Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Russia’s Burevestnik Missile Test Was Actually A De-Escalation Measure. Its real purpose is to get the US to reconsider its impending escalations against Russia by reminding it of the strategic costs that this could entail.

Trump slammed Russia’s test of its unlimited-range nuclear-powered Burevestnik missile by describing it as inappropriate and urging Putin to end the Ukrainian Conflict instead. The aforesaid test follows Putin’s warning that Trump’s potential transfer of longer-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine would provoke a “downright staggering” response from Russia. That in turn came right after a supposedly planned test of Russia’s nuclear triad coinciding with Trump canceling their Budapest Summit.

The sequence of events that Russia initiated amidst the breakdown of talks with the US, for which Zelensky claimed credit while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that joint EU-Ukrainian pressure was responsible, is understandable if analyzed in context. To begin with, there hasn’t yet been any tangible progress on extending the New START upon its expiry in February, which risks further worsening Russian-US tensions since it’s the last remaining strategic arms control pact between them.

In connection with that, Trump remains committed to developing what he calls the “Golden Dome” missile defense system, which his advisors arguably believe would give the US a strategic edge over Russia by enabling it to intercept more second strikes in the scenario of a nuclear war. This imperative explains why Bush Jr. pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001 shortly after 9/11 and all subsequent presidents retained his policy course of developing this infrastructure at home and abroad.

Vijay Prashad
TriContinental

In countries like Senegal, the IMF has been complicit with irregular debt practices and fraudulent accounting in order to undermine sovereignty and favour multinational corporations.

In February 2025, Senegal’s Court of Auditors released a report that found ‘anomalies’ in the management of public finances between 2019 and 2024, during the presidency of Macky Sall (2012–2024). For instance, the court found that while Sall’s government had suggested that the budget deficit for 2023 was 4.9% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it was in fact 12.3%.

The court went to work on this reconstruction of public finances because of a very significant accusation made by Senegal’s new prime minister, Ousmane Sonko, at a press conference in Dakar in September 2024. What the auditors found, and what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) validated, was that the actual debt ratio in 2023 was 99.7% of GDP – not 74.7% – and that the deficit had been underestimated by 5.6% of GDP (in August 2025, the debt ratio was revised to 111% of GDP).

The financial situation in Senegal, Prime Minister Sonko said, is ‘catastrophic’ because of three problems inherited from the decade of Sall’s rule:

● An ‘unbridled debt policy’ that increased the country’s public debt while erasing the possibility of any growth to pay off that debt
● An administration that hid this indebtedness and the deep problems in the economy from the Senegalese people (who nonetheless rejected Sall’s chosen successor, Amadou Ba, in the March 2024 presidential elections and chose Bassirou Diomaye Faye instead)
● ‘Widespread corruption’, including the defrauding of the country’s COVID fund by four ministers

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Putin is once again extending an olive branch to Zelensky and Trump in his latest goodwill gesture because he truly doesn’t want the conflict to drag on nor to expand Russia’s territorial claims as would likely then happen.

Putin announced that more than ten thousand Ukrainian troops were encircled in Kupyansk and Krasnoarmeisk (Pokrovsk), with his Ministry of Defense soon adding Dimitrov (Mirnograd) near the latter to the list. The Russian leader also proposed halting the fighting so that foreign journalists, including Ukrainian ones, can travel to the front to report on this. Putin suggested a mass surrender just like early 2022’s Azovstal standoff, but Zelensky seems uninterested, at least for now. Here’s what it all means:

1. Russia Continues To Gain Ground Despite Billions In Western Aid For Ukraine | The Economist recently published a piece lobbying for Europe to fund Ukraine over the next four years, which they claim will cost taxpayers at least $390 billion. Their article also reported that $100-110 billion was spent this year, “the highest sum yet”, for a total of $360 billion since 2022 (likely an underestimate). Quite clearly, Western aid hasn’t succeeded in pushing Russia back, only in decelerating its gains. Ukraine’s encirclement therefore shows that no amount of money will inflict a strategic defeat for Russia.

2. The Gravy Train Might End If Ukraine Acknowledges This Encirclement | Building upon the above, Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief Alexander Syrsky have denied these encirclements, most likely because they fear that the aforesaid gravy train might end or at least slow down if they order their forces to surrender. After all, the loss of thousands of troops in three encirclements over 3.5 years into the conflict is no small matter, which might make some Western officials reconsider funding Ukraine since the victory that they were promised is no longer in sight.

Mark Keenan
Global Research

What a Recent Study Means for Global Climate Policy

Highlighted by the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences (CERES), the study found that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considered only a small subset of available Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) datasets when assessing the Sun’s influence on climate change — specifically those showing low solar variability. The consequence, according to the authors, is that the IPCC may have been premature in ruling out a substantial role for the Sun in recent warming.

Re-examining the Sun-Climate Connection | The researchers analyzed 16 major solar output datasets, including those used by the IPCC. Their findings were striking: depending on which datasets are used, scientists can reach opposite conclusions about what drives modern temperature trends. Dr. Ronan Connolly, lead author of the study, explains:

💬 “The IPCC is mandated to find a consensus on the causes of climate change. But science doesn’t work by consensus. By effectively only considering the datasets that support their chosen narrative, the IPCC have hampered scientific progress into genuinely understanding the causes of climate change.”

This conclusion cuts to the heart of the “climate change attribution problem” — what proportion of the claimed small increases in warming should be attributed to natural versus human causes. By narrowing acceptable data, the IPCC may have ‘unintentionally’ amplified the apparent role of greenhouse gases while minimizing natural variability.