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The New Bipolar World of AI - WSJ
Thursday January 29^th, 2026 at 3:42 PM

Imperial power shift: End of Maduro's rule in Venezuela and U.S. threats to Iran indicate entry into a new imperial age centered on data and artificial intelligence rather than armies alone.
AI sovereignty definition: True sovereignty means ability to design, train, operate, secure and deploy foundational AI systems for national defense without external permission or dependence.
Globalization reversal: After 35 years favoring efficiency and free flow of capital and talent, early 2020s saw pandemic and geopolitical pressures shift focus to security and localization.
Simultaneous deglobalization and hyperconnection: World is simultaneously reversing globalization while space-based networks and data continue moving across borders unrestricted.
Concentration of AI control: Since 2022 ChatGPT release, frontier AI adoption spread to billions of users but underlying system control concentrated in few U.S. firms with China as only rival ecosystem.
Three requirements for AI sovereignty: Elite AI competence (scarce talent pool), energy at scale (power-intensive infrastructure), and financial depth (sustained investment without near-term returns).
Limited sovereignty achievers: Only U.S. and China possess all three requirements at necessary scale and under sovereign control; other nations either lack some requirements or have talent serving foreign corporate interests.
Trust as fourth constraint: Nations must trust foreign AI systems embedded in military, intelligence and cyber programs, making autonomy an additional requirement for true AI sovereignty.

By

Tom Tugendhat

and

Christopher Ahlberg

Jan. 29, 2026 3:35 pm ET

Martin Kozlowski

The end of Nicolás Maduro’s rule in Venezuela along with U.S. threats to Iran shows we are in a new imperial age. This time, it isn’t only about armies, it’s about data. Artificial intelligence is revising our concepts of sovereignty and power, adding an important realm in which two nations dominate: the U.S. and China. The story is still being written, but power is concentrating in these two poles.

Sovereignty here doesn’t mean access to powerful tools or building applications on top of them. It means the ability to design, train, operate, secure and deploy foundational AI systems capable of highly advanced functions in national defense and other sensitive areas of the state without external permission or dependence. By that definition, the field already looks far narrower than most policy debates assume.

Look how the global environment has changed. For roughly 35 years after the Cold War, globalization favored efficiency. Supply chains linked across continents. Manufacturing migrated to lower costs. Capital and talent flowed freely. States accepted dependence in exchange for market access. The internet connected markets, narratives and politics.

That era began to unwind in the early 2020s. The pandemic exposed the fragility of supply chains, borders closed, and governments rediscovered sovereignty under pressure. What began as diversification hardened into localization. Migration slowed across the U.S. and Europe. Security displaced efficiency as the organizing principle of economic policy.

Geopolitics followed. China accelerated its bid for primacy. Russia chose war and severed itself from Europe. Across the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific, integration gave way to rivalry, and dependence became a liability.

Yet even as globalization reversed, connectivity didn’t. Space-based networks extended internet access. Data, content and influence continued to move across borders. The result is a world that is simultaneously deglobalizing and hyperconnected. In this strange new environment, modern AI emerged.

As frontier models, the technology capable of large-scale problem-solving, became widely available starting in 2022 as ChatGPT, adoption occurred at an unprecedented pace. Within months, billions of people had access to these powerful cognitive tools. Control over the underlying systems, however, concentrated into the hands of a few firms in the U.S., with China as the only rival ecosystem.

This concentration reflects three hard requirements of AI sovereignty.

First, elite competence. Not mass digital literacy, but a very small pool of people capable of building, training and operating large-scale frontier AI models. This talent is scarce, globally mobile and increasingly clustered.

Second, energy at scale. AI is power-intensive. Training and operating frontier models requires vast quantities of reliable electricity. This is a physical constraint, not a regulatory one.

Third, financial depth. Frontier AI demands sustained investment over long time horizons, often without near-term returns. Only systems with extraordinary amounts of capital can absorb that cost.

At present, only the U.S. and China appear to have all three at the necessary scale and under sovereign control.

A few countries have some of what AI sovereignty requires. The Gulf states have capital and energy but lack elite AI competence. The U.K. has exceptional talent but lacks energy scale and sufficient financial depth, as shown by the sale of DeepMind to Google in 2014.

Britain can claim DeepMind as a national success, proof that British universities and culture can produce world-class AI talent. But that talent now serves U.S. strategic priorities, operates under U.S. corporate governance, and would be subject to U.S. export controls in a crisis. The building is in King’s Cross. The sovereignty is in Mountain View.

Continental Europe should possess all three requirements but has struggled to retain its best people, many of whom now work for American-owned firms. Russia is perhaps in the worst position: It has energy, but elite competence and capital are fleeing.

There is also a fourth, less-discussed constraint. AI isn’t merely built; it must be trusted. As AI becomes embedded in the military, intelligence and cyber programs of the state, dependence on foreign systems becomes harder to justify. So autonomy is yet another requirement of AI sovereignty.

For countries outside the U.S. and China, this doesn’t mean the race is over, but it is narrowing. Some will align closely with one of the leaders. Others will seek partnerships to secure influence at the margins. Few will be able to sustain the fiction of full independence.

AI sovereignty isn’t a prize many nations can win. The strategic task then is to determine how to retain agency when technological power is concentrating rather than dispersing.

Mr. Tugendhat, a Conservative, is a member of the British Parliament and a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute. Mr. Ahlberg is CEO of Recorded Future, a cybersecurity company.

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11 hours ago

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Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Girls and boys live different digital lives, according to researchers
Thursday January 29^th, 2026 at 8:22 AM

Platform and content preferences: Boys more frequently use video games and YouTube daily, while girls predominantly use Instagram and TikTok daily, with divergent influencer and content selections across platforms.
Content category differences: Girls seek interior design, fashion, shopping, and animal content; boys pursue gaming and fitness content, following different influencers aligned with these interests.
Algorithm influence: Customized feeds driven by algorithms reinforce existing preferences, creating separate digital environments where users receive similar content from comparable sources.
Entertainment versus inspiration: Boys primarily seek entertainment on social media, while girls tend to follow role models and people they aspire to emulate.
Political attitude divergence: Research indicates growing differences in political preferences between young women and men, with young boys favoring the Progress Party while young women show increased concern for climate and gender equality.
Shared information sources: Girls and boys obtain news and facts from entirely different sources, potentially resulting in disagreement on factual matters and shared reality.
Democracy concerns: Researchers express concerns that digital separation and divergent information sources could threaten democratic processes requiring shared understanding of reality.
In-person meeting patterns: Despite digital divergence, young people report meeting through school, leisure activities, parties, and Snapchat, with some indicating adequate cross-gender contact.

Girls and boys are becoming increasingly different.

The differences in what they spend their time on and what they think are growing.

This worries the researchers.

How can young women and men meet when they live in such completely different worlds?

They seek out different kinds of content

“We don't really like to talk about gender differences in our society. But there's little doubt that there are differences between boys and girls on the internet,” says Halla Bjørk Holmarsdottir, a professor at OsloMet.

There are more young men and boys who play video games. And there are more young women and girls who use social media exclusively. A larger proportion of boys use YouTube daily, and a larger proportion of girls use Instagram and TikTok daily.

But the differences don't stop there.

On social media, they also follow different influencers, TikTokers, media outlets, and brands.

“The differences are more about what kind of content girls and boys seek out than about them spending time on different platforms,” says Marika Lüders, a media researcher at the University of Oslo.

Like to follow relevant people

“I think maybe boys follow more fitness influencers. Like football and that kind of stuff. And that girls follow influencers who are interested in beauty,” says Ida Amundsen Bjørkli.

She and her friend Filippa Owesen study sports at Ringerike Upper Secondary School and are both 17.

“The boys probably follow Norwegian TikToker Oskar Westerlin and that crowd. Many more boys do that than girls,” says Bjørkli.

Owesen and Bjørkli follow young Norwegian influencers like Tale Torp Torjussen, Leah Behn, Julie Fiala, and Trygve Bennetsen.

“We like to follow relevant people,” she says.

Both Tale Torjussen and Trygve Bennetsen are taking part in this year's Skal vi danse?, a Norwegian TV show based on Strictly Come Dancing. The girls get updates about the show and also follow them on social media.

“The fact that girls and boys follow different influencers doesn’t mean that we don’t meet up with each other. It’s more about having different interests,” says Owesen.

![Two young women in winter coats talking outside on a snowy street.](https://image.sciencenorway.no/2609850.webp?imageId=2609850&x=0.00&y=0.00&cropw=100.00&croph=100.00&width=960&height=720&format=jpg "Filippa Owesen (on the right) and Ida Amundsen Bjørkli are studying sports at Ringerike Upper Secondary School.")

Filippa Owesen (on the right) and Ida Amundsen Bjørkli are studying sports at Ringerike Upper Secondary School.

(Photo: Marte Dæhlen)

The feed is important

Marika Lüders and colleagues at the University of Oslo have been studying teenagers in an ongoing research project. Young people participating in the project say that they customise their own feed according to what they are interested in and what their preferences are.

They want a specific type of content and they know how to get it.

“The algorithms are a challenge,” says Holmarsdottir.

If they follow certain influencers, they also get tips and news from similar influencers with the same attitudes, whether it's about politics, beauty products, or money.

“Young people know that algorithms are in control,” the researcher says.

But it is possible to override them. Holmarsdottir suggests following people or media outlets you usually disagree with to make your feed more balanced.

“But young people probably don't do that. They follow the ones they follow, “says Holmarsdottir.

Not looking for goals or meaning on social media

“I don't think boys are necessarily looking for meaning or have any goals when they're on social media. I'm there to be entertained,” says Mads Nicolay Moe-Gaukstad.

He is 17 and attends Fyrstikkalleen School in Oslo.

He believes that girls tend to follow their role models and people they look up to more.

For Kasper Aleksander Oftedal, it's all quite simple:

“I basically follow everyone who posts funny videos,” he says.

He follows a total of 4,517 users on TikTok.

![Four male students in winter coats standing outside on the snow between brick buildings.](https://image.sciencenorway.no/2609853.webp?imageId=2609853&x=0.00&y=15.66&cropw=99.87&croph=84.34&width=960&height=606&format=jpg "From left to right: Kasper Aleksander Melbye Oftedal, Leon Andreas Killerud Aiello, Mads Nicolay Moe-Gaukstad, and Storm Myklebyst all attend Fyrstikkalleen school.")

From left to right: Kasper Aleksander Melbye Oftedal, Leon Andreas Killerud Aiello, Mads Nicolay Moe-Gaukstad, and Storm Myklebyst all attend Fyrstikkalleen school.

(Photo: Marte Dæhlen)

Follows Tottenham football players

Several of the boys have accounts on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and X. But not on Facebook.

“I only have Facebook to keep in touch with my family,” says Oftedal.

Leon Andreas Killerud Aiello uses X to get football news. But that's all he does there.

“I follow all the Tottenham players and all the Norwegian players,” he says.

Don't spend much time with girls

Boys and girls meet primarily at school, they say. Sometimes at parties.

“I don't really socialise with girls that much, other than family and my girlfriend,” says Moe-Gaukstad.

"Why not?"

“I don't know. It just happens naturally. Every time I start at a new school, I've had more chemistry with the boys. It’s basically been sort of separate,” he says.

Storm Myklebust, on the other hand, believes that his group of friends is now quite mixed and that they hang out with both boys and girls. At least to a certain extent.

“But there are more boys, of course,” he says.

Controlled by algorithms

Myklebust thinks it's the algorithms that are in control, and that girls and boys end up somewhat distanced because of that.

“Before, there used to be just one channel everyone followed, and so we all had the same points of reference. Now everyone ends up in different places,” he says.

"Do you watch the evening news?"

“Yes!” the boys say in unison.

Moe-Gaukstad watches the evening news because he recently deleted TikTok. And Myklebust streams it every day.

![Four male students in winter clothing stand in the snow looking at their phones.](https://image.sciencenorway.no/2609873.webp?imageId=2609873&x=0.00&y=4.53&cropw=100.00&croph=89.58&width=960&height=644&format=jpg "“I follow everyone who’s posted a good video,” says Kasper Oftedal (on the left).")

“I follow everyone who’s posted a good video,” says Kasper Oftedal (on the left).

(Photo: Marte Dæhlen)

The most popular YouTubers, TikTokers, influencers, and gamers

There are patterns as to which topics are most popular among girls and boys, says Lüders.

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In her survey of adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19, she observes that more girls than boys seek out content about interior design, inspiration, fashion, shopping, and animals. And that more boys than girls seek out gaming content. Slightly more boys than girls watch fitness content.

The same is shown by the Norwegian Media Authority's 2024 survey, in which researchers also asked which profiles and influencers are popular.

Isabel Raad and Oskar Westerlin

Boys spent the most time on MrSavage, MrBeast, Oskar Westerlin, and Gutta, while girls followed Julie Fiala, Leah Behn, and Isabel Raad.

The Norwegian Media Authority points out that there is great variation in adolescents' responses and that relatively few people identify the same profiles.

Lüders points out that some profiles are popular for everyone, such as the YouTube creators Sidemen, Beta Squad, and MrBeast.

“These YouTubers create content within categories that are popular across genders,” says Lüders.

The fact that girls and boys follow different influencers also means that they get news and facts from completely different sources.

This worries social scientist Johannes Bergh.

![](https://image.sciencenorway.no/2584042.webp?imageId=2584042&x=30.70&y=8.96&cropw=44.20&croph=61.24&width=960&height=760&format=jpg "Marika Lüders is a professor at the University of Oslo's Department of Media Studies.")

Marika Lüders is a professor at the University of Oslo's Department of Media Studies.

(Photo: University of Oslo)

![](https://image.sciencenorway.no/2132654.webp?imageId=2132654&x=14.74&y=3.99&cropw=79.61&croph=95.20&width=960&height=768&format=jpg "Johannes Bergh is an election researcher at the Institute of Social Research.")

Johannes Bergh is an election researcher at the Institute of Social Research.

(Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB)

Receive different news

“The differences in digital media use are happening at the same time that disparities in political attitudes among young women and men are growing,” he says. "So how do they even meet at all?"

Bergh has studied the 2025 general election and whom young people actually voted for. Preliminary findings show that they differ from each other more than before.

For example, the Progress Party (FrP) is the dominant party among young boys, while young women overall have become more progressive and are concerned about climate and gender equality, according to Bergh.

No longer agree on the facts

The researchers are trying to understand the potential consequences of girls and boys living in such different digital worlds.

“The political consequences may be that gender differences in attitudes and voting behaviour continue to grow,” says Bergh.

This could lead to the serious outcome that people no longer agree on the facts – what is true and what is false.

“Such disagreement could potentially be a problem for democracy, which depends on some degree of shared understanding of reality,” says Bergh.

Must get them to meet

Holmarsdottir also believes that we as a people and society are moving towards a more polarised debate.

“We could lose a shared arena for discussing issues, which is a danger to democracy,” she says.

The professor believes we must try to create places where young women and men can meet in person.

“We really just have to ask young people. What do they want? Where would they prefer to meet?” she says.

![](https://image.sciencenorway.no/2584044.webp?imageId=2584044&x=14.98&y=9.22&cropw=83.36&croph=83.78&width=960&height=644&format=jpg "Halla Bjørk Holmarsdottir is a professor at OsloMet.")

Halla Bjørk Holmarsdottir is a professor at OsloMet.

(Photo: Sonja Balci)

Even though they spend a lot of time online, they need to meet in real life, she believes.

“That's why we should work to preserve physical spaces, such as youth centres, libraries, places where students can meet and have discussions,” she says.

Meet quite often

Ida Bjørkli and Filippa Owesen are not worried that boys and girls no longer meet.

When asked where they hang out together, they answer school, leisure activities, and at parties.

“And Snapchat. Snapchat is pretty universal,” says Bjørkli.

“So you don't miss having contact with boys?”

“No, it's fine” Owesen answers. “We meet quite often.”

———

Translated by Ingrid P. Nuse

Read the Norwegian version of this article at forskning.no

![](https://image.sciencenorway.no/2402921.webp?imageId=2402921&x=10.60&y=21.20&cropw=76.00&croph=55.65&width=568&height=280&format=jpg)

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bogorad

18 hours ago

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Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

We’re Planning for the Wrong AI Job Disruption - WSJ
Thursday January 29^th, 2026 at 4:02 AM

Task Automation vs. Job Elimination: AI typically reorganizes work by automating specific tasks within jobs rather than eliminating entire positions, contrary to widespread political predictions of mass unemployment.
Misinterpreted Data: Goldman Sachs' estimate that 300 million jobs are "exposed" to AI describes task susceptibility, not job loss forecasts, yet policymakers treat it as an unemployment prediction.
Historical Pattern: Technology lowers task costs, firms reorganize production, workers specialize in higher-value activities, and demand expands in ways task-based rankings cannot predict.
Paralegal Example: Automating document review reorganizes paralegal work toward anomaly detection and client management rather than eliminating the profession.
Professional Adaptations: Accountants moved to advisory roles, nurses to patient care focus, and developers to complex systems as routine tasks automated, with rising wage demand.
New Job Creation: AI reorganization creates roles invisible to task-based rankings, including litigation-support managers, AI-review specialists, data assurance roles, and clinical operations leaders.
Counterproductive Policy: Broad federal retraining initiatives assume occupational collapse rather than within-job adaptation, potentially pulling workers from productive roles and signaling panic that slows productive reorganization.
Targeted Approach Needed: Rather than blanket retraining, policy should recognize that AI rewards workers with judgment and domain knowledge while penalizing those in rigidly designed roles.

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Dan Page

Washington is bracing for an artificial-intelligence employment shock that is unlikely to arrive—and so the government risks spending billions of dollars preparing for the wrong problem. Panicked politicians are making the error of treating task-based occupational rankings—which estimate what share of various jobs’ tasks AI could perform—as unemployment forecasts. History suggests the opposite approach: AI is likely to increase the productivity and wages of many of these roles long before it eliminates them. Task automation typically reorganizes work well before it destroys jobs, if it does the latter at all. This misunderstanding is pushing policy in the wrong direction.

Headlines, policy briefs, and congressional hearings treat Goldman Sachs’ widely cited 2023 estimate that roughly 300 million jobs worldwide are “exposed” to generative AI as a prediction that AI will eliminate many of those jobs. The Goldman Sachs figure is derived from occupational-task lists and asks whether an AI system could perform some portion of employees’ current tasks—summarizing documents, drafting routine text, coding standard functions or analyzing familiar datasets. Many politicians and commentators assume that if AI can perform some of a job’s tasks, the role will disappear.

But the distinction between task repricing—when technology can take over all or part of a task—and job destruction isn’t semantic, it is economic. When technology lowers the cost of performing specific tasks by lifting some of the load, firms reorganize production. Workers specialize differently. Demand expands in ways that task-based rankings don’t capture.

Consider how this plays out in practice. A paralegal whose job includes summarizing depositions, reviewing contracts, and organizing discovery may score as highly “exposed” in a task-based ranking. But automating first-pass document review doesn’t eliminate the paralegal’s job. It reorganizes it. Work shifts from routine document-scanning to higher-value work such as flagging anomalies and managing client interactions.

The same pattern appears across professions. In accounting, software has automated large portions of bookkeeping and tax preparation without eliminating accountants, who have moved up the value chain toward advisory, forensic and judgment-intensive work. In nursing, AI tools increasingly handle documentation and monitoring alerts, freeing clinicians to spend more time on patient care rather than replacing them.

The logic of the Goldman Sachs estimate is similar to that underlying academic studies tracing back to the Frey-Osborne framework, which classifies occupations by susceptibility to computerization. It’s the same method behind the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s 2023 Employment Outlook, which reports that roughly one-quarter of jobs across advanced economies are highly exposed to AI-driven automation—another report that has raised political alarm. These studies’ approaches have a common structure: They map technologies onto tasks rather than onto labor-market outcomes. When repurposed as forecasts of displacement, they are asked to do something for which they were never designed. That is why both the OECD and Goldman Sachs explicitly caution in their reports that measures of AI “exposure” describe task susceptibility, not forecasts of job loss.

A job that scores as 40% “exposed” to AI in these rankings doesn’t have a 40% chance of vanishing. It is more likely to be reorganized. Technology automates, accelerates or reduces the cost of specific tasks within a job, allowing employees to spend more time on higher-value activities. As a result, output expands and wages often rise. Software developers, for instance, routinely use AI tools to generate boilerplate code, test functions and debug routines—tasks that once consumed hours. The result isn’t fewer developers, but developers producing more-complex systems faster, with demand for experienced talent rising rather than falling.

As technology accelerates tasks and reduces costs, companies also create roles that task-based rankings like those from Goldman Sachs and the OECD cannot see. Law firms increasingly rely on litigation-support managers and AI-review specialists who oversee automated document analysis rather than review the papers manually. Accounting firms have expanded their roles in data assurance, model oversight, and advisory services, which sit alongside automated reporting. In software teams, engineers now specialize in system architecture, model integration, and quality control—roles that expand as routine coding becomes automated. In healthcare, AI-assisted documentation has increased demand for employees who can lead clinical operations by managing data flows, compliance, and workflow design. These jobs exist because of how AI reorganizes work.

Policymakers’ misunderstanding jeopardizes those gains. Washington is racing to fund broad AI retraining initiatives on the premise that mass white-collar layoffs are imminent. Federal workforce initiatives, including AI-focused retraining grants layered onto existing programs such as the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, increasingly assume occupational collapse rather than within-job adaptation. But if AI primarily augments tasks rather than replaces jobs, this approach misses the mark. Workers don’t need to be rescued from their professions; they need room to adapt within them.

This is where retraining could help—but only if it is targeted. While AI won’t destroy occupations in the manner politicians imagine, some workers will adapt more easily than others. AI rewards those with judgment, domain knowledge and machine output; it penalizes those in rigidly designed jobs, such as narrowly scripted clerical or call-center work. Blanket retraining schemes don’t account for these nuances.

Large-scale retraining programs have a mixed record, even when displacement is real. When displacement is overstated, such programs risk doing harm. They pull workers out of productive roles, subsidize credentials with little demonstrated labor-market value, and signal panic to firms and households alike. That panic can become self-reinforcing: companies delay hiring, workers delay investment in firm-specific skills, and productivity-enhancing reorganization slows. The result is a policy-induced drag on growth and adaptation.

AI will disrupt labor markets, but disruption isn’t synonymous with destruction. The danger isn’t that AI will eliminate work faster than society can adapt. It is that governments will intervene where they shouldn’t and neglect where they should help. In preparing for an employment shock that won’t come, Washington risks wasting billions of dollars only to slow the adaptation that makes technological change a boon for jobs.

Mr. Lewarne is a professor of economics and finance at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.

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bogorad

23 hours ago

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Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

China’s Decadence and the Military Purge - WSJ
Wednesday January 28^th, 2026 at 9:52 AM

[PURGE-INVESTIGATION]: The Chinese Communist Party has initiated investigations against two senior military officials, including General Zhang Youxia, a high-ranking Politburo member and Central Military Commission vice chairman.
[SENSITIVE-ALLEGATIONS]: Charges against General Zhang include corruption involving family members and the unauthorized disclosure of nuclear secrets to the United States.
[POLITICAL-IMPACT]: Official Chinese military media describes the conduct of the accused as a direct threat to the Party’s absolute leadership and its foundational ruling authority.
[INTERNAL-INSTABILITY]: The targeted removal of high-level figures suggests underlying factional divisions and potential internal opposition to Xi Jinping’s leadership within the military hierarchy.
[SYSTEMIC-OPACITY]: The absence of transparent self-corrective mechanisms in the Chinese state requires officials to maintain public displays of absolute fidelity regardless of policy outcomes.
[POLICY-CONSEQUENCES]: Centralized state mandates, such as the one-child policy and real-estate regulations, have resulted in demographic crises and significant economic loss for the population without avenues for accountability.
[GOVERNANCE-COMPARISON]: While democratic systems experience public unrest and legislative conflict, autocratic structures face risks from the isolation of absolute power and the suppression of civil dissent.
[HISTORICAL-PRECEDENT]: Long-term competition between liberal societies and autocratic technocracies often shows that absolute power eventually degrades a society's capacity and leads to authoritarian decadence.

The Russian refinery Berlin cannot afford to lose // Looming US sanctions risk cutting fuel supplies to German capital, prompting government to review Rosneft expropriation
Wednesday January 28^th, 2026 at 6:26 AM

FT summary

Energy chokepoint: Schwedt’s Rosneft-owned PCK refinery supplies 90% of Berlin and Brandenburg’s petrol, kerosene and heating fuel and faces shutdown risks when the US sanctions exemption expires on April 29.
Nationalisation prep: German officials are still negotiating an exemption with Washington while quietly restarting work on potential expropriation and a more permanent legal structure tied to EU sanctions.
Operational strain: Transitioning from low-cost Urals crude to pricier Kazakh and other supplies forced PCK to adapt its processing, raising costs and delaying investment such as the halted €400mn Rostock pipeline upgrade.
Local vulnerability: Schwedt’s economy was built around the refinery, and residents warn that a shutdown would prompt thousands of trucks to haul fuel nationwide, disrupting Berlin’s entire transport network.
Sanctions fallout: US sanctions on Rosneft since October have crippled the refinery, cutting banking access and forcing a six-month trusteeship renewal instead of share seizure for fear of Russian retaliation.
Investment vacuum: Global refinery firms are retreating from Germany amid low margins and rising EV adoption, leaving PCK with decaying infrastructure and dwindling cash reserves.
Political tensions: Left-wing politicians and unions decry the move away from Russian oil as reckless, while others caution that nationalisation could lead to legal battles and supply disruptions via the Druzhba pipeline.
Hope for peace: Despite the pressure, some local supporters still wish for a future resumption of Russian oil imports if a lasting peace deal is struck.

In a sprawl of concrete 100km north of Berlin, a Soviet-era refinery has become a hostage to Europe’s tangled geopolitics: Russia owns it, Germany runs it and US sanctions could soon shut it down — risking a fuel chokehold on the German capital.

Such is the precarious state of the Rosneft-owned PCK oil-processing plant in Schwedt — which supplies 90 per cent of the petrol, kerosene and heating fuel to Berlin, its airport and the surrounding state of Brandenburg.

With an April 29 deadline looming, when an American sanctions exemption expires, the government is in talks with the US administration to secure another reprieve. But early-stage work has also resumed on nationalisation as a measure of last resort, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

“The signs from the US are positive [about extending the exemption] but you never know with this administration,” said one of the people. “So expropriation is being looked at again.”

Time is of the essence: Tankers must be booked one to two months in advance and suppliers are seeking reassurances now that the refinery will honour its contracts.

Successive governments have so far avoided expropriation for fear of Russian retaliation. But the cabinet of Chancellor Friedrich Merz may be faced with no other choice.

A shutdown would mean “thousands of trucks that would need to shuttle from Bavaria and from across the country” to supply Berlin around the clock, said another person familiar with the matter.

The fate of a refinery sitting on the Druzhba (Friendship) oil pipeline underscores how, nearly four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Germany is still grappling with decades of reliance on Russian energy.

It also shows how the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration has forced a rethink in Berlin, where the government is now weighing measures once considered too radical.

In 2022, after Europe, the US and other allies imposed a price cap on Russian oil, the German government assumed control of PCK’s operations by placing it under trusteeship. But it did not seize the shares, which remain 54 per cent owned by Rosneft, partly because it feared Moscow would retaliate by nationalising German businesses in Russia, including retailer Metro, officials said.

Berlin has since rushed to seek alternatives to the Siberian crude that flowed for six decades through Russia’s 4,000km pipeline to Schwedt.

But in October, amid US-Russia talks on ending the war in Ukraine, Washington imposed sanctions on Rosneft and its assets in Europe, bringing the refinery to the brink of bankruptcy.

The US move was not co-ordinated with Berlin. Banks halted the refinery’s transactions and stopped processing salaries. The German government eventually secured a six-month reprieve from US authorities, arguing that the Russian oil group had no effective control of the plant.

Schwedt, population 33,000, enjoyed a postwar revival when the refinery was built in the 1960s, in what was then the Soviet-aligned German Democratic Republic.

“Every bus, every police car, every rescue service, every plane — all are running on PCK fuel,” said Annekathrin Hoppe, the town’s Social Democrat mayor. “This company must be able to continue to operate.”

If the refinery were forced to halt operations, some 3,000 trucks would need to shuttle continuously to avoid supply disruptions, said Konstanze Fischer, an ophthalmologist and founder of Zukunft Schwedt (Future Schwedt), a group of residents supporting the plant. “We’re a melting pot of problems,” she said.

Built as a symbol of the close relationship between East Germany and Moscow, the PCK plant continued to prosper after the collapse of the Soviet Union and German reunification.

The 2022 decision to place the refinery under the supervision of the country’s federal energy regulator was met with disbelief.

The pipeline was part of a “long tradition of friendship with Russia — the meaning of ‘druzhba’ in Russian”, said Michael Kellner, a Green MP who as junior minister was involved in the decision. “People were very proud of it.”

Reinhard Simon, a regional MP from the leftwing, Moscow-friendly Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), called the move to stop using Russian oil “irresponsible” and driven in part by the “demonisation of fossil fuels”.

“We have the feeling here that we are collateral damage,” Simon said.

Danny Ruthenberg, head of the refinery’s work council, added: “If you turn off the tap, then you should have turned on another one beforehand.”

Stabilising the refinery was difficult because it was integrated into Rosneft’s supply chain designed to process Urals crude. Supplies came at low cost and allowed PCK to pay 45 days after delivery, according to a person with knowledge of the operations.

Kazakhstan’s state oil company, KazMunayGas, which is now the main supplier, sells crude at a higher cost and demands advance payment, the person said. PCK was also forced to look for supplies from Polish and German ports, at greater expense, and to adapt its operations to different types of crude.

After dropping sharply, utilisation had recently been brought back above 85 per cent of capacity, Ruthenberg said.

The government is now planning to replace the current trusteeship, which needs to be renewed by the Bundestag every six months, with a more permanent legal arrangement by linking it to the EU sanctions regime. The move is designed to convince US authorities to grant another reprieve, short of expropriating Rosneft.

A spokesperson for the economy and energy ministry said expropriation was “not under discussion”. The ministry was in contact with US sanctions authorities “regarding approval beyond April 29”.

The plant’s unusual stewardship has scuppered large investments, such as a €400mn plan to upgrade a pipeline linking Schwedt to the port of Rostock or a project to produce green hydrogen.

“It’s simply not lucrative enough,” Ruthenberg said.

Rosneft did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The company previously said it was seeking to sell its stake. Qatar’s Investment Authority expressed interest in 2024 but withdrew after failing to agree on a price, according to people familiar with the talks.

Shell, another investor, which holds a 37.5 per cent stake in PCK, has also struggled to find buyers for its shares. Refinery insiders said KazMunayGas had also been sounded out to buy it.

“The best solution would be an oil company, with the knowhow and the money to steer the refinery into the future. But the global refinery players are all withdrawing from Germany,” Ruthenberg said, citing low margins and the increasing share of EVs.

As a result, the refinery is slowly decaying and burning through cash reserves. “You may have one more year to attempt a major transformation. After that things could get gloomy,” an insider said. The most likely outcome was a government bailout, they added.

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Expropriation would carry risks. Rosneft may dispute the level of financial compensation and challenge the decision in court. Moscow could also disrupt supplies of Kazakh crude transiting the Druzhba pipeline.

But Kellner, the former junior energy minister, said nationalisation would allow the German government to organise a sale, particularly if a peace deal were reached in Ukraine.

“My concern is that a US investor takes over,” he said, “and that the profit is shared between the US owners and the Russian suppliers, and the bill is paid by German car drivers.”

Yet, in Schwedt, residents are still hoping that Russian oil will flow again one day.

“We sincerely hope, for Ukraine but also a little selfishly for ourselves, that a peace deal is reached,” said Fischer from Future Schwedt. “When peace returns to a reasonable level, we will have to trade with Russia again.”

Additional reporting by Anastasia Stognei in Berlin

Cartography by Cleve Jones and Chris Campbell

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bogorad

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Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Michael Goodwin: Trump's stance on immigration key to de-escalating Minnesota
Wednesday January 28^th, 2026 at 4:31 AM

[Untitled]

DE-ESCALATION EFFORTS: President Trump is engaging in conciliatory outreach to state and local leaders to reduce tension and avoid violent confrontations in Minneapolis.
COOPERATIVE TACTICS: The administration is utilizing high-level representatives and leadership adjustments within ICE to address the combustible situation through diplomatic channels.
LEGAL MANDATE: Enforcement of federal immigration law remains a fundamental pillar of the administration's policy and a key commitment to its electoral base.
PREVIOUS FAILURES: Past administrative policies allowed upwards of 15 million unvetted migrants to enter the country, creating significant national security and social challenges.
INFILTRATION RISKS: The mass influx of migrants includes violent criminals, traffickers, and gang members, presenting a direct threat to the safety of American citizens.
ECONOMIC IMPACT: Significant public resources, including billions of dollars in municipal funds, have been diverted to support illegal arrivals at the expense of taxpayers.
SANCTUARY INTERFERENCE: Local refusal to honor ICE detainers and cooperate with federal authorities complicates the removal of criminal aliens and undermines the rule of law.
TARGETED HOSTILITY: Federal agents face increasing physical assaults and systemic harassment, fueled by radical rhetoric compare law enforcement to historical regimes.

Whether you call it a pivot, course correction or de-escalation, it is a hopeful sign that President Trump is trying to lower the temperature in Minneapolis.

His conciliatory phone calls to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey following the deaths of two protesters demonstrate a desire for cooperation instead of violent confrontation.

Similarly, by sending border czar Tom Homan to meet with Walz and making ICE leadership moves, the president is showing he realizes the current state of affairs is dangerously combustible.

At the same time, Trump’s willingness to compromise on tactics, tone and optics should not be misinterpreted as a surrender on principles.

If he did that, an important pillar of federal law enforcement power would be squandered and his presidency would be seriously damaged by a defection of supporters.

Trump’s pledge to enforce immigration law was a key component of his winning agenda in 2024 and offered a compelling contrast with his Dem opponents.

That distinction remains crucial because it lies at the heart of the Minneapolis mayhem, and offers a roadmap showing how we got to this dizzying moment, where so many people apparently believe immigration enforcement is optional and cruel.

Main problem is Joe’s

The main problem was and remains Joe Biden’s open border policy, which allowed upwards of as many as 15 million unvetted migrants to come to America in just four years.

Recall that he made his vice president, Kamala Harris, border czar, and she promptly disappeared without trying to make even modest improvements in the disastrous status quo.

That she continued to defend the administration’s approach after she replaced Biden on the ticket was among the mistakes that justifiably returned her to private life.

As with other problems of its own making, the Biden White House was shielded from the political consequences of its border actions by a legacy media that acted as a protection racket.

A chorus of outlets automatically declared anyone a bigot who dared to criticize the nonstop caravans of foreign newcomers and their potential impact on America.

3

Migrants continued to cross the Rio Grande River into the United States amid ongoing controversy over Texas law SB4. James Breeden/NY Post

Except for reports in The Post and a few other places, most media were silent about the fact that Biden’s team was secretly sending planes to Central America to pick up illegals and fly them unannounced into cities and states around the nation.

That was only one aspect of a tsunami that often played out in darkness because leftist outlets betrayed their responsibility to inform the public of what was happening.

Among the facts they found too inconvenient to report was that American citizens were being killed and otherwise victimized by illegal immigrants.

Just as they ignored Biden’s obvious physical and mental decline, they saw no reason for concern over the bloody consequences of an open border.

Reality of the border

Had the Biden White House and its media lapdogs been even half-awake and half-honest, they would have realized the vast numbers of people coming across the border were not limited to bedraggled souls merely seeking a better life.

Mixed among them were numerous violent criminals, drug and sex traffickers and gang members. Trump’s intense focus on several horrendous murders carried out by illegal crossers spotlighted outrages that most on the left simply ignored.

Just last November, the Trump White House announced that “450,000 unaccompanied children were illegally smuggled over the border and placed with unvetted sponsors under the Biden administration.”

3

Migrants break through the border fence and riot against members of the Texas National Guard near El Paso, Thursday, March 21, 2024. James Breeden for NY Post

The announcement was met mostly with silence from Dems, including the likes of AOC and others on the left who couch their support for illegal immigration as being good for women and children.

Part of their defense is the mindless repetition that America is a nation of immigrants.

Yes — but the Biden-Harris wave of newcomers was so vast that there is no comparison in our history.

For example, 12 million immigrants arrived legally in the United States between 1870 and 1900.

That first great wave of immigrants, mostly from Europe, was more easily absorbed over three decades in a vast country where the entire population in 1900 was about 75 million.

3

Migrants are seen waiting by the border fence in El Paso at Gate 31, hoping to be admitted into the United States. James Breeden for NY Post

This time, with a similar number ushered in over a mere four years, there is obviously a far greater burden in dollars, crime and social upheaval.

New York City alone spent more than $7 billion — and counting — to house, feed, care for and educate some 200,000 of Biden’s migrants.

That money is gone forever, and the vast majority of people and businesses whose taxes made that spending possible got zero benefit from it.

Additional concerns about the river of people allowed in still pile up: driver’s licenses are being granted in some states to people who cannot read road signs in English, and Dems in some cities want illegal aliens to be able to vote in local elections.

It doesn’t make you paranoid to believe they would also like them to vote in city, state and federal elections.

It’s relevant to the Minnesota situation to remember that nearly all Democrats in public office reflexively defended the open border, and most continue to protect illegal arrivals with declarations of sanctuary states and cities.

The refusal to cooperate with federal authorities is a point of pride in blue cities and states.

The Boston Globe reports that city officials there turned down every request from the feds to detain alien criminals eligible for deportation.

Honor ICE detainers

The aim of ICE-detainer requests is to stop inmate releases until the feds can take custody and begin the deportation process.

Once inmates are released, ICE officials are tasked with finding and seizing them again.

Any deal Trump makes with Walz must include a commitment to turn over criminal aliens for possible deportation.

That would mark a big change for Walz who, in demonizing ICE, talks and acts like a modern-day secessionist bellowing about states’ rights.

He has called ICE agents “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo,” and compared the conditions facing immigrant children in Minneapolis to those Anne Frank faced during the Holocaust.

The disgraceful comparison is par for the radical left, which has been calling Trump Hitler and a fascist for years.

Their language has consequences, with rioters across the country attacking ICE agents and, in Minneapolis, storming and trashing their hotel.

Assaults and threats

Homeland Security says its enforcement efforts have led to staggering increases in assaults, threats and incitement against federal agents.

The rabid atmosphere includes examples of restaurants and hotels refusing to serve federal agents.

Most appalling, some doctors and nurses have reportedly refused to treat agents injured while trying to enforce the law.

On Tuesday, Virginia Commonwealth University told Fox News it has suspended a nurse who made three social media videos urging colleagues to inject any federal agents they treat with an anesthetic that causes muscle paralysis for up to six minutes.

If this isn’t an insurrection, what is it?

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Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

The New Bipolar World of AI - WSJ Thursday January 29th, 2026 at 3:42 PM

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Wednesday January 28^th, 2026 at 4:31 AM