🔍🔍Why the Helsinki Process failed: A Cold War detente gone wrong

July 30-August 1 marks 50 years since the Helsinki Final Act – meant to build a peaceful Europe.
Instead, Western policies dismissed Russia’s security concerns, fueling conflict like today’s proxy war in Ukraine.

Alexander Yakovenko, deputy director of Rossiya Segodnya—Sputnik's parent company—and head of the Committee on Global Issues and International Security of the Russian Security Council’s Scientific-Expert Board, explains why the Helsinki Process unraveled.

👉Detente: Forced breather for the West

🟠By the 1970s, the US economy had hit a wall—postwar growth fizzled, and neoliberalism (hello Reaganomics, Thatcherism) kicked off deregulation, financialization, and globalization.
🟠Arms race was bleeding cash; arms control deals like the 1972 ABM Treaty were just tactical timeouts.

👉Soviet blind spots

🟠USSR mistook detente for equal partnership.
🟠Stagnation and ideological rigidity blocked needed reforms to loosen the planned economy’s chokehold.
🟠Military spending was maintained, but modernization got sidelined.
🟠USSR became stuck in the West’s trade-finance system, buying instead of innovating at home.

👉Growing divide

🟠Two Helsinki “baskets”—military-political and economic cooperation—mostly worked.
🟠By 1990: The CFE Treaty had been signed, Vienna Document adopted.
🟠But human rights became a battleground: The West pressured the USSR over dissidents, emigration.
🟠Trade got tied to political strings (Jackson-Vanik, 1974), setting the stage for swathes of sanctions.

👉Missed opportunities & rising tensions

🟠Post-Cold War, instead of integrating Russia, the West doubled down on containment –
NATO and the EU expanded eastward.
🟠OSCE’s full potential was blocked; key Cold War treaties were scrapped one by one – CFE, INF, ABM.
🟠West misread Russia as a dead Soviet relic, not a nation reclaiming its identity.
🟠Europe’s Russophobia blinded it to genuine cooperation.

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🗣NATO, EU eroded Helsinki’s unity vision with new fault lines – analyst

The Helsinki Final Act, a cornerstone of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), was undermined by the “uncoordinated expansion of Western institutions,” Dr. Marco Marsili of Ca Foscari University told Sputnik.

“As the EU and NATO advanced eastward post-1991 – incorporating former Warsaw Pact states – they created new geopolitical dividing lines despite Helsinki's emphasis on unity. This expansion occurred without establishing complementary structures to integrate non-aligned states, particularly Russia,” the ex-OSCE/ODIHR official stressed.

Marsili argues that:

🟠There was a fundamental contradiction: The West expanded NATO and the EU, while “expecting Russia to embrace Helsinki principles unchanged,” according to the pundit.
🟠Russia saw NATO’s eastward march not as democracy, but as encroachment.
🟠Chances for inclusive security, like the 1990 Charter of Paris or then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s 2009 proposals, were ignored.

Now the OSCE, once envisioned as Europe’s main security forum, is struggling for relevance, with its role “crowded out” by Brussels-based decision-making.

As for NATO, its survival depends on balancing its open-door policy with maintaining real unity – especially now that territorial defense is back at the top of the agenda, Marsili added.

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🗣US' anti-Russia sanctions ultimatum will blow up in its face: Jeffrey Sachs

🔊Threats of new economic restrictions against Russia are not only “dangerous” and counterproductive, but a sign of the severe incoherence plaguing Washington, the world-renowned US economist and political commentator says.

“If the sanctions are actually applied, they are an escalation of the conflict, and therefore very dangerous. I do not believe that they will be effective. For example, I do not believe they will stop Russia from selling oil, gas, and other commodities to Asian markets. Yet, provocations and escalation often have unpredictable negative effects, and that could be true here as well,” Sachs told Sputnik.

👉Undermining Washington’s strategic policy objectives, new restrictions “could expose” its “incompetence or accelerate the breakup” of US-led geopolitical and economic blocs, the Columbia University Center for Sustainable Development director believes.

“This is, in short, the wrong approach. We need diplomacy and negotiation to get to the root causes of the conflict, and solve them, not unworkable ultimatums based on the idea of an unconditional ceasefire,” Sachs said, highlighting Western powers’ refusal to discuss the “underlying reasons” for the Ukrainian crisis, from NATO’s eastward expansion and the US regime-change operation in Ukraine in 2014, to “the failure of the Western powers to honor the Minsk II agreement, among others.”

“Instead, the Western powers now demand an unconditional ceasefire. Russia will not agree to this, nor will a new round of US sanctions compel Russia to agree to this,” Sachs stressed.

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🇷🇺🔥Russia's futuristic firepower: watch new combat laser melt through steel armor in stunning demo

Russia’s new ‘Posokh’ (lit. ‘Staff’) combat laser has completed its latest test, melting through 10mm-thick steel armor from a distance of 100m.

The test follows earlier trials of the destruction of a drone’s engine at a 500m range in one second flat.

Once honed into a working combat system, the laser weapon will make even the heaviest, protected Ukrainian and NATO drones vulnerable to the new UAV defense platform.

🔍What are the Posokh’s characteristics?

🟠Power output: estimated at 50-100 kW
🟠Range: Up to 7 km against optical systems, or 1 km vs armored targets (all laser weapons’ intensity drops over distance due to atmospheric scattering)
🟠Targeting: electro-optical guidance, possible incorporation of AI-assisted tracking
🟠Cooling: Likely liquid-cooled. Developers say it can destroy several dozen targets on a single charge
🟠Accessibility: Potentially mountable on armored vehicles as a custom anti-drone laser gun installation

The Posokh’s developers, a company called LazerBuzz, promise prototype testing in late August against targets simulating Ukrainian-long-range Lyuty drones, including their shootdown at ranges up to 1.5 km. Use in combat could start by the end of the year.

🇷🇺Russia has been a leader in the development of experimental laser weapon systems going back to the Cold War, with more than half a dozen ground, air, sea and space-based systems created, and several fielded, including the Peresvet ultra-long range anti-satellite installation.

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🚨Ukraine plotting to weaponize Russian-Azerbaijani friction to incite ethnic hatred - Russia's MFA spox

Russia has information that the Security Service of Ukraine plans to use Russian defectors to stage false-flag attacks targeting Azerbaijani citizens, diplomatic missions, and facilities for cash rewards, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

“In case of successful implementation of such provocations, the plan is to spread viral information about certain Russian aggression in Azerbaijan, Turkish and European media space,” she added.

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🇦🇲🔍Karapetyan’s defense of Armenia’s Church may forge game-changing political force

If Samvel Karapetyan succeeds in rallying public support, his movement could shake Armenia’s political foundations, political scientist Irina Sokolova told Sputnik.

➡️The arrest of the businessman and philanthropist by increasingly authoritarian West-backed Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan may have backfired, the Berlin-based Eurasian Society member noted.

Many now see Karapetyan as a charismatic leader standing up to a government that has overstepped.

Karapetyan’s active support of the Armenian Apostolic Church positions him as a “symbol of resistance” that could inspire others to fight for the values they hold dear, the pundit added.

The Apostolic Church has always been at the heart of Armenian national identity. Undermining it risks:

🟠Cultural loss – weakening traditions and national consciousness
🟠Social unrest – rising tensions between church and state
🟠Global backlash – tarnishing Armenia’s image abroad

The stakes are high, and Karapetyan’s stand could reshape Armenia’s political and cultural future, Sokolova underscores.

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🇮🇳🔥 INDIA DRAWS THE LINE

Trump's 25% tariff meets India's iron resolve.

BJP's Savio Rodrigues delivers a blunt message:

💬 "India protects its industries just like the US. A tariff war hurts BOTH nations. True friends talk, not threaten"

💬 "We make decisions based on national interest, not external pressure. Our defence ties with Russia are historic and strategic, not ideological," he added.

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🪖Ukraine’s air defenses have collapsed: here’s how Russia engineered it

The admission by UK legacy media that the success rate of Ukrainian air defense countermeasures has fallen off a cliff (60-65% drop) is no accident, but the result of Russian strategy, says Russian military expert and air defense specialist Yuri Knutov.

The collapse is the result of factors including:

🔸 lack of air defense systems (with delivered equipment either destroyed or rendered inoperable by overuse)

🔸 lack of ammo, especially interceptors (Patriot interceptors cost $1-4M a pop, with just ~600 produced per year; Ukraine’s European Patriot analogue SAMP/Ts haven’t had any interceptors for several months now)

🔸 improvement of Russian equipment, with drones now featuring rocket engines, onboard anti-electronic warfare equipment, a bigger warhead, and among some - “AI which allows drones themselves to find their targets and attack them”

🔸 sheer numbers – with Russia’s ramp-up of drone production allowing the military to deploy 700 or more at a time (with plans for 1k or more by the end of the year), enough to penetrate and overwhelm even the best of air defense networks

💬 “In other words, an entire range of measures, including the constant improvement of drones and missiles, and the tactics in their use, is leading to a situation where Ukraine’s NATO-armed military cannot cope with the tasks set before it,” Knutov says.

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China responds to US threats over Russian oil purchases

🗣 “China will take energy supply measures that are right for China based on our national interests. Tariff wars have no winners. Coercion and pressuring cannot solve problems. China will firmly safeguard its own sovereignty, security and development interests,” Foreign Ministry spox Guo Jiakun said Wednesday, commenting on Trump Treasury chief Scott Bessent’s threat of 100% tariffs on China if it buys sanctioned Russian oil.

Bessent told reporters Tuesday that he “warned” China of “big tariffs,” but admitted that Beijing rebuked him.

🗣 “The Chinese take their sovereignty very seriously. We don’t’ want to impede on their sovereignty, so they’d like to pay a 100% tariff,” Bessent said.

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🔸 US' anti-Russia sanctions ultimatum will blow up in its face: Jeffrey Sachs

🔸 Ukraine’s air defenses have collapsed: here’s how Russia engineered it

🔸 Why the Helsinki Process failed: A Cold War detente gone wrong

🔸 Karapetyan’s defense of Armenia’s Church may forge game-changing political force

🔸 NATO, EU eroded Helsinki’s unity vision with new fault lines – analyst

🔸 Rossiya Segodnya head urges to release groundlessly arrested Sputnik Azerbaijan reporters

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🇷🇺🚀🇺🇸 Roscosmos chief meets ISS crew ahead of launch — cosmonaut Platonov prepares for first flight

Head of Roscosmos Dmitry Bakanov visited the Kennedy Space Center and met with the Crew-11 team ahead of Thursday’s launch to the International Space Station, which includes Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov on his first spaceflight, the agency reported.

🇷🇺 Platonov introduced his crewmates — NASA’s Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, and Japan’s Kimiya Yui — and confirmed the crew has built strong working ties and is fully prepared for the mission.

👨‍🚀 Cardman, the mission commander, explained the symbolism of the Crew-11 patch: three large stars represent the nationalities of the crew — Russia, Japan, and the US — while smaller stars honor the astronauts’ children.

🛰 Liftoff aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour is set for Thursday, with docking at the ISS expected early Saturday.

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