NATO Terrorist Attack Escalates Conflict: Ramblings & Critical Discussions

The NATO terror attack via its Ukraine proxy that killed 21 teenaged Russian school kids 3/4s of them girls while sleeping in their dormitory was partially retaliated for by massive Russian drone and missile strikes at military, industrial and command facilities across Ukraine mostly centered on the Kiev region that also saw the use of several Oreshniks. Much discussion was already afoot prior to the crime on the topic of deterrence and the connectivity between the ongoing conflicts. Having previously published and discussed his previous article on the topic, I refrained from posting Sergey Karaganov’s recent essay arguing for the need to reinstate the fear factor that is critical for deterrence, which has taken on a life of its own and sparked some very serious discussions amongst serious people. IMO, Putin and Xi likely touched on that topic during their Summit. But that isn’t the only topic at hand that will be voiced. The first deals with the Iranian portion of the conflict but also brings to light internal Russian politics and events and will include a long contribution by a MoA commentator known as English Outsider as this essay gets moving.

The first portion is a multifaceted comment I made on the 23rd:

<First, let’s be clear that no ceasefire currently exists as the blockade and Zionist attacks continue both of which are continual violations. The Zionists will not cease their drive for Greater Zion. Zionists continue to prove they’re inhuman and nastier than Nazis and merit prison if not death by hanging. The Trump Gang-–including people like Kagan–-has proven little different and merits the same outcome. IMO, the greater danger is being obfuscated and that’s the deliberate targeting of the school dorm in Lugansk where the death toll is now 18 and will likely climb higher. Putin talked about that with graduates from the Time of Heroes first cadre yesterday who provided excellent feedback on the program and their personal involvement-–that interaction is very educational. The recent nuclear forces FTX that included Belarus was very important as is the recent upswing in published articles calling for attacking the NATO sources of weaponry being used to attack Russia and those NATO members directly involved in those attacks-–Latvia being the most named example.

<Today, Russia’s MFA issued a “statement on the end of the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” that deals with the Twin War Crimes on Iran and their effect on the NPT. The first three paragraphs are translated below:

Against the backdrop of the landslide degradation of regional and global security, characterized by a significant increase in threats and an increase in the role of the force factor in international relations, the conference demonstrated sharp contradictions between many States Parties to the Treaty, which together became decisive both for the course and content of the discussions, and for the overall outcome of the event.

The most serious obstacle to the implementation of the tasks facing the forum was the aggression of Israel and the United States against Iran, carried out in June 2025 and February-March 2026 under the far-fetched pretext of “protecting” the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The use of the Treaty to settle political scores and justify the use of force has taken place before. However, the current state of affairs has clearly revealed the disastrous consequences for the NPT that such unprovoked, unjustified and illegal actions entail. The conference was not ready to give a balanced assessment of the situation around Iran.

The “contribution” to the formation of an unfavorable atmosphere at the forum was made by the delegations of the “collective West”, who arrived in New York to solve their own political problems that have nothing to do with the subject of the NPT. They, primarily the EU countries and NATO members, as well as the Brussels European bureaucracy, in every possible way hindered an effective dialogue, promoting a destructive agenda focused mainly on criticism of Russia, China, Iran and the DPRK. [My Emphasis]

IMO, Western conduct at this meeting doesn’t bode well for any settlement of the Twin War Crimes visited on Iran since the attack on the NPT is led by the Outlaw US Empire. Today, Lavrov was involved at the XXXIV Assembly of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, which is a very serious gathering that needs to be investigated deeper than the statement Lavrov made. Here’re its first several paragraphs:

The report mentioned by Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy Fyodor Lukyanov is indeed very useful. It leads to many thoughts, including the idea that is increasingly making its way into the public space – whether everything we are experiencing is not another world war. There are arguments that are used to prove this particular statement. There are also qualitative signs that testify to a fundamentally different nature of hostilities, which has changed so much that, indeed, it is necessary to speak quite accurately about a war of a completely new type. In particular, President of the Association for the Export of Technological Sovereignty, Professor of MGIMO A.O. Bezrukov mentions this in his report.

I am sure we will talk about its global reach today. In Eurasia, it is already in full swing: following the aggression of Ukraine against Russia prepared by the West with another attempt to weaken our country, knock it out of the list of key world players, an operation began in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz. There were clashes on the borders of large states in both the southern and eastern parts of the Asian continent. Not to mention Latin America, where not everything is finished, as we can understand.

Therefore, the coverage is global and universal. I think that historians will understand how much the intensity of each of these episodes and conflicts leads to a union called “World War” a little later. [My Emphasis]

<Russia sees what’s happening in a very serious light, far more seriously than what’s being discussed in most media, and that’s the connections between the two conflicts, a reality often mentioned by barflies. The meeting’s general topic was “Time for Solutions: Russia in an Irreversibly Changed World.” Clearly, solutions are required but the criminal West doesn’t want to seek any that are based on justice and thus refuses to even communicate.>

Here I need to interject Alastair Crooke’s recent essay that deals with Karaganov’s essay, “How Russia Can Win the New World War” and mentions another by Dmitri Trenin, recently appointed President of the Russian International Affairs Council, who wrote an op/ed back in February, “Strategic Stability Now Rests on Fear,” and who also wrote a paper for the Security Meeting mentioned above that has yet to be published. All works relate to the current content while standing alone.

The excellent comment made by English Outsider will help tie the loose ends":

Karlof1 – thank you for that. Came across it just now on the other thread. The “Time of Heroes” programme I’d have missed but for you. Gets you thinking, things like that. Wonder if you’re thinking along the same lines.

It’s significant, isn’t it, that programme? The relatively limited initial SMO now turning into a production line for the next generation of administrators and politicians. They said they were doing that a couple of years back and your link shows how it’s going. The man appointed Acting Minister in Dagestan – bet they selected him especially for the Q&A – also shows them using the spirit of the SMO to pull the various components of the RF together.

It’s been a long war for the Russian Federation. Pretty well since it became the political unit we know today. And because wars always throw up their iconic moments it is those iconic moments that stick in the popular memory of the nations that fight them.

For us, in the modern era, I suppose the first iconic moment that sticks, or used to stick in the popular memory, is the “Great Retreat” that stopped the Schlieffen Plan in its tracks. The last Old Contemptible died as recently as the start of this century and there are still memorials to them. For the French of that time, always Verdun. And later, from Khalkhin Gol to Bir Hakeim and beyond, iconic battles in profusion that are still remembered and the memory still cherished in all the countries that fought the Third Reich. Or were remembered in the West until not long ago, for all they’re now consigned to the history books read only by a few, or pressed into service by the politicians as required merely for propaganda purposes.

The iconic battles of the Russian Federation have not yet retired to the history books. And they’re freighted with still living memories of earlier such battles. The battle for Height 1622 (“Donkey’s Ear Hill”), a murderous action and one of the decisive battles of the Chechen/Dagestan wars, connects with the earlier battle for Hill 3234 in Afghanistan. Prokhorenko’s lonely death – “I call in fire upon myself” – summons up Pyanzin’s call during the desperate final stages of the siege of Sebastopol ““We have nothing left to fight back with. Open fire on my command post. There are many fascists here. Goodbye, comrades!”

The risky March to Pristina marks the opening phase of the RF conflict with the West, the conflict foreshadowed in the Primakov doctrine first set out around that time. The quiescent, sometimes submissive, Yeltsin years were giving way to determined resistance, and that resistance fortified by constant reference to the battles of earlier conflicts, those in turn deliberately linked to the battles fought by the successor state, the Russian Federation.

We don’t see it like that. Not at all. I always remember the casual remark of a naval officer chance met just before the SMO kicked off, around the time HMS Defender was adventuring near Crimea. “The Russians seem to be getting a little frisky in the Black Sea at the moment.”

” A little frisky”. Did we not see the slow progress into the present war? Pristina 1999, MSC 2007, Valdai 2014, Putin’s 2015 UN speech – the warning signs were there but we were blind to them. And that slow progress into open war accompanied by military developments we were also blind to. Only Martyanov understood those developments fully, I ‘ve since discovered. It’s only a few years back that hypersonics and the formidable Russian AD systems were casually dismissed as mere talk, talk that would be proved to be such were the Russians ever to come up against our technologically superior Western weaponry.

While we were seeing it like that, the ever-backward Russians getting a little frisky and needing to be put back in their box, the RF was fighting a series of proxy wars that few of us in the West even recognised as proxy wars. Tell Englishmen that Syria was a Western proxy war and 99 out of a 100 will exclaim, “What the hell are you talking about? ” But for the Syrians and the Iranians and the Russians it was just that. It was a proxy war very similar to the proxy wars we’d fought against Russia before the RF had ever existed: the Wahhabi militants the Russians were fighting in Chechnya promoted and supported by us, just as Brzezinski was proud of setting the Mujahideen on in Afghanistan for the explicit purpose of weakening the old Soviet Union. The Jihadists we armed and equipped so munificently, and poured into Syria across the Turkish border in such quantity to reinforce rebellion there, out of the same stable. And now the Ukrainians pressed into service for the same purpose. What we see as localised brush fires and nothing much to do with us, they see as part of the same determined Western assault on the RF.

In the resistance to that assault we now see the same Russian iconic moments summoned up again. In the “Anthem of the Donbass” we see the explicit linkage of the current struggle against the West in Ukraine with the old struggle against Europe in their still proudly remembered Great Patriotic War. In the Russian films of the 2000’s and 2010’s the memory of that old struggle is reinforced time and again. In the most famous of those films, the White Tiger, the central character, a mysterious tank commander supernaturally created out of the fire of war, insists on maintaining and re-arming his tank even after the final Russian victory in Berlin. It’s not over yet, he insists. They’ll be back, sooner or later. And when they are, we’ll be ready for them. And he climbs back into his tank to get ready.

We’re back. And they’re ready for us. Out of what was only a relatively minor police operation in the Donbass, an operation that morphed into no more than the brutal attrition of our Ukrainian proxies and those we send to assist our proxies, the Russians have constructed their new heroic national myth

We in the West have our own heroic national myths – the Battle of Britain, Bastogne, Iwo Jima – but for all the attempts to call in aid those national myths and relate them to the present, we have nothing of that potency today. Our soldiers will slip back from Ukraine quietly, unheralded. They weren’t supposed to be there in the first place so will occupy no national pantheon of heroes. Our practitioners of “dirty war” – it was a very dirty war, our war against the Russians in Ukraine – will remain for ever in the shadows. Their soldiers, though, will march back as “Heroes” and as graduates of the “Time of Heroes” programme will form the leading cadres of the Russia that will grow out of this war, linked for ever with icons of the near and distant past alike.

And the Ukrainians, caught up almost randomly in this great struggle of empires? They fought like heroes too, though few acknowledge that. What icons have they left to treasure? Petliura, and later Bandera? The Heavenly Hundred? Biletsky? The Azov Third Assault Brigade? The Aidar? That’s what will be the icons of the diaspora in Europe after the war, as they are already the icons of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada and the States. I doubt they’ll remain icons for those who stay at home. [Format Original]

My response:

Bravo!! Extremely well done! I recall at the end of 2022 when the idea of the Time of Heros program was first formulated, then in 2023 when it was put into action. I covered those meetings back then because I saw their importance and tried to get my readers to see that too. ToH is woven into the Russian conception of what it takes for Good Governance to occur and be practiced. Many of the combat vets now work with children and as testified never in their wildest dreams thought they would be employed thusly. The meeting transcript’s been officially translated into English and is here. I also suggest clicking the photo icon to view the 16 images where you’ll see very high morale and learn that the cadre isn’t all male. Eventually a ToH member will become Russian President, and we should contemplate what that means. We should also contemplate how Russia will be governed for the rest of the century, how the entirety of Russian Esprit will be spread across that vast land. When speculating on the course of Russian/Chinese relations, the quality of Russian governance must be included in the variables. Most importantly, ToH needs to be seen as a component within the vision Putin outlined in his 2024 Leap Day speech.

As you note, Russian patriots differ from those the West tries to fit with that moniker. Martyanov consistently repeats the primary reason–Russian’s defend their homeland while Westerners–Americans most especially–have never done so in the post-WW2 Era if ever. Similar words can be assigned to Iranians and those members of the Arc of Resistance. A few sagacious Westerners warned not to march on Russia but were never heeded. And not doing so has made those who tried and are now trying fools to the nth degree. Russia and China share the same goal of eliminating Western hegemony and making International Law paramount, while enforcing the required changes in Western behavior to make that possible. The proof for that goal is present within the parties joint declarations and statements over the past four years if not longer. I see that task as the ultimate Denazification Program or program to eliminate Exceptionalism. IMO, we both share the need for Humanity to attain those goals. I muse about how historians 100 years from now will view our post-1945 Era, and the fact that those historians will likely be Chinese.

The related comment by Jeremy Rhymings-Lang merits inclusion:

Those of us in the West, at least our “leadership” have completely lost any understanding of honour, of sacrifice, of martyrdom, and when our “leadership” anoints latest enemy du jour the lack of understanding of these concepts is exposed, utterly confounding the lofty policies and strategies compiled by circularly-funded “think tanks” and “consultancies”.

The West, its “leaders”, its “opinion formers”, its “influencers” do not understand concepts like heroism, sacrifice, martyrdom. None of these concepts exist in the realm of what could be described as Fukuyamaism; if history has ended it should not concern us any more.

So, trying to oppose, let alone defeat civilisation-states that have a long and venerated history honouring heroism, sacrifice and martyrdom leaves the West non-plussed, leading to paralysis of policy, collapse of strategy, and panicky narrative management to try and cover up these failings. [Format Original]

His comment motivated me to write a reply:

The concept of Civilization States/Nations is important and merits closer inspection. IMO, the USA doesn’t qualify. nor does the greater mass of Europe. Indeed, the concept we’re taught in the West–Western Civilization versus Global Civilization–is never really defined or is criteria supplied to support a definition. IMO, that concept is a big part of the Exceptionalism that needs to be erased from Humanity. After the collapse of what’s known as Classical Antiquity Civilization of the Roman Empire, what replaced it was a series of War Lords and their realms that were legitimized by the Vatican–a War Lord of a different sort but still a War Lord. The hundreds of years of religious wars and Crusades waged to consolidate the power and realms of the War Lords represent a continual Barbarism, not the growth of Civilization. The aim throughout the period after the fall of Rome was to reconstitute Empire seated within the Italian Peninsula under the auspices of the Vatican and its allies. That power center moved to Iberia around 1400 with the series of Spanish Popes and their “Bulls.” That Great Power was being formulated via trade was clearly seen and that pushed some key technological developments related to shipbuilding and navigation where the Genoans and Portuguese excelled. Their exploration soon morphed into Imperialism and Colonialism and the rapine they generated. Oddly, at about that time China decided seaborne trade to its West was no longer worthy of the expense; so, Europeans were able to enter a vacuum that had contained a form of Win-Win relations that was absent violence. Being non-violent isn’t the European way as the Papal Bulls emphasized–only properly designated Christians were humans worthy of respect; thus, all others are subject to plunder and enslavement. The West didn’t bring civilization; it brought death and destruction; and for those populations well removed from Africa and Eurasia, death from germs to enslavement.

Humanity is only now emerging from that Era of Plunder, Imperialism and the quest for Empire as the last remaining Empire experiences an increasingly rapid decline. Oddly enough, Russia and China were also once Empires but have now rejected that path for differing periods of time. The Western War Lord states show no other aspirations other than conquest and have abandoned expanding their civitas–their basis for any claim to be civilized–instead. In other words, at present there is no Western Civilization with those occupying its leadership positions meriting the Russian term neculturny. This point’s been discussed many times over the years here as this example from July 2020 shows. Humanity instead clearly wants to expand its civilization by expanding its civitas and the wellbeing of the people dwelling there. To do that, the last remaining Empire and its associated War Lord states need modification. The SMO in Ukraine is part of that process as is the conflict in West Asia.

Sebgo provided a good conclusive comment:

Thank you very much, Karl.
That’s very well said and it admirably summarizes the situation we find ourselves in.

However, I would like to add a caveat to your conclusion.

Unfortunately, there is a lack of shared vision among those who want to end the last empire.

Because some believe that the goal is simply to replace the empire with another hegemon, and they are eager to promote their candidate for this role.
They want to seize colonies and impose themselves on other peoples.

Others believe that victory requires copying in every respect the methods of those we all condemn, and we are witnessing a plethora of suggestions for China, Russia, and Iran to compete in perfidy, atrocities, genocide, and other war crimes.

If we lose this moral war, it will be pointless to get rid of the Empire, because it will have spread everywhere, and evil will multiply and propagate despite the empire’s end.

I just read in the other thread a post suggesting to Iran to scatter its radioactive uranium across West Asia, and from someone who claims to support the Alternative Axis. It’s a telling example of the problem.

The challenge, therefore, isn’t simply to bring the empire to its end without triggering World War III. We must also ensure that the toxic ideas and ideologies with which this empire has shaped people’s minds are eradicated as well.

And it is not the easiest part of the struggle.

I replied that I agreed 100% that ridding Humanity of Exceptionalism will be a daunting task much harder than denazifying Ukraine, Europe and Neocons. Are we already involved in World War Three? For several years I’ve argued we’re at least in a hybrid type of WW3. Karaganov’s argument is that such a war can be won IF it’s fought in a specific manner. Crooke noted as I did Karaganov’s very important point:

“The use of nuclear weapons is a great sin. But the de facto refusal to use them is an unforgivable, deadly, and criminal sin, because it paves the way for the expansion and escalation of the world war unleashed by the West. If it is not stopped, it will most definitely lead to the destruction of humanity, including our own country. Vladimir Putin’s question, “And what is the point of a world without Russia?” remains relevant.” [My Emphasis]

Crooke provides more useful excerpts, but I suggest reading it in full. I’ve read it several times, both the original published by Profile and the translated and lightly edited reprint by RT that’s linked above, and I’ve watched his chat with Glenn Diesen which was further revealing. There are others if one looks. Today there were two announcements that Russian patience has expired. The first is an MFA statement:

The bloody attack carried out by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the night of May 22 using UAVs on the educational building and dormitory of the college of the Lugansk State Pedagogical University in Starobilsk (LPP) became another blatant evidence of the Nazi and terrorist essence of the Kiev regime, which deliberately strikes civilians and does not stop at the cold-blooded murder of children.

Zelensky’s junta and its Western sponsors, who supply the Armed Forces of Ukraine with instruments of crime against our people, have demonstrated to the whole world their gross disregard for the norms of international humanitarian law. There is a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their additional protocols governing the protection of civilians in times of conflict, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and a number of other significant international acts.

All this overflowed the cup of patience. In the current conditions, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are embarking on consistent systematic strikes against the enterprises of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex in Kyiv, including specific places for the design, production, programming and preparation for use of UAVs used by the Kiev regime with the assistance of NATO specialists responsible for the supply of components, the provision of intelligence and targeting. Strikes will be carried out both at decision-making centers and command posts.

Due to the fact that the above facilities are dispersed throughout Kyiv, we warn foreign citizens, including the staff of diplomatic missions and representative offices of international organizations, about the need to leave the city as soon as possible, and residents of the Ukrainian capital - not to approach the military and administrative infrastructure of the Zelensky regime. [My Emphasis]

The second was Lavrov’s call to Rubio and the Russian readout which contained these two paragraphs:

On President Vladimir Putin’s instructions, Sergey Lavrov officially informed the US side that in response to the ongoing terrorist attacks by the Kiev regime against civilians and civilian facilities on Russian territory, the Russian Armed Forces are launching systematic and consistent strikes on facilities located in Kiev that are used for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and on the relevant decision-making centres. Sergey Lavrov drew attention to the Foreign Ministry’s statement of May 25, in which the United States, along with other states with offices in Kiev, recommended the evacuation of its diplomatic personnel and other citizens from the Ukrainian capital.

The minister recalled the agreements reached at the highest level at the suggestion of the United States in Anchorage in August 2025 regarding the Ukrainian conflict and expressed regret that the impudent efforts of the European elites and the Kyiv regime undermine these agreements, which opened the way to a sustainable long-term settlement based on a balance of interests.

I don’t agree that the Outlaw US Empire is innocent in this event as it continues to fund Ukraine and provide it with ISR and direct assistance of various sorts. Plus, the overall conduct of the many conflicts now occurring originate from the Empire in its quest to slow its decline. Yes, we can see it’s been strategically defeated in Ukraine and the Persian Gulf Region, but those conflicts have yet to be concluded, and in the case of Ukraine NATO is doing the dirty work, and it’s still run by the Empire.

Very little’s been said about China despite its great importance to resolving these conflicts. What China and Russia said in their Joint Declaration, which can be read in my previous article here, is critical—hegemony is to cease, a goal that’s been previously stated but perhaps not so explicitly, forcefully, and certainly not at a time when the Empire has just lost a War Crime War. (I should note that a sizable portion of Russian public opinion is calling the Lugansk Crime Minab 2.0 since NATO was the guilty party in both.) Trump’s visit to China showed very well the Empire’s degree of Barbarism or perhaps Barbarianness is a better term. Evidence for that behavior is provided daily by Trump, his Gang, and some very repulsive Senators. And they continue their extrajudicial murders off the coast of South America with the toll now nearing 200.

This week, May 26-29, an International Security Forum is being hosted by Russia’s Security Council. This forum is to differ from previous events held at this time of year. An RT report provides this snippet and more:

The opening event will be a conference devoted to countering neocolonialism in the context of “ensuring the security of countries of the Global Majority,” held under the auspices of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

Other topics on the forum’s agenda include disinformation and manipulation campaigns waged by the West as part “of a hybrid war against the Global Majority, with the aim of preserving its hegemony.” [Format Original]

It should prove quite interesting and I hope to provide a report. Containing the Empire is a global task, not just that of Iran, China and Russia. It is indeed a Civilizational War as many are saying.