UK PM ‘crazed and devilish'
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has called Keir Starmer 'crazed and devilish,' after the UK prime minister unveiled a radical defense overhaul to make Britain 'a battle-ready, armor-clad nation.'
Earlier this week, Starmer revealed his cabinet's Strategic Defense Review, which includes an expansive armaments program mirroring similar efforts across NATO. He said the reforms are expected to make the British military 'ten times more lethal' within the next decade.
During his TV program 'Con Maduro +' on Monday, the Venezuelan president spoke out against 'the war being pushed by this reckless, crazed, and devilish prime minister named Starmer.' He questioned the ethical and moral implications of Starmer's statement, adding that humanity does not need more wars.
'I make a call to the British people – to the people of London, Liverpool, and all parts of Great Britain – to respond to this desperate and deranged call from their prime minister, who is calling for war,' Maduro said, urging people to stand against warmongering and militarism.
The president added that, by making these statements, Starmer 'speaks on behalf of a totally decadent, worn-out elite – one that profits from arms deals and weapons manufacturing.'
Prior to Starmer's remarks, UK Defense Secretary John Healey stated that London is sending 'a message to Moscow' by allocating billions of pounds for new munitions plants, long-range missile systems, and other military capabilities.
Commenting on this, Maduro said the 'people who lived through the First and Second World Wars are now talking about a new great war and claiming they are preparing for it.'
Russia has said Western nations are increasingly using alarmist rhetoric to justify the diversion of public funds toward military spending. The Kremlin has long considered the Ukraine conflict to be a Western proxy war against Russia and has condemned the weapons supplies to Kiev, arguing that they only serve to fuel further bloodshed and hinder efforts toward a peaceful resolution.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Russia Today
3 hours ago
- Russia Today
Ukraine has gone over budget for its military
Ukraine does not have enough money to fund its military and will have to overhaul this year's budget in order to close the gap, Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko has admitted. The shortfall stems from changes in the amount of Western aid and the evolving situation on the battlefield, he added. Addressing legislators on Thursday, Marchenko said, as cited by Ukrainian lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak, that the 'funding for the Armed Forces is currently not sufficient due to many factors, so we will proceed with a budget revision in the near future.' Marchenko said the reasons included changes in military technology, adjustments in arms deliveries from Kiev's suppliers, and heightened battlefield activity. He also acknowledged that the government had failed to anticipate the conditions Ukraine would face in 2025 when it was drafting the budget late last year. 'You cannot forecast this situation linearly. Sometimes the situation requires rather complex, asymmetric decisions,' the minister explained. In mid-May, Zhelezniak estimated the military budget shortfall at 200 billion hryvnia ($4.8 billion), but later raised his assessment to between 400 and 500 billion hryvnia ($9.6-12 billion). In April, Ukrainian outlet Ekonomicheskaya Pravda reported that funds originally allocated for military salaries in the final months of 2025 had already been spent to purchase drones, ammunition, and other weapons. Ukraine already had to contend with a budget deficit in 2023 and 2024, but managed to bridge the gap by raising taxes. According to Zhelezniak, however, this time such measures won't be required as the government intends to cover the gap through increased domestic borrowing and higher-than-expected tax revenues. Kiev continues to rely heavily on Western aid and loans – which officials say Ukraine won't be able to repay in the next 30 years – to compensate for the economic slump caused by the conflict. As of February 2025, European nations have provided Ukraine with $138 billion of assistance of various types, while the US has given $115 billion. In 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine would not be able not survive for more than 'a week' if its Western military and financial aid dried up.
Russia Today
a day ago
- Russia Today
NATO boss demands huge military spending hike
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has announced that he will propose a new military spending target totaling 5% of each member state's GDP during the bloc's June summit in The Hague. This would mark a sharp increase from the current 2% floor. Since assuming office in January, US President Donald Trump has intensified demands that the bloc's European members spend more on defense. He has repeatedly accused them of failing to shoulder the burden equitably. According to NATO's latest report, ten of its 32 members do not even spend 2% of GDP on defense, while the US remains by far the bloc's biggest contributor. Speaking during a press conference following a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels on Thursday, Rutte said that they had 'agreed on an ambitious new set of capability targets,' which included 'air defense, fighter jets, tanks, drones, personnel, logistics and so much more.' The military bloc's chief proclaimed that he 'will propose an overall investment plan that would total 5% of GDP' in order to finance the outlined priorities. Under the scheme, 3.5% of each member state's GDP would go toward 'core defense spending,' with an additional 1.5% of GDP to be allocated each year for related investments, such as infrastructure and industry. Responding to a reporter's question as to whether there is any mechanism built into the plan that would help ensure its implementation in the long run, Rutte said that member states would 'commit to yearly plans showing the increase each year to make sure that you come to the new target of 5%.' In early May, Germany's Der Spiegel reported that the US ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, had warned member states that failure to agree to the new 5% benchmark could result in Trump declining to attend the summit in late June. Several weeks earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that NATO only makes sense 'as long as it's a real defense alliance, not the United States and a bunch of junior partners that aren't doing their fair share.' Also in April, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned European NATO countries that the 'time of the United States... being the sole guarantor of European security has passed.
Russia Today
a day ago
- Russia Today
How the US deep state feeds the Ukraine war
The picture of Lindsey Graham, US Senator for South Carolina, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, grinning into a camera in Brussels on June 2, is worth a thousand words. Graham is one of the most extreme hardcore warmongers in Washington DC, and the competition is pretty stiff. Ever since he first became a member of the US Congress over 30 years ago – once in, American politicians are rarely voted out – he has devoted his career to arguing vehemently for war. His remarks are often not just belligerent but also sadistic, such as when he recently posted that he hoped 'Greta could swim', meaning that he hoped her Gaza aid ship would be torpedoed. Joking about an attack on a civilian aid ship carrying a young female civilian activist is sick – and typical of Graham. Like his old friend, the late Senator John McCain, Lindsey Graham is obsessed with the idea of war with Russia. He has been pushing for this since at least 2014. In 2016 he told Ukrainian soldiers, 'Your fight is our fight.' Graham's presence in Brussels is therefore significant. Ever since von der Leyen's appointment in 2019, she has pushed herself forward as the principal public face of the Brussels institutions. Six years ago, she said she wanted to make the European Commission into a 'geopolitical' body – even though it has no role in foreign or military policy. Since then, she has done little else than parade on the international stage. She is among the most hawkish and anti-Russian European figures, absurdly claiming, like French Foreign Minister Bruno Lemaire, that EU sanctions have brought the Russian economy to its knees. The Graham-von der Leyen alliance is therefore a natural one – against Donald Trump. European politicians are often quite explicit in their view that Trump is now the enemy. The same goes for Lindsey Graham. In Kiev last week, Graham explicitly challenged Trump's authority to decide US foreign policy. He lambasted the very notion of negotiations with Russia – just as Zelensky did to Vance in the Oval office in February – and said that the president of the US is not the boss. 'In America, you have more than one person at the card table. We have three branches of government,' – meaning that the Senate would soon impose its own sanctions on Russia, whatever the executive does. Graham's budget bill from February is intended to spend even more money on the US military – as if that were possible – which means that he is marshalling the US deep state to fight back after initially reeling from the re-election of Trump. Meanwhile, the Europeans' determination to continue the war is existential. Their Russophobia, which goes back at least to the 2012 Russian presidential election, when Putin came back into the Kremlin, is extreme because their 'Europe' is defined by its hostility to Russia. Russia is 'the other Europe' which the EU does not want to be and which it defines itself against. Von der Leyen and others want to use the war against Russia to federalise Europe and create a single state. Meanwhile, Trump's Russia policy is based on sidelining Europe. When he first announced talks with the Russians, EU leaders demanded a seat at the table. They failed. US-Russia talks took place outside Europe – in Riyadh – while the Russia-Ukraine talks the EU vehemently opposed are taking place without the EU, in Istanbul. Let us not forget how furiously EU leaders opposed talking to Russia. When Viktor Orban travelled to Kiev and Moscow last July, Ursula von der Leyen denounced Orban's 'appeasement'. The EU's then chief diplomat said in an official statement that the EU 'excludes official contacts between the EU and President Putin.' The French foreign minister said in February that if Sergey Lavrov telephoned him he would not answer the call. Now these very same people claim they want to 'force' the Russians to come and talk! EU policy on Russia is now in ruins. That is why, like Graham, they are determined to stop Trump. Their attempts have been ever more desperate and ridiculous. On May 12, Kaja Kallas and other EU leaders said Russia 'must agree' to a ceasefire before any talks. Three days later, those talks started anyway. Britain also tried to scupper them by saying it was 'unacceptable' for Russia to demand recognition of the 'annexed' regions, which is odd considering Britain is not a participant. European credibility is therefore at zero. In March, the British prime minister had said that the plans to send British and French troops to Ukraine had entered 'the operational phase.' They were ready, he claimed, to protect Ukraine's security by directly entering the war zone. By April, these plans had been dropped. On May 10, European leaders threatened Russia with 'massive sanctions' if it did not agree to a ceasefire immediately. Russia did not agree to a ceasefire and yet there have been no more 'massive sanctions.' A 17th package of sanctions was indeed announced on May 14, but it was so weak that Hungary and Slovakia, who oppose the EU's overall policy, let it pass. In any case, the 17th package clearly had nothing to do with the ultimatum because such sanctions take a long time to prepare. Instead, that is what Lindsey Graham was in Brussels to discuss. The EU and the UK have thus sidelined themselves with their meaningless braggadocio. They cannot operate without the Americans. But which Americans? The claim that the White House did not know about the recent Ukrainian drone attack on Russian airfields might well be true: the US deep state, embodied by people like Graham, is clearly trying to undermine the executive. Both Lindsey Graham and former CIA director Mike Pompeo were in Ukraine just days before the attack. The political goal of the drone attack was obviously to scupper the talks scheduled for the following day in Istanbul, or to provoke Russia into a massive response and drag the US into the war. Even if the attack does not succeed in these goals, it clearly sets the tone for the future Ukrainian insurgency which, American and European officials hope, will turn that country into an 'Afghanistan' for Russia. The US deep state is in for the long game. So are the Europeans. On May 9, 'Europe Day', European leaders confirmed their intention to set up a Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression, to prosecute Russia for invading in February 2022. Western European states are already the primary financers of the International Criminal Court, whose prosecutor is British. The ICC indicted Russian leaders, including Putin, in 2023 and 2024, on various very surprising charges. (Ursula von der Leyen continued to lie about '20,000 abducted children,' the day after the Ukrainians gave the Russians a list of 339 missing children.) Now the Europeans intend to open a new front in their 'lawfare' against Russia. Such a Special Tribunal, if it comes into existence, will tear the heart out of any peace agreement – just as Ukraine's acceptance of the jurisdiction of the ICC in 2014 and 2015 rendered the Minsk agreement of February 2015 null and void. With one side of its mouth, Ukraine asked the ICC to prosecute Russian officials and Donbass 'terrorists'; with the other side, it agreed at Minsk that the Donbass insurgency was an internal Ukrainian problem and ruled out any prosecution or punishment (Article 5 of the February 2015 Minsk agreement). It is not possible to agree a peace agreement with a country and at the same time to set up a Special Tribunal whose sole purpose is to criminalize it. So the creation of this Tribunal, which will presumably remain in existence for over a decade like the ad hoc tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, is nothing but a Euro-American institutional time bomb designed to blow up in the future any agreement which the two sides might reach in the short term. The future of 'Europe' depends on that.
