Interesting – Following the “Cut the BS” Confrontation by Rubio, Suddenly Zelenskyy Thanks USA and Says All Early Warning Systems “Working Great”

October 20, 2026 | Sundance |

This is a very interesting public presser from Ukraine President Zelenskyy, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere and a subdued Finnish President Alexander Stubb. This press event follows President Trump Emissary Steve Witkoff meeting with Zelenskyy, Stoere and Stubb.

Steve Witkoff leaves Norway and is going to St Petersburg to meet with Russian Federation Vladimir Putin tomorrow.

When asked why Witkoff was not present {10:00}, the host PM Jonas Stoere says, “this is a press conference among political leaders,” and then quickly moves on. Both Stoere and Stubb are very subdued from their prior public statements that put themselves in opposition to the U.S. Trump administration and now suddenly reverse and say it is important for them to remain engaged with the USA effort and for all EU nations to support discussions with Russia.

Following Stubb {@13:00}Zelenskyy notes that Witkoff traveling to meet with Putin tomorrow is very important, and he is very happy that “early warning systems” are working and “it’s great.” Zelenskyy repeated referenced the call with Secretary Marco Rubio in outlining a shift in tone that is suddenly very appreciative of the USA support. A very curious shift. WATCH:

LIVE: Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky Holds Press Briefing After Meeting US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff

20:25

https://www.youtu.be/r3Il7ZazeK8?si=iviXHusRHxlgEt_M

As previously noted, there is an early plan for China (Xi), Russia (Putin) and the USA (Trump) to meet on the sidelines of the APEC summit next month in China.Little man Zelenskyy clarifies his prior comments about a trilateral meeting by saying that his comments were directed to a possible U.S, Russia, Ukraine trilateral meeting and not the APEC sideline.

At 16:00 Peter Baker (NYT) obviously notes the tone change visible in this presser and asks about what is going on? Baker was taken aback when Zelenskyy, Stubb and Stoere affirm the positive and constructive meeting with Steve Witkoff, and “there is nothing to gain” by looking at things said yesterday, said Stoere.

Finland President Stubb joins with very complimentary statements of Steve Witkoff affirming his belief this meeting has clarified a lot of issues that now lead toward peace. “Today was a big success” Stubb emphasized as the press conference concludes.

It sounds to me like Secretary Rubio used his linguistic battle skills to pin Zelenskyy on the issue of stirring up trouble and that set up Steve Witkoff for a solid meeting without the political drama and narrative constructs of recent weeks.

The trio of Zelenskyy, Stoere and Stubb looked considerably smaller in this presser perhaps realizing their miniscule stature in the grand scheme of geopolitical affairs. It will be very interesting to see how the U.S. media react to this shifted tone from today – particularly as it relates to the New York Times and Peter Baker’s narrative engineering effort.

(https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/10/20/interesting-following-the-cut-the-bs-confrontation-by-rubio-suddenly-zelenskyy-thanks-usa-and-says-all-early-warning-systems-working-great/#more-288083

Following 45 Minute Call with Zelenskyy, Secretary Marco Rubio Notes Ukraine Officials are Lying and Manipulative Which He Told Zelenskyy Openly

October 20, 2026 | sundance |

Secretary of State Marco Rubio answers questions from media while visiting India. The major focus of the questions to Rubio surrounded Ukraine and the conflicting stories from Zelenskyy.

Secretary Rubio noted he had just completed a 45-minute phone call with Zelenskyy where Rubio talked to the Ukraine President about his continued promotion of false reports to media about U.S. support and assistance. As noted, Rubio emphasized nothing substantive has changed in the U.S. support profile with Ukraine and President Trump has not modified any security arrangement at all. Zelenskyy is just making stuff up.

Rubio noted that Ukraine is targeting U.S. commercial shipping in the Black Sea and that has to stop. That was part of the phone call. Additionally, Rubio emphasized how Ukraine officials are just “making stuff up” for some reason, that can best be considered a Ukraine political operation against the Trump White House. WATCH:

FULL GAGGLE: Secretary Of State Marco Rubio Takes Reporters' Questions Before Freedom 250 Reception

4:47

https://youtu.be/g7WjFJWWG6k

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/10/20/following-45-minute-call-with-zelenskyy-secretary-marco-rubio-notes-ukraine-officials-are-lying-and-manipulative-which-he-told-zelenskyy-openly/

Ukrainian-run money laundering ring busted in Poland

The nine-member operation allegedly processed $86 million in less than two years for clients involved in online fraud

Published 20 Oct, 2026 13:43 |

Polish authorities have charged nine people, most of them Ukrainian nationals, over their alleged involvement in a money-laundering operation.

The group was described as part of a broader international network helping criminal enterprises launder illicit proceeds in statements released on Monday by the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Lodz and the Internal Security Agency (ABW). Ukraine has become a major hub for online and telephone fraud operations, many of which are said to enjoy protection from corrupt government officials.

Polish investigators said the group laundered more than $86 million between February 2025 and July 2026. Authorities seized approximately $250,000 in cash and gold during the arrests.

Nine suspects aged 26 to 53 were detained over their alleged roles in the operation: two money couriers, four cashiers, and three currency exchange clerks. Eight suspects are Ukrainian nationals, while the ninth is a Belarusian woman. A 34-year-old Ukrainian man was accused of leading the ring.

All nine were charged, with seven remanded in custody. The two cashiers were released on bail and barred from leaving Poland.

The group allegedly served primarily online and call-center fraud operations, channeling their proceeds through currency exchange offices, fictitious gold purchases and cryptocurrency transactions.

According to prosecutors, couriers driving luxury cars used photographs of torn banknotes showing their serial numbers to identify themselves to clients.

The cash was then delivered to cryptocurrency exchange offices, where cashiers received confirmation codes by text message before accepting the money without carrying out mandatory anti-money laundering checks.

Some of the laundered funds were reportedly concealed in specially modified vehicles and transported abroad rather than deposited into bank accounts or converted into cryptocurrency.

Ukraine’s domestic telefraud industry, estimated to generate around $1 billion annually, attracted international attention last month after Western-backed investigators accused the head of the cybercrime division at the Prosecutor General’s office of operating a protection racket for fraudulent call centers on behalf of his superior. Prosecutor-General Ruslan Kravchenko was not personally charged but nevertheless left the country before parliament dismissed him.

Ukrainian media have reported that roughly half of the country’s scam-call centers pay protection money to officials across various branches of government. Vladimir Zelensky initiated a reform introducing tougher penalties for such crimes shortly before allegations involving the prosecutor general’s aide became public.

Critics have questioned the effectiveness of the crackdown, arguing that many fraudulent operations simply relocated from rented offices to private apartments to continue targeting victims.

https://rt-english.com/news/647434-poland-ukrainian-money-laundering/

EU sending ‘biased’ observers to interfere in Serbian election – president

The European Parliament’s ‘impartial’ observers include MEPs who have called for the removal of Aleksandar Vucic from power

Published 20 Oct, 2026 16:17 |

Acting Serbian President Ana Brnabic has accused the European Parliament of breaking its own ethics rules and sending a team of political operators to Serbia “with already formed conclusions” about how they want this weekend’s election to end.

Former Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is running in parliamentary elections this Sunday, after vacating the presidency last month. Vucic’s coalition, led by his SNS party, is competing against the Student List – an electoral faction put together by the organizers of anti-government protests raging in Serbia since 2024.

European Parliament elections observers are due to arrive in Belgrade on Thursday. However, in a letter to Parliament President Roberta Metsola on Tuesday, Brnabic accused the team of political bias, pointing out that some of its members have openly expressed “extremely negative judgments about the authorities in Serbia [and] expectations for their removal.”

Lead EU observer Andreas Schieder monitored parliamentary elections in Serbia in 2023, and signed off on the official result, before accusing Vucic’s party of fraud and vote-buying. Brnabic explained this in her letter to European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, which was seen by Serbian media outlets.

The appointment of Schieder, an Austrian Social Democrat, violates the UN’s Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation, she continued. This document, to which all EU delegations are beholden, states that observers must be “free from any political, economic or other conflicts of interest.”

In June, Schieder publicly backed the student protest movement and accused Vucic of leading Serbia into an “authoritarian downward spiral.”

Speaking to Austria’s APA news agency on Tuesday, Schieder described Brnabic’s letter as “unprecedented attack on the European Parliament’s election-observation mission.”

The observation team also includes liberal MEP Helmut Branstetter, who has described Vucic as “not the person to lead Serbia to the European Union,” and promised to “do everything” to cut Serbia off from EU funds and accession talks over his refusal to ban the funeral of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic in September.

Two Croatian MEPs are members of the mission. Gordan Bosanac has met with protesters at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, while Suncana Glavak has signed a letter to EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos calling for talks with Serbia to be suspended.

“All of the above indicates that the European Parliament sent an observation mission to Serbia that already has predetermined political positions, and that the goal of such an assessment of the elections and electoral conditions is to directly help one of the participants in the elections,” Brnabic wrote in her letter. “It is clear that their goal is not to impartially observe the elections, but to participate politically in them.”

Recurring protests have dogged Vucic since 2024, when the deaths of 16 people in a railway station disaster in Novi Sad sparked nationwide discontent. More than two decades earlier, the US successfully fomented mass protests that forced Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic out of power, and Vucic has accused the EU and Western NGOs of attempting to run the same playbook against his government.

Last month, Vucic described MEPs who traveled to Novi Sad to support the protests as “scum that cannot rule even in their own countries,” who have “come to demolish Serbia from the outside.”

https://rt-english.com/news/647444-serbia-eu-election-interference/

The EU is almost as corrupt as Ukraine, with their power they destroy countries.

Kremlin warns of ‘extremely dangerous’ vacuum of nuclear arms control

Moscow and Washington urgently need to resume talks on a new framework for strategic stability, Dmitry Peskov has said

Published 20 Oct, 2026 21:

Russia and the US urgently need to resume dialogue on strategic stability and arms control, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. The absence of a treaty-based framework in this areas is creating a very dangerous situation, he added.

The New START treaty, the last remaining bilateral agreement limiting US and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals, expired in February without an extension or replacement. Signed in 2010 and extended in 2021, the treaty capped each side at 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and 700 deployed delivery systems, while providing for transparency and on-site verification measures.

Following the treaty’s expiration, Russia suggested maintaining caps on warheads for another year if Washington reciprocated, but the initiative went unanswered, according to Moscow.

Russia is convinced that talks must resume urgently, Peskov told reporters on Tuesday. “This is an extremely important issue,” he said. “For the first time in a long while, the world has been left without this treaty-based legal framework.” He described the situation as “extremely dangerous.”

Peskov urged an early start to negotiations, warning that they would inevitably be complex and lengthy.

President Donald Trump’s administration has long insisted that any future nuclear arms control agreement should include China as well. In February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio maintained thatWashington would be pressing for trilateral talks with Beijing and Moscow.

On Monday, Trump said he was open to discussing nuclear disarmament at a potential meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China.

“We would have it to talk about nuclear weapons and denuclearization,” he told reporters. “If President Xi wants to have it, I’d have it. I’m sure we’d talk about other things like trade too.”

Peskov stressed that Moscow could not disregard the nuclear arsenals of European NATO members, particularly Britain and France, in future strategic stability talks with Washington.

Earlier this year, President Emmanuel Macron announced a “forward deterrence”initiative that could see French nuclear weapons deployed to other European countries. In March, he said that France would no longer disclose the size of its arsenal, arguing that “to be free, we have to be feared.” He also outlined plans to increase its nuclear arsenal, which is currently just under 300 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Moscow has warned that the strategy could backfire, saying it cannot “ignore an obvious buildup of the nuclear component of NATO’s joint potential.”

In August, NBC reported that the Pentagon was also working on a nuclear strategy that would give the US president a wider range of nuclear options in a potential conflict with Russia or China. The approach would reportedly pivot towards shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons instead of relying primarily on long-range strategic nuclear weapons.

Russia updated its nuclear doctrine in 2024, stating that aggression by a non-nuclear state backed by a nuclear power would be treated as a joint attack and that nuclear weapons could be used if conventional aggression posed a critical threat to the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Russia or its ally Belarus. Moscow also repeatedly criticized the US nuclear weapons deployment to Europe as part of NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangements.

(Europe cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons, if they ever get in the hands of Zelensky it would be a complete disaster WW!)

https://rt-english.com/russia/647458-kremlin-dangerous-nuclear-arms-control/

Panic over US probe into Kiev’s links to Mexican cartels – RT reports(VIDEO)

Vladimir Zelensky’s officials took drug money to train at least 80 cartel members in drone warfare, according to Russian intelligence

Published 20 Oct, 2026 12:43

Ukrainian officials are reportedly panicking after US investigators uncovered links between Mexican drug cartels and Kiev, including paid drone training for cartel members. The probe threatens to further strain the already fragile relations between Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and US President Donald Trump.

In a statement on Tuesday, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said American law enforcement investigating the cartels had identified at least 80 members who learned to assemble and operate combat drones while serving with Ukrainian forces.

The payment for this “education” was transferred to officials close to Zelensky using proceeds from drug sales in the US, according to the SVR report obtained by RT.

The agency also noted that Zelensky’s office is aware that the presence of trained first-person-view (FPV) drone operators among drug cartelscould ultimately threaten American officers combating drug trafficking along the Mexican border and damage relations with Washington.

That, coupled with the continued supply of weapons and drones from Ukraine to other parts of the world, “has become a pattern that is quite difficult to ignore,” RT correspondent Isabella Blumberg noted.

The Washington Post similarly reported last month that Mexican cartels were hiring drone operators who had fought in Ukraine and were sending members there for training. The State Department said it was working with Kiev to prevent those skills from reaching the cartels.

Mexico’s Milenio newspaper also claimed last year that members of theJalisco New Generation Cartel had received drone and urban warfare training in Ukraine.

The alleged ties have extended beyond training, with Russian intelligence reporting in June thatUkrainian security agencies were facilitating Latin American drug trafficking into Europe while the cartels helped Kiev in recruiting fighters.

US financial support for Ukraine could ultimately backfire on Washington, with foreign funded military training potentially helping Mexican cartel members acquire skills they could later use against the US, Italian war correspondent Andrea Lucidi told RT.

“Donald Trump always spoke against the Mexican cartels and the smuggling of drugs into the US,” he said in an interview on Tuesday. “The problem is that these measures against the US, the operation of Mexican cartels, are indirectly financed by you.”

The SVR has suggested that the cartel cooperation could become another “nail in the coffin” for Zelensky’s political career. Together with corruption, continued attacks on Russian refineries, and his refusal to hold elections, it could push Washington to abandon him, the agency claimed.

The allegations come amid an increasingly bitter dispute between Zelensky and Trump over Kiev’s continued strikes on Russian refineries and stalled peace negotiations.

Trump has increasingly questioned the Ukrainian leader’s true intentions regarding the conflict, stressing that he should have settled it “a long time ago” and suggesting that he “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did.”

Trump recently went as far as stating that Ukraine should “get a new president,” and said on Monday that Kiev should get someone else to negotiate peace, arguing that Zelensky “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

https://rt-english.com/russia/647433-us-probe-ukraine-mexican-cartels/