[Salon] EU Declares War On Its Own Members



https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/eu-declares-war-on-its-own-members?publication_id=1351274&post_id=176702252&isFreemail=true&r=1y80w&triedRedirect=true

EU Declares War On Its Own Members

Yesterday, two near-simultaneous acts of sabotage saw explosions ripping through oil refineries in both Hungary and Romania. In Hungary it was the MOL in Százhalombatta, which reportedly receives Russian oil, while in Romania the Petrotel-Lukoil, a subsidiary of the Russian parent company.

As one commentator writes, these attacks came literally hours after the European Council had just approved to ban Russian gas starting in 2026:

The timing here is exceptionally curious because this attack came just hours after the European Council essentially locked in its position to almost completely ban Russian gas imports, with new contracts being outlawed at the beginning of 2026, and all long term contracts forcibly expiring in 2028. A similar ban on oil imports is expected in the near future. Hungary and Slovakia have pledged to issue legal challenges to the ban.

As of this writing, there were reports that a new explosion lit up a refinery in Bratislava, Slovakia—which allegedly processes Russian oil from the Druzhba pipeline. But subsequent follow-ups appear to show these were fake—though it’s as of yet uncertain.

The real attacks on Romania and Hungary came just days after Europe essentially gave carte blanche for terror attacks across the EU by way of several top European officials openly condoning not only the Nord Stream attacks, but even attacks against Hungarian oil pipelines. Here Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski addresses Hungary’s Peter Szijjarto:

A post from an X user summarizes the situation well:

It looks like the UK and the EU started a terrorist war against their own members, alias with the help of a non-EU country. Yep. That’s how far this madness has gone. And it is pure madness, make no mistake. Anyone who thinks this is a coincidence after a few days ago Polish PM Donald Tusk declared on X that all “Russian targets” in the EU are legitimate is retarded. Unfortunately, this madness and these words of a madman lead to the first victims among innocent civilians in the EU.

On the night of October 20-21, 2025, an explosion occurred at the MOL refinery in Százhalombatta, Hungary, followed by a significant fire. The company confirmed the fire was contained with no casualties, and the cause is under investigation. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has assured that the country’s fuel supply remains secure. The refinery mainly processes Russian oil, an exception in the EU, where most countries have reduced Russian energy imports since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

A few hours earlier, on October 20, another explosion occurred at the Lukoil refinery in Ploieşti, Romania. The incident resulted in at least one death. Lukoil is a Russian oil company, and Romania is a member of NATO and the EU.

Now these explosions, within the days of Putin and Trump’s meeting in Hungary to discuss the Ukrainian conflict, come after Trump’s refusal to sell Tomahawk missiles that would allow attacking the Russian Federation from a distance. Ukraine’s SBU waited no longer to act, at a stage when the Ukrainian issue approached an unfavourable epilogue to the Ukrainian dictatorship. With these terrorist attacks in “allied” countries, they pressure the Hungarian and Romanian entities to reject Russian fuels, critical to their economy, as a sort of “indirect attack on Putin”, a “power play” that only resulted in the death of innocent people.

Just like in the explosion of Nord Stream 1 and 2 – whose authors are already detained, but Polish and Italian entities do not want to remit to Germany for questioning – the SBU acted out of revenge and desperation for the cause. Both suspects (Ukrainians) are currently at large, awaiting additional judicial decisions in their respective countries. Germany pretends that it continues its extradition farce to face charges against perpetrators of sabotage and destruction of critical infrastructure, but it is just the game of psychos whose pathological hatred of Russians has so destroyed their minds that they have completely lost their ability to reason.

The EU becomes hostage to maniacs who are willing to kill their own people. God help us!

Now, seemingly in coordination with the above intelligence sabotage ops, the Trump administration has announced its first large-scale new sanctions against Russia—in particular, against Russia’s top two oil companies of Rosneft and Lukoil.

But there’s an odd crinkle to the whole thing. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent seemed to front the initiative, and even when Trump published the announcement he couched it in distancing terms, merely “quoting” that it was the Treasury which was responsible for the sanctions, not him:

Normally, ego-driven Trump would be all brass and fanfare in announcing how it was his powerful hand behind the puissant sanctions meant to bring the targeted country to its knees. But here, Trump mysteriously shrinks behind bulldog Bessent, handing him the laurels of the initiative—why is that?

Sure, the Putin meeting flubbed just as we’d predicted, and some think Trump is now taking out his anger at the Russian leader. But it would seem more that Trump is again trying to play both chairs: appease his critics while simultaneously distancing himself from the punishment, to signal Russia that he takes no great pleasure from this ‘necessary evil’ he must allow for now as a reluctant prisoner to the neocon agenda.

In fact, just as the sanctions were being rolled out, Trump appeared to double down on his new anti-Tomahawk stance to Russia’s favor, as well as playing down the ‘fake news’ that he had authorized deep-strikes into Russia; by the way, note his admission that only American personnel can launch the Tomahawk, confirming Putin’s own assessment.

Listen to both parts below:

We have to also see if these sanctions even have any real teeth to them, or are more a performative gesture of placation to the neocons. It could be a deep state-led initiative designed in conjunction with the new EU terror war on Russian oil, which Trump was simply powerless to halt, being forced to go along with it to maintain a necessary illusion. That being said, I’m not discounting the idea that Trump is wholly behind this, as I’m sure many people believe—and we may likely find out soon, given new Trump statements sure to come.

For Russia’s part, Putin oversaw exercises of the nuclear tetrad, featuring Tu-95s firing cruise missiles, as well as the launch of a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile and sub-launched R-29RMU2 Sineva SLBM:

Some have seen this as a kind of response, or Russian ‘warning’ to the West, though the exercises were said to be scheduled in advance of today’s events.

On a related note, Hungary’s Peter Szijjarto revealed the malign conduct of the EU after the Druzhba pipeline was attacked by Ukrainian drones and caused Hungary’s oil reserves to drop to record lows. He states Hungary was very close to being forced to tap its final emergency strategic reserves, because the EU had deliberately stonewalled them:

It’s clear the EU acts intentionally against the interests of its own so-called members. More than that, it can be said the EU is outright sabotaging its more ‘inconvenient’ members in order to bring them to heel. This makes the EU veritably an organization of tyranny, rather than the ‘democratic order’ it so desperately tries to portray.

All in all, we know the reason for the urgency in this attempt to destabilize the Russian economy: the Russian victories are piling up, and now beginning to accelerate. Multiple Ukrainian cities are set to fall soon, and the news from the front keeps getting worse and worse.

On the Konstantinovka front, Russian forces finally definitively broke through into the outskirts of the city itself, marking the true beginning of the battle for Konstantinovka:

On the Novopavlovka front, Russian forces captured much more of the northern shelf, again closing the walls in on the city from the south:

On the Yanchur river chain of settlements in the Gulyaipole direction, the Russian Army again expanded control from both the northern and eastern flank, this time capturing the settlement Pavlovka at the center:

As you can see, this entire Yanchur chain is being rolled up extremely fast and will likely be entirely taken out in a week or two. After that it’s all open fields up to Gulyaipole.

But the biggest news is that the Pokrovsk direction is crumbling fast. There are now rumors that the AFU command has initiated gradual withdrawal from both Pokrovsk and Mirnograd, marking the final countdown towards this agglomeration’s fall.

Suriyak writes:

In Mirnograd, #UkrainianArmy began retreating from the town while maintaining its defense in the southern part. There, #RussianArmy has established itself in Stepna and Pishchanyi streets, where it is attempting to advance toward the terrikon of Mine 5/6, the main focus of Ukrainian resistance.

In Pokrovsk, Ukrainian forces also began to withdraw, but to a lesser extent. As a result, they have lost control of practically half the city, while Russian army continues to secure the abandoned positions south of the railway line (more than 40% of Pokrovsk is now under Russian control).

Why are they fleeing even from Mirnograd when Russian forces have only just begun entering it?

Most likely the answer lies in continued Russian advances through nearby Rodynske:

Rodynske is now half-taken and could fall soon, which will immediately imperil Mirnograd via the supply route there:

Thus this entire giant pocket could face collapse sooner than expected, particularly if rumors about AFU’s evacuation are true, which would imply that command has already resigned to the inevitable.

The latest advance rate from Creamy Caprice shows a large spike in recent days:

21.10.25 Advance Rate Average daily advance of the Russian Armed Forces in the area of the Special Military Operation. Update based on data from October 17 to 20, 2025. Advance rate +36.3 km² per day over the period, total advance 145 km².


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