihilate Israel

Breanna Claussen

The goals of Turkey are not shrouded in mystery. Turkish President Recep Erdoğan and officials within the nation have spent years openly calling for the invasion and annihilation of Israel as well as the “liberation” of Jerusalem from the Jews.

In a fiery speech, Erdoğan recently called for an end to the Jewish State and the “Promised Land delusion.”

“With Allah’s permission, we will never allow this,” he declared, adding that Israel’s destruction is the “duty of humanity.”

In efforts to carry out that objective, Turkey is working to position itself in Syria, moving incrementally toward the border of the Jewish State.

Israel recently watched as a Turkish delegation visited the Abu Al-Duhur airbase, which was considered one of the largest bases in Syria before it was abandoned in 2013, and sits 43 miles from the border of Turkey and less than 200 miles from Israeli communities. Israeli intelligence learned of Turkish plans to station radar and defense systems on the base in addition to the immediate deployment of Turkish troops.

After a “direct warning” given to the regime in Syria to prevent further Turkish military entrenchment went unheeded, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were given the green light from the Prime Minister and Defense Minister to carry out strikes targeting the air base, which took place Monday evening into Tuesday morning.

Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz, describing the approval of the strike, stated that Erdogan was “caught with his hand in the cookie jar and was forced to back down,” adding, “It would be better for Erdoğan to continue his detached-from-reality, fanciful rhetoric against Israel in the Turkish Grand National Assembly than to attempt to test Israel’s determination to defend itself.”

Turkey attempted to flip the accusation, branding Israel as the perpetrator of “expansionist and destabilizing policies.” Netanyahu’s international spokesman Doron Spielman responded with a recorded presentation highlighting that the Jewish State has deployed troops in only “one-10th of 1%” of Syria (near the Golan Heights); meanwhile, Turkey has amassed a “substantial military presence” occupying roughly 5% of Syrian territory—constituting a 50 times larger presence than Israel.

“We will not allow Turkey to entrench itself in Syria and to be moving steadily south toward Israel’s border,” Spielman underscored, emphasizing the dangerous rhetoric from Ankara calling for the obliteration of the Jewish State, as well as the United States (a fellow NATO ally to Turkey).

On Friday, Erdogan urged Interpol to issue a “Red Notice” against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and 35 other Israeli officials, requesting that international law enforcement begin efforts to locate, arrest, and extradite the Israelis for prosecution. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) called the move a “pathetic attempt to intimidate the leaders and soldiers of Israel,” adding that the Red Notice demand “will go nowhere.”

“Erdogan is an antisemitic dictator who has massacred Kurds, harbors Hamas terrorists, occupies half of Cyprus, and jails record numbers of journalists and politicians who oppose him,” the PMO statement detailed. “He now seeks to extend his aggression against Israel into Syria. Israel will not tolerate it.”

Arutz Sheva, in a timely op-ed titled “The Mask of NATO Has Fallen: Turkey is revealed as a mortal threat to Israel and the West,” emphasized the absurdity that Turkey maintains NATO protections, calling it an “act of strategic suicide for the Western world and a direct, existential threat to the survival of Israel.”

“For nearly half a century, the political capitals of the Western world have indulged in an unpardonable strategic delusion,” the article began. “They have meticulously maintained the comfortable fiction that Turkey is an indispensable, if somewhat recalcitrant, North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally. They have systematically turned a blind eye to imperialist expansionism, systemic domestic tyranny, and the methodical projection of radical Islamist influence across the globe.”

“Today, that luxury of strategic willful blindness is utterly shattered,” the writer underscored. “On the ground, this ideological enmity [of Turkey] has manifested as a direct, aggressive military escalation aimed at altering the regional balance of power. Turkey is expanding its military presence across Syria and pushing as close to Israel as possible. The geopolitical intent behind these troop movements is transparent to any serious military analyst. Through the establishment of illegal occupation zones, fortified outposts, and the integration of radical Syrian militias into auxiliary forces, Ankara is creating an unyielding territorial foothold. Israel’s targeted strike on Abu Dhur airport in Idlib was a warning shot across the Turkish bow, not a Syrian one. It was a direct, unambiguous signal that Jerusalem recognizes the encroaching menace on its northern border and will not permit an aggressive military cordon to tighten around its territory.”

The escalation between Israel and Turkey is incredibly relevant to Christians. Through the Bible, we are assured that Turkish goals to invade the Jewish State will not remain rhetoric for long. Ezekiel 38 details a future battle in which Turkey joins forces with Iran, Russia, and others to wage an invasion, swarming down with their armies on the mountains of Israel from the North.

North of the mountains of Israel today sits the highly destabilized nation of Syria, whose rag-tag army frequently chants threats against the Jewish State.

Earlier this month, the Syrian Arab Army in Damascus was filmed shouting, “A storm has risen! Rain down destruction in the heat of battle! Coming for you, Jew, I am coming at you like a mountain of fire! Making ammunition for you out of my own body! Making rivers out of your blood! Allahu Akbar!”

Syria’s capital is also prophetically significant. In Isaiah 17:1, we read of an unknown future event that will render Damascus an uninhabitable “ruinous heap.” Though it is not stated how this destruction will take place, Syria remains an important nation to watch closely.

As the situation around the nation of Israel becomes increasingly volatile, we may not know what shifts, escalations, or rhetoric will emerge in the coming days and months. What we do know is that prophesied events will take place in the future, precisely as the Bible detailed—and the survival of Israel is not in question.

None of the schemes to annihilate Israel from her many enemies will come to fruition. Even when the Jewish State is unable to adequately defend itself militarily, as detailed in Ezekiel 38-39, God Himself will directly intervene to ensure Israel’s protection for all to see. Turkey may call on the false god of Islam to assist in the invasion and destruction of the so-called “Promised Land delusion”; in doing so, like the prophets of Baal in the time of Elijah, the unwitting result will be the glorification of the God of Israel, in a miraculous demonstration of almighty power.