Finland’s official induction into NATO has been celebrated across the trans Atlantic technocracy-sphere as a victory for democracy and freedom. Jens Stoltenberg gushed to his Finnish counterparts at the inaugural ceremony that: “Finland is safer and NATO is stronger with Finland as an Ally. Your forces are substantial and highly capable, your resilience is second to none and for many years troops from Finland and NATO countries have worked side-by-side as partners. From today, we stand together as Allies.”

The Russian media reported that President Vladimir Putin made an extraordinary gesture as President Xi Jinping left the Kremlin following the state dinner last week on Tuesday evening by escorting him to the limousine and seeing him off.

The administration’s diplomacy has underperformed—except at time-wasting talk about democracy.

Throughout the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union used covert methods of political intervention and conflict, and pursued proxy wars, election interference, and disinformation campaigns to advance their interests. Both powers relied on disinformation as a core tactic throughout the Cold War and the subsequent decades, competing in an arms race of fictions to cultivate ideological support internationally and domestically.

Last week in Berlin I sat down with Sevim Dagdelen, a Member of the German Bundestag since 2005. She is the spokeswoman for the Left Party parliamentary group on the Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, a deputy member of the Defense Committee and spokeswoman for international policy and disarmament.

Picking out the biggest whopper churned out by the Global NATO propaganda machine in service of its proxy war versus Russia may be a daunting task—there are so many to choose from! But the recent warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against President Putin for “kidnapping Ukrainian children” is certainly a serious contender for that ugly distinction.

Thirty named journalists at three major papers are covering “bombshell” revelations about Russian cyberattacks in a manner worth examining.

Russian media, both mainstream and the large, boisterous, and influential alternative media, have erupted with discussion of the escalating confrontation at the Kiev Caves Lavra, the seat of Ukraine’s historical Christian church, and Ukraine’s most important monastery, in the heart of Kiev.

On Friday, 31 March Vladimir Putin signed into law the new Foreign Policy Concept which will guide Russian diplomacy in the years to come. It replaces the existing Concept promulgated eight years ago and sets out on 43 pages in logically organized form what we have been witnessing in Russia’s behavior on the world stage since the launch of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine and subsequent nearly complete rupture of relations with the US-led Collective West. There are few surprises in this document though there are some very important new directions taken over from the USSR which I will tweak out in a separate essay later today or tomorrow.

In Moscow you feel no crisis. No effects of sanctions. No unemployment. No homeless people in the streets. Minimal inflation.