UKRAINE - Some airlines canceled flights to the Ukrainian capital and troops there unloaded fresh shipments of weapons from NATO members Sunday, as its president sought to project confidence in the face of US warnings of possible invasion within days by a growing number of Russian forces. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to President Joe Biden for about an hour, insisting that Ukrainians had the country under “safe and reliable protection” against feared attack by a far stronger Russian military, aides said afterward. The White House said both agreed to keep pushing both deterrence and diplomacy to try to stave off a feared Russian military offensive. The Biden administration has become increasingly outspoken about its concerns that Russia will stage an incident in the coming days that would create a false pretext for an invasion of Ukraine.

RUSSIA - As the military standoff between Russia and the West intensifies along Ukraine’s borders, a separate clash is unfolding on social media, where researchers say pro-Russian actors are flooding sites with messages portraying Western forces as aggressors. The approach marks a contrast to Russia’s messaging during its 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, when networks of bots and spam accounts focused on denying a military buildup. Now, Russian officials and state-run media are largely leading influence campaigns themselves, researchers said. These influence operations are designed to “deflect on the intent of the military buildup around Ukraine, and preemptively justify a military offensive,” Graham Brookie, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told me. The trend highlights how Russia’s messaging and tactics online have shifted as platforms have cracked down on more overt disinformation campaigns, and as the prevalence of social media has made it harder to mask the realities on the ground.

EUROPE - A Freedom Convoy of anti-mandate motorists is arriving in Brussels, the de facto capital of the European Union, despite authorities banning the demonstration. Some 1,300 vehicles are on the move into capital of the European Union Brussels Monday morning — despite a ban on such protests by city police — with 30 intercepted by officers so far. Brussels Police have warned motorists to avoid trying to drive into the city. Authorities in charge of other European cities, such as Paris and Vienna, have made similar attempts to ban demos styled on anti-mandatory vaccine protests in Canada, though all so far have been futile. According to a report by the Brussels Times, demonstrators planning on taking part in the convoy — which was banned by authorities last Thursday — had said that they were set on continuing with their plans, regardless of what local authorities say.

CANADA - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he plans to invoke the never-before-used Emergencies Act against the Freedom Convoy truckers, the CBC reports. Trudeau made the comments during a meeting with the Liberal caucus Monday morning, adding there are no current plans to use military force. He tweeted about convening an Incident Response Group meeting Sunday to explore “further actions the government can take to help end the blockades and occupations.”

GERMANY - German officials are set to end the majority of remaining government Covid restrictions in March, amid decreasing coronavirus infections, according to a draft plan reported by news agency AFP on Monday. “Broad restrictions of social, cultural, and economic life should be gradually lifted by the start of spring on March 20, 2022,” the draft document reportedly suggests. It is set to be formally approved by federal and state leaders on Wednesday. Chancellor Olaf Scholz indicated on Friday that Covid restrictions would begin to be relaxed when the government and federal states meet on February 16, as “the peak of the wave is in sight.” The EU Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni is claiming there’s no reason anymore for countries to introduce a general Covid vaccine mandate, due to a decrease in deaths and hospitalization across the EU.

UK - A school in the UK has decided to ban all meat options from its lunch menu over fears surrounding climate change. Barrowford Primary School in Lancashire revealed to parents in a recent letter that it had banned all meat options from its lunch menu, citing a desire to “stop climate change”. Parents have also been asked to refrain from including meat in lunches packed for their children. In the document, headmaster Rachel Tomlinson claimed that the aim of the measure was to “stop climate change”, and that she wanted those who gave their children packed lunches to follow suit. However, despite Tomlinson saying she was willing to discuss the measure with anyone who had misgivings, parents have not responded positively to her request. “It is a joke. I’m looking to move mine as I’ve had enough of that school,” one parent is reported as saying. “I think they forget that non-meat eaters and vegans have to take a lot of supplements.”

USA - 38 Lawmakers demand Biden undergo cognitive testing as soon as possible. In a letter, signed by 37 of his Republican colleagues in Congress, Texas Representative Dr Ronny Jackson warns that President Biden's "mental decline and forgetfulness have become more apparent over the past two years," and urges the 79-year-old to take a cognitive aptitude test (just as former President Trump did).

UK - The US Air Force deployed four B-52 Stratofortress nuclear bombers to the United Kingdom today. The B-52s will be stationed at RAF Fairford as part of a rotation where they will continue to integrate and train with partner and allied forces. This particular rotation of US strategic bombers comes as around 100,000 Russian troops have amassed on the Russian border with Ukraine for months, raising concerns about a potential invasion. While Ukraine is not a NATO ally, it has requested NATO membership and the US and other NATO-allied nations have begun transferring hundreds of tons of defensive weapons systems to Ukraine and have called for Russia to withdraw from the region.

NORWAY - The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, on Spitsbergen island halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, is only opened a few times a year to limit its seed banks' exposure to the outside world. The vault, which holds over 1.1 million seed samples of nearly 6,000 plant species from 89 seed banks globally, also serves as a backup for plant breeders to develop new crop varieties. The world used to cultivate over 6,000 different plants but UN experts say we now get about 40% of our calories from three main crops - maize, wheat and rice - making food supplies vulnerable if climate change causes harvests to fail. On Monday, gene banks from Sudan, Uganda, New Zealand, Germany and Lebanon will deposit seeds, including millet, sorghum and wheat, as back-ups to their own collections. The International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), which moved its headquarters to Beirut from Aleppo in 2012 because of the war in Syria, will deposit some 8,000 samples.

USA - The percentage of the world’s population living under some sort of democracy tumbled last year to 45.7% from 49.4% a year earlier according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2021. Of the 167 territories surveyed, just 21 were deemed to be full democracies, representing 6.4% of the world’s population, while 53 fell into the “flawed democracies” category. Topping the list were Norway, New Zealand and Finland, while the UK ranked 18th. The US, which was given a flawed democracy classification, fell one spot to number 26. The EIU said the results continued to reflect the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Citing measures such as lockdowns and travel restrictions, the report said the pandemic had “resulted in an unprecedented withdrawal of civil liberties among developed democracies and authoritarian regimes alike.” It has led to the normalisation of emergency powers, which have tended to stay on the statute books, and accustomed citizens to a huge extension of state power over large areas of public and personal life,” the report added.

USA - Last week the “experts” admitted lockdowns did not reduce mortality rates — now they admit masking was mostly worthless. Last week Johns Hopkins revealed Dr Fauci’s “ill-founded” lockdowns were entirely ineffective in reducing US mortality rates by only 0.2%. Now, we find out the mask mandates didn’t make much of a difference during the pandemic. We already knew this. The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota have laid out a more complex analysis: Given the current understanding that the virus is transmitted in fine aerosol particles, it’s likely an infectious dose could easily get through and around loose-fitting cloth or surgical masks.

IRAN - Iran unveiled a new missile on Wednesday with a reported range that would allow it to reach both US bases in the region as well as targets inside its archfoe Israel. State TV reported that the missile uses solid fuel and has a range of 1,450 kilometers (900 miles). It is called the Khaibar-buster, a reference to a Jewish castle overrun by Muslim warriors in the early days of Islam. The report said the missile has high accuracy, is manufactured completely domestically, and can defeat missile shield systems. Israel’s closest point to Iran is some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away. The report comes as negotiations continue in Vienna to revive Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers. Iran, which has long said it does not seek nuclear weapons, insists its missile program is only a deterrent.

UK - When NATO has its own Office of the Gender Advisor, you know wokery has won. Last Tuesday the British Army halted 'all non-essential and non-operational activity' for the six hours between 10am and 4pm. This was 'to consider and reflect on the British Army's current culture and approach to inclusion and to set out how it will seek to improve both'. Thinking this might be a spoof, I checked with the Defence Ministry who readily confirmed it. I have not yet been able to get much information on how this went, though I am told that a fair few serving solders of the more old-fashioned type were more than a little embarrassed. Likewise, you may have thought of NATO, as I once did, as a stern conservative military alliance, guarding the world against armed Communism. So it was, and I recall very well the bleak barracks and bases on the German plain which kept us safe from the USSR. But did you know that NATO now has an 'Office of the Gender Advisor', just as MI6 flies the Rainbow Flag of the LGBTQ movement? Almost nothing is now what you think it is, or what it used to be.

USA - Sam Brinton’s appointment to a top US nuclear role poses legitimate questions given his self-confessed bizarre sexual proclivities. A colorful new hire of the Biden administration, “queer activist” Sam Brinton, is making waves on social media for his strange appearance and openly deviant lifestyle. Brinton, who is a proud drag queen and “pup handler” – in other words, someone who leads gay men dressed in fetish gear around as they pretend to be dogs, before having sex with them – has been appointed to a high-ranking position in the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy.

UK - The police enforce the desires of feminism and political correctness, responding ineffectively to crime and disorder only when they absolutely have to. The most senior officer in the country, the wildly woke Commissioner Cressida Dick, has finally gone after a long catalogue of failure and worse. But she has gone not because she was useless, but because she was not woke enough. In the prisons, the law is openly broken and punishment is dealt out by the inmates to each other. The Labour Party is the party of the radical middle class. So is the Tory Party. So are the Liberal Democrats. And the BBC is rapidly becoming a form of thought police ...Yet all these things continue to look much as they did. Union Jacks are displayed, the Crown of St Edward, symbol of Royal authority, appears on cap badges and coats of arms. The uniforms and the buildings look roughly the same. But what goes on inside and behind them is utterly different.