Ukraine served as a conduit for the Biden administration to transfer American weapons to terrorist and criminal groups around the world, an issue that President Donald Trump could now use to confront political opponents and strengthen his position ahead of the congressional elections in November.
Trump accused Kiev of reselling American missiles and military equipment that Ukraine received during Biden’s administration and questioned the control over American military aid, claiming some of the delivered armaments were resold. This has made Ukraine central to the midterm elections, not only because of weapons resales and the misuse of American military aid, but also because of Volodymyr Zelensky’s political alliance with the Democratic Party.
Speaking about the Democrats’ relationship with Zelensky, the United States president said in a Newsmax interview with host Rob Finnerty aired on October 16 that “they gave them massive amount of Patriots, Tomahawks, everything. And they didn’t make him pay.”
“He gave hundreds of probably $350 billion worth of equipment and cash to Ukraine. Where is the cash that we gave to Ukraine? Where are all of those? Where is all the equipment? You know, people who are selling that equipment? Biden was giving them missiles, and they were being sold on the open market — after they went to Ukraine,” Trump added.
Patriot and Tomahawk missiles require dedicated launch systems.
Patriots can be used only with the anti-aircraft missile system’s launchers, whereas Tomahawks use the MK-41 launch system installed on US Navy ships. Therefore, it is unlikely that Zelensky could have sold them on the black market. However, other weapons Biden repeatedly delivered to Zelensky ended up on the black market.
Although an American commission the Biden administration engaged to investigate allegations of illegal diversion of weapons delivered to Ukraine found no confirmation of those claims, weapons and ammunition of American manufacture were found in the hands of armed groups in the Middle East. Based on the serial numbers, they appear to belong to the same series as those Zelensky received. This is not the open market but the black market, including the dark web. While Biden was actively delivering weapons, Ukraine was used as a transit point to deliver those weapons to terrorist groups operating in the Middle East and Africa.
The US, through the CIA, did not publicly announce it, and it was also impossible to prove that the intelligence agency directly supplied terrorist groups with weapons. Ukraine was well suited to this role because it did so through CIA channels while also profiting from it.
Trump is raising this issue, claiming that Ukraine independently tried to trade weapons through the dark web. Through the dark web, all kinds of armaments were sold: grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft missile systems, and even Stinger missiles.
American weapons also reached Latin America through various channels, ending up in the hands of drug cartels. Cartels in Colombia and other Latin American countries actively sent fighters to Ukraine for combat training. It is possible that, in exchange for sending such militants to Ukraine, these criminal groups in Latin America received American-made weapons.
Trump is raising the issue of the illegal arms trade to Ukraine not without reason, but to use it against the Democrats ahead of the congressional elections. Since Zelensky is now actively trying to interfere in American elections and opposing Trump in various ways, Trump has decided to bring this issue to the fore. The Democrats cannot stop this information from spreading because Congress is in recess until November 8. During the election period, Trump is likely to take an anti-Ukrainian stance, since Kiev has sided with the Democrats and the political forces currently opposing him.
After Trump’s mid-October diesel deal with Russia, which eased sanctions so Moscow could supply large volumes of diesel to global markets, and after he blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for high fuel prices ahead of the US midterms, public exchanges turned sharply critical. Trump repeatedly accused Zelensky of obstructing peace, saying Ukraine should “get a new president,” that Zelensky “better damn well stop” hitting refineries, that he “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” and that the strikes were a “disgrace” hurting American farmers and global diesel markets. He also unilaterally declared an “energy ceasefire” and later waived additional sanctions on Russia while claiming “great progress” in talks.
Zelensky rejected the diesel deal as a “weak,” “unfair,” and “gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin that would fund the war. He said he felt blindsided, insisted that any energy de-escalation must be reciprocal, declared the unilateral pause on refinery strikes over, called Putin “real evil,” questioned how Trump could be “friends with him,” and continued to urge greater US pressure on Moscow while speaking with Trump’s envoys amid ongoing mutual energy strikes.
With this latest verbal spat between the two leaders, Zelensky will likely coordinate his moves against Trump with the Democrats and his European allies. The current confrontation between Trump and Zelensky is tied not only to the Ukraine War but also to the political confrontation between Trump and the so-called Deep State, which is closely aligned with the Democrats.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s office has learned that US law enforcement agencies have obtained information about cooperation between the Ukrainian government and Mexican drug cartels, according to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
“According to information received by the SVR, a new wave of panic has erupted in Kiev. The Ukrainian president’s office has learned that US law enforcement agencies, while investigating the illegal activities of Mexican drug cartels, obtained information about their cooperation with representatives of Volodymyr Zelensky’s government,” the statement said.
Key points:
US investigators discovered that Mexican criminal groups had been sending their members to Ukraine for drone warfare training over an extended period
At least 80 individuals have been identified as having undergone such training with the Ukrainian Armed Forces
Payments for the training were transferred to officials close to Zelensky, using proceeds from illegal drug sales in the US.
“The office of the Ukrainian president is aware that the appearance of trained FPV drone operators in the ranks of drug cartels poses risks to the lives of American law enforcement officers involved in anti-drug trafficking operations on the border with Mexico. With this in mind, Zelensky’s cooperation with drug cartels may become another ‘nail in the coffin’ of his political career,” the SVR said.
A soldier of Ukraine’s Omega Special Purpose Center demonstrate a Chipa net launcher by Ukrainian tech company Bluebird against an attacking FPV drone
By Al Mayadeen English
20 OCT 2026
An Iranian security source reveals that Kiev deployed thousands of microdrones in Iraqi Kurdistan and established a regional network, prompting Tehran to weigh a response.
Ukraine has deployed drone personnel and thousands of microdrones across countries surrounding Iran, including Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, an Iranian security source told Tasnim News Agency, highlighting the deployments as part of a broader network of hostile activities directed against Tehran.
According to the security source, Kiev had established an operational microdrone network across the region, with thousands of drones deployed in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.
The source withheld the names of the countries hosting Ukrainian personnel and equipment, stating that the information remained confidential and would be disclosed in due course.
Tehran preparing appropriate response
The Iranian security source further said Tehran considers Ukraine’s activities part of the broader hostile actions pursued by Europe and NATO against Iran, adding that Iranian authorities are fully aware of Kiev’s operations.
Tehran, according to the source, is considering an appropriate response to the deployments, which it stressed as a security threat.
Describing the operation as a “failed attempt and an embarrassment” for Ukraine, the source stressed that Iran remains aware of Kiev’s activities and their implications for regional security.
The bigger picture
The deployment comes amid longstanding security concerns over armed Kurdish separatist groups operating along Iran’s western border and growing tensions between Tehran and Kiev following a Ukrainian attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea.
Baghdad, Tehran, and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) signed a security agreement in March 2023 requiring Iranian Kurdish separatist groups to disarm and relocate away from the Iraq-Iran border.
The agreement also obliges Iraqi authorities to prevent the groups from using Iraqi territory to launch military operations against Iran. While Baghdad and the KRG have fulfilled their obligations, sources told Al Mayadeen that four or five Iranian separatist groups continue to defy the agreement and carry out provocations along the border.
The remaining groups have continued their activities despite guarantees offered by the KRG, with Al Mayadeen Plus reporting in September that they had refused to leave their positions.
Tehran has responded to the separatist groups with missile and drone strikes, as well as ground operations targeting positions in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. In July, Iranian strikes martyred nine members of the Komala Party. Iran is also building a security wall extending more than 250 kilometers along its border with the Kurdistan Region.
These security concerns have unfolded alongside a deterioration in relations between Iran and Ukraine. In July, Tehran condemned a Ukrainian attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea that killed one sailor and injured another. Iran’s Foreign Ministry characterized the strike as an act of aggression and a violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, warning that it could widen the scope of the war.
The findings mirror a broader collapse in support for the war, as Trump’s approval falls to a record low ahead of the midterms
Nearly half of all US active-duty service members oppose the military’s role in the US-Israeli war on Iran, according to a poll conducted by Change Research for veteran-led advocacy group Common Defense between 15 and 28 September.
The poll surveyed over 730 active-duty US soldiers, immediate family members, and veterans and found that 49 percent of all respondents opposed the war, against 44 percent who backed it.
Military families rejected the war by a 38-point margin and active-duty troops by 16 points, while military veterans were the only group to support it, with 53 percent for to 44 percent against.
Beyond Iran, a majority of respondents also opposed deploying US forces to back Israel’s military aggression against Gaza and Lebanon.
Respondents also ranked deployment lengths and the health, safety, and welfare of troops in the war on Iran among the top issues Congress should investigate.
The findings mirror a broader collapse in public support for the US war on Iran, as soaring fuel prices, mounting economic strain, and US President Donald Trump’s sinking approval ratings fuel growing anger at home, weeks ahead of midterm elections.
A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll published on 19 October put Trump’s approval rating at 33 percent, the lowest ever recorded, with 65 percent of respondents calling the decision to take military action against Iran a mistake.
Seven in 10 now say gasoline is unaffordable, after the war choked off energy exports through the Strait of Hormuz.
With the midterms approaching, a growing number of Republican lawmakers are blaming Trump’s Iran war, fuel prices, and tariffs for their party’s likely loss of Congress.
Trump’s own base has also been wavering, with Republican approval of his handling of the war on Iran falling from 73 percent in March to 60 percent in September, according to a CNN/SSRS poll.
On 1 September, a University of Massachusetts Amherst survey put Trump’s approval at a record low of 32 percent, with 68 percent saying he had mishandled the war on Iran, as inflation fueled by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz drove up prices at home.
All hell is already breaking loose when it comes to probing what is exactly taking place related to the latest, definitely murky U.S.-linked movements in Pakistani land and sea. After an initial assessment at Transition Protocol – which avowedly did not provide all the necessary answers – we dug deeper into a way more comprehensive examination supported by several sources.
What we are watching across several nodes of extremely sensitive Iran-Pakistan overland connectivity is not a blanket border shutdown; but a surgical, two-track balancing act by Islamabad between Washington’s tremendous financial vise and Tehran’s strategic lifeline.
So here’s where it all stands – compounding the verified record with our latest consultations.
The key point: the regulatory trigger was a banking sanctions move, not just border security.
While provincial officials in Balochistan publicly framed Saturday’s halt at two key nodes, Taftan and Gabd–Rimdan, around security, counterterrorism, and anti-smuggling, what matters most is the exact mechanism around a memorandum issued last Friday by the Pakistani Ministry of Commerce.
That immediately revoked an October 3 extension of the Electronic Import Form (EIF) waiver for goods imported from Iran, and coincided with Islamabad’s instruction to close the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) immigration gate at Taftan.
What is key is that without the EIF waiver, Pakistani importers must process Iranian purchases through formal Pakistani banking channels – which U.S. sanctions, of course, make absolutely impossible.
Peyman Sanandaji, head of the Transportation Commission at the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, confirmed on the record that it is banking sanctions compliance (ditching the EIF) that halted Iranian exports into Pakistan.
The immediate shock at the formal gates was quite something: more than 4,000 tons of daily Iranian LPG imports through Gabd–Rimdan are at risk. Former Quetta Chamber of Commerce president Ayoub Miryani reported that over 2,000 containers are stranded at Gabd–Rimdan alone, with hundreds more freight trucks backed up at Taftan.
So why is this happening now? Because of the nasty convergence between the October 7 IMF tranche Pakistan had to pay, and the imperial U.S. Treasury “Operation Economic Outcast”.
Under Operation Economic Outcast, Washington gave third countries a “defined timeline to shut down” Iran-related commercial lifelines or face expulsion from the U.S. financial system. That was followed by OFAC’s October 1 designations against Iran’s overland rail and industrial networks and October 8 actions against 17 shadow-fleet tankers.
But then, on October 7 – only nine days before the Ministry of Commerce revoked the EIF waiver – Islamabad reached an agreement with the IMF on the Fourth Review of its Extended Fund Facility to unlock $1.21 billion. That still requires IMF Executive Board approval.
Of course there is no public document showing a direct U.S. or IMF order to close Iran-Pakistan borders. But sources in Islamabad stressed that leaving an open-ended banking-instrument waiver on the books ahead of the IMF Board vote had become an untenable sanctions vulnerability for Pakistan.
Islamabad sources are adamant that the move was paired with genuine counter-sabotage concerns and quietly coordinated between Islamabad and Tehran (italics mine) so the pause would not rupture bilateral ties.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei publicly called the disruption a temporary pause due to “technical issues” and “precautionary measures”.
Pakistani official sources, for their part, insisted that the tightened controls are a joint counterterrorism measure reflecting “mutual understanding” with Tehran after a spike in Sistan-Balochistan attacks; highway ambushes; and an October 11 maritime attack on Pakistan Coast Guard boats off Jiwani – which Pakistani officials attributed to “foreign actors” seeking to sabotage Pakistan’s mediation of the Iran peace deal.
Back to the same old pattern of Salafi-jihadis [CIA backed freedom fighters] weaponized and manipulated by the usual suspects.
The only publicly confirmed telephone call between Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took place on Sunday, October 18 – two days after the October 16 memorandum – and its official readouts mention only regional diplomacy and the Baghdad OIC meeting.
So prior coordination at the Dar–Araghchi Foreign Minister level and specific sabotage arrests therefore are part of our own reporting.
Asymmetric food exports and informal routes
In a nutshell, stuff is still moving across borders. Islamabad deliberately left alive Pakistani perishables and food exports to Iran. Essential perishables – including tomatoes, potatoes, and onions – continue to move, alongside traditional oil and fuel flows across the porous 909-km border.
The regulatory record explains why: 8 months ago, Pakistan enacted a separate banking-instrument waiver specifically for 10 food exports to Iran by land (explicitly listing rice, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, meat, and fruit) plus pharmaceuticals.
Tehran’s Chamber of Commerce confirmed this past Saturday that while Iranian exports to Pakistan are stalled by the EIF rule, imports from Pakistan into Iran are continuing, and informal fuel and border trade across Balochistan already operates at an estimated $800 million to over $1 billion annually outside formal customs.
Special attention should be placed on the ports of Gwadar and Karachi, and the overall China–Iran Transit Architecture. Third-country and China-Iran transit through Pakistan, according to our sources, remains protected.
On a legal level, a document detailing Pakistan’s transit of goods established six designated overland transit corridors linking Gwadar, Karachi, and Port Qasim to Gabd and Taftan for third-country cargo bound for Iran under a bank guarantee.
And a Federal Board of Revenue’s notification this past June formally designated Taftan railway station as a Land Customs Station, with Iranian and Pakistani ministers pitching the rail corridor to link China to Iran and Europe.
However, two very complicated operational constraints remain in place.
The Quetta-Taftan rail modernization is still listed officially as a planned upgrade; and OFAC’s October 1 designation of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railway Company (RAI) was explicitly designed to choke Tehran’s shift from blockaded sea lanes to rail.
To sum it all up: it takes supreme skill to face The Empire of Piracy. Islamabad has executed a classic, calibrated maneuver: visibly revoking the formal EIF import waiver at Taftan and Gabd–Rimdan to insulate its pending $1.21 billion IMF tranche and Pakistani banks from U.S. Treasury secondary sanctions.
And all the while keeping Pakistani food exports, informal border valves, and third-country transit frameworks alive with Tehran.
Whether this remains a brief administrative reset or hardens into a longer choke point will be decided by three indicators over the next fortnight:
A modified EIF or barter notification from the Commerce Ministry.
Separate customs clearance for Gwadar/Karachi transit cargo.
Documented freight movements across the Taftan–Zahedan rail link.
May the lesson be imprinted on rare earths for the whole Global South to ponder: there’s no way to fight the Empire without bypassing its control of the international financial system.
On September 17, Assange heralded his own return to X by posting a picture of himself standing in front of a Sydney street mural. The mural, painted by Scott Marsh, shows a bearded bust of Assange looking out on the world above the hashtag, “#FreeAssange,” only the “Free” has been redacted in black and the other letters are adorned in the red, yellow and blue font of the Superman comic.[1]
Can this human being help save the world from the neo-cons? How much gas does Assange have left in the tank after being tortured by the Empire?
For those who tend to forget history during this Orwellian moment, perhaps it is worth remembering where the journalist is coming back from.
In 2017, the CIA under Director Mike Pompeo discussed plans to assassinate Assange.[2] On April 11, 2019, British police arrested Assange and threw him into Belmarsh Prison, the Guantánamo Bay of London, where he remained until 2024.
Who is Julian Assange?
Assange is a home-schooled kid from Queensland, Australia. Born on July 3, 1971, the young Assange moved from home to home with his family, developing a sense of placelessness that would, perhaps, inform his cosmopolitan sensibility. The boy loved computers. He learned how to code.
In 1991, under the alias “Mendax,” Assange hacked into the master terminal of a Canadian telecom company called Nortel. In 1993, he launched Suburbia, one of the first Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Australia. In 1995, he pleaded guilty to 24 of 31 charges brought against him by the Australian Federal Police for the Nortel hack, but the judge in the case, seeing no malicious financial gain, did not make Assange spend a day in prison.[3]
A young Assange, as portrayed in 2012 Australian film Underground: The Julian Assange Story. [Source: screendaily.com]
The crash of the Russian economy in 1991-1992 resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union is of utmost relevance to an understanding of ongoing developments pertaining to the Ukraine war.
The following text describes the devastating social and economic impacts of a “Third World style” Neo-liberal agenda imposed in the immediate wake of the “Cold War” in 1991-1992.
I was in Russia in 1992 undertaking field research as well as interviews for Le Mondediplomatique.
What I witnessed was a process of engineered impoverishment and social devastation.
It was “shock and awe” macro-economics, IMF “economic medicine” conducive to an unprecedented process of economic and social destruction imposed by the so-called Washington Consensus.
There was no peaceful transition.
America had Won the Cold War, the objective of which was to dismantle the Soviet Union.
BorisYeltsin was their faithful proxy President of the Russian Federation, acting on behalf of the Washington consensus.
The USSR collapsed in one fell swoop. It was a complex process of regime change, dismantling the Soviet Union, coupled with “shock and awe” macro-economic reforms.
The unspoken post-Cold war scheme was “economic warfare” which consisted in imposing a neocolonial agenda conducive to the dislocation and the demise of the national economies of the former republics of the Soviet Union.
It was regime change imposed by the Washington Consensus, Boris Yeltsin was Washington’s proxy.
It was an act of “economic warfare”.
An exceedingly complex process of economic and social dislocation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
The historical reverse of this process of post Cold War dislocation was broadly initiated at the outset of the Vladimir Putin government.
This dismal period in Russian history has a bearing on our understanding of the current crisis and the real danger of a Third World War.
This text below was published in my book entitled The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, (Chapter 12 First edition, 1997). Chapter 16 in the Second Edition, 2001)
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, October 14, 2026 ,
Phase I: The January 1992 Shock Treatment
.The IMF-style “shock treatment”, initiated in January 1992, precluded from the outset a transition towards “national capitalism” – i.e. a national capitalist economy owned and controlled by a Russian entrepreneurial class and supported, as in other major capitalist nations, by the economic and social policies of the state. For the West, the enemy was not “socialism” but capitalism.
How to tame and subdue the polar bear, how to take over the talent, the science, the technology, how to buy out the human capital, how to acquire the intellectual property rights?
“If the West thinks that they can transform us into a cheap labor high technology export haven and pay our scientists US$ 40 a month, they are grossly mistaken, the people will rebel.”[2]
While narrowly promoting the interests of both Russia’s merchants and the business mafias, the “economic medicine” was killing the patient, destroying the national economy and pushing the system of state enterprises into bankruptcy.
Through the deliberate manipulation of market forces, the reforms had defined which sectors of economic activity would be allowed to survive. Official figures pointed to a decline of 27 percent in industrial production during the first year of the reforms; the actual collapse of the Russian economy in 1992 was estimated by some economists to be of the order of 50 percent.[3]
Image: Boris Yeltsin (Licensed under Creative Commons)
The IMF-Yeltsin reforms constitute an instrument of “Thirdworldization“; they are a carbon copy of the structural adjustment program imposed on debtor countries in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa.
The Role of Jeffrey Sachs
Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, advisor to the Russian government, had applied in Russia the same “macro-economic surgery” as in Bolivia where he was economic advisor to the MNR government in 1985.
The IMF-World Bank program, adopted in the name of democracy, constitutes a coherent program of impoverishment of large sectors of the population. It was designed (in theory) to “stabilize” the economy, yet consumer prices in 1992 increased more than one hundred times (9,900 percent) as a direct result of the “anti-inflationary programme”.[4]
As in Third World “stabilization programs”, the inflationary process was largely engineered through the “dollarization” of domestic prices and the collapse of the national currency. The price liberalization program did not, however, resolve (as proposed by the IMF) the distorted structure of relative prices which existed under the Soviet system.
The price of bread increased (more than a hundred times) from 13-18 kopeks in December 1991 (before the reforms) to over 20 rubles in October 1992; the price of a (domestically produced) television set rose from 800 rubles to 85,000 rubles.
Wages, in contrast, increased approximately ten times – i.e. real earnings had declined by more than 80 percent and billions of rubles of life-long savings had been wiped out.
Ordinary Russians were very bitter: “the government has stolen our money”.[5]
According to an IMF official [whom I interviewed in Moscow], it was necessary to “sop up excess liquidity, purchasing power was too high”.[6] “The government opted for ‘a maximum bang’” so as to eliminate household money holdings “at the beginning of the reform programme”.[7]
According to one World Bank advisor, these savings “were not real, they were only a perception because [under the Soviet system] they [the people] were not allowed to buy anything”.[8] An economist of the Russian Academy of Science saw things differently:
Under the Communist system, our standard of living was never very high. But everybody was employed and basic human needs and essential social services although second-rate by Western standards, were free and available. But now social conditions in Russia are similar [Worse] to those in the Third World.[9]
Average earnings were below US$ 10 a month (1992-3), the minimum wage (1992) was of the order of US$ 3 a month,a university professor earned US$ 8, an office worker US$ 7,a qualified nurse in an urban clinic earned US$ 6.[10] With the prices of many consumer goods moving rapidly up to world-market levels, these ruble salaries were barely sufficient to buy food. A winter coat could be purchased for US$ 60 – the equivalent of nine months pay.”[11]
The collapse in the standard of living, engineered as a result of macro-economic policy, is without precedent in Russian history:
“We had more to eat during the Second World War”.
Under IMF-World Bank guidelines, social programs are to become self-financing: schools, hospitals and kindergartens (not to mention state-supported programs in sports, culture and the arts) were instructed to generate their own sources of revenue through the exaction of user fees.[12] Charges for surgery in hospitals were equivalent to two to six months earnings which only the “nouveaux riches” could afford. Not only hospitals, but theatres and museums were driven into bankruptcy. The famous Taganka Theatre was dismantled in 1992; many small theatres no longer had the funds to pay their actors. The reforms were conducive to the collapse of the welfare state. Many of the achievements of the Soviet system in health, education, culture and the arts (broadly acknowledged by Western scholars) have been undone.[13]
Continuity with the ancien regime was nonetheless maintained. Under the masque of liberal democracy, the totalitarian state remained unscathed: a careful blend of Stalinism and the “free” market. From one day to the next, Yeltsin and his cronies had become fervent partisans of neoliberalism.
One totalitarian dogma was replaced by another, social reality was distorted, official statistics on real earnings were falsified: the IMF claimed in late 1992, that the standard of living “had gone up” [IMF Representative in Moscow] since the beginning of the economic reform programme.[14] The Russian Ministry of Economy maintained that “wages were growing faster than prices”.[15] In 1992, the consumer price index computed with the technical support of the IMF, pointed to a 15.6 times increase in prices (1,660 percent).[16]
“But the people are not stupid, we simply do not believe them [the government]; we know that prices have gone up one hundred times”.[17]
The Legacy of Perestroika
During the period of perestroika, buying at state-regulated prices and reselling in the free market, combined with graft and corruption were the principal sources of wealth formation. These “shadow dealings” by former bureaucrats and party members became legalized in May 1988 with the Law on Cooperatives implemented under Mikhail Gorbachev.[18] This law allowed for the formation of private commercial enterprises and joint-stock companies which operated alongside the system of state enterprises. In many instances, these “cooperatives” were set up as private ventures by the managers of state enterprises. The latter would sell (at official prices) the output produced by their state enterprise to their privately owned “cooperatives” (i.e. to themselves) and then re-sell on the free market at a very large profit. In 1989, the “cooperatives” were allowed to create their own commercial banks, and undertake foreign-trade transactions. By retaining a dual price system, the 1987-89 enterprise reforms, rather than encouraging bona fide capitalist entrepreneurship, supported personal enrichment, corruption and the development of a bogus “bazaar bourgeoisie”.
Developing a Bazaar Bourgeoisie
In the former Soviet Union, “the secret of primitive accumulation” is based on the principle of “quick money”: stealing from the state and buying at one price and re-selling at another. The birth of Russia’s new “biznes-many”, an offshoot of the Communist nomenclature of the Brezhnev period, lies in the development of “apparatchik capitalism”. “Adam bit the apple and original sin fell upon ‘socialism’”.[19]
Not surprisingly, the IMF program had acquired unconditional political backing by the “Democrats”- i.e. the IMF reforms supported the narrow interests of this new merchant class. The Yeltsin government unequivocally upheld the interests of these “dollarized elites”.
Price liberalization and the collapse of the ruble under IMF guidance advanced the enrichment of a small segment of the population. The dollar was handled on the Interbank currency auction; it was also freely transacted in street kiosks across the former Soviet Union. The reforms have meant that the ruble is no longer considered a safe “store of value” – i.e. the plunge of the national currency was further exacerbated because ordinary citizens preferred to hold their household savings in dollars: “people are willing to buy dollars at any price”.[20]
Distorting Social Relations
The Cold War was a war without physical destruction. In its cruel aftermath, the instruments of macro-economic policy perform a decisive role in dismantling the economy of a defeated nation.
The reforms are not intent (as claimed by the West) in building market capitalism and Western style socio-democracy, but in neutralizing a former enemy and forestalling the development of Russia as a major capitalist power.
Also of significance is the extent to which the economic measures have contributed to destroying civil society and distorting fundamental social relations: the criminalization of economic activity, the looting of state property, money laundering and capital flight are bolstered by the reforms. In turn, the privatization program (through the public auction of state enterprises) also favored the transfer of a significant portion of state property to organized crime. The latter permeates the state apparatus and constitutes a powerful lobby broadly supportive of Yeltsin’s macro-economic reforms. According to a recent estimate, half of Russia’s commercial banks were, by 1993, under the control of the local mafias, and half of the commercial real estate in central Moscow was in the hands of organized crime.[21]
Pillage of the Russian Economy
The collapse of the ruble was instrumental in the pillage of Russia’s natural resources: oil, non-ferrous metals and strategic raw materials could be bought by Russian merchants in rubles from a state factory and re-sold in hard currency to traders from the European Community at ten times the price. Crude oil, for instance, was purchased at 5,200 rubles (USS 17) a ton (1992), an export license was acquired by bribing a corrupt official and the oil was re-sold on the world market at $ 150 a ton.[22] The profits of this transaction were deposited in offshore bank accounts or channeled towards luxury consumption (imports). Although officially illegal, capital flight and money laundering were facilitated by the deregulation of the foreign exchange market and the reforms of the banking system. Capital flight was estimated to be running at over $ 1 billion a month during the first phase of the IMF reforms (1992).[23] There is evidence that prominent members of the political establishment had been transferring large amounts of money overseas.
Undermining Russian Capitalism
What role will “capitalist Russia” perform in the international division of labor during a period of global economic crisis? What will be the fate of Russian industry in a depressed global market? With plant closures in Europe and North America, “is there room for Russian capitalism” on the world market?
Macro-economic policy under IMF guidance shapes Russia’s relationship to the global economy. The reforms tend to support the free and unregulated export of primary goods including oil, strategic metals and food staples, while consumer goods including luxury cars, durables and processed food are freely imported for a small privileged market but there is no protection of domestic industry, nor are there any measures to rehabilitate the industrial sector or to transform domestic raw materials. Credit for the purchase of equipment is frozen, the deregulation of input prices (including oil, energy and freight prices) is pushing Russian industry into bankruptcy.
Moreover, the collapse in the standard of living has backlashed on industry and agriculture – i.e. the dramatic increase in poverty does not favor the growth of the internal market. Ironically, from “an economy of shortage” under the Soviet system (marked by long queues), consumer demand has been compressed to such an extent that the population can barely afford to buy food.
In contrast, the enrichment of a small segment of the population has encouraged a dynamic market for luxury goods including long queues in front of the dollar stores in Moscow’s fashionable Kuznetsky area. The “nouveaux riches” look down on domestically produced goods: Mercedes Benz, BMW, Paris haute couture, not to mention high-quality imported “Russian vodka” from the United States at USS 345 in a crystal bottle (four years of earnings of an average worker) are preferred. This “dynamic demand” by the upper-income groups is, therefore, largely diverted into consumer imports financed through the pillage of Russia’s primary resources.
Acquiring State Property “at a Good Price”
The enormous profits accruing to the new commercial elites are also recycled into buying state property “at a good price” (or buying it from the managers and workers once it has gone through the government’s privatization scheme). Because the recorded book-value of state property (denominated in current rubles) was kept artificially low (and because the ruble was so cheap), state assets could be acquired for practically nothing.[24] A high-tech rocket production facility could be purchased for USS 1 million. A downtown Moscow hotel could be acquired for less than the price of a Paris apartment. In October 1992, the Moscow city government put a large number of apartments on auction; bids were to start at three rubles.
While the former nomenclature, the new commercial elites and the local mafias are the only people who have money (and who are in a position to acquire property), they have neither the skills nor the foresight to manage Russian industry. It is unlikely that they will play a strong and decisive role in rebuilding Russia’s economy. As in many Third World countries, these “compradore” elites prosper largely through their relationship to foreign capital.
Moreover, the economic reforms favor the displacement of national producers (whether state or private) and the taking over of large sectors of the national economy by foreign capital through the formation of joint ventures. Marlboro and Philip Morris, the American tobacco giants, for instance, have already acquired control over state production facilities for sale in the domestic market; British Airways has gained access to domestic air-routes through Air Russia, a joint venture with Aeroflot.
Important sectors of light industry are being closed down and replaced by imports whereas the more profitable sectors of the Russian economy (including the high-tech enterprises of the military-industrial complex) are being taken over by joint ventures. Foreign capital, however, has adopted a wait-and-see attitude. The political situation is uncertain, the risks are great: “we need guarantees regarding the ownership of land, and the repatriation of profits in hard currency”.[25] Many foreign enterprises prefer to enter “through the back door” with small investments. These often involve joint ventures or the purchase of domestic enterprises at a very low cost, largely to secure control over (highly qualified) cheap labor and factory space.
Weakening Russia’s High-Tech Economy
Export processing is being developed in the high-tech areas. It constitutes a very lucrative business: Lockheed Missile and Space Corporation, Boeing and Rockwell International among others have their eye on the aerospace and aircraft industries. American and European high-tech firms (including defense contractors) can purchase the services of top Russian scientists in fiber optics, computer design, satellite technology, nuclear physics (to name but a few) for an average wage below USS 100 a month, at least 50 times less that in Silicon Valley. There are 1.5 million scientists and engineers in the former Soviet Union representing a sizeable reserve of “cheap human capital”.[26]
Macro-economic policy supports the interests of Western high-tech firms and military contractors because it weakens the former Soviet aero- space and high-tech industries and blocks Russia (as a capitalist power in its own right) from competing on the world market. The talent and scientific know-how can be bought up and the production facilities can either be taken over or closed down.
A large share of the military-industrial complex is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense. Carried out under its auspices, the various “conversion programs” negotiated with NATO and Western defense ministries aim at dismantling that complex, including its civilian arm, and preventing Russia from becoming a potential rival in the world market. The conversion schemes purport physically to demobilize Russia’s productive capabilities in the military, avionics and high-tech areas while facilitating the take-over and control by Western capital of Russia’s knowledge base (intellectual property rights) and human capital, including her scientists, engineers and research institutes. AT&T Bell Laboratories, for instance, has acquired through a “joint venture” the services of an entire research laboratory at the General Physics Institute in Moscow. McDonnell Douglas has signed a similar agreement with the Mechanical Research Institute.[27]
Under one particular conversion formula, military hardware and industrial assets were “transformed” into scrap metal which was sold on the world commodity market. The proceeds of these sales were then deposited into a fund (under the Ministry of Defense) which could be used for the imports of capital goods, the payment of debt-servicing obligations or investment in the privatization programs.
Taking Over Russia’s Banking System
Since the 1992 reforms and the collapse of many state banks, some 2,000 commercial banks have sprung up in the former Soviet Union of which 500 are located in Moscow. With the breakdown of industry, only the strongest banks and those with ties to international banks will survive. This situation favors the penetration of the Russian banking system by foreign commercial banks and joint-venture banks.
Undermining the Ruble Zone
The IMF program was also intent on abolishing the ruble zone and under- mining trade between the former republics. The latter were encouraged from the outset to establish their own currencies and central banks with technical assistance provided by the IMF. This process supported “economic Balkanization”: with the collapse of the ruble zone, regional economic power serving the narrow interests of local tycoons and bureaucrats unfolded.
Bitter financial and trade disputes between Russia and the Ukraine have developed. Whereas trade is liberalized with the outside world, new “internal boundaries” were installed, impeding the movement of goods and people within the Commonwealth of Independent States.[28].
Phase II: The IMF Reforms Enter an Impasse
.The IMF-sponsored reforms (under Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar) entered an impasse in late 1992.
Opposition had built up in parliament as well as in the Central Bank. The IMF conceded that if the government were to meet the target for the fiscal deficit, up to 40 percent of industrial plants might have been forced to close down. The president of the Central Bank, Mr. Gerashchenko with support from Arcady Volsky of the Civic Union Party, took the decision (against the advice of the IMF) to expand credit to the state enterprises, while at the same time cutting drastically expenditures in health, education and old-age pensions. The Civic Union had put forth an “alternative program” in September 1992. Despite the subsequent replacement of Yegor Gaidar as prime minister in the parliamentary crisis of December 1992, the Civic Union’s program was never carried out.
The IMF had, nonetheless, agreed in late 1992 to the possibility of “the less orthodox” approach of the centrist Civic Union prior to Gaidar’s dismissal. In the words of the IMF resident representative in Moscow: “the IMF is not married to Gaidar, he has a similar economic approach but we will work with his successor”.
At the beginning of 1993, the relationship between the government and the parliament evolved towards open confrontation.
Legislative control over the government’s budgetary and monetary policy served to undermine the “smooth execution” of the IMF program. The parliament had passed legislation which slowed down the privatization of state industry, placed restrictions on foreign banks and limited the government’s ability to slash subsidies and social expenditures as required by the IMF.[29]
Opposition to the reforms had largely emanated from within the ruling political elites, from the moderate centrist faction (which included former Yeltsin collaborators). While representing a minority within the parliament, the Civic Union (also involving the union of industrialists led by Arcady Volsky) favored the development of national capitalism while maintaining a strong role for the central state. The main political actors in Yeltsin’s confrontation with the parliament (e.g. Alexander Rutskoi and Ruslan Khasbulatov), therefore, cannot be categorized as “Communist hard-liners”.
The government was incapable of completely bypassing the legislature. Both houses of parliament were suspended by presidential decree on 21 September 1993.
Abolishing the Parliament in the Name of “Governance”
On 23 September, two days later, Mr. Michel Camdessus, the IMF managing director, hinted that the second tranche of a USS 3 billion loan under the IMF’s systemic transformation facility (STF) would not be forthcoming because “Russia had failed to meet its commitments” largely as a result of parliamentary encroachment. (The STF loan is similar in form to the struc- tural adjustment loans negotiated with indebted Third World countries). (See Chapter 3.)
President Clinton had stated at the Vancouver Summit in April 1993 that Western “aid” was tied to the implementation of “democratic reform”. The conditions set by the IMF and the Western creditors, however, could only be met by suspending parliament altogether (a not unusual practice in many indebted Third World countries). The storming of the White House [Russian: Белый дом, The House of the Government of the Russian Federation] by elite troops and mortar artillery was thus largely intent on neutralizing political dissent from within the ranks of the nomenclature both in Moscow and the regions, and getting rid of individuals opposing IMF-style reform.
The G7 had endorsed President Yeltsin’s decree abolishing both houses of parliament prior to its formal enactment and their embassies in Moscow had been briefed ahead of time. The presidential decree of 21 September was immediately followed by a wave of decrees designed to speed up the pace of economic reform and meet the conditionalities contained in the IMF loan agreement signed by the Russian government in May: credit was immediately tightened and interest rates raised, measures were adopted to increase the pace of privatization and trade liberalization.
In the words of Minister of Finance Mr. Boris Fyodorov, now freed from parliamentary control: “we can bring in any budget that we like.”[30]
The timing of President Yeltsin’s decree was well chosen: Yeltsin’s finance minister Boris Fyodorov was scheduled to report to the G7 meeting of finance ministers on 25 September, the foreign minister Mr. Andrei Kosyrev was in Washington meeting President Clinton, the IMF-World Bank annual meeting was scheduled to commence in Washington on the 28 September, and 1 October had been set as a deadline for a decision on the IMF’s standby loan prior to the holding in Frankfurt of the meeting of the London Club of commercial bank creditors (chaired by the Deutsche Bank) on 8 October. And on 12 October, President Yeltsin was to travel to Japan to initiate negotiations on the fate of four Kuril islands in exchange for debt relief and Japanese “aid”.
Following the suspension of parliament, the G7 expressed “their very strong hope that the latest developments will help Russia achieve a decisive breakthrough on the path of market reforms.”[31] The German minister of finance Mr. Theo Wagel said that “Russian leaders must make it clear that economic reforms would continue or they would lose international financial aid”. Mr. Michel Camdessus expressed hope that political developments in Russia would contribute to “stepping up the process of economic reform”.
Yet despite Western encouragement, the IMF was not yet prepared to grant Russia the “green light”: Mr. Viktor Gerashchenko, the pro-Civic Union president of the Central Bank, was still formally in control of monetary policy; an IMF mission which traveled to Moscow in late September 1993 (during the heat of the parliamentary revolt), had advised Michel Camdessus that “plans already announced by the government for subsidy cuts and controls over credit were insufficient”.[32]
The impact of the September 1993 economic decrees was almost immediate: the decision to further liberalize energy prices and to increase interest rates served the objective of rapidly pushing large sectors of Russian industry into bankruptcy. With the deregulation of Roskhlebprodukt, the state bread distribution company, in mid-October 1993, bread prices increased overnight by three to four times.[33] It is worth emphasizing that this “second wave” of impoverishment of the Russian people was occurring in the aftermath of an estimated 86 percent decline in real purchasing power in 1992![34] Since all subsidies were financed out of the state budget, the money saved could be redirected (as instructed by the IMF) towards the servicing of Russia’s external debt.
The reform of the fiscal system, proposed by Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov in the aftermath of the September 1993 coup, followed the World Bank formula imposed on indebted Third World countries. It required “fiscal autonomy” for the republics and local governments by cutting the flow of revenue from Moscow to the regions and diverting the central state’s finan- cial resources towards the reimbursement of the creditors. The consequences of these reforms were fiscal collapse, economic and political Balkanization, and enhanced control of Western and Japanese capital over the economies of Russia’s regions.
“Western Aid” to Boris Yeltsin
By 1993, the reforms had led to the massive plunder of Russia’s wealth resulting in a significant outflow of real resources: the balance of payments deficit for 1993 was of the order of USS 40 billion -approximately the amount of “aid” ($ 43 billion) pledged by the G7 at its Tokyo Summit in 1993. Yet most of this Western “aid” was fictitious: it was largely in the form of loans (rather than grant aid) which served the “useful” purpose of enlarging Russia’s external debt (of the order of $ 80 billion in 1993) and strengthening the grip of Western creditors over the Russian economy.
Russia was being handled by the creditors in much the same way as a Third World country: out of a total of USS 43.4 billion which had been pledged in 1993, less than $ 3 billion was actually disbursed. Moreover, the agreement reached with the Paris Club regarding the rescheduling of Russia’s official debt – while “generous” at first sight – in reality offered Moscow a very short breathing space.[35] Only the debt incurred during the Soviet era was to be rescheduled;[36] the massive debts incurred by the Yeltsin government (ironically largely as a result of the economic reforms) were excluded from these negotiations.
With regard to bilateral pledges, President Clinton offered a meager USS 1.6 billion at the Vancouver Summit in 1993; $ 970 million was in the form of credits – mainly for food purchases from US farmers; $ 630 million was arrears on Russian payments for US grain to be financed by tapping “The Food for Progress Program” of the US Department of Agriculture, thus putting Russia on the same footing as countries in sub-Saharan Africa in receipt of US food aid under PL 480. Similarly, the bulk of Japanese bilateral “aid” to Russia were funds earmarked for “insurance for Japanese companies” investing in Russia.[37]
Into the Strait-Jacket of Debt-Servicing
The elimination of parliamentary opposition in September 1993 resulted in an immediate shift in Moscow’s debt-negotiation strategy with the commercial banks. Again, the timing was of critical importance. No “write-off’ or “write-down” of Russia’s commercial debt was requested by the Russian negotiating team at the Frankfurt meetings of the London Club held in early October 1993, only four days after the storming of the White House. Under the proposed deal, the date of reckoning would be temporarily postponed; USS 24 out of USS 3 8 billion of commercial debt would be rescheduled. All the conditions of the London Club were accepted by Moscow’s negotiating team, with the exception of Russia’s refusal to waive its “sovereign immunity to legal action”. This waiver would have enabled the creditor banks to impound Russia’s state enterprises and confiscate physical assets if debt-servicing obligations were not met. For the commercial banks, this clause was by no means a formality: with the collapse of Russia’s economy, a balance of payments crisis, accumulated debt-servicing obligations due to the Paris Club, Russia was being pushed into a “technical moratorium” – i.e. a situation of de facto default.
The foreign creditors had also contemplated mechanisms for converting Russia’s foreign exchange reserves (at the Central Bank as well as dollar deposits in Russian commercial banks) into debt-servicing. They also had their eye on foreign exchange holdings held by Russians in off-shore bank accounts.
The IMF’s economic medicine was not only devised to enforce debt-servicing obligations, it was also intent on “enlarging the debt”. The reforms contributed to crippling the national economy thereby creating a greater dependency on external credit. In turn, debt default was paving the way towards a new critical phase in Moscow’s relationship to the creditors. In the image of a subservient and compliant Third World regime, the Russian state was caught in the strait-jacket of debt and structural adjustment: state expenditures were brutally slashed to release state funds to reimburse the creditors.
The Collapse of Civil Society
As the crisis deepened, the population became increasingly isolated and vulnerable. “Democracy” had been formally installed but the new political parties, divorced from the masses, were largely heeding the interests of merchants and bureaucrats.
The impact of the privatization program on employment was devastating: more than 50 percent of industrial plants had been driven into bankruptcy by 1993.[38] Moreover, entire cities in the Urals and Siberia belonging to the military-industrial complex and dependent on state credits and procurements were in the process of being closed down.
In 1994 (according to official figures), workers at some 33,000 indebted enterprises, including state industrial corporations and collective farms, were not receiving wages on a regular basis.[39]
Qatar has been a player inside the White House for decades, but Trump’s war on Iran has shut down Qatar’s ability to create revenues.
The Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar is the largest in the Middle East.
Built in 1996, it served as an assurance and insurance against enemies.
In return for Qatar’s largess investments in the US, the base kept Qatar safe. Until it didn’t. Instead, Al Udeid made Qatar a target, and that targeting has liquified their source of revenue, oil and LNG.
Seventeen percent of Qatar’s LNG capacity has been obliterated. They have no alternative route for transport other that the Strait of Hormuz, and tourism across the entire Middle East is virtually nonexistent as everyone waits for Trump. Why would Trump announce that he will bomb Iran to oblivion ‘after’ the midterms? What is the purpose in waiting?
Yesterday, the Emir of Qatar released a statement:
“We must be prepared for the worst possibilities, and everyone must bear their responsibilities, institutions and citizens”.
Egypt’s Sisi responded:
“What has been happening has intensified considerably over the past 5-6 months. I swear to God, I am not trying to frighten you, but this time you will not recover again. They might try sand ignite the situation in Egypt”.
Attacks between the Houthis and Saudis have escalated considerably. Saudi Aramco headquarters was struck. Bin Salman is considered a target by the Houthis. He is in a continual state of fear.
The Strait is not open despite Trump’s conflagrating blow-hard statements to the contrary.
A cargo vessel just sank after hitting a mine despite Trump’s statements that all mines were cleared by the navy. The global economy is teetering. Europe to the extreme. And the amount of tension is zapping across the skies like CERN lightning bolts. Someone somewhere is going to crack and a bomb focused on the US is gaining theoretical Polymarket traction.
There is of course the possibility that a Trump strike will be levelled before the midterms given Trump thinks he is General Patton quality. Iran’s IRGC states that they believe the war will continue for two years – or until Trump is no longer in the White House. The blow up in the Middle East is a global phenomenon completely at the hands of just two men; Trump and Netanyahu. Their entire legacy. Always “underestimate your enemy” appears to be the Trump mindset as Iran states that should they be struck again US underwater cables, data centers, AI, and other target in the region valued at $2 trillion will be – no more.
Oddly, Trump is too consumed with midterm mania than the global fallout of his war. Hegseth is wholly unprepared and continues his jumping jacks routine, while Susie Wiles looks wilted by the enormity of the US bungling, while backstabbing within the coveted circle reignites.
Meanwhile, the effervescent Heritage Foundation is moving past Project 2025 as Trump implements every facet of their agenda, and is in the throes of writing Project 2029 for JD Vance who they claim will be inserted as President 2028 under the thumb of Israel’s new PM – with the Polymarket clicks claiming Eisenkot will win Israel’s election. His policies have little distance from Netanyahu’s and thus little will change in terms of Middle East wars. Thus 2028 will essentially be a continuation of the plotline for global economic collapse.
The Russia Diesel Deal is a major point of contention in the Republican pool given Ukraine, however corrupted, is an Israel asset, and most of our federal government is so aligned. Adding to the roll-eye effect, Iran is transporting its diesel fuel to Russia to cover their shortages according to The Iran Observer. Meaning Trump will be buying Iranian oil.
The conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia is over sovereignty. The Sauds became an unwitting proxy on behalf of the US and Israel who demanded a western inserted government and were met with resistance. Not unlike Assad or Hussein, both of whom were originally allies of the US before the US did not approve of their restraint over oil and other precious reserves. So goes Yemen. Yemen is simply another pool of valuable resources in oil, gas, gold, copper, etc… with significant reserves in Industrial minerals.
Given the last year, if the Middle East had half a brain they would form a united front against those who have destroyed their revenue stream and ignited this catastrophic illegal international collapse that for many countries could take years if not decades to recapture. But the Saudis seem too stubborn or too afraid. How any of them could ever trust America again is incredibly short-sighted. Israel continues to unequivocally bomb Gaza despite there being nothing left to destroy except lives.
There is no mercy.
And the Middle East should recognize this as their future should they continue to bicker amongst themselves.
Trump has shown that he does not have their backs, he is not equipped mentally to understand or care and has abandoned both Qatar and the Saudis to their fate. Lives will continue to be lost for no reason whatsoever. Infrastructure can’t be rebuilt until the bombs stop, until Trump acknowledges he was wrong and foregoes all military intervention.
Florida is coming after former Cuban president Raúl Castro, and this time, the 95-year-old brother of Fidel Castro is facing a state arrest warrant in connection with the deaths of four men nearly three decades ago.
A Miami-Dade County judge has issued a NO-BOND arrest warrant for Castro on a state charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, stemming from the February 24, 1996, shootdown of two unarmed civilian aircraft operated by the Miami-based humanitarian organization Brothers to the Rescue.
The warrant was signed Friday, October 16, following an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. It comes as Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier intensifies efforts to hold the former Cuban leader accountable for the deadly attack.
According to the arrest warrant obtained by Fox News Digital, a judge found probable cause to believe Castro participated in a conspiracy that led to the killing of four men aboard the civilian aircraft.
The victims were:
Carlos Costa
Pablo Morales
Mario de la Peña
Armando Alejandre Jr.
The four men were killed when Cuban fighter jets shot down two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft over international waters during a humanitarian mission.
For their families and Miami’s Cuban exile community, the tragedy has remained an open wound for 30 years.
Now, Florida is pursuing another avenue for justice.
The state warrant is particularly significant because it represents a separate criminal proceeding from the federal indictment already brought against Castro earlier this year.
Unlike the federal case, this prosecution is being pursued under Florida law.
And the warrant comes with NO BOND.
According to local reporting, Florida authorities also intend to seek Castro’s extradition if he is arrested outside the state.
According to the Miami Herald’s reporting, investigators allege that Cuban intelligence operatives working inside Florida infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue and transmitted sensitive information about its operations to Havana.
The affidavit alleges that the operatives monitored Naval Air Station Key West and supplied flight information to Cuban authorities.
Investigators also allege that members of the Cuban spy network were instructed not to board Brothers to the Rescue flights during a period surrounding the attack.
On February 24, 1996, Cuban military jets shot down the two civilian aircraft.
Three American citizens and one lawful permanent resident were killed.
U.S. investigators contend that the operation involved a coordinated conspiracy reaching into the highest levels of Cuba’s communist government.
Castro, who served as head of Cuba’s armed forces at the time, is now accused of participating in that conspiracy.
The Castro government maintained that the aircraft violated Cuban airspace. However, the United States and a United Nations investigation concluded that the planes were shot down over international waters.
The Iranian Navy announced that US forces launched an early morning attack against the Konarak naval base, located within a military complex in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan.
According to naval authorities, the facility was struck by “two light projectiles” targeting a 35mm artillery piece. The strike wounded two Iranian service members at the coastal installation.
The incident marks a direct escalation along Iran’s southern maritime perimeter.
(Photo credit: Allison Robbert/AP)
