Posted originally on Sep 27, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |  

Posted originally on Sep 27, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |  

When President Trump actually addressed the United Nations General Assembly during his first term, I remember that he criticized globalism, drawing derisive laughter that momentarily derailed his remarks. This time, nobody was laughing.

I had hoped that Trump’s flip-flop on Ukraine, which is now costing him sharply in the polls, would have just been a hard-nosed negotiation tactic. It appeared that he was perhaps being sarcastic, and one can even read this as walking away, insofar as he is mouthing everything that the NEOCONS and their mouthpiece, the ISW, keep saying that the sanctions are working, the Russian economy is about to collapse. Thus, is Russia a Paper Tiger? Then we have NATO, the Neocon retirement home, can walk in with 3.4 million troops against Russia’s 1.5, and Putin will fall to his knees and plead for his life.

Before this, Trump admitted that Ukraine was losing. At that meeting in the White House when Trump said Zelensky had no cards, this is inconsistent with his new flip-flop. Ukraine stands ZERO chance of surviving as a country because the EU is just using Ukraine as a pawn in their desire to conquer Russia. Zelensky is just lining his pockets to come out as a billionaire and flee Ukraine before it is toast.

The European leaders believe all of the NEOCON propaganda because they are the ones about to collapse, and they want to pretend Russia will fall first, and they get to pick up what’s left. This is the biggest crop of fools I have ever seen in my 50 years. Then telling the EU to stop buying Russian oil when their economies would collapse is another sarcastic type of remark.

But insulting Russia that it is a “paper tiger” and telling the NEOCON puppet Zelensky he had to keep all of Ukraine, which is the green light to kill all the Russians that are there and finish Bandera’s ethnic cleansing, and take part of Russia for its pleasure, is advocating an EU invasion of Russia. Then telling NATO to shoot down any Russian plane it desires is total insanity.

Finland’s President Alexander Stubb has said that Putin should be worried now that Trump has joined their side against Russia. Trump has emboldened all of Europe, and they see this as the green light for World War III, with the NEOCONS telling them Russia is collapsing and easy prey. They have convinced these European leaders that they can take Russia with one arm tied behind their back and he will NEVER use nuclear weapons. They now have Trump ready to draft Americans and send them to another endless war to die for the glory of the NEOCONS.

You can insult countries in trade disputes, but this is threatening the integrity of Russia and basically says it’s a joke of a country that should not even exist. What Trump seems to be naive about is that these NEOCONS have complete control of NATO and the EU. There is NO WAY they will EVER accept Russia as a peaceful nation.

If Trump thinks he is being clever with a sarcastic commentary, our computer is warning that he is giving the green light to NATO to start WWIII and then invoke Article 5. Things do not always work out as intended.

The other side of this question cannot be interpreted as a sarcastic remark when Trump tells the EU to shoot down Russian Planes. I don’t think giving the NEOCONS this type of permission will exonerate Trump from the history books, for they will say he ordered us to do this – he started WWIII.

EU New Scheme To Rob Russian Assets

Brussels is scheming to steal all the Russian assets and use them to fund its conquest of Russia. Up to now, they can seize interest generated by Russian assets but not the capital sums. They are presenting this as Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and rebuild. But then they want to sell arms to Ukraine, which they will use the Russian money to fund the EU. The new proposal to hand them the actual capital itself is being called “legally creative,” and they want to release $200 billion to $300 billion at Euroclear, while France has another $70 billion, and rumors have it that they have been dipping into that illegally already. Presenting this as a major stream of additional funding for Zelensky without technically expropriating the Russian assets themselves, which would be legally risky.

They are proposing to swap the cash for zero-coupon short-term EU bonds. The Commission believes it will avoid accusations of confiscating the money, which violates international law, and NO COUNTRY should have any money in Europe at all!!!! So you buy 30-year zero-coupon European Debt, which they cannot sell, holding off their Sovereign Debt Crisis, then take 30 years of interest now and use that to fund their conquest of Russia. If they destroy Russia, then they get to keep everything.

Buried in the German rearmament plan revealed by Politico was a €2.373 billion contract for Taurus Neo missiles. That sum should buy roughly 600 units. They will find their way to Ukraine, and Zelensky was to wipe out the Kremlin itself.

Zelenskiy has refused to allow elections and says he is ready to leave office ONLY after the Russia conflict: ‘My goal is to finish the war.‘ This is why, personally, he will never agree to peace. Zelensky asked Trump for Tomahawk missiles in a private UN meeting. Zelensky threatened Putin that those in the Kremlin should know where the bomb shelters are when he gets YS Tomahawk missiles.

The U.S. sanctions on Cuba were imposed in two parts by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was the first trade embargo in response to the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro nationalizing U.S.-owned properties (like oil refineries and sugar mills) without compensation and aligning with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This initially involved cutting off the Cuban sugar quota, a major blow to the island’s economy. Then, on February 7, 1962, President John F. Kennedy formally declared a full economic embargo against Cuba through Proclamation 3447. This made the restrictions comprehensive and legally binding.

Are the Sanctions Still There Today? Yes, the core U.S. economic embargo on Cuba is still in place today.

This is what Putin looks at. Once the West imposes sanctions for geopolitical reasons, they become permanent. The Cuban sanctions are still there 65 years later, long after Fidel Castro is long gone.  It is still illegal to sell Cuban Cigars commercially within the United States.

Look at Iran. The major international sanctions began in 1979 after the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis, but the most severe and impactful sanctions were imposed between 2006 and 2012, primarily over Iran’s nuclear program. The Iran sanctions have been there for 46 years, and the government has still not fallen.

There is ZERO hope of Russia ever joining the world economy, and this is what they are coming to grips with.

---

Zelensky wants NATO to NUKE Russia as a Preemptive Strike

NATO is desperate for a FALSE FLAG to justify World War III. The NEOCONS have spent their entire lives dreaming about destroying all Russians. It does not matter that Communism fell. They hate the Russian people. That’s OK, but if you say you do not like immigrants, Starmer will throw you in prison for hate speech. They use it all the time when it comes to the Russian people as a whole. Initially, I warned that all my sources indicated Zelensky was hand-picked to create WWIII by the Neocons. Many Ukrainians do not believe he was legitimately elected.

---

Russia’s Response

“The Kiev drug addict said the Kremlin should know where a bomb shelter is so its occupants can hide when he uses long-range American weapons,” Medvedev wrote. “What the freak needs to know is that Russia can use weapons a bomb shelter won’t protect against. Americans should also keep this in mind.”

Russia has the most nuclear warheads in the world, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Russia’s top diplomat has accused NATO and the European Union of declaring war on Russia and using Ukraine as its proxy. Of course, the EU and NATO lie through their teeth and have claimed that this is a distortion of reality and said it is Moscow that has “brought war back to Europe.”

Boris Johnson, who has routinely flown to Kiev to instruct Zelensky, cannot sign peace deals, to insist on going to the White House and embarrass Trump into funding Europe’s war to conquer Russia, has publicly admitted that “We are in a proxy war against Russia.”  I am so sick and tired of these European lies. Enough is enough.

Both he and Foreign Secretary David Lammy have repeatedly said “Labour will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes to win”. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has also told Zelensky he is willing to allow Ukraine’s use of UK-supplied long-range missiles to hit targets inside Russia.

Reuters has reported that the Kremlin “flatly rejected what Donald Trump said was the rationale behind his rhetorical U-turn on the war in Ukraine, saying it appeared that the U.S. president had been influenced by Ukraine’s leader and was mistaken.”

---

Look, I have been trying to defeat my own computer all the time. I have failed every single time. These forecasts are personal opinions. This is why we have more institutional clients than probably everyone else combined. It’s not that my opinion is better than everyone. They want to know what the computer says, not me. When people thought I was nuts, saying 100% chance of nuclear war was on the horizon, and Trump seemed to be a real president, people wondered how that forecast could possibly be correct. I myself was on the phone with some people in Congress and was told they would keep us out of war with Russia. Those days are gone in just a few weeks.

When I ask Socrates what the prospects of nuclear war are, it still comes up with 100%. It still sees the end of Ukraine, and it still projects the collapse of the European Union post-2030. These are not my personal opinions.

I am the RELUCTANT economist and geopolitical analyst. These are fields I never intended to aspire to. If you had asked me in High School if I would want to be advising on this level internationally, flying from country to country, addressing boardrooms of some of the largest multinational companies in the world, I would have said you were out of your mind. I was a trader whose father pushed me into computer engineering in the late ’60s because I did not want to become a lawyer and follow him in his footsteps with “and son” on the door.

After learning computer engineering from the hardware to the software, I was able to create what became the first fully functioning Artificial Intelligence computer, which monitored the entire world to assist me in hedge fund management. I was named Economist of the Decade for the ’80s. I took the bank page of the Economist for three week in July 1985 to announce the turn in the Economic Confidence Model that deflation was over, inflation would then begin, and that was the low in gold, the peak in the dollar with the pound reaching $1.03, and because in 1983 I was on TV and forecast that the British pound would fall from T2 level to par, everyone thought that forecast was nuts.

By 1983, I was being touted as the highest-paid analyst in the world. The WSJ interviewed many clients. They were shocked. They told me people said they would pay $10,000 an hour back then. I did not realize I was advising on tens of billions in 1983.

By the end of the 1980s, I had been called America’s top economist. I advised major takeover players, such as Alan Bond from Australia. We made so much money that he created Bond University. The computer had projected that the stock market would TRIPLE. People could not believe that forecast. I would speak at conferences and show these two charts that the book value of the Dow reached its final historical low in 1977 from the 1929 high.

I was running around warning that a major shift was taking place with the transition from PUBLIC to PRIVATE confidence, and the low in book value was the hallmark of a public wave, where stocks were a dirty word and government was to be trusted, post-Great Depression. People bought the bonds and discarded the stocks. From the 1975 low of 622 on the S&P, it rallied into 1987 to 3378 level. This was why I took the back cover of the Economist for 3 weeks during July 1985 to go on record (1985.65) that a major change in the world economy would take place. That was the Plaza Accord, the birth of the G5, and the peak in the dollar, ending the deflation.

The computer was correct again.

Because I was at the forefront of foreign exchange forecasting, I was called on in 1985 when they were creating the G5 – now G20. I even wrote to President Reagan objecting to this attempt to manipulate the dollar down to relieve the trade deficit. They did that at the Plaza Accord in 1985. They disrupted the capital flows and were right on target with the ECM model for the turn in July 1985.

When the 1987 Crash took place, our model forecasted that even to the very day, I was then called into the 1987 Presidential Commission investigating the crash. I managed to get them not to blame computer trading, but it was really the G5 and the manipulation of the currency markets. Lowering the dollar may make your exports cheaper, but it also devalues all assets purchased by foreigners, compelling them to sell.

The computer forecast that there would be a sweeping Republican victory during the midterms in 1994.  But the forecast was also put out that the Democratic Party may become extinct after 2020. We have seen deep divisions, and the risk that this will split has increased post-2024.

I was called in by the Bank of China concerning the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis. I got to see the transition from Communism to Capitalism firsthand.

I was named Hedge Fund Manager of the year for that call, we had made up to 60% in a single month. It was at the June 1998 Conference that I also met with the commission designing the Euro afterward. They had taken the entire back row of that conference.

In 2015, I even met with the Swiss central bank to warn them that the peg was about to break. They thought they could hold it. I warned that it was impossible.

I have done my best to help society and have paid the price for that. They can accuse me of having too much influence, but whenever I try to warn them not to do something, they do not listen. So my warnings about war and the ultimate destruction of Western Society go in one ear and out the other. People believe what they want to believe, as Julius Caesar said long ago. I have an unmatched track record. But they still will not listen.

Posted originally on Sep 24, 2025 by Martin Armstrong 

Within months of Zelensky’s election, on December 20th, 2019, Ukrainian law enforcement raided both Poroshenko’s party headquarters and gym on the orders of President Zelensky, who has turned out to be ruthless and a questionable head of state. The raid was intended to eliminate any possible influence of Poroshenko going forward. It was used to launch criminal investigations focused on the alleged theft of servers containing classified information and tax evasion, which is now commonly referred to as money laundering. Zelensky outright accused Poroshenko of state treason, aiding terrorist organizations, and financing terrorism due to allegedly organizing the purchase of coal from separatist-controlled areas of Ukraine together with pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. Poroshenko denied the allegations, calling them “fabricated, politically motivated, and black PR directed against [Zelensky’s] political opponents”.

The Zelensky Government of Ukraine quickly became a ruthless tyrant. He had also imprisoned the leader of the opposition Viktor V. Medvedchuk, who was the People’s Deputy of Ukraine from August 29, 2019. Medvedchuk was the chairman of the pro-Russia political organization Ukrainian Choice and an opponent of Ukraine joining the European Union. From an economic perspective, for Ukraine to join the EU would be to substitute one authoritarian government with another. Even the EU has called upon Zelensky to release Medvedchuk.

All of my sources questioned whether Zelensky was even legitimately elected. The neocons selected him to be the man to start World War III. Here is a video of him BEFORE being President, and like Soros, he pretended to be Christian and made jokes about confiscating the assets of Jews and Russians. My sources all said he was a NeoNazi, so after being elected, he suddenly claimed to be Jewish to dispel an investigation that he had been a NeoNazi.

Vide

Once again, we have a crisis in Eastern Europe that sparked World War I, setting the stage for World War III. The ethnic hatred in the Balkans will NEVER be eliminated. Zelensky has destroyed Ukraine. Now he wants NATO and America to send their people to die for his personal hatred of Russians.

Zelensky has even sought to have NATO nuke Russia before it can retaliate. If I were Putin, there is no way I could have a conversation with this MERCHANT OF DEATH, let alone have a peace agreement.

I was warned by my sources last week that Trump admitted that we will be in World War III over Ukraine. Get ready for your children to die for this Merchant of Death – Zelensky. When he was elected, I strongly suggest cutting off ALL DONATIONS TO ANY POLITICIAN who supports Ukraine on any level, regardless of their political party. They do not deserve to represent even a pet goldfish.

After endorsing NATO strikes on any Russian warplanes that violate Allied airspace, Trump appeared to raise his support for Ukraine, declaring on social media that Ukraine can win back its entire occupied territory “in its original form” and “maybe even go further than that.”  In other words, Trump has just endorsed the invasion of Russia. Were I Putin, it is clear, the very survival of Russia is now at stake. That warrants a nuclear attack to take out all the capitals of Europe and NATO. There can be no peace with Ukraine, the EU, or NATO. Ukraine is the most corrupt country on the planet, and we have now endorsed ethnic cleansing.

Trump has listened to the NEOCONS running NATO that Russia’s performance in Ukraine is not “distinguished.” On social media, he argued that Moscow’s failure to gain more territory in Ukraine over more than three years “is very much making them look like ‘a paper tiger.’” Then he dared to tell this MERCHANT OF DEATH Zelensky, that the war “looks like it’s not going to end for a long time.” Ukraine does not have the manpower. The only way for this to run for a long time is if NATO troops enter Ukraine, and that is WWIII. I do not know who the hell Trump is listening to, but it is total bullshit NEOCON propaganda. China has made it very clear that it is not prepared to allow Russia to lose. They told Kallas that to her face. If this is a Trump negotiation tactic, I would call his bluff. Let’s start World War III. Will the American people then support Trump? He will never get his Nobel Peace Prize with this tactic.

Trump has been indoctrinated by the very people who wanted him DEAD. His departure from his campaign rhetoric, when Trump vowed to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, has now turned to advocating even the invasion of Russia. Trump has regularly characterized Kiev’s chances against Moscow as hopeless and pressured the Zelensky administration to accept the Kremlin’s terms. Surrender the Donbas, which was the Minsk Agreement, and had that been honored by the West, there would be no war. Trump has now endorsed World War III. Just ask yourself, what if Putin were supporting Mexico, and he just advocated that if they wanted to invade the United States, he would help them. I think we would get off our ass and pay attention.

Just as Netanyahu made a significant mistake attacking Qatar, which has now united all of the Arabs, even Saudi Arabia, with Iran, and against Israel, Trump just did this to Russia, China, North Korea, and India. Trump has just endorsed World War III, and if he thinks this will make Putin yield, he is dead wrong. Putin is NOT stupid. He knows this is not a war with Ukraine; this is against NATO and now the USA.

This is a war for the total destruction of Russia. Trump has now said that if Russian warplanes violate the airspace of NATO members, they can shoot them down. The intrusions in recent weeks, which have been FALSE FLAGS of NATO, were intended to create this result, and they have succeeded. In response to an Article 4 declaration by the Polish government after a Russian drone incursion earlier this month, the alliance launched “Operation Eastern Sentry,” establishing collective policies and procedures for aerial defense on NATO’s eastern flank. Quoting Trump’s support for shooting down any Russian aircraft that enters NATO airspace in the future, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski tweeted, “Roger that.”

After going to dinner at Mara Largo when Trump was President the first time, he impressed me by saying he wanted to pull the troops out of Afghanistan because he was tired of writing letters to their families that their son died for God and country. I believe he thinks this is showing strength to Putin, and he will back down.

The NEOCON hatred toward Russia stems from several key ideological and strategic motivations that date back to when Khrushchev said, “We will bury you,” a philosophical boast that he believed communism would defeat capitalism. Trump had better study his damn history.

After Khrushchev backed down from the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, which significantly weakened his position and contributed to the coup that did happen almost two years later, in October 1964.

Many within the Soviet Politburo (the Presidium) and the military were indeed furious. They saw the withdrawal of missiles as a humiliating retreat and a sign of Khrushchev’s reckless brinkmanship. They felt he had gambled with nuclear war and lost, damaging the USSR’s international prestige.

Khrushchev tried to frame the outcome as a victory. He argued that he had secured a public guarantee from the US not to invade Cuba (which was a key goal for Castro) and, crucially, a secret deal for the US to remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey. From this perspective, he had achieved a strategic win by removing a direct threat to the USSR and protecting an ally, all while avoiding a catastrophic war.

Because of this “peacemaker” narrative and the fact that the secret Turkey deal wasn’t widely known, there wasn’t enough immediate, organized opposition to remove him in late 1962 or early 1963. Still, discontent from the Cuban Missile Crisis festered and merged with other serious grievances against Khrushchev over the next two years. The plotters who ousted him in 1964 cited a long list of failures, with the Cuban situation being a central one. Khruschev was ousted by a coup and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.

If Trump is this naive to think he can intimidate Putin to surrender, he is out of his mind. My computer has been targeting November all year, both personally for Putin and nationally. This is why Zelensky has attempted to assassinate Putin. He is restrained. They prefer someone who will act emotionally. If Putin were forced to back down, that would be a HUGE loss of face, and it would most likely lead to a coup.

What Trump has done is absolutely STUPID, and it is typical advice from a NEOCON. If Trump had to back down on a major issue, the press would tear him apart at the seams. He is buying the BS of the NEOCONS that the USA is the most powerful nation on Earth, so that everyone will tremble in our presence.

Well, it looks like this year’s WEC may be our 40th and final gathering. Next year is a Panic Cycle on our war model. I am not sure if travel will even be possible by the end of 2026.

---

Categories

Posted originally on Sep 23, 2025 by Martin Armstrong 

President Donald Trump is a great disappointment. He has just given the GREEN LIGHT for World War III. This is the end of Western Civilization as we have known it. I have screamed as loud as I can, but those in Washington want to make sure Trump only listens to the NEOCONS who are out to destroy Russia, and they will find that China will NEVER allow Russia to fall because, and they told Kallas to her face, they know they will be next.

Trump has actually completely reversed his position. I was told last week that he was saying that we will probably have World War III over Ukraine. Trump is no longer telling this Merchant of Death, Zelensky, that Ukraine must give territory to end its war against Russia. The Russian population of Ukraine is irrelevant. Uktaonians have engaged historically in ethnic cleansing. They have no human rights. This is just about territory. Trump is now embracing NATO, saying in a social media post that he considers Ukraine to be “in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.”

Ukraine should have been broken up like the rest of the Balkans along ethnic lines. This is a war the NEOCONS have wanted for decades. This is NOT about pushing Russia out of Ukraine; this is a war to completely obliterate Russia, seize its assets, and divide it up among the European powers.

Because this is not about pushing Russia out of Ukraine, this is about the destruction of Russia itself; our computer shows this will go nuclear. Kallas is boasting that Russia is too large and should be divided. How many European lives will be lost to accomplish her personal hatred of Russians? These European leaders who are telling everyone that they can destroy Russia because NATO has 3.4 million soldiers vs Russia’s 1.5 million, including the United States and Canada. They are telling everyone Russia will never use nukes because it would blow back on them. Sorry, if you are breaking into my house to kill me, I think I will shoot to survive.

Trump is now putting out propaganda. Ukraine has lost 1.8 million people to this war, and over 10 million have fled the country. They are fighting for the Donbas, which is ethnically Russian, and the Minsk Agreement that the West signed was to allow them to separate, like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia did, along ethnic lines. Trump wrote on the Truth Social post on Tuesday after an hour-long meeting with Ukraine’s Merchant of Death, Zelensky, on the sidelines of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

I just got off the phone with sources in Germany. Even AfD is now turning pro-war. The Polish FALSE FLAG of the Russian Drone has the world perfectly. You even now have country after country in Europe talking about war.

Sweden, which has thrown its people into this war, has surrendered its neutrality, which kept it out of World War II, and even joined NATO. The Ukrainian press loves everyone hating Russians, for this is the Balkans – the ethnic hatred there is never going to stop.

Nothing has changed. Bismarck warned in 1888 that Europe would be engulfed in war, and it would begin in the Balkans. That was World War I. Our Computer pinpointed Ukraine as the place where all of this would start in 2013.

I stood up at our 2011 World Economic Conference 2011 and warned that our computer on war would turn up in 2014. That was indeed the start of this disaster with the Ukrainian Revolution.

You had John McCain cheering them to overthrow their government because this was supposed to be peace and about them. We instigated that war and McCain was a ruthless NEOCON. I felt like I needed a shower after shaking hands.

Our NEOCONS hand-picked the Interim Government of Ukraine and instructed them to declare the Donbas all terrorists and to invade, starting the civil war.

This is what you will now lose your entire future for. China is expected to emerge as the financial capital of the world after 2032. This is the computer forecast, and no matter how loud I scream, I cannot defeat my own computer. So buckle up. Trump has just given the go-ahead for World War III.

I was waiting for this event to finish so I could read a book on this and the future.

My Sources were warning that Trump would do a flip-flop on war,

which he was elected to prevent!

Posted originally on Sep 12, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |  

Poland is deploying about 40,000 soldiers on the borders with Belarus and Russia amid rising tensions after the Russian drone attack on September 10. Still, there are rumours that they have captured Russian drones and have deployed them to instigate a false flag. We cannot verify this rumour, but it is getting traction.

Based on the ECM for Poland, we can see that October 26, 2023, was a significant turning point. Unfortunately, this aligned with our war cycles and then turned into 2028. The parliamentary elections in Poland were held on Sunday, October 15, 2023. The election was a decisive victory for the opposition parties, who together won a majority of seats in the parliament. This resulted in a significant shift in Polish politics.

Posted originally on Sep 12, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |  

Multiple Russian drones were reportedly shot down in Polish airspace earlier this week, and now, the Polish government is urging NATO to respond. The violation of Polish airspace marked the first time that a NATO member directly engaged in combat with Russia. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that Poland has never been closer to enter a conflict since World War II. Polish President Karol Nawrocki believes that Russia is testing its limits. The government has called on NATO allies to invoke Article 4: “The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.”

Not to be confused with Article 5, Article 4 is merely an agreement to discuss the security of a member nation. “The Russian provocation was nothing more than an attempt to test our capabilities and response. It was an attempt to check the mechanism of operation within NATO and our ability to react,” President Nawrocki commented.

Russia believes that the drone spotting was a false flag, and a “myths repeatedly spread by Poland in order to escalate the Ukrainian crisis further.” US President Trump questioned Russia’s actions on social media. Secretary General Mark Rutte affirmed that “allies expressed solidarity with Poland and denounced Russia’s reckless behavior.”

Article 4 is often the prelude to Article 5. It is the emergency meeting that takes place ahead of action. Poland has deployed 40,000 troops to its border with Belarus, where the drones were shot down. Russia and Belarus have planned to execute a joint military exercise named Zapad 2025 that will involve tens of thousands of troops.

“Poland has been preparing for the Zapad 2025 maneuvers for many months,” Cezary Tomczyk, a deputy defense minister, told broadcaster Polsat News. “The Polish Army has conducted exercises in which over 30,000 Polish soldiers, as well as soldiers of the [NATO] alliance, took part in order to adequately respond,” he said. “Let’s remember that Zapad 2025 is an offensive exercise.”

Was it a false flag? Belarus claims it provided Poland with advance notice that drones would enter its airspace. “The Belarusians warned us that drones were heading towards us through their airspace,” General Wiesław Kukuła, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, said. “It was surprising to me that Belarus, which is really trying to escalate the situation on our land border, decided to cooperate in this way.”

Belarus’ Chief of the General Staff, Pavel Muraveiko also claims that the drones veered off course and unintendedly entered Poland. “As the Russian Federation and Ukraine exchanged blows using unmanned aerial vehicles this night, duty forces and assets of the air defense system of the Republic of Belarus constantly monitored the unmanned aerial vehicles that veered off course due to electronic jamming from both sides,” Muraveiko said.

Drones should not have entered Polish airspace. The incident does appear accidental, as Belarus notified Poland in advance; however, sending unmanned weapons into a NATO nation is asking for trouble and a miscalculation that neither Russia nor Belarus can afford, with the neocons in NATO eagerly awaiting a reason to ignite World War III.