“The only thing worse than no tanks in Red Square are burning tanks in Red Square.”
A European diplomat in Moscow captures how fast Putin’s authority is collapsing inside Russia, writes Mark Galeotti in The Times. 1/
Rome demands an apology from Trump. Meloni has run out of patience.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is reportedly returning to the White House with a disastrous report. His mission to Rome and the Vatican turned into a diplomatic nightmare. Neither personal diplomacy nor his status as a practicing Catholic managed to break through the wall that Trump’s policies have created.
In the Oval Office, Rubio may now have to admit: Rome is no longer an ally Washington can count on “by default.”
✔️ “One of us among strangers”: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reportedly reminded Rubio of his Piedmont roots directly to his face. It was not a compliment — it was a pointed message: he should be pro-European, not an instrument of political pressure.
✔️ Religious divide: Despite Rubio being Catholic, both the Vatican and Rome allegedly gave him a cold reception. Meloni is said to have stated openly that Trump insulted the Catholic world and must publicly retract his remarks about the Pope.
✔️ Ultimatums instead of cooperation: From military base access to proposed 25% tariffs on automobiles, Rubio reportedly received a political “dressing down.” Rome is no longer willing to jump every time Trump whistles.
✔️ The end of illusions: Trump may have hoped to find “his own Orbán” in Meloni — but instead encountered a leader whose patience has snapped. Washington’s dismissive tone toward European allies is no longer being tolerated in Rome.
This marks a serious fracture in relations.
Rubio did not bring agreements — he brought pressure. And as the Pope reportedly said: “Simply forgetting what happened yesterday is no longer enough.”
Europe no longer accepts dictates without resistance.
Now the next move belongs to Washington: public apologies — or a final rupture.
Too on point not to share, “Aussie reply to Trump rant about NATO not being there for us.
Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.
You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail.
Your life expectancy is going backwards. You're the only developed nation where that's happening. Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker's stock to your mates.
Your minimum wage hasn't moved in 15 years. You've got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack you.
And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban thanked you very much for losing again.
And you're calling Greenland poorly run?
Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no.
"NATO wasn't there when we needed them." When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn't even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years.
And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess.
So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your fucking mouth. Credit (borrowed from) Jim Scroggins - original author 📷 unknown”
I am not sure the American military establishment has fully grasped what Trump has actually done here. So let me spell it out in language even a Pentagon procurement officer can understand.
Europe has been buying American weapons at a staggering rate. In 2024 alone, US foreign military sales notifications to European countries hit $76 billion. Four times the European average since 2008.  F-35s, missile systems, air defence, ammunition. All of it American. All of it coming with decades of service contracts, maintenance agreements, spare parts, software updates and training programmes worth hundreds of billions more over their operational lifetimes.
Between 2020 and 2024, the United States supplied 64 percent of all European weapons imports. 
That is now over.
Europe has an $860 billion defence plan, and American contractors are being frozen out. The goal is 80 percent of all military purchases from European factories by 2030.  Airbus. Rheinmetall. KNDS. Saab. Leonardo. BAE Systems. They are about to receive the largest order book in the history of European defence industry. Because Trump made it politically impossible for any European government to keep writing cheques to Washington.
Some European governments have discussed worries that the Pentagon could remotely disable American F-35 fighters or impose restrictions on how US weapons can be used.  When your supplier is also threatening to annex your allies, that is not paranoia. That is basic procurement logic.
Trump set out to make America great again. He has succeeded magnificently. For Rheinmetall.
Gandalv / @Microinteracti1
Mark Kelly is basically saying the quiet part out loud: the big rupture is not that Europe suddenly changed its values, or that democracies woke up and decided alliances are boring. The rupture is that the United States, under Donald Trump, started vandalising the very system that overwhelmingly benefited America for decades.
And that matters, because people keep framing this like “the world is different now.” Sure, Russia is still doing what it has always done when it thinks it can get away with it: attacking neighbours, lying about it, and daring the West to blink. That is not some new era. That is the same ugly playbook with different dates.
What is genuinely new is Washington choosing unpredictability as a brand, and treating allies like optional subscriptions. That is why Kelly’s “take generations” line hits. Trust is slow to build and ridiculously fast to destroy, especially when the destruction is deliberate and public.
So yes, the core point stands: Trump is the variable. The rest of the democratic world is largely trying to keep the old logic alive, rules, alliances, deterrence, support for Ukraine, while also scrambling to build a backup plan because the US is acting like a flaky partner. That is exactly the vibe coming out of Munich Security Conference right now: Europe talking more openly about self reliance because it no longer knows what America will do next.
If you want the blunt version: Russia is a brutal, corrupt aggressor. But Trump is the one handing them the strategic gift, by turning allied unity into a question mark. That is why this feels like the end of an era. Not because the world suddenly stopped believing in alliances, but because the country that built the alliance system is now flirting with burning it down.
Stay connected,
Follow Gandalv @Microinteracti1
Wow, the leaked call logs show both that:
-Witkoff committed treason by advising Russia how to get their way by out maneuvering president Trump.
AND
-The “peace proposal” was authored and sent by the Russians meaning Vance, Rubio and Witkoff have all lied about its origin!
Let me be very clear. Since Trump’s reelection, Europe has been financing the war in Ukraine entirely on its OWN.
Which means we don’t give a damn about the American peace plan for Ukraine.
'People forget what Khashoggi was investigating when he was murdered. He was writing about Kushner turning over classified info to MBS, who used it to hunt down, arrest and murder his opponents.'
h/t @cocacolakid
The relationship with Saudi Arabia is a business transaction. Trump gives the Saudis national security favors - access to our most sensitive technology and weapons - and the Saudis make Trump personally rich.
It's old school corruption. Being normalized in front of our eyes.
Trump has just stopped to show the Saudi Crown Prince the portrait of BIDEN signed with an autopen on the "Presidential Walk of Fame"
The United States has fallen so low.
Never before has a sitting president behaved in such a manner. He is ridiculing a former president in front of a foreigner. I am absolutely outraged.
These are not American values.
@OldeWorldOrder@EricLDaugh Stated in 1960 with further drop stating in 1990 - this is a secular trend …. Think about travelling; cell phones and internet ….
😂 What a tragedy! Italy killed Lavrov’s interview — the newspaper refused to publish even a shortened version
Italy’s Corriere della Sera refused to publish an interview with Sergey Lavrov — neither in print nor online.
According to the Russian Embassy, the editors explained the refusal by saying Lavrov’s remarks “contain many disputed claims requiring fact-checking or additional clarification,” which would exceed “reasonable limits.”
Moscow quickly called it “outrageous censorship.” The Russian Foreign Ministry has posted the full interview on its website.
In it, Lavrov talks about “Nazism rising in Europe,” claims European governments are trying to distract their citizens from “worsening internal socio-economic problems” by funding Kyiv, and describes Russia as a “civilizational state with a thousand-year history.”
The editors deserve an award for this.