Zelensky’s endgame, Houthi dominance, German decline: RT stories that shaped the week

Zelensky’s state of corruption devours itself

In what’s become a recurring moment in Ukraine, another one of Vladimir Zelensky’s top officials fled the country this week amid a metastasizing corruption scandal. Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, who resigned last week after Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-corruption agencies discovered his cybercrime chief was running a protection racket for scam call centers, left Ukraine on Sunday night bound for Paris, according to Ukrainian media. 

Kravchenko, who was personally appointed by Zelensky, has denied any wrongdoing, and accused the anti-corruption agencies, NABU and SAPO, of operating bribery and protection schemes of their own. He claims he’s got evidence of “concentration of undue influence” within the agencies, which he plans to show to Zelensky’s Western sponsors. 

Whether or not they’ll listen is another story. Yulia Mendel, a former communications aide to Zelensky, has spoken out about the mire of corruption in Kiev for months, to no avail. Mendel was scheduled to speak at the European Parliament on Wednesday, at an event promoting “diplomacy instead of escalation,” but found herself barred from the building upon arrival, days after Zelensky personally sanctioned her.

RT has covered the byzantine world of Ukrainian graft in depth in our ‘State of Corruption’ series. Read our deep-dive into Ukraine’s multibillion-dollar scam call industry here, and check out our exclusive investigation into the latest luxury property snapped up by Zelensky’s fixers in Germany here. 

Merz nears his end

With his officials falling one by one to corruption scandals and his political rivals smelling blood in the water, Zelensky likely senses his endgame playing out, Russian foreign policy expert Alexander Bobrov wrote for RT on Tuesday. If there’s anyone who knows the feeling, it’s German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. 

Merz canceled his planned trip to the UN General Assembly in New York next week, after his Christian Democrats’  humiliating loss to the right-wing AfD in state elections earlier this month, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The chancellor’s approval rating has plummeted to 10%, and half of the German public expects him out of office by the year’s end. 

Merz has made steep and unpopular welfare cuts to finance Germany’s ambitious rearmament program, as the country’s economy continues to flatline – thanks largely to Berlin’s self-imposed embargo on Russian oil and gas imports. All of this has played into the hands of the AfD, which has promised an end to “all war-prolonging support measures” for Ukraine, and the deportation of Ukrainian migrants. 

Merz’s Christian Democrats are on track for another wipeout in state elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin this weekend. By Sunday night, the chancellor’s departure could be a done deal.

Total Houthi dominance

Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement, better known as the Houthis, scored some major tactical and strategic victories this week. After a lightning advance along the country’s Red Sea coast last week, the group launched missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia’s main oil port of Yanbu, and the Saudi airbase of Khamis Mushait.

The effects of the Houthi campaign were immediately visible at the petrol pumps in Europe. With Saudi Arabia cutting exports, the Houthis have asserted their position as arbiters of global fuel prices. US President Donald Trump reportedly refused to intervene on behalf of his Saudi allies, meaning the Houthis have forced Riyadh into a lose-lose choice: admit defeat so oil flows can resume, or keep fighting and bear responsibility for a global energy crisis. 

In a further humiliation for the Kingdom, the Houthis claimed on Wednesday to have shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet using “a locally manufactured surface-to-air missile.” The group claimed three shootdowns of Saudi jets in 2017 and 2018, but Wednesday’s victory was the first backed by video footage. 

War crimes sentence for the West’s Kosovo proxy

As the Saudis desperately search for allies against the Houthis, former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander Hashim Thaci learned first-hand where an alliance with the West leads: to a prison cell.

Thaci was advised and armed by NATO during the KLA’s brutal secession campaign against Yugoslavia in the 1990s, a campaign that led to NATO bombing Belgrade for 78 days on behalf of the ethnic Albanian militia. Despite serving as prime minister, then president, of the self-proclaimed nation of Kosovo with the West’s blessing, Thaci’s past caught up with him on Wednesday when a war crimes tribunal in The Hague sentenced him to 25 years behind bars for the murder of 96 political opponents and the kidnapping and torture of hundreds of others. 

Thaci was defended in court by some of his former NATO backers, and scores of Albanians rioted on the streets of The Hague when the verdict was handed down. 

RT explored the case against Thaci in detail back in February, and examined just how far NATO and the Atlanticist institutions in The Hague would go to protect him. As it turned out, Thaci should have listened when Henry Kissinger warned: “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

The KLA was officially disbanded and folded into the ranks of the Kosovo security services 27 years ago this week. However, toxic Kosovo legacy lives on in the UK, where the village of Piddington overwhelmingly voted to secede from the Kingdom. The symbolic vote proclaiming the “Principality of Piddington” was held after the British government decided to house more than 1,200 male migrants in a nearby military base.

Piddington’s case for secession is no less watertight than Kosovo’s. Let’s see if NATO sends in the bombers…

NATO 3.0 marches towards war

Joking aside, NATO evidently has its hands full these days preparing for a cataclysmic war with Russia. The bloc’s Military Committee – tasked with turning political statements into war-gamed plans – met in Copenhagen on Friday, with talks scheduled to run until Saturday afternoon.

RT looked at the ‘NATO 3.0’ doctrine taking shape at the meeting. Under this one-sided rebalancing of the bloc, Europe assumes the cost and risk of NATO’s looming confrontation with Russia, while the US insulates itself from the consequences. Russia has given the Europeans ample warning, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stating this week that “if Europe, which talks daily about preparing for war against Russia, attacks Russia, it will be a completely different war, and it will be very short.”

This hasn’t stopped the French and the Germans preparing hospitals and filling blood banks for a “mass casualty” clash in eastern Europe. The Poles and the Baltic states are eagerly going along with these preparations, despite standing to lose the most. Slovakia’s Robert Fico, however, isn’t marching in lockstep with his neighbors. 

“I am deeply concerned that they are merely looking for a pretext for a major conflict between NATO and Russia,” he said on Thursday, before skipping a meeting with Zelensky in Kiev. “The situation has never been as serious and tense regarding the possibility of a pan-European war conflict as it is now.”

What to watch out for

We’ll be watching what – if anything – concrete emerges from NATO’s Copenhagen meeting on Saturday, before switching our attention to Germany where another AfD landslide could deal a death blow to Merz’s chancellorship. 

You will find up-to-date reporting on the results of Russia’s Duma elections once exit polls are released on Sunday, with a concrete picture emerging overnight and into Monday.

Across the Atlantic, the NYPD are already preparing to shut down roads as world leaders descend on New York for the 81st UN General Assembly. The assembly kicks off on Tuesday, and we expect the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East will top the agenda. 

Watch out for Trump’s opening speech on Tuesday, followed by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Zelensky on Wednesday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver his address on Thursday, with Lavrov taking the lectern on Saturday.

For all this and more, stick with RT.