Planners of the royal’s visit to the White House reportedly want to avoid potentially “humiliating” incidents
UK officials have pushed to bar journalists from a meeting between King Charles III and US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, out of concern over potentially embarrassing incidents, The Guardian reported on Tuesday, citing people involved in planning the monarch’s trip to Washington.
According to the newspaper, the White House agreed that any meeting between the two leaders should be held off camera to avoid what it described as “potential humiliation.” Trump and Charles would pose for photographs but would not be filmed “talking about anything substantive.”
UK officials reportedly wanted to avoid a repeat of a “Zelensky-style clash,” referring to the infamous White House meeting between Trump and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in February 2025, which ended in a shouting match in front of the press.
Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance publicly berated Zelensky, accusing him of being ungrateful for the aid his country had received under the previous US administration. Relations between Trump and Zelensky were eventually repaired after several European leaders reportedly advised Zelensky on how to handle himself with the president.
King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived in the US on Tuesday and posed for photographs with President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.
President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump welcome King Charles III and Queen Camilla of the U.K. at the South Portico of the White House | Monday, April 27, 2026. pic.twitter.com/eLrNqpwN0D
— Office of the First Lady (@FirstLadyOffice) April 27, 2026
The visit comes two days after a gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC. The suspect, identified as Cole Thomas Allen, allegedly tried to rush toward the ballroom where Trump was seated but was tackled by Secret Service agents.
Moscow says no outside pressure can sway its foreign policy
Russia has expanded sanctions on European officials involved in arming Ukraine, after the EU adopted its 20th package of sanctions against Moscow.
In a statement on Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry argued that the restrictions rolled out last week by Brussels “grossly violate international law.”
“In response to the EU’s unlawful decisions, the Russian side has significantly expanded the list of representatives of EU institutions, EU member states, and a number of European countries aligning themselves with Brussels’ anti-Russian policy,” the ministry said.
Without revealing any names or nationalities, the ministry said the blacklist includes officials involved in decision-making on military aid to Ukraine, the introduction of sanctions on Russia, the prosecution of Russian nationals “under far-fetched pretexts,” and “causing damage to Russia’s relations with third countries.” The ministry added that it had also targeted “hostile” activists and academics.
“Brussels’ destructive policy is incapable of swaying our country’s foreign policy. Russia has been and remains committed to defending its national interests,” the ministry said.
On Thursday, the EU announced additional restrictions on Russia’s financial sector and energy exports, targeting the so-called “shadow fleet” allegedly used to bypass sanctions on Russian oil trade. Russia has denied operating such a fleet and denounced the seizure of tankers by the US and European states as acts of piracy.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters last week that although the sanctions have had an overall “negative impact” on the Russian economy, the country has “gained significant experience in minimizing their effects.”
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Kiev had not provided evidence that the Jewish state was buying “stolen” grain from Russia
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has rebuked his Ukrainian counterpart on social media, saying Kiev has not provided evidence that Israel was buying “stolen” grain from Russia.
On Monday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga condemned Israel for what he described as facilitating Russia’s “illegal trade in stolen Ukrainian grain.” Ukrainian media earlier reported that the cargo vessel Panormitis, carrying grain from Russia’s new regions, was approaching the Israeli port of Haifa.
“It is difficult to understand Israel’s lack of an appropriate response to Ukraine’s legitimate request regarding the previous vessel that delivered stolen goods to Haifa,” Sibiga wrote on X, adding that the Israeli ambassador had been summoned to the ministry on Tuesday morning.
In a rebuke to Sibiga, Saar wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “diplomatic relations, especially between friendly nations, are not conducted on Twitter or in the media.”
“Allegations are not evidence. Evidence substantiating the allegations has yet to be provided. You did not even submit a request for legal assistance before turning to the media and social networks,” Saar wrote, adding that the matter would be examined by Israeli authorities.
Relations between the countries remain tense, as Ukraine has criticized Israel for not imposing sanctions on Russia or cutting ties with Moscow. Reuters, citing a Ukrainian diplomatic source, reported that Kiev would “reserve the right to deploy a full suite of diplomatic and international legal responses” if the ship is allowed to dock in Israel.
Ukraine considers five regions, including Kherson and Zaporozhye, which joined Russia following referendums in 2022, to be occupied territory. Russia has insisted that, for a lasting peace settlement, Ukraine must recognize its new borders.
Investigators are pressuring the detainees to admit guilt despite a lack of evidence, their lawyer has told RT
Three Russian citizens are being held in a detention center in Armenia on accusations of spying for Azerbaijan, even though investigators have failed to present any proof of wrongdoing, their lawyer has told RT.
The young men are former residents of a Moscow orphanage. Two were detained in June 2024 while filming historical and cultural sites in Armenia, while the third was arrested a month later after traveling there to find out why his friends were being held.
According to their lawyers, they were working on a documentary about areas in Armenia that previously belonged to Azerbaijan, filming Muslim cemeteries, mosques and other public sites.
“The prosecution has not presented a single concrete piece of evidence to suggest that the photographs or video footage taken contain any information that could be used to undermine the sovereignty, territorial integrity or external security of the Republic of Armenia,” lawyer Narine Rshtuni told RT.
An eventual peace deal with Russia will require concessions by Kiev, the German chancellor has suggested
Ukraine may have to accept territorial losses in a future peace deal with Russia to keep its EU membership hopes alive, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday.
Moscow has maintained that for a lasting peace, Kiev must pull its soldiers from the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye, as well as recognize Russia’s new territories, including Crimea. All of the regions overwhelmingly voted to join the Russian Federation from 2014 to 2022.
“Hopefully, there will eventually be a peace treaty with Russia. Then, possibly, part of Ukraine’s territory will no longer be Ukrainian,” Merz said during a speech in Marsberg, as cited by the DPA.
For Vladimir Zelensky to push through a referendum for such a decision, he could tell Ukrainians: “I have opened the path to Europe for you,” he said.
Merz added that the EU could then initiate steps for Kiev’s accession, but warned that Zelensky’s timelines for membership are too optimistic.
“Zelensky had the idea of joining the EU on January 1, 2027. This will not work. Even January 1, 2028 is unrealistic,” the German chancellor said.
Zelensky has for months demanded that Brussels give Ukraine a “clear date” for joining the EU. He has also consistently rejected accepting territorial losses.
However, the economic bloc’s accession criteria demand that prospective members have no unresolved border disputes with their neighbors.
Moscow has repeatedly stressed that any stable peace must include the withdrawal of any Ukrainian troops from the parts of Donbass still under Kiev’s control. Moscow has also said it does not oppose Ukraine joining the EU, but has criticized what Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described as its metamorphosis into an “aggressive military-political bloc.”
Ukraine’s power appears to be shifting behind the scenes
Almost six months have passed since ‘Mindichgate’ erupted in Ukraine. The corruption scandal, which allegedly implicated large parts of the ruling elite, became the most serious political test of Vladimir Zelensky’s presidency and, for a time, threatened to bring it to an abrupt end.
To stabilize his position, Zelensky was forced into concessions. His long-time ally Andrey Yermak was removed, and in his place came Kirill Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), a figure widely seen as a moderate critic of the president. The cabinet was also reshuffled, with new figures brought in to broaden the coalition. In return, anti-corruption bodies such as NABU and SAPO eased their pressure on the president.
The immediate crisis has subsided. But the structure of power in Ukraine has shifted significantly. The clearest sign of this transformation is the rise of Budanov.
Initially, the new head of the presidential office kept a low public profile. Over time, however, he has grown more confident, and more visible. Throughout April, Budanov appeared to walk a careful line in his public statements, often striking a tone at odds with Zelensky himself.
While the president has prepared the country for a prolonged conflict, Budanov has spoken of ongoing negotiations and suggested that peace may not be as distant as many assume. When Zelensky highlighted Ukraine’s technological breakthroughs, Budanov has downplayed them. He has also openly acknowledged the growing difficulties of mobilization, a rare admission from a senior official in a country at war.
At the same time, Budanov has been carefully constructing his public image. In Western media, he is presented as both a war hero and a pragmatic “dove,” a man who understands the need to bring the conflict to an end. For domestic audiences, his team promotes stories of personal bravery, portraying him as a hands-on commander who has taken part in operations and narrowly escaped danger.
The result is a carefully balanced political persona, and one that increasingly resembles that of a future president.
Budanov’s ambitions are hardly a secret in Kiev. His approval ratings reportedly rival those of Valeriy Zaluzhny, once seen as Zelensky’s most serious potential rival. Unlike Zaluzhny, however, Budanov remains firmly embedded within the system. He is said to have cultivated connections abroad, including with figures in Donald Trump’s political orbit, while at home he enjoys support among influential members of the ruling Servant of the People party.
For Zelensky, bringing Budanov into the inner circle may have seemed a logical move. Where Zaluzhny was sidelined and sent abroad, Budanov was co-opted in an application of the old principle: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. In theory, this should allow the president to monitor potential dissent within the elite.
In practice, it has created a new risk. By elevating Budanov to the centre of power, Zelensky has given him both visibility and institutional leverage. The head of the presidential office is no longer a background figure but a key political actor, one capable of shaping narratives and, potentially, alliances.
The fault line may emerge over the question of negotiations with Russia. As the conflict drags on and the situation at the front becomes more difficult, a growing segment of the Ukrainian elite appears to favor some form of compromise. This sentiment increasingly clashes with Zelensky’s public stance.
History offers many examples of how such tensions can unfold. When a leadership persists in a course that significant parts of the elite consider untenable, pressure builds. Initially, this may take the form of calls for a change in direction. But in more acute cases, it can lead to demands for the leader himself to step aside, or to more drastic outcomes. This is what is often described as a ‘palace coup.’
Until recently, such a scenario in Ukraine seemed unlikely. There was no obvious figure capable of uniting the disparate factions and presenting a credible alternative. Zaluzhny, for all his popularity, has withdrawn from the political arena.
Budanov, however, may fit the role. He’s ambitious and not entirely controllable, and he’s positioning himself as a bridge between different camps, particularly those who see the need for a negotiated end to the conflict. In that sense, he could become a focal point for elite dissatisfaction.
The question, then, is no longer whether internal tensions will intensify, but how far they may go, and how quickly.
For Russia, the outcome may matter less than the process. Whether Zelensky, Budanov, or another figure occupies the presidential office, Kiev’s political class remains broadly hostile to Moscow. From a pragmatic standpoint, the key issue is policy and personalities are a secondary concern.
If a future leadership, whether by design or necessity, proves more willing to bring the conflict to an end on terms acceptable to Russia, then that, ultimately, will be the decisive factor.
This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team
Estonia’s Alar Karis has reportedly proposed appointing an EU envoy to Moscow to prepare for the end of the Ukraine conflict
Estonian President Alar Karis has said the EU should be prepared for talks with Russia in case the Ukraine conflict ends suddenly, media outlets have reported.
The remarks, made in an interview with the Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat and published on Monday, come after four years during which the EU has refused to engage in dialogue with Moscow.
The Estonian president also dismissed claims that Russia could attack the Baltic state, arguing that they are driven by those seeking to harm Estonia or by outsiders projecting their own insecurity. “Perhaps they themselves are afraid of becoming potential targets,” he suggested.
“Are we ready if the war ends today or tomorrow?” Karis said, adding that the EU should appoint a special envoy to reopen diplomatic channels with Russia.
“Preparations should already be under way,” he said, arguing that in any future talks major powers in the bloc should not make decisions over the heads of smaller members. Since Estonia and Finland have “jointly invested in Ukraine,” they “must have the opportunity to have a say,” Karis insisted.
Estonia, a NATO and EU member bordering Russia, has been a staunch supporter of Kiev since the escalation of the conflict in 2022.
Last week, the European Commission announced that the bloc had formally approved a €90 billion ($105 billion) emergency loan for Ukraine for 2026-2027, backed by joint EU borrowing. The controversial measure, which had been the focus of a months-long standoff with Hungary, was approved shortly after Budapest lifted its veto, following the election win of pro-EU politician Peter Magyar.
The idea of resuming dialogue with Russia has been discouraged by senior EU officials, particularly top diplomat Kaja Kallas, herself Estonian, who has urged Europeans not to pursue direct re-engagement with the Kremlin and has demanded that Moscow make concessions first. Russian officials have accused Kiev’s European backers of hindering US-led peace efforts and of increasingly preparing for a direct confrontation with Russia.
Moscow has consistently dismissed Western claims that it poses a threat, calling them “nonsense” and “fearmongering” used to justify rising military spending, including the EU’s €800 billion “ReArm Europe” plan and NATO members’ pledge to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that although Moscow has no hostile intent, if European nations “prepare to attack Russia,” it would respond with “all available means.”
Cole Allen allegedly breached security at a presidential press event on Saturday while armed with a shotgun and pistol
The armed suspect who allegedly tried to storm past security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday has been charged with the attempted assassination of US President Donald Trump.
Cole Allen, 31, a teacher from California, was allegedly armed with a 12 gauge pump action shotgun, a .38-caliber semi-automatic pistol and three knives when he was arrested after his attempt to rush the high-end event on Saturday, Assistant US Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine told a federal court in Washington on Monday.
Federal prosecutors have charged Allen with attempted assassination of the president, interstate transportation of weapons, and discharge of a firearm during a violent crime.
The suspect did not have to enter a plea at this time.
US Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh ordered detention for Allen while the case moves forward. The next hearing is scheduled for Thursday, when it will be determined whether he is eligible for pretrial release.
Despite charging Allen with attempting to assassinate the president, US Attorney General Todd Blanche made it clear that the suspect had no chance to get to Trump.
“This man was a floor above the ballroom, with hundreds of federal agents between him and the president of the US,” he said in a press conference after the court hearing.
When asked whether the investigation has determined who shot a Secret Service agent during Allen’s alleged assassination attempt, Blanche declined to answer directly, stressing that the evidence is still being studied.
“It appears… that there were five shots that law enforcement fired,” he said. “We believe, as the complaint lays out, that the defendant fired the shotgun… But as far as getting into exacting ballistics, I’m not going to do that today.”
In a manifesto Allen purportedly wrote, first published by the New York Post, the suspect said he was aiming to kill administration officials, with the “highest-ranking” target being Trump, whom he called “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor.”
The authorities in Saxony reportedly deem supporters of the right-wing party too “unreliable” to own firearms
The German state of Saxony has been revoking and denying firearms licenses to members and supporters of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party under a secret decree, Berliner Zeitung has claimed.
Saxony’s Interior Ministry confirmed the existence of the measure, issued last July, but declined to publish it, describing it as an “internal document,” the outlet reported on Sunday.
An opinion poll earlier this month suggests the party would prevail with 27% of the vote if elections were held now. The AfD has campaigned on an anti-immigration platform and opposed Berlin’s sanctions on Russia and support for Ukraine.
The party’s Saxony branch was designated a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization in December 2023 by regional intelligence authorities, which serves as the basis for the decree. The party challenged the designation, but in January 2025 a higher court rejected the appeal. The issue reached the national level last May, when Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) applied the same label to the AfD as a whole.
The opening paragraph of the document states that “the reliability of members and supporters [of AfD] under weapons law must be reviewed,” applying a presumption that they may be deemed unfit to hold firearms.
The decree effectively reverses the burden of proof, requiring AfD members and supporters to demonstrate their reliability under firearms law. According to the document cited by the outlet, simply having no criminal record is insufficient, with individuals expected to show clear distancing from the party’s positions.
The decree has prompted a parliamentary inquiry led by independent Saxony lawmaker Matthias Berger, who is seeking details on how many firearms licenses have been revoked, how often decisions were based solely on political “support” for a party, and how broadly the directive is being applied in practice.
“It cannot be that people who go to an AfD event out of political interest, sit there twice, and then have to expect that their firearms license will be revoked,” Berger told the publication.
The story of the operators, firefighters, evacuees, and survivors caught in the world’s worst nuclear disaster
The dosimeters went off scale. A huge plume of smoke from the explosion shot a kilometer into the sky, and tons of nuclear fuel and graphite were scattered around the nuclear power plant. The shocked operators of the Chernobyl NPP could only watch in horror as the worst radiation disaster in history unfolded. Yet just a couple of hours earlier, no one could have imagined such a catastrophe.
The Soviet Union was a pioneer in nuclear energy. In 1954, the world’s first nuclear power plant became operational in Obninsk. Enthusiasm soared as new plants were rapidly built across the country. By the late 1970s, as part of an extensive construction program, yet another NPP was built on the banks of Pripyat River near the city of Chernobyl. A city named after the river quickly sprang up around the plant. Pripyat was a clean, well-kept city surrounded by nature. It had a population of 50,000 people – primarily the nuclear power plant’s personnel and their families. The NPP itself, with its combination of cutting-edge technology and industrial achievement, embodied the utopia of the late Soviet era. Nuclear power plants were at the height of popularity at the time; nuclear energy was seen as the simplest, most reliable, and safest way to access unprecedented amounts of energy.
The area’s geographical features played a major role when disaster struck. The area was sparsely populated, and there were no major cities nearby – most of the people affected lived in Pripyat itself. However, the long Pripyat River, with many streams and creeks flowing into it, and the area’s wet soil allowed groundwater to carry radioactive particles far from the explosion’s epicenter.
Even in those years, there was an understanding that unforeseen incidents could occur at nuclear power plants. In 1979, a serious accident happened at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania. The reactor core suffered damage, forcing the temporary evacuation of around 200,000 people. Fortunately, there were no fatalities. The incident at Three Mile Island remained largely an economic issue.
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant consisted of four RBMK-type reactors. To understand what happened there, we need to say a few words about them. The reactor core was a seven-meter-high cylinder filled with nuclear fuel and graphite. A constant nuclear reaction occurred there, heating the fuel rods. Water was continuously pumped into the core through special circulation pumps, where it boiled and turned into steam. The steam drove the turbines, converting thermal energy into electricity. The introduction of cold water also prevented the fuel rods from overheating. After passing through the generator, the steam went to a condenser, cooled down, turned back into water, and was then recirculated in the core.
211 control rods made of neutron-absorbing material were used to regulate the reactor’s power output. These rods were inserted and removed through special channels in the reactor core; the deeper they were inserted, the lower the reactor’s power output. If all the rods were fully inserted, the reactor would shut down; if all were removed, it would accelerate uncontrollably. At least 30 rods always had to be in place for safety reasons. This system was quite reliable when all safety regulations were observed.
The night of fire
On April 25, 1986, an experiment was scheduled at Reactor no. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Operators planned to shut down equipment – including the pumps supplying water to the reactor core – to see how long the turbine could continue generating power through inertia alone. The goal was to calculate the time available for operators to switch to backup power sources.
The problem was that conducting these tests required disabling a significant portion of the plant’s automation, including the emergency cooling pump system.
At midnight on April 26, the operators working on shift were: Shift supervisor Alexander Akimov, reactor control engineer Leonid Toptunov, and Anatoly Dyatlov, the deputy chief engineer responsible for the experiment. The operators planned to start the experiment at 1:00 AM. However, just before 1:30 AM, the first unexpected issue arose. Due to the shutdown of the automatic control system, they were unable to smoothly reduce the reactor’s power. Instead, it plummeted far beyond what was intended. This drop led to ‘reactor poisoning’ from decay products – xenon and iodine – which didn’t allow power to be restored to normal levels. Then, the operators made a questionable decision: They removed the safety control rods that limited the reactor’s power output. As power stabilized, Dyatlov ordered the experiment to proceed, despite Akimov and Toptunov’s growing doubts. Meanwhile, none of them realized that the situation was already spiraling out of control and that the emergency cooling system had to be immediately activated.
The water and steam levels in the reactor became unbalanced, but the personnel managed to address the issue. However, the pressure spikes in the water system – critical for energy generation and reactor cooling – were not just warning bells but major alarm signals. The pumps gradually slowed down. The reactor temperature rose, but there was not a single control rod left in the reactor core, and the operators completely lost control of the situation.
At that moment, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was already on the brink of catastrophe.
To this day, no one knows exactly what happened at around 1:23 AM. What is undeniable is that the reactor core overheated uncontrollably. Realizing things had gone out of control, the operators attempted to insert all control rods back, essentially trying to shut the reactor down. The rods were lowered but stopped short after only two meters (out of the seven needed) as the overheating caused the deformation of the technological channels. Akimov rushed to the control panel and disabled the servo-drive mechanisms, hoping that the rods would fall into the core under their own weight. There was nothing else he could do – all systems that could have assisted with emergency cooling had been manually disabled by the operators themselves.
According to one theory, this decision was the final nail in the coffin. The graphite tips of the rods didn’t slow down the reaction; they accelerated it. This effect should have been instantly countered by the main body of the rods, but the simultaneous lowering of 211 graphite tips caused a rapid increase in pressure. This is just one explanation, but regardless, the rods became jammed in the overheated and deformed channels. A chain reaction occurred. The sudden surge in pressure (rising by 15 atm per second) caused the pump valves to slam shut, cutting off all water supply to the reactor. Then, the reactor’s water system ruptured from within. A variety of tumultuous chemical reactions unfolded in the reactor core, causing an explosive mixture to brew in just 18 seconds.
And then it detonated.
The 130-ton separator drums flew off their mounts, the 500-ton reactor roof blew off, and nuclear fuel shot into the atmosphere, with graphite scattering across the station and igniting. At that moment, Akimov exclaimed:
“What the hell? We did everything right!”
Around 50 tons of nuclear fuel were released into the air, and another 70 tons settled in the area around the station. The amount of radioactive material that escaped was equivalent to ten Hiroshima bombings, while 800 tons of graphite continued to burn inside the reactor. One member of the shift died on the spot, and another passed away a few hours later. The reactor staff could only guess at the radiation levels around them since the dosimeters read ‘off scale’. The country faced an unprecedented nuclear disaster, and thousands of people were about to confront unimaginable challenges.
At 1:30 AM, Major Leonid Telyatnikov, the head of the Chernobyl fire brigade, was awakened by a sudden phone call. Minutes later, fire trucks raced toward the nuclear plant.
Cold blue lights flickered in the darkness – those were the burning ruins of Reactor No. 4. Firefighters clad in their usual attire climbed onto what remained of the station’s roof. They worked at heights of dozens of meters amid thick smoke. Telyatnikov himself twice climbed to the roof of the turbine hall and the reactor section, 70 meters above the burning abyss.
The firefighters managed to contain the blaze and prevent it from spreading. Fortunately, Yury Bagdasarov, the shift supervisor of the neighboring reactor, acted swiftly and decisively, shutting down his reactor and instructing his crew to don respirators and take potassium iodide – thereby saving many lives. While firefighters were extinguishing the fire in Reactor No. 3, those working in Reactor No. 4 started collapsing from acute radiation sickness. The bodies of these first responders were almost completely destroyed. Radiation sickness kills slowly and painfully; many of Telyatnikov’s subordinates died three weeks later. Among the first to die were fire service lieutenants Vladimir Pravik and Viktor Kibenok, both just 23 years old. The doctor said:
“They needed new bodies; nothing of the old ones remained.”
Major Telyatnikov himself died 18 years later from cancer caused by radiation exposure. The personnel at the station also suffered fatal doses of radiation: Shift supervisor Akimov and his assistant, Toptunov, died within weeks, while Dyatlov passed away several years later.
On April 27, the evacuation of Pripyat and the 30-kilometer area around it began. To transport the people, the authorities mobilized 1,225 buses and 360 trucks. The government ordered residents to leave their belongings behind; their possessions were contaminated with radiation, and there wasn’t enough transport to evacuate 100,000 people with their belongings. One of the tough moral decisions in those first days was the order to leave animals behind. Their fur had absorbed radiation, making it dangerous to take them along. Stray dogs left behind in the area began attacking cats and then attempted to attack people. A special team was sent to hunt down and shoot the poor animals. Soldiers were also deployed to catch looters.
Some residents resisted evacuation. One man tried to flee in a car packed with contaminated items. The military forced him out of the vehicle and ran over the car and its contents with an armored personnel carrier. Initially, evacuees were taken to a village 50 kilometers from the plant, where they dispersed across Ukraine, many on foot. Military helicopters buzzed overhead. That was the end of Pripyat – the city of dreams, and the beginning of its history as a ghost town.
Equipment for the clean-up operation was gathered from all over the country. The cleanup crews needed engineering machinery, earth-moving equipment, and helicopters. The latter played a crucial role in mitigating the aftermath of the catastrophe. From the sky, the NPP was bombarded with a mixture of boron carbide to absorb neutrons, dolomite to capture thermal energy, sand, and clay to slow the spread of radioactive particles. Helicopters buzzed over the columns of departing refugees.
At first, the helicopters dropped their loads directly onto the NPP, hovering above it. However, pilots received lethal radiation doses, and it was decided to drop the cargo rapidly, without stopping.
On the ground, clean-up work continued. Initially, volunteers showed up at the disaster response headquarters, but most of the work was done by soldiers. Armed with only rudimentary protective gear, they undertook an immense amount of labor. They needed to entomb the destroyed reactor under a concrete sarcophagus, establish a drainage system for the river, and decontaminate Pripyat and its surroundings. Furthermore, it was necessary to isolate the NPP underground to prevent radioactive leaks into the soil, which could then contaminate Pripyat and Dnieper rivers.
People working around the plant continued to receive high doses of radiation and accidents occurred during cleanup operations. However, within seven months, considerable progress was achieved. Toxic substances ceased to spread beyond a relatively broad, yet sparsely populated area. Over 206 days, a concrete sarcophagus, officially called Shelter Object, was constructed over Reactor No. 4. The other reactors were decontaminated as well. Concrete walls were built around the reactor, followed by a 12-meter cascade wall. In addition to concrete walls, a ventilation system and a comprehensive monitoring system were installed. During construction, another tragedy occurred when a helicopter, snagged by a crane cable, crashed, killing the crew. Finally, the work was done and the destroyed reactor was enclosed in a sarcophagus.
While almost all people left the Chernobyl exclusion zone, it has never been truly deserted. With the absence of humans, wildlife flourished. In the first year after the evacuation, mouse populations around Pripyat surged as the rodents feasted on abandoned grain fields. The cooling pond of the reactor became home to massive catfish. A small research center was even established in the Zone for scientific studies. Various animals were brought there, including some species that had never lived in the area before. The forests became populated with boars, elk, and deer.
In a way, the Chernobyl zone transformed into a sanctuary, filled with lynxes, bears, and even Przewalski’s horses, which had been brought there as part of an experiment. For a time, the few people who remained in the zone and the animals were troubled by an overpopulation of wolves. However, rangers quickly reduced their numbers, leaving behind a grim reminder – a wolf’s head with its jaws wide open placed on the radiator of a ranger’s vehicle. Interestingly, the horses played a role in culling the wolves, as rangers often witnessed herds charging at the predators. A pack of wild dogs also settled in the area; initially, they guarded the perimeter of the nearby research facility, but eventually adapted to life in the wild by hunting and even fishing in the technological channels of the abandoned plant.
Officially, only workers from the exclusion zone remained in the area. However, some people known as ‘samosely’ (self-settlers) settled in the nearby forests. These are mostly elderly residents who returned to their homes. Out of 70,000-100,000 evacuees, around 1,200 returned to their former homes. They managed to avoid the most contaminated areas and did not succumb to radiation. Attempts by the police to evict them proved futile, as they stubbornly returned to the area.
Most of these individuals engage in farming to sustain themselves. They learned to navigate the area, identifying places less affected by contamination. Being quite poor and living around 50 kilometers from the nearest inhabited town, they scavenge building materials from the abandoned cities of Chernobyl and Pripyat. Some settled in the abandoned cities, but most built huts in the surrounding forests. Most of the samosely are elderly people.
The area is patrolled by police, including mounted units. They regularly conduct raids to catch illegal tourists, but they aren’t just looking for ‘stalkers’ in the zone. Poachers, scrap metal hunters, and escaped criminals are far more dangerous. Murders are a frequent occurrence. Moreover, both poachers and self-settlers hunt using firearms and set traps and snares. There are also areas of significant radioactive contamination. Not all parts of the zone are equally dangerous, but traveling through it without knowledge of the area can take a major toll on one’s health.
After the Chernobyl disaster, the government launched an investigation into the causes. Decisions made by the staff, the reactor’s design, and the events of that fateful night on April 26 became subjects of several official inquiries and numerous unofficial discussions. Initially, nearly 100% of the blame for the accident was attributed to human error.
The director of the Chernobyl NPP, Viktor Bryukhanov, Anatoly Dyatlov, and chief engineer Viktor Fomin, along with several others, faced trial for their roles in the disaster. Although none served their full sentences, the psychological impact of the events haunted them all. Dyatlov spent the rest of his life trying to justify his actions and comprehend what went wrong that fateful night, while Fomin ended up in a psychiatric hospital.
However, later investigations significantly shifted the narrative surrounding the incident. Many of the operators’ decisions, initially viewed as criminal, were found to have been made in strict accordance with protocols. Lessons were learned from the catastrophe, prompting humanity to revise its approaches to radiation safety, nuclear power plant operations, responses to technological disasters, and treatment for radiation sickness – all at a tragic cost. The immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster resulted in fewer than 30 direct fatalities, but the effects of radiation exposure lingered for decades. Statistically, cleanup workers and evacuees were 20% more likely to develop cancer, suggesting that anywhere from several thousand to tens of thousands of people might have died of radiation-related illnesses. The challenge lies in the fact that this is an impersonal statistic; it was often impossible to determine whether a cleanup worker died from natural causes or as a consequence of radiation exposure. Yet, there is no doubt that the Chernobyl disaster claimed and shattered countless lives.
The Chernobyl exclusion zone became a destination for extreme tourists. The ruins of Pripyat, preserved in their original state since the 1980s, the old Soviet radar systems, and abandoned radioactive vehicles attracted travelers. However, nature and time played their role in destroying these last remnants of Soviet civilization. Tragically, the number of ruins and abandoned towns in Ukraine has grown due to the ongoing conflict with Russia. In 2022, the exclusion zone briefly became a battleground between Russian and Ukrainian forces. Fortunately, both sides managed to avoid prolonged and intense fighting near the site of the old reactor… but leaving behind these old ruins, the army marched toward new ones.
The incident has prompted a safety warning from the IAEA
A Ukrainian drone strike has killed an employee at Russia’s Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), the facility’s press service said in a statement on Monday.
Ukrainian forces have repeatedly attacked Europe’s largest nuclear facility since it came under Russian control in 2022, soon after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict.
“Today, a driver was killed as a result of a strike by a Ukrainian Armed Forces drone on the transport shop floor of the ZNPP,” the facility said in a statement, adding that it was extending condolences to the family of the deceased.
“Nuclear industry employees should not be targets. Any attack on the ZNPP is a threat not only to people but also to security in general,” it added.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has condemned the incident.
“Director General Rafael Grossi reiterates that strikes on or near NPPs can endanger nuclear safety and must not take place,” the agency wrote in a post on X. “The IAEA’s team on the site will look into the incident and continue to monitor the situation.”
The attack came a day after Grossi visited Kiev for talks with Vladimir Zelensky, during which the Ukrainian leader urged the IAEA to pressure Russia to hand over control of the plant to Kiev.
Ukraine has repeatedly tried to interject proposals for changing the plant’s ownership into US-mediated peace talks with Russia. US President Donald Trump has also floated a number of ideas for joint control of the facility.
Moscow has firmly rejected the idea of handing over the power plant.
“Joint operation of the ZNPP with any other state is also unacceptable,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement last month. Even giving Ukrainian or NATO representatives temporary access to the facility is “impossible,” given the close cooperation between their intelligence services and “significant sabotage potential,” it said.
Around 66% of respondents believe migrants should only receive full benefits after working for an extended period
Two-thirds of Germans want to see migrants’ access to social benefits restricted, a poll commissioned by public broadcaster WDR has found.
Around 66% of respondents said migrants should only receive full benefits after working in Germany for an extended period, the outlet reported on Monday. The survey, conducted by Infratest dimap research institute earlier this month, interviewed 2,084 people aged 16 and over across the country.
Germany hosts the largest migrant population in the EU; 15% of its residents are foreign nationals born abroad, according to official statistics, and around 70% of the migrants are employed.
Foreign nationals account for 47% of recipients of ‘Burgergeld’, Germany’s main welfare scheme for people unable to support themselves through work, which pays around €563 per month plus housing and utilities. WDR noted that eligibility rules vary depending on the person’s origin and the type of benefit.
The issue is particularly visible in the case of Ukrainians, the second-largest migrant group in Germany after Turks, numbering around 1.41 million as of late 2025. Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Berlin granted Ukrainians immediate access to Burgergeld, a faster and more generous pathway than for most other refugee groups.
The employment rate among working-age Ukrainians is around 34%, though the number has been steadily increasing since 2022.
By contrast, Syrians, another major non-EU group, numbering about 936,000, initially receive asylum-seeker benefits before transitioning to full welfare after their asylum applications are approved. The employment rate among Syrians is around 42-47% overall, rising to 60% among those who arrived in 2015 and 2016.
In November, Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the figure “unacceptably low” and began tightening the system. Faced with high expenses associated with migrant support, his government cut benefits for new arrivals to around €441 per month, aligning them with asylum-seeker benefits, and introduced stricter job-seeking rules. Last month, the Bundestag also approved a broader reform replacing Burgergeld with a new ‘basic income support’ system that keeps payments roughly the same but adds tougher sanctions, set to take effect in July.
A recently seized ship was carrying raw materials for dialysis treatment, according to the IRCS
The US seizure of a cargo vessel bound for Iran has put patients’ lives at risk, as it was carrying essential medical supplies, a senior Iranian Red Crescent (IRCS) official has told RT.
The US Central Command has reported forcing 38 ships to redirect and seizing several tankers and cargo vessels.
According to Razieh Alishvandi, Director for International Affairs at the IRCS, the Iranian-flagged vessel Touska, which was seized by the US Navy on April 19, was transporting eight containers of raw materials for a company linked to the organization.
“Part of this ship’s cargo consisted of raw materials for consumables used in dialysis filters,” she told RT on Monday. “This obviously puts patients’ lives at risk, because without those raw materials human lives are in danger.”
The US blockade of Iranian ports is part of Washington’s broader pressure campaign against Tehran following more than a month of US-Israeli airstrikes aimed at toppling the Iranian government. In response, Tehran has launched attacks on US military positions in the region and imposed restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman.
The head of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union, Markus Soder, has criticized Berlin’s plan to only use volunteers to expand the armed forces
Germany should reintroduce compulsory military service in order to increase the size of its armed forces, Markus Soder, the leader of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU), has said.
Berlin has sparked nationwide protests after introducing a voluntary service model, effective from January 1. Critics warn it could pave the way for restoring conscription, which was suspended in 2011 under then Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“For us it’s clear: if the Bundeswehr is to become Europe’s largest army, military service is unavoidable,” Soder told Bild in an interview on Sunday.
“With volunteers alone we won’t achieve the necessary security our country needs,” the leader of the SCU, which is part of Chancellor Freidrich Merz’s ruling coaliton, said, insisting that compulsory military service “needs to come as soon as possible.”
Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Germany has ramped up recruitment, aiming to grow the Bundeswehr from about 186,000 troops to 260,000, plus 200,000 reservists by the mid-2030s, citing an alleged “Russian threat.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed claims that Moscow harbors aggressive intentions against NATO states as “nonsense.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry has warned that Berlin’s continued military buildup could lead to another tragedy on a global scale similar to the Second World War.
Earlier this month, the head of the European Defense Agency (EDA), Andre Denk, suggested that compulsory military service could be reinstated in the EU. He also said that his home country of Germany would likely go down this path eventually.
Croatia, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Poland, and the UK have all either reintroduced conscription, increased intake, or raised age limits for military service and reservists.
The Kremlin has consistently slammed the West’s “reckless militarization” and cited NATO’s expansion toward Russia’s borders as one of the causes of the Ukraine conflict.
Mints in both countries receive the metal from a North American contractor who mixes dirty gold with domestic supplies, the investigation claims
The US and Canadian government mints have for years sourced coin gold from mines controlled by Colombia’s Clan del Golfo drug cartel, despite vowing that all the precious metal is extracted on domestic soil, according to an investigation by the New York Times.
The US Mint says its coins are produced “to connect to the founding principles of our nation,” and federal law requires its gold to be sourced domestically. However, the process is “based on a lie,” the NYT wrote.
The newspaper said it traced hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of foreign gold entering the Mint’s supply chain. Some of the metal was second-hand and of unknown origin, while some came from countries such as Colombia and Nicaragua, where parts of the gold industry are controlled by criminal groups.
Some of the gold originates in northwestern Colombia, where large areas are controlled by the Clan del Golfo. Miners there extract gold using mercury, a toxic substance that harms both workers and the environment.
The NYT said that the illegal operation is being carried out with such cavalier disregard of the authorities that some workers were seen extracting gold on the premises of a military base.
Then, the Colombian gold is shipped to Dillon Gage, a Texas-based refiner and one of the main suppliers of the US Mint. The company blends it with American gold, effectively laundering it, the investigation claims. The US Mint does not check the origins of the gold, the NYT added.
When asked about the sourcing, the Mint initially told the NYT that “its gold came entirely from the United States, as the law requires.” However, when presented with the findings, the body backpedaled, saying that the US was its “primary” source of the metal.
The supply chain then extends further north to Canada, the paper said. While the US Mint did not verify the origin of the gold, its Canadian counterpart had vetting procedures in place but continued procurement nonetheless, according to the NYT.
Canadian officials described the gold as “North American,” arguing that the designation reflects the fact that it is mixed in Texas. This classification means the authorities are not required to verify the original source of the metal and instead rely on US checks, the report said.
The NYT added that even if the Canadian Mint did not follow its own guidelines, “it would face no legal consequences” because tinkering with the “North American” designation is not a crime.
The investigation comes as gold has been on an extended record-breaking rally in recent years, largely due to aggressive central bank buying, US Federal Reserve rate cuts, and geopolitical tensions.
Following militants’ assaults on several cities the army also recovered equipment, officials have said
Malian security forces eliminated more than 200 terrorists nationwide and seized significant quantities of equipment, Malian Chief of General Staff Oumar Diarra said on state TV on Sunday night.
On Saturday, militants carried out attacks on Bamako, Kati, Gao, Sevare, and Kidal. The operations were claimed by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) together with the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA). The coordinated strikes focused on military installations, critical infrastructure, and high-ranking officials, but were halted by Malian forces.
“During the operation … the enemy was routed, and this response was consistent with the threats and attacks organized by the terrorists,” Diarra said, adding that “more than 200 terrorists were neutralized.”
Authorities also confirmed that Defense Minister General Sadio Camara died from injuries sustained after a suicide car bombing hit his residence amid the wave of attacks.
Meanwhile, the Africa Corps operating under Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that it had assisted Malian forces, stressing that the attack “has been thwarted.”
Regional and international reactions followed, with Burkina Faso’s interim president Ibrahim Traore saying that the Alliance of Sahel States condemned what he described as “ignoble, cowardly, and barbaric acts” against a sovereign country, emphasizing they would not undermine the region’s resolve to live “free, in peace, and with dignity.”
The Turkish Foreign Ministry stated that it “strongly condemns” the incidents reported on April 25 across Mali.
The Chinese Embassy in Mali said it “expresses its deep sorrow” over the death of Sadio Camara and “strongly condemns the terrorist attacks,” offering “deepest condolences” to the victims.
The Russian Embassy in Bamako echoed the criticism, calling the assaults “cowardly attacks” aimed at destabilizing the state, while Moscow’s Foreign Ministry voiced “deep concern,” warning the actions pose a “direct threat” to Mali’s stability.
The Russian Foreign Ministry added that preliminary data points to the possible involvement of Western security services in training the attackers. Earlier this year, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused France of “attempting to overthrow undesirable nationalist governments” in the Sahara-Sahel using “outright terrorist groups” and “colonial methods.”
After Mali expelled French forces in 2022, Burkina Faso and Niger followed suit, accusing Paris of providing direct support to terrorists.
Former Nigerian presidential candidate Victor Okhai, commenting to RT on the developments, suggested Western involvement, pointing in particular to France and describing the situation as “a fight back,” adding it was “an attempt to come back by whatever means necessary.”
Brussels saw strange lights, screamed “Putin!”, and torched €50 million – only to find a police helicopter in the starring role
Hey kids, do you suffer from nightmares about being abducted by aliens? Worried that the fort you make out of your pillows and bedsheets won’t protect you? Well, good news: when you grow up, you can get a job as Belgian defense minister and blow €50 million on your efforts.
Bad news for Belgians, though. The aliens haven’t picked your country as their landing pad. Not yet, at least. But this is the second time in my lifetime alone that the Belgian government has pulled out the heavy artillery because they saw UFOs. The latest instance was last fall. Drones, they said. If not aliens, then Russians. Because what else could it be? Either way, it was apparently a nice pretext for blowing €50 million in a hurry on weapons.
But now the defense minister, Theo Francken, is squirming in a parliamentary defense committee hot seat, trying to defend the spending spree. He evoked hundreds of sightings, adding that “many colleagues thought that we urgently needed to buy things, that we needed to take action, and that we certainly also needed to have material and that it could not take years. That it was urgent now and that it was actually scandalous that we had nothing.” You had nothing, alright. But the scandal isn’t that. It’s that you acted on that nothing by pelting it with cash.
Francken explained that Belgian military intelligence claimed that 42 of 250 drone sightings were the real deal. Any receipts? Of course not. But there’s “no other plausible explanation than a drone,” he added.
Blah blah blah. Where did the €50 million go, pal? And why wasn’t such a massive contract even put to public bidding?
No time for such minor details when the aliens are about to land, apparently. Or Putin. All this comes after Belgian public broadcasting aired an investigative piece straining to figure out what all the fuss was really about, having found no actual evidence of hostile activity themselves, let alone drones.
So now the defense minister is like, okay, look, turns out that the sightings were just of a helicopter. Operated by the Belgian police.
Oh, look! An “other plausible explanation,” the likes of which he literally just said doesn’t exist. But even if it was a helicopter, it was still looking for a drone, he says. Not that he can show it to you.
But so what? Minor detail. It’s not like the aliens aren’t coming SOMEDAY. And also Putin in 2030, as we keep hearing from European officials. So better to blow that cash now on a screwup and be ready for the eventuality. Who could regret doing that? Not this guy, apparently. Not like he’s personally paying for it.
Last fall, Francken was saying that the UFOs could be spy drones trying to peep on American nuclear weapons at Belgium’s Klein Brogel air base. Spy drones, huh? I guess that was supposed to explain why they were also said to have been loitering around airports, too. To the point of having to close them. All the hallmarks of a great secret spy op: draw global attention to yourself and make a scene. But that’s how spying works in the movies. And this guy seems to think that he’s a main character in one.
“This is not the work of amateurs, this is something else. This has been a rule of the Russian Federation for many years. They are semi-professional and professional large drones,” he said at the time, evoking hybrid warfare. “We see several drones simultaneously, which also fly in formation. Not everyone can do that.” Just aliens and Russians, apparently. And the people who investigated all this for Belgian state TV, who did it with one guy.
The last time this kind of hysteria happened was amid the Cold War’s denouement between the Soviet Union and the West, in 1989-1990. But they didn’t blame Russians back then. Maybe everyone had already blown enough cash on weapons. Unlike today. Which would explain why, on the back of this latest UFO wave reboot, Francken started fantasizing about creating a whole new department and filling it with toys: detection, jamming, and drone-destruction systems. He also said that NATO “will flatten Moscow” if it ever attacked. Sounds like a reasonable guy who should be given blank checks. Even better if they’re from the public treasury.
So now the Belgian TV show says that this purchase is being looked into by the prosecutor general’s office and implicitly laid out an open invitation for other countries that may have blown cash on this hype to do the same.
In any case, the Belgian public already knew that their government was a hot mess on UFOs 35 years ago. After months of watching mysterious lights drift around, they finally scrambled a couple of F-16s to investigate. But instead of locking onto a UFO, they almost shot each other down in the process.
This new sequel also plays out just like a Hollywood production. One in which the Belgians fund a €50 million prop department budget and the aliens never even make a cameo.
The targeted entities have been banned from sourcing dual-use items from China
Beijing has barred seven EU-based entities from receiving Chinese dual-use goods, citing their involvement in arms trade with Taiwan.
The companies listed by China’s Commerce Ministry on Friday include German radar manufacturer Hensoldt, Belgian firearms producers FN Browning Group and its subsidiary FN Herstal, as well as four Czech entities: Omnipol, Excalibur Army, SpaceKnow, and the Czech Aeronautical Research and Testing Institute.
Dual-use items are goods that can serve both civilian and military purposes, including drone components and high-purity rare earth materials. China has increasingly relied on export controls to restrict access to such goods for nations it considers military threats, including the US and Japan. Under Chinese export rules, buyers are prohibited from transferring dual-use products to defense firms blacklisted by the government.
Reacting to the move on social media, Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka called on Beijing to clarify the decision. Hensoldt told Reuters it was “verifying the facts” and would assess the situation, while Excalibur Army stated that it does not directly source dual-use technologies from China.
The newly sanctioned companies are the first EU-based entities to face restrictions from Beijing over weapons trade with Taiwan. A Commerce Ministry spokesperson said that law-abiding customers “with integrity have absolutely no need to worry” about supplies.
Sanctions tit-for-tat?
The measure was introduced a day after the EU approved its latest round of anti-Russian sanctions, which targeted 27 entities from mainland China or Hong Kong. The Commerce Ministry said Beijing was “strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed” Brussels’ move, and warned that it would take “necessary measures” to protect Chinese interests.
In a separate reciprocal move on Friday, Beijing lifted countermeasures that it imposed on Lithuanian banks last year, after the EU removed restrictions on two Chinese banks that it had targeted for allegedly providing financial services to Russia.
Beijing has long criticized the use of unilateral sanctions by the West, but has increasingly turned to trade restrictions amid ongoing tensions with the US, particularly since the escalation of trade disputes under President Donald Trump.
China remains highly sensitive to military cooperation with Taiwan, a self-governed Chinese island that for decades served as a US foothold in the region, viewing such contracts as a challenge to its sovereignty and support for separatist forces.
Global supply chain risks have intensified since late February, when disruptions caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran significantly reduced traffic from the Persian Gulf. Importers of key commodities – including oil, natural gas, fertilizers, helium, and aluminum – are now reassessing sourcing and production strategies amid growing economic uncertainty.
Public support for the immigration crackdown has declined as most Americans say the tactics pursued by enforcement officers go too far
US President Donald Trump has signaled support for a proposal to rename Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), endorsing a suggestion shared on social media that would change the agency’s acronym to NICE.
The comment comes as the agency struggles with its public image in the wake of a sweeping immigration enforcement campaign that has led to thousands of arrests across the US. Public support for the crackdown has declined as most Americans say the tactics pursued by federal agents go too far, having turned violent and, in some cases, deadly.
Trump reposted a message on his Truth Social platform from a supporter suggesting that ICE be renamed “National Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” which would change the agency’s acronym to NICE. The change would compel media outlets to refer to federal officers as “NICE agents all day everyday,” framing the agency in more positive terms, the post added.
“GREAT IDEA!!! DO IT,” the president wrote in response to the post late Sunday.
The fatal shootings involving ICE agents in Minnesota have become a major flashpoint in the national debate over immigration enforcement following the Trump administration’s launch of a hardline agenda on immigration and election integrity. The incidents, which occurred during ICE operations, triggered widespread public outrage and sparked mass rallies across the country. Protesters have called for an end to aggressive enforcement tactics and demanded greater oversight of federal immigration authorities.
In February, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons stated that the agency is tracking about 1.6 million people in the US with final deportation orders, including around 800,000 who have criminal convictions.
Nevertheless, public support for the crackdown continued to decline, according to a recent Ipsos poll conducted at the time. About 58% of Americans say deportations are going too far, while 62% oppose ICE tactics.
Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid have combined their parties ahead of elections planned for later this year
Former Israeli Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid have formed a unified party in a bid to oust Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in elections later this year.
Right-wing Bennett and centrist Lapid on Sunday confirmed the merger of their parties, Bennett 2026 and Yesh Atid, into a single list titled ‘Together, Led by Bennett’, which they described as an effort to consolidate the opposition and improve its chances in the vote, which must be held no later than the end of October.
Bennett told reporters that joining forces was “the most Zionist and patriotic act we have ever done, for the sake of our country,” adding that “the era of division is over.” Lapid said: “We are standing here together for the sake of our children. The State of Israel must change direction.”
Widely seen as Netanyahu’s most formidable political rivals, the two have joined forces before, ending his 12-year tenure after the 2021 election by forming the short-lived “government of change,” a coalition spanning right-wing, centrist and left-wing parties.
That alliance included the Arab party Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, marking the first time a party representing Israel’s Palestinian minority joined a governing coalition. Netanyahu returned to power after winning the November 2022 election.
The new partnership will run as a unified list without formally merging their parties, and both have said they would seek to form a government only with Zionist opposition parties, excluding Arab factions. Bennett also said his government would advance a universal conscription law, halt funding for draft evasion, and introduce an eight-year term limit for a prime minister.
A recent Maariv poll showed Bennett’s party tied with Netanyahu’s Likud at 24 Knesset seats, while Yesh Atid has been polling at around six to seven seats.
Netanyahu’s tenure has come under strain since Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza following a Hamas attack in October 2023 that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage. More than 72,000 people have been killed and over 172,000 wounded in Israel’s airstrikes and ground offensive, according to Palestinian health authorities. Polls have indicated Netanyahu may lose the next election.
The International Criminal Court issued warrants for Netanyahu in 2024 over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
At home, Netanyahu is facing a long-running corruption trial. Charged with bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in three cases, he denies wrongdoing, calling the case a political witch hunt. The trial resumed this week after a pause during the Iran war, with no resolution in sight. President Isaac Herzog has indicated that any pardon would only be considered after plea deal efforts are exhausted.
Abbas Araghchi’s visit marks the final stop of his regional tour as talks with the US have stalled
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid stalled diplomatic efforts to end the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Araghchi landed in St. Petersburg early Monday as part of his regional tour to coordinate with allies amid the standoff with Washington and West Jerusalem.
He met with Putin and senior officials, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the head of Russia’s military intelligence, Admiral Igor Kostyukov.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “the importance of this conversation is difficult to overestimate in terms of how the situation around Iran and in the Middle East is developing.”
Direct US-Iran negotiations have stalled after US President Donald Trump called off a planned trip by his envoys to Islamabad over the weekend, saying the Iranians “can call” if they want to talk.
Tehran has insisted that direct talks with the US are pointless as long as Washington maintains a naval blockade of Iranian ports and Israeli attacks against Lebanon continue.
Russia has positioned itself as a key diplomatic partner of Iran throughout the conflict. Araghchi’s meeting with Putin is expected to focus on the latest ceasefire developments and forming a joint approach to the crisis.
An explosion outside a police station near Belfast has been linked to the dissident republican splinter group and is being treated as “attempted murder”
Police in Northern Ireland have foiled a suspected car bomb attack, evacuating residents moments before an explosion outside a station in Dunmurry, southwest of Belfast. The authorities suspect the New Irish Republican Army (New IRA), a dissident republican splinter group, was behind the blast.
The incident occurred late on Saturday, when a hijacked vehicle carrying a gas cylinder device was parked outside the station. At a press conference on Sunday, PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Bobby Singleton said the perpetrators forced a delivery driver to take the car to the site and abandon it. Officers spotted the vehicle, deemed it suspicious, raised the alarm, and rushed to evacuate nearby homes.
“A number of residents, including two babies, were being taken to safety by officers when the device exploded, engulfing the vehicle in flames and sending debris in all directions,” he said, calling it a “cowardly attack.”
Early reports, including reporting from the Belfast Telegraph, indicate that a car bomb was detonated outside a police station in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland today. Reports claim that, like other recent incidents in the past year, a stolen car was used in the incident. Law… pic.twitter.com/JWVbPlAdHf
No injuries were reported, which police said was “nothing short of miraculous,” though the blast caused significant damage. The incident is being treated as “attempted murder,” with a counterterrorism unit leading the investigation.
Singleton said the “early working hypothesis” points to the New IRA, noting similarities with a failed attack last month in Lurgan, about 30km southwest of Belfast, where a delivery driver was forced at gunpoint to transport an explosive device that did not detonate. The group later claimed responsibility for that attempt.
The New IRA is designated a terrorist organization in the UK and is considered the most active dissident republican group in Northern Ireland. Formed in 2012 from factions rejecting the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, it seeks to end British rule and achieve a united Ireland through armed struggle.
Asked whether the terror threat level in Northern Ireland – currently “substantial” – should be reassessed following Saturday’s incident, Singleton declined to give a direct answer but said the attack “reminds us of the murderous intent and capability” of militant groups, stressing the need for vigilance.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer denounced the attack, pledging on X that “those responsible will be brought to justice.”
I utterly condemn last night’s attack on Dunmurry police station.
My thoughts are with the local community, and with the PSNI officers who work every day to keep people safe. I urge anyone with information to come forward.
His government has maintained a zero-tolerance stance on the New IRA and stepped up efforts to curb its funding, including asset-freezing orders targeting suspected money laundering. Last month, Starmer and Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin agreed to establish a joint task force to monitor dissident groups and cross-border crime.
The joint venture will have an investment of around $2 billion and a manufacturing capacity of 2 million tons annually
India and Russia are planning to set up a urea production facility at a cost of $2 billion, the Financial Express reports.
The facility – a joint venture between Russia’s Uralchem and Indian Potash, Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers, and National Fertilizers – is expected to be located at Togliatti, Russia, according to the report.
“The urea plant should be ready within the next two years,” Indian Potash Managing Director PS Gahlaut told the Financial Express.
The proposed facility is expected to have an annual manufacturing capacity of 2 million tons of urea.
Gahlaut said the state-owned Projects & Development India, the consultant for the proposed urea joint venture, submitted a pre-feasibility report last week.
Indian Potash, Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers, and National Fertilizers “are expected to take a call on the pre-feasibility report soon,” he told the newspaper.
The urea manufacturing facility will act as an assured supply source for India, Gahlaut added.
On April 23, Reuters reported that New Delhi has agreed to import urea at double the price it paid earlier this year, amid the supply disruption caused by the Middle East conflict.
Indian Potash agreed to buy 2.5 million tons of urea, or nearly a quarter of its annual imports of around 10 million tons in 2025.
India is the world’s biggest urea importer. The nation’s urea production depends heavily on natural gas, which is mainly imported from the Middle East.
Rating agency ICRA projects that India’s reliance on urea imports will increase to around 30% of total consumption by 2030.
India is looking to boost fertilizer imports from Russia, Belarus, and Morocco as a supply crunch looms due to the Middle East conflict and as China announced export curbs ahead of the summer planting season.
The continent’s expenditure has risen by an estimated 14%, according to SIPRI, as Russia accuses the EU of reckless militarization
European military spending helped to propel global defense expenditure to a record high of almost $3 trillion in 2025 despite the US decreasing its outlay, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released on Monday.
Worldwide military expenditure rose 2.9% in real terms last year to reach $2.887 trillion, marking the 11th consecutive annual increase and lifting the global military burden to 2.5% of GDP, the report said. SIRPI experts explained the trend by citing several ongoing conflicts and persisting geopolitical tensions.
The entire European continent accounted for the largest regional increase, with spending rising 14% to $864 billion. SIPRI linked the surge to the Ukraine conflict, a standoff with Russia, and “the ongoing pursuit of European self-reliance alongside increasing pressure from the United States to strengthen burden sharing within the alliance.”
In total, European NATO members spent a combined $559 billion in 2025, with Germany’s outlays rising 24% to $114 billion and Spain’s jumping 50% to $40.2 billion.
US military expenditure fell 7.5% to $954 billion, with SIPRI linking a surprise decline to the Trump administration’s refusal to approve new assistance packages to Ukraine, in contrast to previous years when $127 billion in direct military support had been authorized.
The US, however, has continued deliveries via the NATO-coordinated PURL program, with other Western countries footing the bill.
Last week, Pentagon officials also said that US President Donald Trump was advocating a military budget of $1.5 trillion to provide funds for the new Golden Dome missile system, AI capabilities, and a new class of battleships.
SIPRI noted Russia’s defense expenditure grew 5.9% to $190 billion, while Ukraine increased spending by 20% to $84.1 billion, equivalent to 40% of GDP, becoming the seventh-largest military spender in the world.
Elsewhere, China increased military spending by 7.4% to $336 billion, while Japan’s expenditure rose 9.7% to $62.2 billion, and Taiwan’s by 14% to $18.2 billion.
Moscow has repeatedly condemned what it described as reckless militarization by the EU, adding that it is aimed at Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also suggested that European propaganda seeks to turn Russia into a “model external enemy” to divert attention from internal crises.
The two men allegedly involved were killed in a shootout while being arrested
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has foiled a planned sabotage attack targeting an oil installation in the Komi Republic, western Russia, the agency reported on Monday.
Two suspects – both Russian citizens – allegedly acting on instructions from Ukrainian intelligence, were killed in a shootout during an arrest attempt.
The suspects established covert contact with Ukrainian operatives via messaging apps and passed on information about regional oil refining facilities, as well as details about Russian military personnel and law enforcement officers, according to an FSB press release.
The agency said the men were tracked to a pre-arranged cache in the city of Ukhta, where they were retrieving drones equipped with improvised explosive devices, allegedly to be used in an attack on a nearby oil facility.
When the officers moved in to arrest them, they were met with armed resistance. Both suspects were killed in the ensuing shootout. No security personnel or civilians were injured.
At the scene, the authorities said they recovered two drones fitted with explosive payloads of foreign origin, two Makarov pistols, and mobile phones containing data said to confirm the suspects’ activities.
Footage released by the FSB shows the moment of the shootout and photos taken at the suspects’ hideout, displaying equipment and weaponry they appear to have been retrieving.
The authorities did not disclose the specific facility that was to be targeted. A criminal case has been opened on charges of preparing an act of sabotage, the FSB said.
The agency also repeated its warning that Ukrainian intelligence services are actively recruiting operatives online, including through social media and messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp, and said those who work with Kiev will be identified and prosecuted.
The Russian authorities have often accused Ukrainian intelligence services of carrying out covert operations inside Russia, including sabotage, targeted killings, and suicide bombings against security personnel. These activities often involve individuals recruited online, motivated by ideology or financial incentives, or coerced into criminal actions through scam tactics.
Last week, the FSB foiled a group of Russian neo-Nazis guided by Ukraine to carry out bomb attacks against the head of Roskomnadzor (the Russian media regulator), Andrey Lipov, and his deputies. Seven members of the network – all young adults – were targeted in a series of raids in four cities, and a man in his early 20s identified as the ringleader was killed in Moscow after opening fire on officers attempting to apprehend him, the agency said.
Sebastian Sawe made history in the British capital on Sunday with a time of 1:59:30
Kenya’s Sebastian Sawe made history at the London Marathon on Sunday, breaking the world record and becoming the first runner to complete the distance in under two hours during an official competitive race.
The 31-year-old clocked an extraordinary time of 1:59:30 for the 42.2 km course, setting a new world record and surpassing the previous mark of 2:00:35, which had been held by the late Kenyan runner Kelvin Kiptum at the 2023 Chicago Marathon.
Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha remained close behind Sawe, finishing second in 1:59:41. Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo secured third place with a time of 2:00:28.
“I am feeling good, I am happy, it’s a day to remember for me,” Sawe told the BBC.
Sawe’s achievement drew praise from Kenyan President William Ruto, who called the result “more than a win.”
“Triumph places you [Sawe] firmly among the greats of global athletics and reaffirms Kenya as an enduring force at the pinnacle of distance running,” Ruto said on X, adding: “You have lifted our flag high, inspired a nation, and reminded the world of the power of determination. We are proud.”
BREAKING VIDEO: Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe becomes the first person ever to win a regular marathon in under two hours, setting a new world record at the London Marathon in 1:59:30!
Kenyan legend Eliud Kipchoge famously ran a sub-two-hour marathon in Vienna in 2019, although his time of 1:59:40 was not recognized as a world record as the event was unofficial and held in non-competitive conditions.
The London Marathon also saw a record-breaking run in the women’s race. Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa set a new world record of 2:15:41, finishing ahead of Kenya’s Helen Obiri and Joyciline Jepkosgei.
Athletes from Kenya have repeatedly broken new ground in long-distance running, consistently remaining among the world’s strongest competitors in major races.
On the same Sunday, Kenyan runner Owen Korir delivered another standout performance by winning the Moscow Half Marathon over 21.1 km in a record time of 59:35. It marked the first time the race had been completed in under an hour. Fellow Kenyan Geoffrey Kipkemboye finished second with a time of 1:01:48.
According to the Russian Embassy in Kenya, the event in Moscow gathered about 23,000 participants from 33 countries.
Earlier in April, another Kenyan athlete, John Korir, claimed victory at the Boston Marathon for the second consecutive year, establishing a new course record of 2:01:52.
They met every requirement, but delays, opacity and ‘missed’ options shut Russian junior gymnasts out before they could compete
The Russian junior group in rhythmic gymnastics will not be able to take part in the 2026 European Cup. The reason is unrelated to sporting results, injuries, or any decision by the athletes to withdraw.
Participation became impossible because of prolonged administrative procedures connected with obtaining neutral status, followed by a refusal of registration by European Gymnastics. Young athletes who followed every rule were left out because of bureaucratic hurdles put up by different organizations that failed to coordinate.
The Russian Gymnastics Federation submitted documents for neutral status starting March 25, with additional names added through early April. They didn’t sit back and wait for a reply either – they sent repeated requests asking World Gymnastics to speed things up, including direct outreach to its president. Still, approvals came in pieces. Some athletes received clearance on April 14, others not until April 22. Only on April 23 were they finally added to the anti-doping testing pool, which is required to compete.
By then, it was already too late – registration deadlines for the European Cup had passed, and the draw had taken place on April 11. Once that happened, European Gymnastics said it could not add the Russian group.
No one involved can seriously claim this was about sporting merit. The athletes weren’t injured, they didn’t withdraw, and they weren’t disqualified. They were simply stuck waiting for one body to finish its procedures while another stuck to its deadlines. That gap shut them out.
What makes it worse is that there was, apparently, a workaround. European Gymnastics later said athletes in this kind of situation can be entered in the system with a ‘pending’ status before final approval. That option might have kept the door open, but the Russian federation only learned about it after the draw. By then, it was useless.
It’s hard to treat that as a minor oversight. If a key procedural option exists but isn’t communicated in time, then a process that is supposed to be neutral becomes baselessly opaque. And when that opacity determines who gets to compete, it stops being a technical detail.
All of this sits awkwardly next to the IOC’s position from December 2025, when the organization stated that young athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports should no longer face restrictions in access to international competitions. It also said athletes have a fundamental right to compete without political pressure.
And it’s true that the athletes faced no formal ban – because none was needed. Exclusion was achieved through delays, missed windows and disconnected procedures – a confluence of mishaps that looks just a bit too convenient to be a complete coincidence.
Federations control the actual entry points into competitions, and even as the IOC asks for better accessibility, they still have the power to shut out Russian juniors – they just have to drag their feet a bit, forget to mention a crucial workaround, or fail to coordinate at a key juncture.
World Gymnastics closed its office over Easter just as the process was underway. It had been asked to move faster, but decisions came after that Easter break, not before. Nothing suggests those delays were unavoidable. They were predictable, and they had consequences.
Meanwhile, European Gymnastics followed its own schedule. Once the draw was done, that was it – no adjustments, no exceptions. From a procedural standpoint, that may be consistent. From the athletes’ perspective, it meant their fate had been decided before their paperwork was even finished.
Months of preparation, training camps, routines, expectations of an international start – all of it ended because two organizations’ timelines didn’t match. The athletes had no way to influence either side – they met the requirements and submitted all the paperwork.
And now, they are not allowed to compete. The reasons behind it are anything but simple, but they point in the same direction. A system that talks about openness while operating through opaque and fragmented procedures doesn’t just fall short – it blocks the very people it claims to support. And if this is how things continue to work, similar situations will happen again.
Washington and Tehran have clashed over who holds the most leverage in their nearly two-month standoff
The US is mistaken to believe that it has the most leverage in the war against Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said, as indirect talks between Tehran and Washington remain stalled.
The two sides disagree over which can outlast the other in the standoff triggered by the US-Israeli attack in late February. Pakistan-mediated negotiations have so far failed to produce a breakthrough.
“We have all the cards. If they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us,” US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday. “We are not sending people to travel 18 hours to [Islamabad].”
Araghchi, who visited Pakistan and Oman over the weekend before traveling to Russia, pushed back in a post on X, arguing that Trump does not hold the upper hand and outlining possible escalation scenarios.
“Add summer vacation to the [list of leverage] unless they want to cancel it for the US!” he wrote, referring to surging fuel prices.
Stalled talks and reported new framework
In response to the US-Israeli strikes, Iran partially closed the strategic Strait of Hormuz and has threatened shipping through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait via its Houthi allies in Yemen. The Trump administration, in turn, announced a blockade of the Persian Gulf targeting Iranian oil exports and warned it could destroy Iran’s entire “civilization.”
In his Fox interview, Trump claimed Iran cannot significantly reduce oil output and will soon run out of storage capacity, risking explosions “from within” its oil infrastructure – something he argued gives Washington leverage.
Araghchi reportedly declined to meet Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, for new talks in Islamabad, but asked intermediaries to convey a new proposal. According to Axios, the framework suggests reopening the Persian Gulf while postponing negotiations over Iran’s uranium enrichment program and stockpile. The US has justified its strikes on Iran by alleging Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons.
Violence in Lebanon adding strain
The fragile US-Iran ceasefire remains under strain, partly due to ongoing Israeli strikes in Lebanon, which were expected to halt under the broader truce as well as a separate bilateral ceasefire extended last Friday.
During a cabinet meeting over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah – a Lebanese armed group aligned with Tehran – of “undermining the ceasefire” and announced further military action to “preempt immediate and emerging threats.”
Israel aims to establish control over large areas of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported at least 14 deaths from Israeli strikes on Saturday. According to Beirut, more than 2,500 people have been killed and over 7,700 injured since Israel escalated hostilities with Lebanon amid the wider conflict with Iran.
Tehran has proposed reopening the Strait of Hormuz first, and then focus on nuclear talks, according to the report
Iran has made the US a new proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war – postponing nuclear negotiations to a later stage to break the deadlock in the high-stakes talks, Axios reports, citing sources.
An unnamed US official and two other sources familiar with the matter told the outlet that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi mentioned the plan during back-to-back visits to Islamabad, informing the Pakistani, Egyptian, Turkish, and Qatari mediators that Iran’s leadership has no internal consensus on how to address Washington’s nuclear demands.
The US has insisted that Iran dismantle its nuclear program and hand over all of its enriched uranium.
The proposal, which was delivered to the White House via Pakistani intermediaries, reportedly focuses on extending the ceasefire or even ending the war, as well as lifting the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint accounting for 20% of the world’s seaborne oil trade. Nuclear talks would not start until the blockade is lifted, according to the reported plan.
Iran’s nuclear program has long been at the center of the dispute between Washington and Tehran. It took the Obama administration more than two years of intensive international talks to produce the landmark 2015 nuclear deal which addressed similar issues, only for President Donald Trump to withdraw the US from it in 2018.
According to Al-Mayadeen, Tehran has floated a three-stage framework: End the hostilities and secure binding guarantees against renewed attacks on Iran and Lebanon; establish a new legal regime for managing the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with Oman; and in the third stage, address the nuclear issue.
The new offer comes after US-Iran talks in Islamabad, which started after the sides announced a tentative ceasefire, failed to produce a breakthrough. On Saturday, hopes for diplomacy dimmed as Trump canceled a trip to the Pakistani capital by envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, saying, “You’re not going to be making any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing.”
According to media reports, Iran has insisted on guarantees of US non-aggression, lifting all the sanctions, control over the Strait of Hormuz, and recognition of Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment – dismissing US and Israeli accusations that it is seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon.
The “a once-in-a-generation” pact will give New Zealand access to 1.4 billion people, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said
India and New Zealand will ink a trade deal agreement on Monday, the island nation’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, has said.
In a social media post on Sunday, Luxon said the proposed pact was initiated a year ago when he met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
He described the pact as a “once-in-a-generation” deal that will significantly expand access for New Zealand exporters to India’s 1.4 billion-strong market.
“It means more jobs on farms and orchards, it means more money coming into local communities, and it means more opportunities for your family to get ahead,” Luxon said.
On April 23, the island nation’s prime minister shared a video highlighting the expected benefits of the free trade agreement.
The FTA between India and New Zealand will provide huge opportunities for domestic firms, Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said.
Goyal, who also held discussions with visiting New Zealand Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay, said the pact aims to double bilateral trade and facilitate duty-free access to the island nation’s markets for Indian companies.
New Zealand has committed to invest $20 billion in India over the next 15 years to boost manufacturing, infrastructure, services, innovation, and employment.
McClay said that India is a strategic priority for Wellington and urged businesses to actively pursue joint ventures and investment in India.
Trade between India and New Zealand stood at $2.4 billion in 2024, with services alone accounting for $1.24 billion, led by travel, IT, and business services.
India signed trade deals with the UK and Oman in 2025 and with the European Union in January.
New Delhi now has free trade agreements with 38 countries, and discussions are in progress to finalize a pact with the US.
Earlier in April, China said it had become India’s largest trading partner in the 2025-26 financial year, overtaking the US. Washington was New Delhi’s largest trading partner for four years in a row until 2024-25.
The IDF was trying to evacuate wounded troops from Lebanon when they came under another attack
Hezbollah drones have killed an IDF soldier and targeted a helicopter sent to airlift wounded troops, as Israel ordered the forced evacuation of seven more towns in southern Lebanon.
An Israeli unit operating in the occupied Lebanese border town of Taybeh came under attack on Sunday. The strike killed a 19-year-old soldier, identified as Sergeant Idan Fooks, and wounded six others, including four seriously, according to the IDF.
When a helicopter was dispatched to airlift the wounded, two additional drones were launched toward the troops, according to footage circulating online. The IDF said one of the drones was intercepted, while another exploded near the forces and the aircraft without causing further casualties.
Must watch: extraordinary footage shows a Hezbollah drone striking just meters away from an IDF helicopter in southern Lebanon while wounded troops were being evacuated from a separate incident. Earlier, an Israeli soldier was killed in a similar drone attack despite the… pic.twitter.com/oScbX9FHHB
Despite a US-mediated ceasefire that began on April 16 and was extended until mid-May, Israeli troops have continued military operations north of the Litani River, expanding a ‘buffer zone’ that stretches around 10 km into Lebanon.
On Sunday, Israel said it launched “artillery and aerial strikes” targeting Hezbollah operatives and sites it claimed were used “to advance attacks against IDF soldiers.” Lebanon’s Health Ministry said the attacks killed 14 people, including two women and two children, and wounded 37, marking the deadliest day since the ceasefire began.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the military was “acting with force” under rules agreed with the US and Lebanon, including “freedom of action” to respond to attacks and “neutralize emerging threats.”
Hezbollah rejected the accusation, saying its operations were a “legitimate response” to the Israeli invasion of the country.
At least 2,294 people have been killed and 7,544 wounded, including 100 medics and healthcare workers, since the fighting began on March 2, according to a cumulative toll released by Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has already visited Pakistan and Oman to “closely coordinate” with regional partners
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has arrived in Russia, where he is expected to meet with President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials to discuss the Middle East conflict amid stalled talks with the US.
The Iranian delegation’s plane landed in St. Petersburg at around 5:30 AM local time on Monday. Iranian Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali said Araghchi would hold consultations with Russian officials on “the current status of talks, the ceasefire, and developments around the conflict” with the US and Israel.
The Russian Foreign Ministry earlier confirmed Araghchi’s visit. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin has a meeting with the Iranian diplomat on his schedule.
The trip marks the final leg of Araghchi’s regional tour of Pakistan, Oman, and Russia, which he has described as an effort to “closely coordinate” with partners amid the standoff with Washington and West Jerusalem.
In Pakistan, he shared Tehran’s position on a “workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran,” adding that it remains to be seen whether the US is “truly serious about diplomacy.”
In Oman, Araghchi said discussions focused on bilateral matters and regional developments, including ways to ensure safe transit in the Strait of Hormuz, which he described as a matter of interest to littoral states, regional neighbors, and the wider world.
US President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, were reportedly on standby to fly to Pakistan for potential negotiations over the weekend, but Tehran rejected direct talks with US representatives during Araghchi’s tour.
However, Araghchi reportedly handed Pakistan, which is acting as mediator, a document intended for Washington outside the formal negotiating process. The document outlines Iran’s “red lines,” including issues related to Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear energy program.
Washington indefinitely extended the ceasefire with Iran earlier this week, expecting a “unified” proposal from Tehran while keeping a US blockade of Iranian ports in place. The standoff around the Strait of Hormuz has rattled global markets, pushing Brent crude above $100 per barrel, while Trump has made it clear that there is no firm timeline for ending the war.
The US president further raised the stakes by saying he ordered the US Navy to “shoot and kill” any Iranian boats found laying mines in the waterway. Tehran considers the blockade a direct breach of the ceasefire and has argued that any talks are pointless as long as it remains in place and Israel continues its attacks against Lebanon.
The US president has called Cole Allen a “sick man” who hates Christians
The armed man who breached security at a press dinner attended by US President Donald Trump detailed his motives in a manifesto, naming US officials as targets “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.”
The attacker, identified as 31-year-old California teacher Cole Allen, sent a note to relatives around ten minutes before Saturday’s attack at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton in Washington, according to the New York Post, which first published the text.
In the 1,052-word manifesto, signed Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen, the suspect described himself as a “half-black, half-white” American citizen and framed his actions as a matter of personal responsibility to hold the government accountable.
“And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” he wrote, identifying Trump administration officials – explicitly excluding FBI Director Kash Patel – as targets “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.”
Although Allen said he aimed to minimize casualties among security personnel, hotel staff, and guests by “using buckshot,” he admitted that he “would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary,” arguing that those attending the event were “complicit” by choice.
Referring repeatedly to his supposed Christian faith, the gunman went on to address anticipated criticism of his actions with a list of “rebuttals.”
“Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration,” Allen wrote, in apparent reference to grievances including strikes on Venezuela-linked boats, the US attack on an Iranian girls’ school, immigration enforcement, and the Jeffrey Epstein case.
.@POTUS on the White House Correspondents' Dinner gunman: "I read a manifesto. He's radicalized. He was a Christian—a believer—and then he became an anti-Christian ... he was probably a pretty sick guy." pic.twitter.com/AzmSukHOV8
Trump described the suspect as a “sick man” who “hated Christians,” while dismissing the accusations, in an interview with CBS’s ‘60 Minutes’.
“I read the manifesto. He’s radicalized. He was a Christian, a believer, and then he became an anti-Christian… he was probably a pretty sick guy,” Trump said.
Allen, a Torrance-based tutor and mechanical engineering graduate who also worked as a game developer, had no prior criminal record and is believed to have acted alone, according to investigators. Officials said he had legally purchased firearms, trained regularly at a shooting range, and traveled from Los Angeles to Washington by train before checking into the Hilton. His sister reportedly told investigators that he had spoken about doing something to fix the world.
Russian forces helped Bamako repel coordinated militant raids on key cities and military sites
Mali’s defense minister, General Sadio Camara, has died of his injuries after a shootout with militants following a suicide car bombing that targeted his residence during a wave of coordinated terrorist attacks across the West African country, the transitional government has confirmed.
Camara, who served as minister of state and minister of defense and veterans affairs, died of injuries sustained during Saturday’s assault on his home in Kati, a garrison town near the capital, Bamako. The government said his residence was struck by a vehicle bomb driven by a suicide attacker, after which Camara exchanged fire with the assailants and “neutralized” some of them before being wounded.
The attack caused part of the residence to collapse, killing or injuring others nearby and destroying a mosque where worshipers were inside, according to the government statement.
Mali suffered one of the most serious security incidents in years on Saturday, with near-simultaneous attacks reported in Bamako, Kati, Gao, Sevare, and Kidal. The Al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Tuareg-dominated Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) claimed responsibility for the coordinated raids, which targeted military sites, key infrastructure, and senior leadership positions.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said preliminary data points to the possible involvement of Western security services in training the attackers. Earlier this year, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused France of “attempting to overthrow undesirable nationalist governments” in the Sahara-Sahel using “outright terrorist groups” and “colonial methods.”
Russia has a military presence in the West African country, which has been reeling from terrorist threats for years despite a decade-long French military mission. Mali expelled French forces in 2022, followed later by Burkina Faso and Niger, accusing Paris of providing direct support to terrorists.
The Africa Corps, operating under the purview of the Russian Defense Ministry, said it helped prevent a coup d’etat over the weekend. It said it provided air support along the 2,000-km front line, preventing the seizure of key facilities, including the presidential palace in Bamako. According to the unit, militant casualties exceeded 1,000, with more than 100 vehicles destroyed.
Camara was one of the most influential figures in Mali’s ruling security establishment and a key architect of Bamako’s turn away from French-led security cooperation. The authorities said he would receive a national funeral.
A single-engine aircraft exploded soon after takeoff in Minnesota, killing Liz Conmy, a Democratic lawmaker from North Dakota
A small plane crash near Minneapolis, Minnesota killed North Dakota state lawmaker Liz Conmy, 67, and the pilot on Saturday, AP reports, citing the local authorities.
The Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed that a Beechcraft BE33 crashed shortly after departing Crystal Airport on Saturday, with two people aboard.
“Liz served her state and community with care and compassion,” North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong said in a statement. We are “saddened by this tragic loss and offer our deepest condolences to her family, friends and fellow legislators,” he added.
Security camera footage circulating on social media purportedly shows the moment the plane crashed into a wooded area before blowing up into a blazing fireball, setting trees and grass on fire.
Conmy’s North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party, an affiliate of the Democratic Party, said in a social media post that her death was “a profound loss to the state.”
The US National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation into the cause of the crash.
The Defense Ministry couldn’t say how many of the deals have been implemented, according to the outlet
Germany has signed €111 billion ($130 billion) worth of weapons contracts since 2022. However, the Defense Ministry cannot say how many have actually been delivered or put into service, Der Spiegel reports.
In February 2022, then Chancellor Olaf Scholz responded to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict by declaring a ‘Zeitenwende’ (turning point) and unveiling a €100 billion plan to modernize the German armed forces by 2028. Berlin has also been a key backer of Kiev, providing the government of Vladimir Zelensky with €44 billion ($52 billion) in military and financial aid during the conflict with Russia.
Der Spiegel reported on Sunday, citing Defense Ministry data, that 47,000 procurement contracts have been signed since Scholz’s declaration. The figure was released in response to an inquiry by a politician from The Left party, Dietmar Bartsch, it added.
The ministry declined to say how many of the contracts had been completed or how much of the equipment had been delivered as of March 1, 2026, the outlet said.
“An automated, centralized evaluation of all procurement projects in line with the request is not possible,” it said in response.
Collecting this data manually would be too costly and time-consuming, which “could lead to delays in defense-related projects,” the ministry claimed.
Bartsch criticized the response, saying “more than 47,000 arms contracts in four years, worth around €111 billion – that’s over 30 contracts per day.”
The fact that the Defense Ministry didn’t release the figures on its own and that it “can’t even quantify how many projects have actually been completed and put into service is a warning sign,” he argued.
The lack of oversight increases the risk that billions in taxpayer money or loans could be wasted on delayed or unsuitable projects, Bartsch said.
Germany has been investing heavily in its military despite the country’s economy continuing to deteriorate. Earlier this week, Economy Minister Katherina Reiche cut the previous growth forecast for this year in half, saying that GDP is expected to rise just 0.5%.
Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned about the “danger of EU militarization,” which is happening “very fast and frenetically.”
“The Americans are actively promoting those processes” in order to absolve themselves of the responsibility for the security on the continent and make Europeans bankroll the Ukraine conflict on their own, Lavrov said.
Moscow has dismissed Western claims that it harbors aggressive intentions against Europe, arguing that EU countries are using the perceived ‘Russian threat’ to justify rapidly increasing military spending while shifting attention away from domestic problems.
The right-wing party would win if an election were held this Sunday, according to a new survey
The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has hit a new popularity record and would win a hypothetical election with 28% of the vote, according to a Bild/INSA poll published on Saturday.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic bloc (CDU/CSU) would receive 24%, falling behind the right-wing party by one percentage point compared with earlier polls, according to the survey. The ruling coalition partner Social Democrats (SPD) maintained a 14% approval rating.
About 11% of the vote would go to parties that would fail to reach the threshold to enter parliament, Bild wrote, adding that this means a governing majority would require at least a 45% share of the remaining vote.
Provided that other parties do not align with the AfD, Merz’s ruling coalition (CDU, CSU, SPD) would need to ally with another party to reach a working majority in the Bundestag, the news outlet said.
The survey, which was conducted over April 20-24, involved 1,203 respondents who were asked how they would vote if a federal election were held on Sunday.
Approval ratings for Merz’s coalition have steadily declined since it came to power last May. Critics have accused the chancellor of failing to reverse the decline of the German economy, which saw only 0.3% growth in 2025 and endured a recession in 2023 and 2024.
At least 79% of Germans are dissatisfied with the performance of the ruling government, a YouGov poll published last week indicated. Only 34% of CDU/CSU voters were satisfied with their coalition’s performance as of mid-April, according to the survey.
Last week, Merz was rated Europe’s most unpopular leader, with a 76% disapproval rating, according to the US-based opinion research institute Morning Consult.
Pyongyang’s soldiers are “true heroes of our time,” Defense Minister Andrey Belousov has said
Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov has awarded North Korean troops, who helped liberate Russia’s Kursk Region from Ukrainian forces, with the Order of Courage during his visit to Pyongyang.
Last year, North Korean soldiers, acting under the June 2024 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty between Moscow and Pyongyang, joined the Russian operation to repel a large-scale Ukrainian incursion into the border region. They also participated in mine-clearing activities in the area.
During a ceremony on Sunday, Belousov said that it was “a truly special day in the record of the Russian-Korean military brotherhood.”
The North Korean troops who fought in Kursk Region are “the true heroes of our time, the elite of the Korean armed forces, their pride and their tower of strength,” he stressed.
“I express my deepest gratitude on behalf of the entire Russian people and personally for the assistance that they had provided,” the minister added.
Pyongyang’s servicemen received the Order of Courage, introduced in Russia in 1994 to recognize selfless acts of courage and valor, on the instructions of President Vladimir Putin, he noted.
Later in the day, Belousov and Russian Parliament Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin attended the opening of a museum and memorial dedicated to the North Korean soldiers, who helped liberate the Kursk Region.
The minister also held talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, discussing further intensification of military ties between the two countries.
There is desire in both Russia and North Korea to develop defense cooperation on “a sustainable, long-term basis,” he said.
Belousov told Kim that Moscow is “ready to sign a Russian-Korean Military Cooperation Plan for the 2027-2031 period this year.”
According to the minister, bilateral relations have reached “an unprecedentedly high level,” with more contacts in various fields expected between Moscow and Pyongyang in 2026.
RT speaks to Chernobyl liquidators, doctors, scientists, archivists, and residents of the Belarusian exclusion zone
The Chernobyl disaster remains one of the defining technological catastrophes of the 20th century. Its impact is felt to this day, with survivors still living with its consequences. The latest RT documentary Chernobyl: A Lesson for Humanity returns to the exclusion zone nearly 40 years later to hear from those who saw the aftermath up close: liquidators, firefighters, doctors, scientists, archivists, and the people who worked in the evacuated territories.
Our RT team has filmed through the Belarusian sector of the exclusion and resettlement zone; the Chernobyl plant lies just seven kilometers from the border, and abandoned villages still bear the marks of the 1986 evacuation.
The movie features eyewitnesses who worked in local command structures during the liquidation, a nurse who treated the first irradiated patients in Moscow, a Russian nuclear agency adviser who explains the reactor failure, and the heroes of the clean-up effort: veteran ‘liquidators’ who were at the scene 40 years ago.
Their accounts trace the disaster from the first confusion and evacuation of the city of Pripyat to the construction of the sarcophagus, the contamination of vast areas in Belarus and Ukraine, and the long-term medical and ecological consequences.
Watch RT’s full film Chernobyl: A Lesson for Humanity below.
It appears the curse of the midterm elections is going to hit the ruling party head-on
The midterms are still seven months away, and the Republicans must contend with an American voter whose mood has noticeably changed.
After regaining the White House in 2024, President Donald Trump – seeking revenge after being “cheated” of the presidency in the 2020 election – confidently declared victory. His approval numbers never looked better and the Republicans controlled Congress. Meanwhile, the Democrats looked dazed and confused as they struggled to make sense of their loss. Yes, Trump appeared invincible. But that was yesterday.
Trump is certainly aware of the curse that has haunted incumbent leaders for decades which says that they have a high chance of losing the midterms (for the uninitiated, midterm elections are the general elections that are held near the midpoint of a president’s four-year term of office). This curse has held true for even popular two-term leaders like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. To put it bluntly, the numbers do not look very promising for the Republicans at this stage of the game.
According to the latest data, Donald Trump’s approval rating is 33%, which is the lowest in his second term. This drop is due to several factors, including fears over the Iran war, immigration, inflation and his handling of other various issues, with 62% of Americans reporting disapproval of his job performance. This lack of enthusiasm for the US leader will have a knock-on effect in the midterm elections.
More vexing for Republicans, the latest polls indicate they could lose not just the House but the Senate as well – a scenario that seemed virtually impossible just months ago. Presently, almost 40 House seats are considered to be ‘up in the air.’ Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to regain control of the House. As for the Senate, states once considered solidly Republican – like Iowa, Ohio and Texas – are now too close to call. Historically, the party controlling the White House loses an average of 22 House seats in the midterms.
Immigration, the singular issue that helped boost Trump into the Oval Office, is beginning to falter. After controlling the political agenda for years, it has dropped behind civil rights and civil liberties concerns in late January, according to YouGov and The Economist tracking – to its lowest standing since Trump entered office. The change occurred in sync with the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two Minneapolis residents fatally shot by ICE agents during operations.
Up next was the Iran war, a foreign policy flop that flies in the face of the ‘America First’ credo that has animated Trump’s rise to power. Not only does the war contradict Republican ideology, it has alienated many NATO allies in the process. Back home, while many Americans would be hard-pressed to locate Iran on a map, they need no special guidance to tell them where gasoline prices stand – at about $3.45 per gallon on average.
As far as the distracted and overworked American is concerned, Washington can continue to wage wars wherever and whenever it wants, just so it does not put a dent in their wallet. Trump clearly understands this and that is why he is desperate to get out of Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, while Trump has focused his attention overseas in Iran and Ukraine, MAGA ideologues are frustrated as the unemployment rate has climbed to 4.7% over the past 12 months.
And then there are the Epstein files, which Trump while on the campaign trail promised to release to public scrutiny. Once in office, however, the tune changed as the US leader dismissed the documents as yet another Democrat conspiracy. It required a bipartisan congressional shove in the form of a discharge petition to force his hand. In November 2025, Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The releases finally began in December, albeit heavily redacted. When investigators examined the files, they discovered the Department of Justice had selectively withdrawn materials related to charges against the president. That secrecy over the most explosive scandal to rock Washington in decades did little to help Trump and the Republican Party in the polls.
It’s important to note that the political reversal being experienced by the Republicans has little to do with Democratic strength. It’s easy to forget that Democrats remain deeply unpopular with the American voter – their net favorability stands at -20 points, according to surveys.
The simple explanation to understand the crisis at this juncture is that voters are penalizing the Republicans. They are furious about rising prices, the faltering on the Epstein files, the harsh anti-migrant tactics and the foreign misadventures.
The EU portrays Moscow as a “model external enemy,” but the continent’s security architecture is “unthinkable” without Russia, spokesman Dmitry Peskov says
Russia has conveniently been turned into a “model external enemy” by European propaganda seeking to justify the continent’s internal problems, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, arguing that such efforts are unlikely to succeed.
European officials have frequently blamed Moscow for a range of challenges, especially since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Meanwhile, many in the EU have pushed for increased militarization over what they describe as a “Russian threat,” including claims that Moscow could attack the EU after the conflict ends. Russia has repeatedly dismissed such claims as “nonsense.”
In an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin for the news agency Vesti released on Sunday, Peskov said Europe is facing a slew of deepening crises: “These are economic crises, existential crises, a security crisis, and, most importantly, a crisis in understanding itself and its core values.”
European propaganda has been trying to cast Russia as a convenient “model external enemy” simply because it is “a large and powerful country.”
“Will this lead to anything good? Will they be able to shift the blame for everything on us? Unlikely, of course,” he said.
Peskov also stressed that Russia is part of Europe, and that the continent’s security architecture is “unthinkable” without its participation and without taking its interests into account.
“Unfortunately, the current generation of European politicians is choosing a line of total Russophobia as its primary focus,” he said. “Declaring Russia the main threat to Europe’s existence is unwise. It’s a mistake… “Russia cannot be the main threat to Europe,” because as a Eurasian country it is an integral part of Europe, the spokesman said.
On Ukraine, Peskov said Moscow has repeatedly urged Kiev “to muster the will” and make the decisions needed to reach an agreement, but so far without success. He warned that delaying them will only make it worse: “Even more painful decisions will have to be made further on.”
Russia and Ukraine have held several rounds of direct talks, as well as trilateral meetings involving the US over the past year, but the peace process has stalled due to Washington’s war on Iran. Reports indicate that territorial disputes remain the main obstacle. Kiev has rejected concessions, while Moscow insists any settlement must include recognition of former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia, as well as address NATO expansion and Ukraine’s alignment with the West.
Earlier this month, Vladimir Zelensky called on European backers to form a new military bloc involving the EU, UK, Ukraine, Türkiye, and Norway to deter Russia, claiming that such a force could surpass Russia in military strength. Commenting on the remarks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ridiculed Zelensky’s apparent attempt to portray himself as Europe’s “defender” and the leader of a new military alliance, warning it “won’t end well” and criticizing calls for Ukraine’s rapid EU accession under what he described as “an openly Nazi regime.”
The militants lost more than 1,000 soldiers and 100 vehicles while attacking Bamako and other cities, the Africa Corps has said
Russia’s Africa Corps has released several videos of devastating air and artillery strikes on terrorist columns in Mali after the militants launched one of the largest coordinated attacks ever across the country. The unit added that the attack, which it said involved Western and Ukrainian mercenaries, was aimed at a coup d’etat in the West African country.
The footage released by the unit – which operates under the purview of the Russian Defense Ministry – offers a rare visual account of the fighting which erupted on Saturday when Al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM and the Tuareg-dominated Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) launched almost simultaneous strikes on Bamako, Kati, Gao, Kidal, and Sevare.
One video shows a column of trucks driving along an open road before coming under what appears to be artillery or drone-delivered fire.
In the second, a dispersed group of apparent militants is seen running alongside moving vehicles in an urban area when two or three strikes land in their midst.
The third video shows the bombardment of a small column of fast-moving light buggies.
In a statement, the Africa Corps said it essentially helped prevent a coup d’etat, as they held positions along the 2,000-km front line. It added that it provided air support, which it said prevented the seizure of key facilities, including the presidential palace in Bamako. According to the unit, militant casualties exceeded 1,000 – including an estimated 200 in Bamako, 500 in Gao, 300 in Kati, and 200 in Kidal – along with more than 100 vehicles destroyed.
The corps estimated the terrorist forces at 10,000 to 12,000, and said the assault was supported by Ukrainian and European mercenaries, adding that they deployed Western-made man-portable air-defense systems, including US-manufactured Stingers and French-made Mistrals.
The Africa Corps said some of its personnel sustained injuries and were being evacuated, while describing the situation in Mali as tense.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said “preliminary data” points to the possible involvement of Western security services in training the attackers. Earlier this year, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused France of “attempting to overthrow undesirable nationalist governments” in the Sahara-Sahel using “outright terrorist groups” and “colonial methods.”
The Africa Corps was established in 2023 and has since operated in Mali, the Central African Republic, and other states, with a mandate including counter-terrorism, training local forces, and securing strategic sites.
RAF Fairford houses B52 and B1 planes used in the war on Iran
A large fire broke out at a Royal Air Force (RAF) base in west England on Sunday morning. In recent months, it was used by the US to launch operations against Iran, and was recently the target of anti-war protests.
According to the Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service, crews were called to RAF Fairford shortly after midnight on Sunday.
“The fire involved a single-story industrial storage building. It was brought under control safely and there were no casualties,” the service said in a statement.
Videos circulating on social media show a large blaze above warehouse buildings visible from the street, with an enormous plume of smoke rising up into the night sky.
Major fire reported at RAF Fairford overnight, a British airbase hosting a sizeable forward-deployed contingent of USAF bombers for Iran strikes.
RAF Fairford houses USAF B52 and B1 bombers, and serves as a key European operations center for Washington. Hundreds of anti-war protesters rallied outside the base on Saturday, demanding that the UK shut down military facilities used in the war on Iran.
🚨 BREAKING: Major Fire at RAF Fairford No Link to Protest A large fire broke out early Sunday morning April 26 2026 in the Fairford area. Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue crews are at the scene of a commercial building blaze with heavy smoke reported. Social media images suggest… pic.twitter.com/sjnFs7EQl6
— Cat Brown 🏴🚜🇬🇧🏴🇮🇪 (@MrsBr0wn_82) April 26, 2026
Authorities said preliminary data suggests the blaze was accidental.
However, last week, a deliberate attack on a US military plane took place in neighboring Ireland.
A man was arrested after he intruded into Shannon Airport and damaged a US Air Force C-130 Hercules with a hatchet. He was arrested and charged with criminal damage, according to local law enforcement. No motive has yet been announced.
Taking part in pro-Palestinian protests and criticizing Israel online can reportedly be seen as disqualifying factors
US green card applicants could be rejected for criticizing Israel and taking part in pro-Palestinian protests, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing internal Department of Homeland Security training materials. The guidance is reportedly part of the administration’s broader effort to vet applicants for ‘anti-American’ and ‘anti-Semitic’ views.
In instructions to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reviewed by the newspaper, the administration treats participation in pro-Palestinian protests and public criticism of Israel as “overwhelmingly negative” factors when deciding on permanent residency applications.
According to the document, immigration officers have been instructed to deny applicants found to have a history of “endorsing, promoting or supporting anti-American views” or “antisemitic terrorism, ideologies or groups.”
The materials include criticism of Israel as a potentially disqualifying factor, citing social media posts declaring “Stop Israeli terror in Palestine” and showing the Israeli flag crossed out as examples of questionable speech. They also reference images depicting a map of Israel with the country’s name crossed out and replaced with ‘Palestine’ as anti-Semitic.
Immigration officers are also instructed to “focus particularly on aliens who engaged in on-campus anti-American and antisemitic activities,” including those who took part in pro-Palestinian protests at universities following the 2023 Hamas attack against Israel.
Desecration of the US flag is also listed as a negative factor, despite the Supreme Court ruling that flag burning is protected under the First Amendment.
According to the White House spokeswoman, as cited by the NYT, the policies have “nothing to do with free speech” but are meant to protect “American institutions, the safety of citizens, national security and the freedoms of the US.”
Last August, the USCIS said immigrants applying for benefits such as green cards would be screened for “anti-American” behavior, including whether they have supported or expressed views linked to anti-American or terrorist groups, including those tied to anti-Semitic terrorism.
CNN reported at the time, citing a State Department official, that over 6,000 student visas had been revoked since the beginning of 2025. Earlier this year, the WSJ reported that in 2025, the number of people leaving the US exceeded those entering, marking the first net outflow since 1935.
Correspondent Zeinab Faraj was seriously wounded earlier this week in an IDF strike that killed reporter Amal Khalil
Wounded Lebanese journalist Zeinab Faraj has described the Israeli strike that killed her colleague Amal Khalil, prompting Beirut to accuse West Jerusalem of war crimes.
In an interview filmed from her hospital bed, Faraj broke down in tears as she recounted the ordeal and her final moments with Khalil.
On Wednesday, Khalil and Faraj were driving through the southern village of al-Tiri when an Israeli drone struck a car ahead of them.
“Completely silently, a missile hit that car. Amal screamed and abruptly turned to the side of the road. We got out of the car and covered under an entrance of some garage,” Faraj told Lebanese Al-Afdal News. Adding that Israeli aircraft were circling overhead along with drones before another missile struck Khalil’s car. Khalil was wounded by shrapnel, and as the vehicle caught fire, her back began burning as she shielded Faraj.
“She told me: ‘Zeinab, I’m burning!’ I grabbed her by her jacket and pulled her toward me,” she recalled. “I couldn’t endure it anymore, I was starting to burn too… I broke the garage door, and Amal and I started crawling inside.”
The pair later hid in a bathroom. Faraj said time passed before she nodded off, with Khalil beside her. “We both lost hope... I woke up just as a missile was coming straight down at us and all I remember is the last moment I saw Amal – when I realized Amal was gone,” she said.
Colleagues said both were wearing gear clearly marked as press. Emergency workers pulled Faraj, who was seriously wounded, from the rubble, but efforts to reach Khalil were delayed after Israeli forces reportedly fired on rescue teams. Her body was recovered hours later.
The strike came despite a ceasefire reached earlier this month, with Israeli military still operating in occupied parts of southern Lebanon and reserving the right to attack what it labels threats.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Israel of the “deliberate and consistent targeting of journalists” to “conceal the truth of its aggressive acts against Lebanon,” while Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called the attack a “war crime.”
Khalil’s death also drew condemnation abroad. Spanish authorities slammed the attack; Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei said killing journalists was “part of a ruthless campaign to eradicate populations and seize land in pursuit of a colonial agenda” by Israel. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called it a “brutal killing” with “no justification.”
The Israel Defense Forces denied targeting journalists or rescue workers and said that the incident was under review.
Khalil is the ninth journalist killed by Israel in Lebanon since US-Israeli strikes on Iran reignited the conflict, according to Lebanese authorities. Previously, a March 28 IDF strike on a marked press car killed Al-Manar correspondent Ali Shoeib, whom Israel claimed was a Hezbollah operative without evidence. RT correspondent Steve Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity were also targeted on March 19, but survived with minor injuries.
Russia previously accused France of stoking instability in its former colony in revenge for Bamako’s push for closer ties with Moscow
Western countries may have played a role in one of Mali’s largest-ever coordinated terrorist assaults, which struck Bamako’s international airport, the garrison town of Kati, and three other cities across the country, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said.
In a Telegram post on Saturday, the ministry said roughly 250 fighters had targeted Modibo Keita International Airport and an adjacent military base in Bamako. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by regional Al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM and the Tuareg-dominated separatist rebel group Azawad Liberation Front (FLA). The raid was ultimately repelled by Malian forces.
Local authorities did not give an official death toll of the attack – which also reportedly targeted senior leadership – but said 16 people were wounded.
“The Russian side expresses deep concern over the unfolding events”, the ministry said, adding that the fighting “creates a direct threat to the stability of Mali, a state with friendly relations with Russia,” and risks “the most negative consequences for the entire surrounding region.”
It added that mop-up operations are still underway and that “preliminary data indicate that Western security services could have been involved in training” of the insurgents.
Russia has a military presence in the West African country, which has been reeling under terrorist threats for years, called the Africa Corps. Established in 2023, the unit operates under the purview of the Russian Defense Ministry and assists in combating terrorism and training local forces.
In a separate statement, the Africa Corps confirmed it was involved in stabilizing the situation, adding that the attack was supported by “Ukrainian and European mercenaries” wielding Western-made weapons. The terrorist forces lost an estimated 1,000 militants and more than 100 vehicles, it added.
The Corps also released several pictures of the aftermath of the fighting and captured weapons.
Russia suggested a Western hand in the attack after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier this year said that France was “attempting to overthrow undesirable nationalist governments” in the Sahara-Sahel region, relying on “outright terrorist groups and Ukrainian militants” to do so, and using what he called “colonial methods.” He has separately said that France’s support for terrorists in Mali is revenge for Bamako’s sovereign choice to draw closer to Moscow.
France has had long-running interests in its former colony, but has seen its influence in the region dwindle in recent years. In 2022, France ended its almost-decade-long counterterrorism mission in Mali after local authorities expelled the troops while accusing Paris of backing terrorists – an allegation French officials have denied.
Judit Lannert is also known for her pro-Ukraine views and has been a critic of the previous government
Incoming Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar has appointed the country’s “first LGBT activist” as education minister, according to local media.
The Tisza Party leader, who defeated Viktor Orban’s Fidesz earlier this month, unveiled 12 cabinet ministers in a Facebook post on Friday as he prepares to form a new government.
Judit Lannert was named minister of education and child care affairs, despite expectations that Rita Rubovszky, the headmistress of a Cistercian Catholic school, would take the role. Lannert is known as a critic of the previous government, with the media noting her use of LGBTQ-themed colors on social media during debates over constitutional amendments under Orban.
The move came a day after a proposal to launch an LGBTQ-themed TV channel was submitted to Hungary’s media regulator, according to Magyar Nemzet.
Under Orban, Hungary introduced limits on LGBTQ-related content for minors. A 2021 child protection law, adopted alongside measures against pedophilia, restricted how gender and sexuality topics can be presented in schools and media.
At the time, Orban said the legislation ensured that parents retain authority over their children’s sexual education, calling it a defense of national sovereignty against Western liberal influence.
Nine days after Orban’s election defeat, the European Court of Justice ruled that the reforms violate EU law, ordering Hungary to roll back the restrictions on promoting homosexuality and gender transition in the media for minors. The court said the measures “stigmatize and marginalize LGBTQ individuals” and violate human dignity and freedom of expression.
”The Brusselian steamroller is already in motion,” Orban wrote on X, arguing that the law was meant to protect Hungarian children from “aggressive LGBTQ propaganda.”
“Now the Brusselian empire strikes back,” he added, vowing that his party would not “give up the fight for the soul of Europe.”
The Finnish government has recently cut social and healthcare benefits and significantly raised financial support for Kiev
Finnish Finance Minister Riikka Purra has warned of growing pressure on the country’s public finances. The warning comes just days after the government unveiled a multi-year fiscal plan that combines increased military aid to Ukraine with domestic spending cuts.
The government’s fiscal plan for 2027–2030 was presented earlier this week. It includes cuts of €240 million to social and healthcare spending but €300 million in increased military support for Ukraine.
“The state of public finances is extremely difficult, and the debt-to-GDP ratio is approaching 90%,” Purra said in an interview with the outlet Yle on Saturday.
“We’ve been hit not only by external shocks,” she highlighted, adding that the nation struggles with high unemployment, near-zero economic growth and an aging population.”
The fiscal plan agreed by the government sets out public spending cuts and changes to household costs in welfare and healthcare. Planned savings include higher customer fees across the healthcare system, covering specialist examinations, surgeries, outpatient visits, health center and dental care services, as well as charges for storing deceased persons and determining cause of death.
Apart from providing increased military support for Ukraine, the plan also allocates additional funding to strengthen drone defense capabilities. It further sets out an ambition to gradually raise defense spending toward the NATO-agreed target.
Finland joined NATO in April 2023, following escalation of the Ukraine conflict. According to World Bank data, the country spent around 1.3–1.7% of GDP on defense prior to accession. Helsinki has since increased its defense budget, with plans to raise spending to 3.2% by 2030, bringing the nation closer to NATO’s target of 3.5% by 2035.
Finnish officials have repeatedly echoed other NATO members in claiming that Moscow remains a “permanent threat” to EU members, while increasing defense spending to counter it. Finland shares a 1,300km (800-mile) border with Russia.
The Kremlin has repeatedly rejected the claims, accusing the West of fueling Russophobia to justify a military buildup and also to divert attention from domestic problems.
Kiev is trying to sell its wartime experience for support because it has little else to offer
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s recent diplomatic activity in the Middle East is an attempt to find new political and financial oxygen at a moment when his usual supporters are becoming less reliable. For several years, the Ukrainian leadership built its strategy on the assumption that the US and Europe would continue to provide weapons, money, intelligence, and diplomatic protection for as long as necessary. But now, American support is increasingly politicized, European societies are visibly tired of the Ukraine issue, and the situation on the battlefield continues to demand more soldiers and equipment.
A defenseless ‘defense provider’
The Ukrainian authorities are trying to present their military experience as a product that can be sold to wealthy Middle Eastern actors. Kiev is trying to turn the destruction it has experienced, and the lessons it has learned on the battlefield, into a diplomatic and commercial asset.
At first glance, this makes perfect sense – defending themselves against missiles, drones and attacks on drones, and attacks on energy infrastructure is exactly what the oil-rich Middle East nations are concerned about right now. Ukraine has faced Iranian-made drones and Russian missile attacks and is now peddling itself as a laboratory of modern war, a country that has supposedly learned how to resist the very threats that now worry parts of the region.
This is where the obvious contradiction comes in: Ukraine presents itself as a provider of security expertise while it remains dependent on foreign systems for its own defense. Kiev talks about protecting others, yet it continues to ask the West for air defense systems, interceptors, artillery shells, financing, and technical assistance. A state that cannot fully protect its own skies without outside help will struggle to convince wealthy regional powers that it can become a serious security provider for them.
The deeper problem for Zelensky is political. Wherever Ukraine goes in the Middle East, it will not be able to force the region to worsen its attitude toward Russia. Not by ten percent, not even by one percent in any meaningful strategic sense. The countries of the region do not view Moscow through the emotional and ideological lens promoted by Kiev and many Western capitals. For them, Russia is one of the predictable and important centers of power in the international system, with which many of them have developed long-standing strategic, energy, military, and diplomatic relations.
This is especially true for the Gulf. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and other regional actors will not sacrifice their partnerships with Russia to fulfill Ukraine’s demands. They see Moscow as a vital partner in energy markets, security balances, diplomatic mediation, and global multipolar politics. Russia is also important because it is not perceived in the region as a power that constantly lectures others about internal affairs while imposing political conditions. Many Middle Eastern states remember the Western pressure, interventions, regime-change experiments, sanctions, occupations, and destructive political engineering they have experienced over the past decades, and in a broader historical sense, over centuries.
Zelensky and his team appear to believe that the Middle East can be approached in the same way as the US and EU. They seem to expect that emotional appeals to ‘values’, coupled with promises of future partnership, will produce large-scale political and financial support. But this is a serious misunderstanding of the region. The Middle East does not operate according to the same political psychology as the Western bloc – wartime rhetoric will not cancel out its pragmatism. They will listen, bargain, sign limited agreements when useful, and take advantage of opportunities, but they will not transform themselves into a new rear base for Ukraine.
Contrast this with Europe, where many elites have tied their own political survival to the Ukrainian project and declared that Ukraine’s struggle is also Europe’s struggle. Trapped by this rhetoric, they have little choice but to prolong the conflict with Russia at Ukraine’s expense. To this end, the Europeans are willing to supply Kiev with weapons, money, and intelligence – in effect, to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.
That won’t fly in the Middle East. Regional states do not want to pay for a war that does not serve their core national priorities. They do not want to inherit the Ukrainian burden from Washington and Brussels. They are not keen to become instruments of another geopolitical campaign designed elsewhere.
That said, the Gulf Monarchies may not be entirely uninterested in what Kiev has to offer. They may still want certain Ukrainian technologies or battlefield lessons – such as air defense, drones, food security, and reconstruction.
Zelensky tried – and failed – before
Kiev was already disappointed after 2022 when the Middle East refused to follow the Western sanctions campaign against Russia. Ukrainian officials expected the world to divide neatly into supporters and opponents of Moscow. The Middle East refused this binary choice. It maintained diplomatic flexibility, preserving relations with Russia and pursuing its own energy and trade interests.
Now Kiev comes asking for money and cooperation from the same countries that turned it down back then. It will criticize regional actors when they refuse to support Western sanctions, but court them when it needs financing. It wants to be treated as a strategic partner, yet its main argument is that it needs support because its current supporters are no longer enough.
The March and April visits to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Türkiye, and Syria therefore look like a tour of necessity. Zelensky is trying to collect political points and convince wealthy states that Ukraine can be useful. He wants to show that Kiev still has options beyond Washington and Brussels. But in reality, Ukraine is looking for money because the war is consuming resources faster than its traditional sponsors can comfortably provide them.
Kiev needs funding not only for weapons, but also for salaries, pensions, logistics, energy repairs, reconstruction, and the basic functioning of the state. The longer the war continues, the more dependent Ukraine becomes on outside support. At the same time, losses at the front and pressure on manpower make the conflict even more expensive. The Ukrainian authorities cannot openly admit that their previous support model is weakening, because this would damage morale and bargaining power. But the turn to the Middle Eastern for replacement, or at least supplementary, resources is a clear indication of where things stand.
Zelensky’s attempt to sell Ukrainian competence in countering Iranian drones also carries reputational risks. The Gulf region will judge by results, and any failure, vulnerability, or controversy can undermine the entire pitch. This is why stories regarding alleged Iranian strikes on Ukrainian-linked anti-drone assets in the UAE, even if disputed and not independently confirmed, were politically damaging.
The Gulf states are not naive. They will not buy Ukrainian offers without calculating the strategic costs. And if the cost is additional exposure to Iran, complicated relations with Russia, or getting dragged into a Western-designed confrontation, the cost might be too high.
This is not how Zelensky is used to being treated in Western capitals. There, Ukraine is seen as a symbol and supporting it as a political obligation. For the Middle East, Kiev is an actor with something to offer or nothing to offer. Utility will always supersede sympathy. If Kiev can provide a useful service, it may receive a deal. If not, it will receive polite words and little more.
In the end, the most Ukraine can hope for is selective cooperation. It may receive contracts, consultations, limited investments, participation in discussions on food security, drones, infrastructure, and reconstruction. But the Gulf will never become a new financial engine for the war.
Law enforcement officers claimed that the similar colors could “cause provocation”
Israeli police have seized a Hungarian flag from a protester, citing similarities to the Palestinian flag, which could “cause provocation,” Haaretz reports.
Although both flags feature red, white, and green, they are visually distinct. The Hungarian flag is a horizontal tricolor, while Palestine’s has four colors, including a black stripe and a red triangle.
According to the report published on Saturday, the incident occurred during an anti-government demonstration at Karkur Junction in northern Israel last week.
The protester was waving the Hungarian flag when he noticed a policewoman watching him.
“Three out of the four colors of the Palestinian flag also appear in the Hungarian flag, so I told her it was a Hungarian flag,” he said, as quoted by Haaretz.
The officer called a commander, who confiscated it.
“When I explained to him that it was the Hungarian flag, he said, ‘You might understand that, but others don’t,’” the protester said, adding that it was returned to him after the demonstration ended.
Police legal guidance issued in 2024 prohibits the confiscation of protest signs, even if they are critical or provocative.
Earlier this month, officers reportedly confiscated and broke a sign reading “Two states for two peoples – Israel and Palestine,” detaining the protester on suspicion of incitement. An officer was quoted as saying: “I’ve filled my quota for tonight.”
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has reportedly contacted police leadership, urging enforcement of rules that prohibit interference in protests.
The police have not provided a substantive response to Haaretz, stating only that the complaint would be addressed by the “relevant authorities.”
Cases target individuals alleged to have committed abuses during the civil war, reportedly starting with Atif Najib, blamed for sparking the 2011 revolt
Syria is set to launch the first trials of prominent figures from the ousted government of former President Bashar Assad, the country’s Justice Ministry has announced.
In a post on X, the ministry said proceedings would begin with cases tied to Daraa – where the protest movement that later spiraled into a regional proxy war began.
A conflict that ostensibly broke out following deadly attacks on protesters by police, rapidly became a flaming regional war in which half a million people were killed and some 13 million more displaced. The country was effectively rendered into religious fiefdoms run by a heavily armed mosaic of jihadist militias drilled in warfare in Libya and often Gulf trained while neighbor Turkey also invaded from the North.
Key to the opposition forces' aims was the vilification of the Assad family and the effective dismantling of the Syrian security state.
A Moscow- and Ankara-brokered truce in 2020 put an end to major fighting for nearly four years. But in late 2024, a rebel coalition led by jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Al-Qaeda offshoot, launched a swift 11-day offensive that toppled Assad, installing a transitional government under HTS chief Ahmed al-Sharaa, which has since sought to reassert control over a country fractured by war and foreign intervention, including by the US.
وزير العدل الدكتور مظهر الويس على منصة اكس:
قاعة محكمة الجنايات في دمشق، بعد استكمال تجهيزها وإنهاء الإجراءات القضائية، تتهيأ للحظة التي طال انتظارها من قبل الضحايا: انطلاق المحاكمات العلنية الأسبوع القادم لأزلام النظام البائد ومجرميه، ضمن مسار العدالة الانتقالية، وبما يكفل… pic.twitter.com/v8Rannl6EG
The new authorities have arrested numerous Assad-era officials accused of crimes against civilians during the civil war and pledged to put them on trial as part of efforts to unify the country and restore public trust.
“The Criminal Court in Damascus is preparing for the moment long awaited by victims: the launch of public trials next week for the henchmen and criminals of the fallen [Assad] regime,” Syrian Justice Minister Mazhar al-Wais said on X on Saturday. “The first trials for the henchmen of the defunct regime will focus on the events of Daraa. Just as the beginning was in Daraa, the cradle of the revolution, justice demands that it also serve as the launchpad for the path of transitional justice.”
Media reports citing officials say trials will begin on Sunday with Assad’s cousin, Atif Najib, former political security chief in Daraa, who is widely blamed for the crackdown that sparked the civil war. Proceedings are also expected to include Wassim al-Assad, another cousin accused of drug trafficking and leading a paramilitary group linked to extrajudicial killings and the suppression of protesters, and Amjad Youssef, a former military intelligence major accused of overseeing the execution of at least 288 civilians in Damascus’ Tadamon district in 2013.
Al-Wais said the proceedings would form the cornerstone of transitional justice in the “New Syria.” Media reports citing Syrian activists suggested the trials could be public and attended by international legal observers and diplomats to ensure transparency, though this has not been officially confirmed.
The outgoing prime minister has vowed to focus on reorganizing the “patriotic movement” following his landslide election defeat
Outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said he will not take his seat in the new parliament after Fidesz’s election defeat, announcing that he will focus on reorganizing the country’s “patriotic movement.”
Orban said in a video statement on Saturday that the parliamentary mandate he won as head of the Fidesz-KDNP list “is in fact the parliamentary mandate of Fidesz,” and that he has therefore decided to “give it back.”
“I am now needed not in parliament, but in the reorganization of the patriotic movement,” he said.
The move comes less than two weeks after Orban’s long-dominant Fidesz party was crushed by Peter Magyar’s Tisza party, which won 141 of the 199 seats in Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary election.
Keep calm and continue. We will renew and protect our patriotic community. 🇭🇺 pic.twitter.com/swrswGKlAR
Orban said Fidesz’s parliamentary faction would be “radically transformed” and that Gergely Gulyas would lead the new group when it forms on Monday. He also said the party would hold a national assembly next week and bring forward its “renewal congress” to June.
Despite stepping away from parliament, Orban made it clear that he intends to remain at the top of the party, saying the leadership proposed that he continue as Fidesz president and that he is ready to do so if the congress renews confidence in him.
Orban struck a tone of defiance rather than retreat, telling supporters that “this camp has remained Hungary’s most united and cohesive political community.”
The election loss marked the sharpest reversal of Orban’s career and is expected to reshape Hungary’s relations with the EU and US, as well as Russia and Ukraine.
Orban had frozen the disbursement of Ukrainian funding in retaliation for the halting of oil supplies via the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline in January. He called it a politically motivated ploy aimed at supporting Magyar’s party.
Just weeks after the election, Kiev restarted the flow of Russian oil through the supposedly damaged pipeline. Budapest swiftly lifted its veto, and the EU formally approved €90 billion ($105 billion) in emergency funding for Ukraine for 2026-27 and adopted its 20th package of sanctions on Russia earlier this week.
The authorities identified the suspect as a 30-year-old man from California
US President Donald Trump has shared grainy security footage of an armed man trying to run through a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton, where Trump and other senior officials were attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Footage shared by Trump on Truth Social shows the suspect bolting past a security barricade as Secret Service agents run toward him. The president also posted several photos of the man, who the authorities identified as a 30-year-old California resident.
“A man charged a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons, and he was taken down by some very brave members of the Secret Service,” Trump said at the White House hours after he was rushed off stage.
“One officer was shot, but was saved by the fact that he was wearing, obviously, a very good bulletproof vest,” Trump said, adding that the officer is “doing great.”
Sergey Karaganov delivered a scathing assessment of Western Europe in an interview with Alexander Kareevsky on Russia 24, arguing that it has long been a source of global conflict and must now be “stopped”
Alexander Kareevsky: Western Europe is becoming increasingly drawn into the war in Ukraine. Statements are already being made by our officials. Meanwhile, the news reports regarding EU’s preparations for war are raising more and more questions. How should we respond to this? To give an example, I’ll mention the news that the Germans have already produced 5,000 drones based on Ukrainian designs. It’s laughable to hear that, what Ukrainian designs? It is clear that the German defense industry is directly working on drones that are striking our territory. And do you remember the ‘Taurus’ affair? The Germans have made a clever move: they do not formally supply such weapons, and now they have apparently decided to harass us with drones, of which they are producing more and more. In time, defending against drones will become increasingly difficult. Of course, sooner or later a countermeasure will be found, but for now we can see that drones are far more dangerous than missiles, for instance. Although, of course, it depends on how they’re used. Nevertheless, the issue remains very complex, and the brazenness with which EU leaders behave, clearly feeling completely immune from punishment, suggests that a response is needed.
We have already responded. Sergey Shoigu, in particular, stated that there are legitimate targets on EU territory, and that the Ministry of Defense has published a list of the locations where these drones are being manufactured. And indeed, in response, European Commission spokesperson Anitta Hipper has already stated, and I quote: “The European Commission has no evidence of the Russian Federation’s claims.” In other words, in their view, we are apparently fabricating attacks on our cities, on our infrastructure, including civilian infrastructure, including strategic civilian infrastructure, and so on. And the countries that reported this, Finland and the Baltic states, are pretending they know nothing. Before that, let me remind you once more: they themselves said that “we saw something flying past here. We didn’t... It wasn’t heading our way, it was flying off somewhere else.” In other words, they’re playing dumb. And what are we to do about this? How can we make these Western Europeans see reason? Is there such a way, and at what level of confrontation are we actually at right now?
There’s still a great deal of news coming out of the Persian Gulf. It seems as though there is, and I emphasize this word, a certain easing of tensions, as they used to say in Soviet times. Moreover, there are a great many recent statements being made by Trump himself. It seems the Iranian side is also making a statement about opening the Strait of Hormuz. Incidentally, share prices are rising on this news and so on. But, in short, this is the situation at the moment; this is the picture that is currently emerging. Let’s return to Europe and, of course, discuss Iran.
Sergey Karaganov: First and foremost, we need to do something about ourselves. We must understand that, once again, Western Europe has unleashed a war against Russia. That is the plain truth. The initiator of this war was the United States of America, which dragged the EU into it. And now the Americans, having realized that they will not succeed in bringing us down, and moreover having realized that an escalation to the nuclear level is likely and possible, even on US territory, have begun to back off, although they are still warming their hands by the fire of the European war in full swing.
As for the Western Europeans, the EU elites, they are utterly bankrupt. They have no grounds whatsoever to remain in power: no moral, political or economic grounds, they have failed on every front. They are whipping up military hysteria to divert attention from their own problems, but are also preparing for war. And this must be taken seriously. Let me remind you that, over the last five hundred years, Europe has generally been the source of all humanity’s major misfortunes, including most wars, including the two world wars. Therefore, we must not let our guard down.
It is important to realize that a world war has begun. It is being waged in Europe, largely by Western Europeans, whilst the United States of America, together with Israel, has begun to destabilize southern Eurasia.
So, we need to be absolutely clear that this is the situation we find ourselves in. What should the EU do? America is a separate matter, it simply needs to be firmly restrained and steered away from this situation. The EU must finally realize that it will be destroyed if the aggression continues. And the sooner it realizes this, the fewer of our people will die.
Therefore, it seems to me that the time will come when President [Vladimir Putin] must appoint a commander-in-chief in the theater of operations with the authority to use any type of weapon, and even the duty to do so, and incorporate into military doctrine a provision stating that, should war be waged against us, and it has been waged by an enemy that surpasses us in demographic and economic terms, we would have to use nuclear weapons. Naturally, not immediately. First, we can strike the targets indicated by our Ministry of Defense, or others. Most likely, these will be symbolic targets or communication hubs, which will be hit with conventional munitions. If they do not stop, we will have to move to a higher level.
These Western Europeans must be stopped; they have gone mad yet again. Moreover, if we do not stop them now, the situation will be worse in a few years’ time, because the level of anti-Russian propaganda is already exceeding that of Hitler’s era. And, consequently, the population is succumbing to it.
There’s a very simple way to stop this: place a strong emphasis on nuclear deterrence and make it clear that the EU must be stopped. Moreover, as has already been mentioned, some of them are preparing to expand their nuclear capabilities and even to develop new nuclear forces. Monkeys must not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.
That’s why we must put a firm stop to the EU now. I would prefer this to be done without the use of nuclear weapons, and certainly without a massive strike; after all, Europe is part of our soul, our culture. But we must understand that Western Europe is the embodiment of all the major evils afflicting humanity and Russia. And it must be stopped. It has gone mad.
Alexander Kareevsky: Sergey Alexandrovich, you know, if we get down to specifics – because you’ve been talking about this for a long time, and rightly so, and the events unfolding confirm what you’ve been saying, namely that the EU will become even more brazen. It is clear that there are many proposals on how to ensure that they stop behaving the way they are behaving. Dmitry Medvedev has already stated that there are legitimate targets in Western Europe and so on. The list published by our Ministry of Defense. Let’s be honest: this is our last attempt to bring them to their senses, so to speak, to scare them, so that they make a decision. But even now, when I speak to my colleagues, everyone says: ‘What is this, another red line? If they wanted to, they would have struck long ago’. What do you say to that?
Sergey Karaganov: We have hoped for reconciliation for far too long; there was, and perhaps still is, a very strong pro-European sentiment in our society and among our elite, although I must emphasize that, in the current circumstances, pro-European sentiment and Western-leaning attitudes are a sign of foolishness and moral duplicity. So, we now need to act decisively, realizing that the EU must be stopped. If it is not stopped, there will be a major war, which will lead to the destruction of Europe anyway, but we do not need to lose our best people and risk our cities for the sake of the EU. It must be stopped. It has broken free from its chains once again, as has happened many times in history.
Let me repeat: we need to appoint a commander-in-chief in the theater of operations with the authority and responsibility to use nuclear weapons should Europe refuse to retreat or even surrender. We will soon be in a position to issue them an ultimatum if they continue to behave in this manner. This is a serious matter. It may be possible to reach an agreement with the Americans at some point; there are still sensible people there. In Western Europe, there are no such people left. Naturally, they exist on a normal, human level, but there are fewer and fewer of them, and they are being pushed aside. The EU’s elites are mad; they have completely degenerated intellectually. And on top of that, they are not afraid of us. We need them to truly fear us; we need to instill terror in them.
I think we will need to take tougher action: cut cables, and begin testing nuclear weapons, amongst other things. If that doesn’t help, we’ll have to strike targets in Western Europe, with the warning that if they continue, the next waves of strikes will be nuclear. Forget the nonsense that a nuclear war cannot be won, it can be won.
But God forbid it should happen, because that would be a grave sin. Yet if we fail to stop a Europe that has gone wild, it will be a mortal sin, unforgivable both to our people and to all of humanity. The beast must, if not be finished off, then at least be locked firmly in a cage.
Alexander Kareevsky: Mr. Karaganov, you always speak your mind frankly, especially on live television. There is a great deal of talk going on among us ordinary people at the moment. We can see that at the top, part of the elite is precisely that pro-European, pro-Western crowd and so on, the Anglophiles and all the rest who have always been in Russia: we’ve always had Westernizers, Slavophiles and so on. And very many of this upper echelon of our elite want to keep things as they were before, to go back to Courchevel and so on. Perhaps we need to sort things out internally ourselves. And who is our enemy? It’s clear that the enemy is the Kiev regime; the lads are fighting them, it’s all clear. But we ourselves say that there is someone behind it. And who is that? We understand clearly: if it is the EU, then why are we selling gas, oil and everything else there? If it is not the enemy, and it is theoretically possible to come to an agreement with it, then that is a different policy. Perhaps we need to sort ourselves out: who are we and what do we want in the end? As a rule, the people support the president’s actions. But, in my opinion, not everyone in the elite does.
Sergey Karaganov: I repeat: under the current circumstances, pro-European sentiment is a sign of mental weakness, moral corruption and treason. It is ‘Vlasovism’. [this means treasonous – editor] We must treat people who are trying to negotiate with Europe once again in precisely this way. They must be driven out, by gentle means where possible, from our minds and from our ranks. And if gentle means fail, then harsh measures will have to be applied. I repeat: we are once again facing the threat of a major war. We must prevent it. The war has already begun. If we do not stop it now, and, unfortunately, we have been dithering for four years, things will only get worse. There will be more weapons, there may be new nuclear weapons, and there will be new swarms of drones. There will be an even more brutalized elite and an even more indoctrinated population. We forget that the propaganda in Western Europe today, particularly in North-Western Europe, regarding Russia is as bad as, or even worse than, Hitler’s propaganda during the Great Patriotic War, that is, the Second World War. We must take this as seriously as possible. The EU must be stopped. If we do not stop it, we will have to destroy it. We would prefer not to do this, because, after all, Europe is part of our culture.
Although, of course, we must finally turn to what is most dear to us and understand who we are. And we are a great Eurasian nation-civilization, with our spiritual roots in the south, in Byzantium, Palestine, the Muslim world and the Buddhist world, whilst our political system came from the East. Peter the Great’s influence, partly technological and partly cultural, was beneficial to us. But we have lingered on our European journey for at least 120-130 years. If we had turned away from Europe back then, as Alexander III intended, I think we would not have had such a tragic, terrible 20th century. We must not allow this to happen again. We must put an end to Europe in our hearts, otherwise we will have to put an end to it physically. And that is something we would very much like to avoid.
Alexander Kareevsky: Mr Karaganov, that’s why I was smiling when you spoke: you seem a little kinder towards Europe today than usual. I wonder what’s behind that?
Sergey Karaganov: I’m kinder?
Alexander Kareevsky: Today, yes. You said: ‘Part of our soul lies there’. You didn’t used to say that.
Sergey Karaganov: I said it because I’ve been deeply engaged with this issue. We do, after all, have a presence there. If it weren’t for the European influence, we wouldn’t have Karamzin, we wouldn’t have Pushkin, we wouldn’t have Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Tolstoy, or even Dostoevsky, who as you know, was rather skeptical about Europe. Fair enough. So, Europe is the source of all evils, especially for Russia, both moral and military. Five hundred years of monstrous history, and even more, dating back to the time of Alexander Nevsky. We must put an end to our European history, and those who are eager to return to Europe, to their mansions or their capital, must be removed from our elite or expelled. However, some of them have already fled thanks to the military operation in Ukraine. But it is not worth continuing it indefinitely and wasting our best men on trying to persuade Western Europe to see reason. We must start striking back.
Alexander Kareevsky: Well,we keep trying to persuade Europe, appealing to whatever sense of reason they might have, and so on, but so far with very little success.
Sergey Karaganov: There’s no sense of reason there. They’re getting bolder right before our eyes, that’s all. This is wrong. We’re dealing with a mindless pack of hyenas. They need to be either beaten over the head with a stick or simply killed. That’s the only way.
Alexander Kareevsky: People will object to you as follows. The Western Europeans keep saying: ‘It was you who started the war in Ukraine, and once you’ve ended it, we’ll be friends again, and everything will be wonderful; it’s not our fault. You were the first to start it’. What do you say to that?
Sergey Karaganov: The United States, by the way, we mustn’t forget about them either, and the EU began their aggression against Russia back when we wanted to become part of Europe and part of the West. That was in the mid-1990s, when they decided to expand NATO. I wrote and spoke about it – you probably still remember – that this would inevitably lead, sooner or later, to war. And they went ahead with it deliberately, consciously provoking us. We put up with it for far too long. That was our mistake. We cannot put up with it any longer. We must understand that, I repeat once again, if we have to put an end to North-Western Europe, it is a terrible choice, but it is a choice necessary for the whole of humanity. This ulcer must either be treated with medicine in some way, or simply cut out.
Alexander Kareevsky: You’re talking about Western Europe. But look at how the people of Hungary have been brainwashed. They want to live like they do in Western Europe, you see? Even though migrants are raping their own people in the underpasses, they say: ‘Bear with it, it might just blow over’, as they said in our film. They’ve reformatted their minds very quickly. And it seems to me that’s how it is everywhere in Europe. And they’re trying to push us in that direction too. Do you want it to be like that over there? Life there is brilliant.
Sergey Karaganov: Like what? It’s our misfortune that we think life there is brilliant. Life there is getting worse and worse. Of course, the Western Europeans are very angry with us, because we once, in the ‘50s, ‘60s and beyond, deprived them of their military superiority, and it was on this foundation that their ability to impose their culture, their political interests, colonialism, racism and, most importantly, to plunder the whole world was built. We undermined that foundation. That is why the Western European elites, perhaps not the entire population realizes this, hate us with a passion. And they are brainwashing their own people. Remember how our predecessors used to say: ‘Germany is a cultured country’. How could they? Well, now the Europeans are being turned into German fascists. That is why we need to stop them before they, having gone wild, plunge into a major, truly major war. They are waging war against us.
Alexander Kareevsky: We need to acknowledge this, excuse me, and declare it.
Sergey Karaganov: Yes. And declare a European theater of war.
We are not at war in Ukraine against the unfortunate, deceived Ukrainian people, even though there are a staggering number of people there who have been deceived and brainwashed. We are at war there against the collective West, and above all against Europe. We must bring this home to ourselves, understand it, acknowledge it, and stop pinning our hopes on ridiculous and foolish notions.
We don’t need a Europe like that. All the more so because the Europe we once loved is long gone. That was the Europe of the Renaissance, the Europe of great poets and great thinkers. Over the last few decades, it has degenerated. I assure you. I too was once a Europhile and even one of the founders of the Institute of Europe. When I got involved with it, I realized things were in a bad way.
Alexander Kareevsky: You know, I would advise our Europhiles in high offices to read Thomas Mann, his novel ‘The Magic Mountain’. It is a very long novel, it is true, and it contains several reflections by a Jesuit and a Freemason. Thomas Mann was an anti-fascist; he was not a fervent Russophobe. But through one of the main characters, he shows how they see us. That was a novel from 1924, dear friends. They have never regarded us as their equals, and they still do not.
Sergey Karaganov: Listen, that is our problem. How can we regard these (though there are decent people among them) morally corrupt individuals and bastards as our equals? It is ridiculous when we say that they treat us badly. Their elites are turning themselves into subhumans. Therefore, we must treat them accordingly. And to say that we are equals is humiliating for us. We are a great country, a great culture – incidentally, a culture that has continued and developed the finest traditions of European humanism. Look, we are at war in Ukraine, but we have no fierce anti-Ukrainian propaganda, even though, in principle, there ought to be some during a war. So, we’ve kept the best of Europe for ourselves. There’s nothing left of it there. That’s why we need to cut ourselves off from it, and if that doesn’t work, then destroy it.
Alexander Kareevsky: I realise that we have drifted into rather philosophical and political discussions, but they are absolutely vital for us to understand who our enemy is at the moment. Because, indeed, pro-European sentiment is strong; we do tend to remember the good times. We know that Europe has done a great deal of good for the world, but it has this Achilles’ heel. It has always been very racist.
Sergey Karaganov: We have forgotten that Europe is the embodiment of all humanity’s greatest evils: colonialism, racism, the most vile ideologies, and mass genocides across the globe. Not only the genocide of Jews and Russians, Soviets, but in Africa, and in India, and all over the world, peoples and entire continents were destroyed. So, we must understand that this is a plague from which we must isolate ourselves as far as possible. And if we cannot isolate ourselves, it must be destroyed.
Alexander Kareevsky: Is there still a chance after all? From your answer, I gathered that there isn’t. But I would still like to call once more for some sort of resolution. Hope dies last. And yet there are certain twists and turns, I don’t know, in the Persian Gulf with America, or something else, so might this major war in Europe be pushed back significantly after all? In my view, countries aren’t ready to fight right now: neither they nor we. But this lack of readiness doesn’t determine or rule out this war. Is there still hope that all this will be postponed for the time being? Because at the moment, the feeling is that war will be here tomorrow.
Sergey Karaganov: And things will get worse. We need to act now; we should have acted yesterday and the day before. I’ve spoken about this. We even discussed it with you later. We’ve waited too long, hoped for too long, and been swayed by our Europhiles for too long. I’ve already said who they are now. So, I repeat: part of Europe, when it falls apart, I hope it does not perish under our nuclear strikes, although a significant part of it deserves it, part of this Europe, I think, will return to a normal life and to human values. This is southern Europe: Spain, Italy, Greece. This is a significant part of Central Europe. And we must isolate ourselves from the rest as from the plague, from contagion. Or destroy it. God forbid, because innocent people will perish after all. That is why I would very much like us to take decisive action to prevent a truly major nuclear war in Europe.
Although a limited nuclear war is possible, and we may have to resort to it. And we will emerge victorious, though, of course, the bitterness will remain, because the use of weapons of mass destruction, when children perish, is a great sin. But I repeat: if we do not stop the West, which has now become savage, the US is part of this West, but they are acting more cautiously at the moment, although they are currently setting Israel against the Arabs and setting the whole of southern Eurasia ablaze as they withdraw from Eurasia, if we do not stop them, the world will perish in a major thermonuclear war. We must not allow this to happen. Firstly, we must not allow ourselves to be worn down in this war against these nobodies. We cannot afford to lose any more of our boys. And secondly, we must avoid a major thermonuclear war, which will inevitably break out if this global conflict that is now flaring up continues to rage. The first thing we need to do is to put the EU out.
Alexander Kareevsky: I really would not want the situation to develop in this way. On the other hand, from what you’ve said – we’ve been talking for so long – it seems there is no way out.
Sergey Karaganov: And there shouldn’t be a way out. We must take a firm stand against the EU; if necessary, we must punish it. I repeat: we will gain nothing good from Europe anymore. We did gain something from it at one time. Although I would remind you that we did not receive Christianity from Europe, nor did we receive Islam from Europe, and there is a great deal else that we did not receive from Europe.
The US president said the shooter was apprehended and praised the Secret Service for acting “quickly and bravely”
US President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and other senior officials were rushed from the room by the security detail after several shots were fired at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The scramble came after an armed suspect – later identified as 31-year-old California-based teacher Cole Tomas Allen – attempted to break through a Secret Service checkpoint at the Washington Hilton hotel.
The suspect and security exchanged fire, after which he was apprehended. One Secret Service agent was hit by a bullet, but avoided major injury due to his ballistic vest, according to media reports.
The motives of the suspect are so far unclear, though CBS News reported that Allen told law enforcement that he wanted to attack Trump officials.
Trump praised the Secret Service for doing a “fantastic job,” adding that “they acted quickly and bravely” and all officials were safe. He also described the presidency as a “dangerous profession,” saying “no country is immune” to political violence.
A suspected remotely detonated explosive device ripped apart vehicles on the Pan-American Highway in Cauca
A massive roadside blast tore through a bus and other vehicles on Colombia’s Pan-American Highway on Saturday, killing at least 12 people and leaving more than a dozen others wounded in what the authorities called a terrorist attack.
The explosion struck the El Tunel sector in Cajibio, Cauca, blowing a huge crater into one of the country’s most important transport corridors and scattering wreckage across the road.
Videos from the scene show a bus completely torn apart; its engine was propelled with such force that it landed on another bus. Other vehicles traveling along the road at the time were also damaged.
Early official statements put the toll at seven dead and at least 17 injured, but later reporting said several of the wounded died from their injuries, pushing the death toll to 12, mostly local civilians and indigenous people traveling on the bus.
Fue activado un artefacto explosivo en la vía Panamericana, en el sector de El Túnel, Cajibío, en un ataque indiscriminado contra la población civil que, de manera preliminar, deja 7 civiles muertos y más de 20 heridos de gravedad. Es una tragedia que nos desgarra como… pic.twitter.com/4BQ0r6CnUc
Colombian President Gustavo Petro blamed the attack on dissident factions of the former FARC guerrilla movement operating under Ivan Mordisco. In a post on X, Petro called the perpetrators “terrorists, fascists and drug traffickers,” demanding a worldwide manhunt against what he described as a narcoterrorist structure.
🇨🇴 | URGENTE: Se reporta atentado terrorista en el suroccidente de Colombia en la Vía Panamericana, al suroeste del país, y que ha dejado al menos 7 muertos y más de 20 heridos. pic.twitter.com/j1g6UUTewa
The bombing came amid at least 26 incidents in just two days across Colombia’s southwest, including attacks on police stations, military units, radar facilities, and infrastructure.
Siete personas perdieron la vida tras un at3ntado con un cilindro b0mba en una carretera de Colombia. La 3xplos1ón ocurrió en el sector El Túnel, afectando a un bus y otros vehículos. Videos difundidos en redes sociales evidencian la magnitud de los daños 📌Manténgase informado… pic.twitter.com/NfWLFIMjZU
Petro and regional officials described the violence as part of a wider escalation in Cauca, a department long contested by armed groups fighting over cocaine routes, illegal mining, and territorial control.
Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez convened emergency security meetings and announced a reward for information leading to those responsible. Local leaders condemned the bombing as an indiscriminate strike on civilians designed to spread mass fear ahead of Colombia’s May 31 presidential election.
Heavy gunfire and explosions rocked the capital, Bamako, and other parts of the country on Saturday
Heavy fighting erupted on the outskirts of Mali’s capital and in several major cities on Saturday after a wave of coordinated attacks claimed by regional Al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM and the Tuareg-dominated separatist rebel group FLA.
Gunfire and explosions were reported around Kati, home to Mali’s main military base and the residence of President Assimi Goita. AP said the capital’s international airport area also came under attack. Witnesses cited by Reuters reported helicopters overhead and roads blocked by security forces. They also described heavy fighting in the central town of Sevare and the northern cities of Gao and Kidal.
The Malian Army said it was fighting “unidentified terrorist groups” and later declared the situation under control, adding that sweeping anti-terrorist operations were continuing. Army spokesman Col. Souleymane Dembele said at least 80 militants had been eliminated around the country.
The Al-Qaeda-linked group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying it targeted the residence of Defense Minister Sadio Camara, military positions in Kati, and Modibo Keita International Airport in Bamako.
The attack was coordinated with the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg-dominated rebel alliance, which separately claimed that it had taken control of Kidal, a strategically important city that Malian forces recaptured in November 2023 with the help of the Russian private military company Wagner Group after more than a decade of rebel control.
The attacks came just days after the African Corps – a unit of the Russian Defense Ministry that replaced Wagner in the region last year – successfully freed two geological exploration workers who had been held hostage by JNIM in the Sahel for nearly two years.
The Sahel has been gripped by a jihadist insurgency led by JNIM and Islamic State since 2012, when violence first erupted in Mali before spilling into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, despite a decade-long French military mission.
Bamako has accused Paris of “providing direct support to terrorists,” which Paris has denied. Mali expelled French forces in 2022, followed later by Burkina Faso and Niger. The three Sahel states have since formed the Alliance of Sahel States, a mutual defense pact supported by Russia, and formally broken away from the West African ECOWAS bloc.
Russia has condemned the latest attacks, suggesting that the terrorists might have been trained by Western powers. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused France earlier this year of “trying to overthrow undesirable nationalist governments in the Sahara-Sahel region” and of using “colonial methods” to undermine the military-led governments in Bamako, Ouagadougou, and Niamey.
Russian intelligence services have gone further, alleging that French President Emmanuel Macron authorized a plan to “eliminate ‘undesirable leaders’” in Africa. Ukraine has also faced accusations of providing intelligence and supplying kamikaze drones to the terrorist groups behind the deadly insurgency in Mali.
Kiev requires another €19 billion to cover its budget needs in 2027, diplomats have told the outlet
The EU will have to provide more money to Ukraine next year on top of the newly approved €90 billion ($105 billion), the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing diplomatic sources.
On Thursday, Brussels announced that the interest-free loan to Kiev has been finalized and that it will begin disbursements “as soon as possible” in the second quarter of 2026. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the development as “a good day for Ukraine and Europe.”
The approval came less than two weeks after the party of longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been vetoing the transfer of funds for months due to an energy dispute with Ukraine, suffered a defeat in the parliamentary election.
The WSJ reported in an article on Friday that the EU’s hopes that the money transfer will allow it to sustain Ukraine during the conflict with Russia until 2028 were likely in vain.
Diplomats who spoke to the outlet warned that the money allocated by Brussels “may not be enough.”
Kiev’s funding gap for 2027 has grown even further since the package was initially planned in December, they said.
Ukraine requires an extra €19 billion to cover its budget next year, meaning that the EU could be forced to seek a new multi-billion loan in 12 months, the diplomats stressed.
European Council head Antonio Costa said that Ukraine would only need to pay back the money after it receives reparations from Russia following the conclusion of conflict. Moscow has repeatedly rejected such a scenario, saying that it's “detached from reality.”
Russian MP, Dmitry Belik, who sits on the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, told RIA Novosti that Costa understands perfectly well that Brussels is never getting its money back.
“The European Council head is talking about reparations from Russia only to save face. His words are just a sham. In reality, the €90 billion loan to Kiev is a gift, in the hopes of prolonging the military conflict for another year,” he said.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were reportedly set to fly to the country, while Tehran denied plans for negotiations
US President Donald Trump has abruptly canceled a trip by special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to Pakistan. Tehran, however, denied that any talks were scheduled in the first place.
This decision comes just a day after the trip was promoted as a potential opportunity to revitalize negotiations with Iran.
“Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership’. Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!” he wrote on Truth Social on Saturday.
When asked by Axios if this means he plans to resume the war, Trump responded, “No. It doesn’t mean that. We haven’t thought about it yet.”
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi is still expected to go to Pakistan after completing his trip to Oman and before traveling to Russia, according to Iran’s Mehr news agency.
Talking to reporters later on Saturday, Trump asserted that Iran “offered a lot but not enough.” He also claimed to have received a more favorable proposal from Tehran just minutes after the cancellation, stating it came “immediately, when I canceled it, within 10 minutes.”
The sudden reversal highlights the confusion surrounding the administration’s recent diplomatic efforts and Trump’s frustration with negotiations not producing quick results.
Washington indefinitely extended the ceasefire with Iran earlier this week, expecting a “unified” proposal from Tehran while keeping a US blockade of Iranian ports in place. The standoff around the Strait of Hormuz has rattled global markets, pushing Brent crude above $100 per barrel, while Trump has made clear that there is no firm timeline for ending the war.
The US president further raised the stakes by saying he had ordered the US Navy to “shoot and kill” any Iranian boats found laying mines in the waterway. Tehran considers the blockade a direct breach of the ceasefire and has argued that any talks are pointless as long as it remains in place.
Demonstrators carried posters reading “All people lose every war” and “Trump ruins democracy”
Hundreds of people gathered in central Madrid on Saturday to protest against the US-Israeli war against Iran, the conflict in Gaza, and the presence of NATO bases in Spain.
Reuters reported the day before that Washington is considering kicking Spain out of NATO for withholding access to military installations after the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February. However, a NATO official told the BBC that the bloc has no provisions for this type of expulsion.
Saturday’s demonstration was organized by the Spanish 'Stop the War' platform, which said simultaneous protests took place in more than 200 locations around the country.
Attendees shouted slogans and waved placards saying “We must stop the war in the Middle East,”“All people lose every war,” and “Trump ruins democracy.” They also protested against US NATO bases in the country, according to El Mundo and AP.
The rally was attended by local municipal officials and MEPs from the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE), some of whom gave speeches at the event, the newspaper reported.
Spain has been one of the most vocal critics of the US-Israeli war against Iran, with multiple anti-NATO protests taking place since the outbreak of the war.
John Phelan failed to quickly deliver plans for the US president’s grand naval vanity project, according to the New York Times
US President Donald Trump fired his navy secretary after he failed to deliver a plan to build a new class of battleship on a “nearly impossible timeline,” the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing senior defense and administration officials.
In December, the US president unveiled plans for a futuristic new warship that would be armed with multiple cutting-edge weapons like laser combat systems, railguns, and hypersonic missiles. It would be called the Trump-class and anchor a new “Golden Fleet,” he said.
Then Navy Secretary John Phelan, also speaking at the announcement, promised “the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere.”
According to the Times, the billionaire investor turned naval administrator was to deliver the first battleship, expected to cost around $17 billion, by 2028.
On Wednesday, Trump fired Phelan after he “struggled to come up with a plan to deliver the ships on the nearly impossible timeline that Mr. Trump has demanded,” the newspaper wrote.
Senior military officials have said that the US shipbuilding industry has “nowhere near the capacity to build a technologically advanced battleship of the sort Mr. Trump is envisioning in the next few years,” the Times wrote.
When Phelan realized this, he came to Trump suggesting that Washington approach European shipyards for help to meet the president’s timeline, the Times wrote. The president reportedly rejected this, having previously insisted that the vessel be built in the US with American steel.
Phelan’s ouster was accelerated by his “enemies in the Pentagon,” including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and his deputy Stephen Feinberg, according to the Times. Hegseth felt the billionaire had bypassed the chain of command too much by exploiting his personal relationship with Trump, Axios wrote on Wednesday.
The US shipbuilding industry has faced challenges in recent years.
The Zumwalt-class destroyer program, once intended to produce dozens of advanced stealth ships, was cut to just three vessels after costs rose sharply and technical issues emerged. The entire program cost US taxpayers around $24.5 billion, according to a 2018 GAO review.
Last week, a fire aboard the USS Zumwalt injured at least three sailors, USNI has reported. The extent of the damage to the vessel is still being determined, it wrote.
Sixty-five years after the Bay of Pigs, the invasion still stands as a lesson in how arrogance and flawed intelligence lead to disaster
Special operations can fail for many reasons – from a tragic accident to a lack of information or a hasty decision. And the costs of such mistakes range from the sullen faces of officials and predatory reporters at the door, to the worst outcome – hundreds of victims. There is an old proverb that all intelligence agents should be taught: “For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.”
The moral is that the smallest omissions can lead to fatal consequences. But the most common reason why military operations fail – the phrase that should be etched above the gates of hell – might well be the motto, “That’s good enough.” Plans based on the assumption that the enemy is deaf, blind, and stupid fail time and time again, yet intelligence agencies continue to build their strategies upon this shaky foundation.
One of the textbook examples of such a failure was the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. This CIA-initiated attempt to swiftly eliminate the communist regime in Cuba turned into a bloody disaster on the battlefield and a complete political failure.
On January 1, 1959, socialist rebels led by Fidel Castro overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. The subsequent reality of life in Cuba proved difficult, and opinions on Castro’s rule were decidedly mixed. However, in 1959, the revolution signified liberation from a hated, deeply corrupt, brutal dictatorship that treated its citizens with disdain. Few mourned the departure of Batista, who fled the country with $300 million.
Initially, Castro didn’t intend to engage in a hostile confrontation with the West. However, his reforms took on a distinctly socialist character. He casually confiscated assets belonging to American and other Western citizens and nationalized land, industries, and enterprises. The Cuban Electric Company owned by an American holding company was seized, as was property belonging to the United Fruit Company, an American agricultural giant.
Under Batista, the United States had dominated the Cuban economy and owned nearly all industries. Politically, the American ambassador wielded as much, if not more, power than the official leader of Cuba. The island effectively functioned as a colony; the companies owned everything but bore no responsibility for anything. Batista, ruling the country with their blessing and support, cared only for his own comfort and wealth, and even collaborated directly with the mafia and engaged in gambling enterprises.
By the time relations between the US and Cuba soured completely, Castro had nationalized over 500 American private companies.
Astute US politicians recognized the underlying issues; in a speech addressing the Cuban crisis, John F. Kennedy bluntly acknowledged that the puppet regime had driven Cubans to the brink. The primary cause of the Cuban revolution, he argued, was the dictator and his cohorts, whose actions ricocheted back against the US as the nation that had armed and politically supported Batista.
Castro frequently reminded the public of Washington’s dark role in the affair, but the United States could not restore relations with Cuba after the widespread confiscation of American assets.
Castro’s attempts to establish relations with the US failed. Then US President Dwight Eisenhower refused to meet with him, while then Vice President Richard Nixon seemed more interested in testing the waters than seriously negotiating with Castro.
Meanwhile, the US had a track record of orchestrating coups in countries it deemed unfriendly. For example, in 1954, with help from United Fruit, a coup was carried out in Guatemala; following it, a dictatorship was established there. A similar strategy was being considered for Cuba.
Initially, the Americans sought to weaken Cuba through a trade embargo that began with oil and later expanded to sugar. In response, Castro initiated yet another wave of expropriations of American-owned businesses. The Eisenhower administration retaliated by banning all exports to Cuba. In turn, Castro nationalized everything he could, offering compensation in the form of Cuban bonds.
At the same time, a secret struggle between intelligence services unfolded, which quickly turned brutal. In March 1960, the cargo ship La Coubre, carrying weapons and ammunition purchased from Belgium, exploded in Havana’s port, causing massive casualties. The explosion occurred inside the ship and is believed to have been an act of sabotage. Unsurprisingly, Castro blamed the US for this incident, and the CIA’s involvement remains plausible. In effect, these actions pushed Cuba to align with the USSR, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev eagerly offered support to Cuba.
As tensions mounted, it became clear that backing from Moscow would be essential. Cuba was already subjected to bombings from light aircraft piloted by Cuban exiles. They flew out of Florida and targeted Cuban plantations and businesses. However, the US didn’t intend to stop at that.
CIA Director Allen Dulles began planning for Castro’s physical elimination and the overthrow of the Cuban government. His deputy, CIA officer Richard Bissell, took on the direct management of the operation aimed at replacing Castro with a “more acceptable” regime. The details were being developed by the same team that had orchestrated the Guatemalan coup.
One key condition set by Eisenhower was “plausible deniability” – concealing America’s role in the operation.
The Americans had supporters in Cuba. First of all, there were plenty of people who had lost power and wealth due to Batista’s ousting. While Batista’s regime was undoubtedly mob-infested, the mafia was largely made up of officials and businessmen interested in regaining their status and fortunes. One such figure was Félix Rodríguez, who would later become a legendary CIA agent and one of the key participants in Che Guevara’s capture and execution. Rodríguez was the nephew of one of Batista’s ministers, and his father had been a landowner whose property Castro had seized.
Then, there were people who had supported the Cuban revolution but turned against Castro after witnessing how things had unfolded after the revolution. Disillusioned when Castro canceled elections and began political purges, many who had initially backed the revolution were now outraged. They argued that Castro had betrayed the original democratic goals of the revolution. One such figure was Manuel Artime, who participated in Castro’s uprising but quickly fell out with the leader, deeming Cuba’s leftward shift too extreme.
Not all opposition groups aligned with the interests of the Americans, however: the latter didn’t want to replace Castro’s socialism with even more radical communism. Moreover, not every faction opposing Castro was willing to work with the CIA. Ultimately, a way had to be found to unite all these individuals.
Brigade 2506: a proxy army of ambition, poor training, and illusion
Nevertheless, Americans managed to assemble a combat unit made up of Cuban exiles, named Brigade 2506.
The number 2056 referred to one of the fighters who had died in an accident during training. Manuel Artime was regarded as the political leader of the group, while Pepe San Roman headed the military unit. San Roman was an intriguing character – a professional soldier trained in the US who had commanded a company against Castro’s rebels but became disillusioned with Batista’s regime and was arrested for plotting to assassinate the dictator. After the revolution, he was released and joined the new armed forces. However, he helped the former officers of Batista’s army flee Cuba, and eventually had to escape from the new authorities.
Brigade 2506 trained at a camp near Miami, and additional training facilities were later opened. According to the initial plan, the exiles were supposed to launch a guerrilla war in Cuba to destabilize Castro’s regime. However, it was soon decided that a classic amphibious assault would be a more reliable method to topple the government.
Brigade 2506 had many issues. Of the 1,500 members, only about 135 were experienced soldiers; most members (brigadistas) received little to no proper training despite having ample time to prepare. Structurally, the Brigade was organized as light infantry, and was primarily armed with rifles and carbines, along with machine guns, mortars, hand grenades, and recoilless rifles. Their most formidable weapons were five Walker Bulldog light tanks. Moreover, they had 16 WWII-era bombers for support, and several transport planes. All equipment and armaments were, of course, supplied by the United States.
To obscure US involvement in the invasion, efforts were made to avoid using weapons unique to the US army. For similar reasons, the CIA rented landing vessels from a private shipping company owned by a Cuban. Even the soldiers were fed a story about a wealthy Cuban supposedly orchestrating the operation, but this clumsy deception fooled no one.
The plan Kennedy couldn’t stop
In the meantime, elections were held in the US, resulting in the victory of the energetic and charismatic John F. Kennedy, who ‘inherited’ the planned operation. As Eisenhower handed over power to Kennedy, he convinced the new president of the operation’s viability. They agreed that restoring Batista was not the goal; instead, they hoped a strong leader would emerge who would personally confront Castro. José Miro Cardona was envisioned as a good candidate for this role. Cardona was also a revolutionary – though notably, not a communist – and after serving as Prime Minister of Cuba and ambassador to Spain, he had fled to the United States.
Kennedy was initially skeptical about the operation, but CIA Director Allen Dulles convinced him that too much had already been invested in the plan, and it would be a devastating blow to US credibility if they pulled out now.
The mission was named Operation Pluto. The US chose the Bay of Pigs, located on Cuba’s southern coast (southeast of Havana) as the landing site. Several factors influenced this decision. The area was sparsely populated, surrounded by forests and swamps, and had an airstrip. The troops were supposed to land at three dispersed locations.
In reality, the plan had many flaws. About 1,500 men were supposed to land in separate groups that wouldn’t be able to support each other quickly if needed. The distance between Playa Larga, the northernmost landing point, and Playa Girón was 30 kilometers, with another eight kilometers to the third point to the east. The challenging terrain favored those who knew how to survive, maneuver, and fight in it.
Castro’s army included many partisans – soldiers and commanders who had fought against Batista, but in the brigade of exiles, only about 15% were experienced soldiers. Moreover, the brigade’s leadership didn’t have experience commanding so many troops in combat. San Román had some military experience, but only as a company commander. Moreover, rumors about the brigade were already circulating, so the element of surprise was lost.
Meanwhile, the CIA was full of unwarranted optimism. It believed that within days, volunteers from all over Cuba would flock to join the Brigade. Cardona seemed to have been intoxicated by his own propaganda, insisting that thousands of new recruits would join the military unit. The CIA officers clung to this belief not because it was true, but because they wanted it to be true.
Castro was notified about the recruitment of exiles into the brigade and formed a new Cuban army. Though it lacked training and equipment, the Soviet Union helped with the latter, supplying firearms and vehicles. While these were WWII-era tanks and self-propelled guns, they could still become formidable weapons in skilled hands. The USSR also sent military advisors to bolster Castro’s forces – a group of aging Spanish leftists who had fled to the USSR after the Spanish Civil War. These weathered veterans of both the Spanish Civil War and WWII were also valuable because they spoke both Spanish and Russian. Furthermore, the USSR provided Cuba with intelligence data. Lastly, Castro had his own network of informants in Miami, and some details had even leaked to the press. So the Cubans were well-prepared.
Chaos on the beaches
The assault began early in the morning on April 15, 1961. The Brigade’s bombers targeted Cuban airfields, but the impact was limited. In a bizarre twist, the CIA even managed to stage a comedy: one plane was deliberately slightly damaged by CIA personnel while on the ground; then it flew to Miami and requested an emergency landing. The pilot used a fictitious name and claimed to have deserted from the Cuban Air Force.
All of this was done to construct a credible narrative about the actions of the Cuban opposition. However, some planes were genuinely damaged. One bomber was destroyed by anti-aircraft fire, another crashed during landing in Florida, and a third managed to land in the British Cayman Islands. However, Cuba still had enough intact combat aircraft to target any beach where invaders might land. Kennedy called off further strikes for fear they would undermine the “plausible deniability” narrative.
On April 17, the operation began for real. The plan to land at the farthest eastern beach was abandoned, and the forces landed at two points – Playa Larga in the north and Playa Girón in the southeast.
At Playa Girón, a Cuban militia patrol spotted people in the water. Assuming these were fishermen in need of help, the patrol approached them. The “fishermen” opened fire, killing one of the militia members. This was the first victim of ground combat. Meanwhile, at Playa Larga, the landing force exchanged gunfire with local militias, killing them; however, the latter managed to alert the others about the invasion. The landing operation was slow; boats transporting the troops from the ships to shore encountered coral reefs. Coincidentally, something “unusual” was spotted along the shore before the operation, but the stains on aerial photographs were mistaken for seaweed. Now, that very “seaweed” trapped the landing craft.
The paratroopers fared even worse. Some parachutists landed in swamps. Some of their ammunition and gear sank into the mire. Others managed to land and took fire control over several roads that could be used by the advancing troops. However, the critical question remained: would the soldiers stay loyal to Castro, and would Cubans join Brigade 2506?
It turned out that Castro had little to worry about. He had already arrested everyone suspected of disloyalty, while the majority of people rallied around his banner. The idea of fighting against their government alongside the CIA did not sit well with the Cuban people.
By morning, Cuban planes attacked The Houston (the transport ship used by the exiles), forcing it aground on the western shore of the bay. This part of the landing force lost most of its weapons and ammunition and could not take part in further action. Meanwhile, Cuban aviation struck a supply transport vessel loaded with munitions, food, medical supplies, and fuel. The explosives detonated, completely destroying the ship.
Among the lost equipment was a relay station; as a result, communications between the two landing zones and the paratroopers were disrupted. Unified command of the operation was no longer possible. As the invaders struggled to unload their cargo, the Cubans mobilized reinforcements toward Playa Larga. A fierce battle raged in the air as Cuban forces shot down several invading bombers. Despite facing losses, the exiles had no choice but to pull the ships further out to sea. Two vessels attempted to flee from Cuban shores. One ship was forced to turn back when CIA operatives burst into the engine room and assaulted the crew, while the other successfully escaped.
While chaos unfolded at sea, Cuban forces attempted to attack Playa Larga and Playa Girón from the land. Tanks launched counterattacks against the militia, making it impossible for the landing force to advance. Fidel Castro drove to the battlefront, positioning himself close to the front line and coordinating assaults from a sugar mill north of Playa Larga.
The situation was in a state of uncertain balance. Castro had already taken decisive action, launching vigorous attacks against the invading forces. Now, it was only a matter of time before the brigadistas ran out of ammunition. Late in the evening, Soviet T-34 tanks launched an assault on Playa Larga. One T-34 tank was hit, but that was it. The soldiers and militia did not halt their advance during the night, but only intensified efforts. Members of the Brigade attempted to pit their light tanks against Castro’s T-34s. Although they later reported numerous destroyed tanks and many Cuban soldiers lost in the fighting, only one burned-out Cuban T-34 tank was actually photographed, while another was found in a ditch, seemingly damaged by a mechanical failure or a track loss.
In addition to the tanks, Castro had artillery supplied by the USSR. The 122mm towed guns may not have looked as impressive as the tanks, but they delivered overwhelming firepower, consistently pressuring the invaders who lacked the means to counterattack.
The relentless pressure began to pay off: after a night of fighting, the brigadistas started retreating from Playa Larga toward Playa Girón.
The invaders’ biggest loss was a transport plane carrying ammunition and fuel, which was shot down during the day. San Román decided to hold his position on the shore, hoping for the Americans to arrive. But they never came. Kennedy received a clear message from Khrushchev indicating that the USSR would not allow American forces to intervene in Cuba. Although the Soviet leader didn’t explicitly mention “war,” Kennedy understood the implication, and the Americans chose not to get involved.
The invaders’ aviation remained active and managed to bomb a column of Cuban troops heading to Playa Girón. However, this was their last ‘success’. The Americans deployed CIA pilots in an attempt to support the invasion, but two planes were shot down, resulting in the deaths of four Americans. By April 19, the Cubans had forced the brigadistas to retreat to the beaches.
San Román tried to flee into the forests surrounding Playa Girón. Some soldiers from the brigade managed to swim to American ships, but the overwhelming majority remained on the beaches, where they surrendered in the following days.
In total, Brigade 2506 suffered at least 114 fatalities, while the Cubans lost 176 men. Additionally, four Americans were killed. A total of 1,202 exiles were captured, including San Román, who surrendered to the militia on April 25, and Manuel Artemio, the political leader of the group, who emerged from the swamps and laid down his arms on May 2. The paratroopers that remained in the rear and the landing force that disembarked from The Houston were quickly captured. The brigadistas and the Americans claimed enormous Cuban losses, inflating figures to several thousand casualties, but these were clearly exaggerations intended to soften the blow of defeat.
Uncle Sam found himself knee-deep in blood and mud. The alliance with the USSR had become Cuba’s only option, and was the direct result of US policy in Cuba. The accounts of the prisoners confirmed that the US had played a dirty game and suffered a spectacular defeat. Che Guevara even taunted Kennedy by sending him a letter: “Thanks for Playa Girón. Before the invasion, the revolution was weak. Now it’s stronger than ever.”
Soon after, the US assessed what went wrong. Of course, Kennedy wouldn’t publicly hold himself accountable, so the blame fell on the CIA leadership. Allen Dulles, along with his deputy Richard Bissell and a couple of lower-ranking officers, were forced to resign.
Before long, Cuba would find itself at the center of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which nearly plunged the world into nuclear war.
Most of the captives were released in December 1962, with the US paying Cuba in food and medicine for their freedom. Some didn’t make it out alive – they were executed for crimes committed during Batista’s regime. Additionally, the Cubans cleared the mountains of all rebel and guerrilla groups, executing two identified CIA agents alongside other suspected spies.
Relations between Cuba and the US remain hostile to this day.
The operation in Cuba failed on every level. The whole plan hinged on the idea that the invasion would trigger a rebellion against Castro, which was a blatant case of wishful thinking. The brigade was poorly trained, and the complex task of a sea landing proved nearly impossible for it. The CIA, responsible for planning the operation, was not competent enough to develop military combat strategies. The concept of “plausible deniability” severely limited American support for the invasion, especially in dealing with the Cuban air force. Moreover, some specific decisions were highly questionable: the brigade stood no chance of defeating a large army in open combat, yet there was no backup plan in place. As a result, the brigade directly confronted the Cuban military and, predictably, was utterly defeated.
Special military operations are always a gamble. However, the more elements left to chance, the higher the likelihood that, instead of victory, the ‘knights of cloak and dagger’ will face unforeseen disgrace.
Christopher Helali spoke from Isfahan, where the Iranian authorities displayed the wreckage of a destroyed American aircraft
The US rescue operation inside Iran earlier this month was actually a botched attempt by Washington to seize Tehran’s enriched uranium, geostrategic analyst Christopher Helali has said.
He gave an exclusive interview to RT on Saturday from a site outside the city of Isfahan where the Iranian authorities displayed the wreckage of American aircraft destroyed in the area on April 3-5.
Washington confirmed the loss of two MC-130J Hercules transport planes, four MH-6 Little Bird helicopters, an A-10 Thunderbolt and an MQ-9 Reaper drone during what US President Donald Trump called “one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in US History” to recover the pilot of an F-15E Strike Eagle, which had been downed by Iran.
Helali insisted that the rescue mission was just a cover up for “an enrichment uranium extraction operation by the US special forces.”
“The scale of destruction of all of the equipment left behind showed that this was a major operation – probably weeks and months in planning – and clearly it absolutely failed,” he said.
Another proof that the Americans were after the enriched uranium is that “a passport of a mechanical engineer specializing in nuclear technology… capable of dealing with radioactive material” was found within the wreckage, the analyst added.
He filmed himself with the debris of the US aircraft, which he said included “multiple parts of different MC-130s… and the Little Birds – those small helicopters that are used in special operations.”
Judging by the footage, the display attracted thousands of visitors, who carried Iranian national flags and chanted anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans.
“The people have gathered here to celebrate the defeat of the US in this operation and overall Iran’s victory so far in this ongoing war of aggression,” Helali said.
Among those who gathered, “the feeling is one of energy, one of resilience, one of dignity, and clearly the people are coming out in full force to show their support for their country,” he stressed.
The international order is “jeopardized” by the larger global powers, the French president has said
US allies are no longer sure that Washington is a “reliable” partner, French President Emmanuel Macron has said.
Speaking during an informal summit in Athens on Friday alongside Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Macron was asked whether Europe was “becoming a bit irrelevant” given the various conflicts around the globe, including the war against Iran.
“Everybody sees that the number one power, the US, could be an ally for certain countries, but this ally is not so much certain... and nobody is totally sure if this alliance is reliable,” the French president said, arguing that this makes the EU appear as a more stable alternative.
“We used to live in an international order, and this international order is jeopardized by the two big powers,” he added.
The growing divide between European NATO nations and Washington has worsened since the US and Israeli attacked Iran in late February, with US President Donald Trump repeatedly criticizing bloc members over their reluctance to join the war.
Tensions were already elevated due to Trump’s continued threats to annex Greenland from fellow NATO member Denmark. Differing visions for the future of the Ukraine conflict have further widened the transatlantic rift.
Since returning to the White House in 2025, Trump has launched a broad diplomatic initiative to end the hostilities and has insisted that European nations take on the full financial and military burden of supporting Kiev. However, the UK and the EU have consistently attempted to torpedo the peace talks by injecting proposals which Moscow has condemned as deliberately unacceptable.
Washington is trying to shift the burden of “containing Russia” onto its allies in Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week. The broader Western goal is to “preserve and renew their hegemony,” but as their relative power on the international stage declines, internal frictions in the West are intensifying, he added.
Trump’s decision to drag the US into war was largely shaped by the Israeli PM’s “fanatical” and misguided agenda, the economist says
American economist Jeffrey Sachs has sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing that US President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran was heavily influenced by what he described as Netanyahu’s “fanatical” and misguided agenda.
Trump has repeatedly faced criticism, both domestically and internationally, for pursuing policies widely seen as closely aligned with Israeli interests across both his first and current presidential terms. Analysts and political opponents have often pointed to a broader shift in US foreign policy that allegedly favors the agenda of the Jewish State under Netanyahu.
“Trump’s decision basically led by Netanyahu,” Sachs told US conservative journalist and podcaster Tucker Carlson.
In a video interview published on Friday, the economist noted that Netanyahu has an agenda, stressing that the US president bought into what Sachs called the Israeli prime minister’s wrong understanding of the world.
“His agenda, in my mind, is fanatical and wrong, and has been mistaken for 30 years, and has cost America a fortune,” Sachs said. “I think the man is a disaster, I think he has the wrong framework of the world, just a wrong understanding.”
The comment comes as Trump extended the ceasefire with Tehran indefinitely on Tuesday to allow time for a potential deal, while keeping an American naval blockade of Iranian ports in place.
The US Democratic Party and some Republicans, as well as former US National Counterterrorism Center chief Joe Kent, have argued that Trump had been pressured by Israel to launch the Iran war.
Kent, who resigned from his position last month in protest of the war, has claimed that intelligence agencies could not confirm Trump’s allegations that Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapons.
Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, have framed the conflict as Trump betraying his “America First” agenda in favor of “Israel First.”
Last week, Carlson slammed Trump’s Middle East policies, claiming that the president’s true religion is “Israelism” rather than Christianity. Trump’s former supporter argued that the US had launched the war against Iran “on behalf of Israel” and “at the instigation of Israel.”
There are concerns that Vilmos Katai-Nemeth, a lawyer and aikido black belt, could become a symbolic “figurehead,” according to media reports
Hungary's incoming prime minister, Peter Magyar, has picked a blind lawyer to become the cabinet minister responsible for DEI affairs as part of a sweeping government overhaul following Viktor Orban’s election defeat.
Magyar made the announcement on X on Friday, naming Vilmos Katai-Nemeth, 52, alongside transport pick David Vitezy. “For the first time in Hungary’s history, a blind Hungarian citizen… will lead the Ministry of Social and Family Affairs – including responsibility for accessibility and equal opportunities,” he wrote.
Katai-Nemeth has struggled with vision problems since childhood and lost his sight at 16 due to a hereditary retinal atrophy disease. However, he went on to qualify as a lawyer, and is a practicing attorney. He also earned a black belt in aikido – the first blind master in this disciple in the world – and has developed a self-defense system for the visually impaired.
The incoming minister joined the Tisza party in 2024, and in 2026 won a parliamentary election in one of the Budapest constituencies by a comfortable margin. During the campaign, Katai-Nemeth accused Orban’s Fidesz party of treating people with disabilities “in a paternalistic, subordinate manner,” adding that “even a blind person can see that there are problems.”
In his new capacity, Katai-Nemeth will be working on improving healthcare access, child protection reform, and equal opportunities.
Some local media reports, however, have sounded skepticism over the appointee, pointing to his limited political experience and lack of familiarity with government machinery. According to Hungarian Conservative, a local media outlet, there is a possibility that Katai-Nemeth’s role will be reduced to that of a “figurehead,” with Bodis Krisztina, a veteran social policy expert and Magyar’s advisor, holding much more real power.
During his campaign, Magyar – who is generally considered a conservative – vowed to rebuild relations with the EU, but avoided open advocacy of LGBTQ rights, saying only that he wants a country where “no one is stigmatized for thinking or loving differently than the majority.”
However, earlier this week, the EU’s top court found Hungary’s 2021 ‘child protection’ law – which banned portrayals of homosexuality and gender reassignment in children’s media – “illegal.”
Later, Hungarian authorities received a request to register the first-ever LGBTQ-themed television channel in the country, reportedly dubbed Rainbow TV.
Kiev has repeatedly demanded a set date for its accession
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has ruled out Ukraine’s immediate accession to the European Union, instead calling for a phased approach to integration, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Friday.
Earlier this week, Bloomberg cited an unnamed EU official as saying that leaders had signaled preliminary conditions are in place for Ukraine to begin the first stage of the membership process, with talks potentially starting in the coming weeks or months.
“It is clear to everyone that an immediate accession of Ukraine to the EU is, of course, not possible,” Merz said as cited by the news agency after an EU summit in Cyprus. “I also want to enable closer integration into the European institutions, for example through participation in European councils without voting rights.”
The comment comes as European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in a joint statement, called for immediate “opening of negotiation clusters” on Ukraine’s EU membership.
At the same time, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky rejected any lesser form of membership, insisting on full accession and saying his country is “defending common European values.” He has repeatedly urged Brussels to set a concrete date, arguing it should come no later than 2027.
Merz already characterized Zelensky’s goal of membership by 2027 as “not possible” earlier this year, saying that Ukraine needs first to stabilize its institutions and economy and root out corruption.
Von der Leyen, who granted Ukraine candidate status within weeks of its 2022 application, has previously rejected the idea of setting a firm date, telling Zelensky in February: “From our side, dates by themselves are not possible.”
The country’s accession has been consistently opposed by Slovakia and by Hungary under the outgoing government of Viktor Orban. They argue that Ukrainian membership could draw the EU into an open conflict with Russia and undermine the bloc’s economy.
Moscow says it does not oppose Ukraine joining the organization, but has criticized what Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called its transformation into an “aggressive military-political bloc” and an “appendage of NATO.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also warned that Ukraine’s accession could undermine the EU and even lead to its collapse.
Two Eurofighter Typhoons were cleared to attack the UAVs as they flew over Ukraine, the Romanian Defense Ministry has said
Two British fighter jets that scrambled from a Romanian air base received a green light to shoot down Russian drones flying not far from the border with the NATO country, Romania’s Defense Ministry has said. Romanian and UK officials have stressed that the warplanes never entered Ukraine’s airspace, or opened fire on Russian UAVs.
In a statement on Saturday, the Romanian Defense Ministry said that RAF Eurofighter Typhoon jets deployed at the 86th Air Base in Fetesti lifted off at 2 AM and established radar contact with a target 1.5 km from Reni, a Ukrainian port town on the bank of the Danube, barely a stone’s throw from Romanian soil.
“The pilots had authorization to engage the drones,” the ministry said, adding that multiple explosions were subsequently reported in Reni.
After some media reports interpreted the statement as a greenlight to attack Russian UAVs over Ukrainian soil, the UK and Romanian defense ministries clarified to The Telegraph that the aircraft never entered Ukrainian airspace and did not engage any targets – returning to base without firing.
“Because that specific target did not breach the Romanian airspace, it could not be fired upon. The mission remained one of surveillance, deterrence, and readiness to respond if required,” the Romanian Defense Ministry stressed.
Officials in Bucharest also reported that a falling object in the area of Galati – a Romanian city directly across the Danube from Ukraine, adding that drone fragments damaged an outbuilding and an electricity pole, with no casualties.
Romanian officials subsequently accused Russia of “irresponsible” actions and the “lack of respect for the norms of international law and endanger[ing] not only the safety of Romanian citizens, but also the collective security of NATO.”
Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the Danube River has emerged as an important logistical route between Kiev and its European backers, with media reports suggesting the artery could be used for weapons deliveries.
Moscow has consistently condemned Western assistance to Ukraine, saying that NATO members are directly involved in hostilities. However, in September 2025, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia “never attacks civilian facilities” and “never directs our drones and missiles at states located in Europe and NATO Alliance countries.”
Fifty residents were evacuated after a residential building was struck in the in Urals, according to local authorities
Nine people were injured early on Saturday when a Ukrainian drone hit a residential building in central Ekaterinburg, about 1,700 km (over 1,000 miles) inside Russia, according to regional Governor Denis Pasler. He added that fifty residents were evacuated due to safety concerns.
Moscow has repeatedly highlighted that Kiev is attacking civilians because it cannot halt Russian advances on the battlefield.
One woman was hospitalized following the attack, Pasler said. He added that none of those who sought medical help were in serious condition and that most were diagnosed with mild smoke inhalation; they have continued to receive care.
The governor noted that emergency services were working at the scene, stressing that a “carpet” emergency plan had been introduced in the region and that air defense systems were operating.
Russia’s aviation authority earlier reported temporary restrictions on arrivals and departures at the city’s Koltsovo Airport.
Pasler also urged residents to remain calm and vigilant, advising them not to go outside, and reminded the public that publishing photos or videos of drones or their aftermath is prohibited.
The Russian Defense Ministry has stated that 127 Ukrainian drones were intercepted overnight over several regions.
The remote-controlled aircraft were shot down over Crimea, Tatarstan, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kursk, Orel, Smolensk, Rostov, Volgograd, Astrakhan, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions, as well as over the Black Sea.
Moscow has accused Kiev of resorting to terrorist tactics and inflicting damage to third parties not involved in the conflict between the two nations.
The Kremlin has also noted that US-mediated talks with Ukraine had been placed on hold due to the war in the Middle East.
US networks did not cover a video in which a nuclear safety officer spoke about Ukraine corruption and strikes on children in Iran, Michael Casey has told RT
Major US networks have turned a blind eye to an explosive undercover video in which a senior Pentagon official spoke about Ukraine’s rampant corruption and civilian casualties resulting from the war on Iran, O’Keefe Media Group journalist Michael Casey has told RT.
Speaking to RT on Friday, Casey weighed in on footage that O’Keefe Media Group released earlier this week, apparently showing Andrew Hugg, a Pentagon nuclear safety officer, revealing secrets to a woman he met on a dating app.
The official was recorded confirming that US airstrikes did cause collateral child casualties in Iran, discussing nerve agents stored in Maryland, and alleging that Ukrainian officials had pocketed US taxpayer funds going back to the Obama administration.
Following the release of the video, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that Hugg “won’t work here anymore,” calling the leaks “incredibly irresponsible and unpatriotic.” Despite the story rising to the level of the US defense chief, it has been largely absent from the US mainstream media.
Casey underscored the fact, saying that he was “surprised” by the lack of reporting on the subject. “Why have CNN, NBC, ABC not covered the story? I think they’re afraid of James O’Keefe, if you want the truth. They’re scared of being his next target.”
Casey also noted that it was “baffling” that a senior Pentagon official had spilled the beans on “very sensitive things regarding American foreign policy” to a complete stranger. “That opens the question: who else is he talking to? And it’s a very big national security issue,” he said, pointing to Hugg’s scramble to erase his digital footprint as a de facto admission of wrongdoing.
The journalist also singled out Hugg’s claims about the Ukraine corruption, saying that while they were “the most interesting parts of the exposé,” they were also “one of the least surprising.”
“It sounds like millions of taxpayer dollars dating back to the Obama administration were misused and taken into by Ukrainian oligarchs… Many people, specifically on the right, have for years been blowing the whistle, saying that money is being misused in Ukraine. Far too often, it has been dismissed as conspiracies,” he said.
O’Keefe Media Group was founded by controversial journalist James O’Keefe, whose modus operandi is to send undercover reporters on dates with their targets in order to record candid conversations. His former organization, Project Veritas, however, was repeatedly accused by critics of selectively editing footage to further a conservative agenda.
Psychological prohibitions against endangering civilian reactors and other infrastructure are becoming dangerously thin
Four decades after a failed experiment in Soviet Ukraine led to a world-shaking radiation disaster and made Chernobyl infamous, the psychological safeguards protecting nuclear facilities from military action are weaker than ever.
In March and April of 2026, bombs landed near the Busher Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Iran. Russia’s Zaporozye NPP was deliberately firebombed by Ukrainian troops in 2024, as part of Kiev’s attempts to prevent Moscow from operating the contested facility. The Chernobyl wreck itself was targeted by a mystery projectile on the eve of a key international security event in 2025.
Nuclear weapons are so destructive that only an existential crisis should warrant their deployment. The taboo against nukes has been tested on several occasions since the technology’s iconic status was established by the US bombing of Imperial Japan, – including off the coast of Cuba in 1962, in the Middle East in 1954 and again in 1973. Each time, nerves held.
Nuclear facilities, particularly power plants with their large hot reactors and on-site storage of spent fuel, borrow some of that aura to become almost untouchable, as radiation fallout is strongly associated with both the weapons and technological disasters.
How to bomb a nuclear reactor
Attacking Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant risks “another Chernobyl,” a senior official in Tehran warned, after airstrikes killed 10 people, including a German engineer involved in the project on the Persian Gulf coast. The year was 1987, and the attacker was Saddam Hussein – no longer a ‘good guy’ in the eyes of the Western public, but still fighting the ‘bad guys’.
Tehran’s invocation of the then-recent Soviet nuclear catastrophe was an exaggeration. The Bushehr facility was still under construction when Iraqis targeted it six times, beginning in 1984. An attempt to deter Baghdad by reportedly bringing in a small amount of nuclear fuel didn’t work.
In 1980, at the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War, Tehran bombed the under-construction Osiraq nuclear reactor at the Tuwaitha research center near Baghdad. The Israelis struck the French-provided project a year later. So did the Americans during the 1991 Gulf War – allegedly weeks before it would finally go online.
In 2007, Israel bombed a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria. Years later, the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, confirmed that suspicions were correct and the clandestine facility was still being built when it was obliterated.
The pattern of preemptive attacks was upheld by non-state actors. Rodney Wilkinson, a South African fencing champion and anti-apartheid activist, carried out the bombing of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station just before it went online in 1982, taking care to ensure that there would be zero casualties and no radiation leaks.
Turning Back the Clock to: 1982. Rodney Wilkinson planted four bombs at the Koeberg nuclear power plant north of Capetown, South Africa. #WorldHistorypic.twitter.com/UtrU6rD7Ym
In major conflicts between India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed powers, there were no military strikes on nuclear facilities. In short, the conventional wisdom has long been: you don’t risk another Chernobyl.
Ukraine throws rules out of the window
Like many other norms, respect for the IAEA’s seven pillars of nuclear safety seriously eroded during the Ukraine conflict. Russian forces took over the Zaporozhye NPP on March 3, 2022 during a lighting offensive. The site has since become the focus of a PR war built around a string of attacks in the plant’s vicinity.
Ukraine’s story about the military action has morphed over the years. First it claimed Russia kept heavy weapons at the nuclear site, making it a legitimate target. Then Russia was accused of conducting false flag operations to discredit Ukraine. After the IAEA dispatched an observer mission in September 2022, Kiev claimed Moscow was thwarting inspector rotations – though provocations stopped in 2025, after the international agency decided against travelling through territory controlled by Kiev.
Arguably the most serious incident took place in August 2024, when incendiary drones caused a major fire at one of the Zaporozye plant’s cooling towers. Kiev claimed it was Russian self-sabotage, which just happened to virtually coincide with the launch of a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region.
Ascribing logic-defying economic masochism to Moscow is a trope of pro-Kiev messaging. The 2022 blasts that destroyed the Nord Stream gas pipelines were initially framed in the media as Russia putting pressure on Germany by blowing up its own infrastructure. Now the only mystery remaining about that attack is whether Ukraine carried it out alone, with assistance from some NATO nations – such as Poland or the US – or simply created a distraction so that the West could claim plausible deniability.
Chernobyl propaganda dud
An even more emblematic example of brinkmanship serving Ukrainian interests came in February 2025, when Kiev accused Russia of flying a single kamikaze drone into the shelter covering the Chernobyl plant’s contaminated site.
The incident took place on the eve of the Munich Security Conference. But in Germany, US Vice President J.D. Vance stole the spotlight that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky was undoubtedly hoping to get. Vance shocked the audience with his speech roasting perceived Western European degradation and casting doubt on America’s protection of NATO allies.
Consequently, the Chernobyl incident caused barely a ripple in media coverage and left an ugly tear in the New Safe Confinement – the shelter constructed in the 2010s with mostly foreign funding.
US and Israel tear down the window, the wall, the building
In a field where Zelensky merely played fast and loose, US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swung like a wrecking ball.
In 2024, the two leaders teamed up to strike Iranian uranium enrichment facilities, claiming the 12-day bombing campaign ended Tehran’s nuclear weapons program. This year, Iran was somehow supposedly again weeks away from building the bomb and had to be attacked again.
As the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster approaches, the world has yet to learn how much economic damage the Iran War will cause it. But it has already dealt a blow to nuclear non-proliferation.
The 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) guarantees signatories the right to, and support for, the peaceful use of nuclear technology in exchange for accepting the IAEA’s controls to prevent weaponization. Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea all rejected the deal in order to acquire nuclear weapons, secretly or openly.
Washington declares that there is no NPT deal for Iran, period. The religious prohibition of nuclear weapons by Israel-assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now seems like a fig leaf.
Trump’s threat to annihilate all Iranian power plants unless it concedes defeat – potentially including Bushehr, now fully operational – may never materialize. A commando raid deep into Iran to capture “nuclear dust” – Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium that it has no intention to give up – remains in question either.
But what is beyond doubt is that the risk of a major radiological incident is at the moment higher than ever. That’s the inevitable cost of nuclear brinkmanship.
The Iranian foreign minister is on a tour to “coordinate” with partners in Pakistan, Oman, and Russia
Tehran has denied that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s trip to Islamabad will include new talks with Washington, pushing back on reports that US President Donald Trump is dispatching envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan to restart negotiations.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a post on X early Saturday morning that “no meeting is planned to take place between Iran and the US” during the visit and that Tehran’s views would instead be conveyed to Pakistan.
Araghchi himself said he was embarking on a “timely tour” of Islamabad, Muscat, and Moscow in order to “closely coordinate” with partners on bilateral issues and consult on regional developments. Iranian state media said the three-leg trip is part of Tehran’s ongoing diplomatic effort to secure an end to US-Israeli aggression.
Embarking on timely tour of Islamabad, Muscat, and Moscow.
Purpose of my visits is to closely coordinate with our partners on bilateral matters and consult on regional developments.
The denial came after the White House announced that Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would travel to Islamabad for a new round of talks, while Vice President J.D. Vance would remain on “standby” and could still be dispatched if negotiations progress far enough to justify his involvement.
While Tehran has insisted that no new US talks are on the agenda for this visit, AP reported that the sides could still hold indirect discussions through Pakistani mediation rather than direct face-to-face negotiations.
Washington indefinitely extended the ceasefire with Iran earlier this week, expecting a “unified” proposal from Tehran while keeping the US blockade of Iranian ports in place. The standoff around the Strait of Hormuz has rattled global markets, pushing Brent crude above $100 per barrel, while Trump has made clear that there is no firm timeline for ending the war.
The US president further raised the stakes by saying he had ordered the US Navy to “shoot and kill” any Iranian boats found laying mines in the waterway. Tehran considers the blockade a direct breach of the ceasefire and has argued that any talks are pointless as long as it remains in place.
Tehran’s ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali, told RT that Iran is not seeking war but is ready to respond, insisting the country remains open to diplomacy if Washington abandons its bullying. Iranian officials, including Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, have previously accused the US of trying to turn negotiations into “a table of surrender” after failing to achieve victory on the battlefield.
The Israeli leader hid the medical report for two months amid the war with Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that he has undergone treatment for early-stage prostate cancer, admitting that he delayed publication of the medical report for two months during the war with Iran.
According to Netanyahu’s annual medical report published on Friday, the tumor was found at a “very early stage,” with no spread or metastases, and the problem has now been fully treated. Hadassah Hospital oncology chief Aharon Popovtser said follow-up imaging and blood tests showed that “the disease has disappeared.”
Netanyahu said he had asked for the information to be withheld from the public so it would not be released “at the height of the war” against Iran and fuel what he called “more false propaganda against Israel.”
The Israeli prime minister has insisted that physicians told him the condition was minor and common for men his age, and that he could either monitor it or treat it immediately.
“You already know me. When I’m given information in time about a potential danger, I want to address it immediately. This is true on the national level and also on the personal level,” he wrote in a post on X.
The 76-year-old leader previously underwent surgery for an enlarged benign prostate in 2024 and had since been under routine monitoring, during which the tumor was discovered. It remains unclear exactly when the treatment took place, and his office said the rest of the medical report showed him to be in good health.
— Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) March 15, 2026
The disclosure comes after weeks of speculation about Netanyahu’s health after he missed multiple consecutive security cabinet meetings during the early phase of the US-Israel war with Iran.
In March, he released a bizarre video of himself waving his hands during a visit to a Jerusalem cafe in an apparent effort to quash rumors that recent videos of his public appearances were AI-generated.
The Justice Department says it will also streamline internal processes to “expedite death penalty cases”
The US will re-adopt the use of firing squads, electrocution, and gas asphyxiation for executing criminals convicted of the worst federal offenses, the Justice Department said in a statement on Friday.
The department said it is “readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump Administration,” and expanding it to include “additional manners of execution,” and “streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases.”
After returning to office last January, Trump said he would direct the DOJ to “vigorously pursue” the death penalty to protect Americans from “violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.”
The Justice Department said the new policy clears the way for executions once inmates who have been sentenced to death have exhausted their appeals. AP reported that this is the first time the federal government has explicitly allowed firing squads, although a 2020 rule already permitted the use of any execution method legal in the sentencing state.
The decision reverses the approach taken by former President Joe Biden, whose administration paused federal executions. In December 2024, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 people on federal death row, converting them to life without parole and leaving only three federal inmates still facing execution.
US public support for the death penalty remains divided, with Gallup reporting only a slim majority of 52% in favor in late 2025, down from a peak of 80% in 1994, while a record-low share believes the punishment is applied fairly.
The United States is currently the only country in the Americas that actively carries out executions, while more than two-thirds of the world’s countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
Russia retains the death penalty in law but has observed a moratorium on executions since 1996. A recent poll found that nearly half of Russians now favor bringing it back, but lawmakers have argued that doing so would be legally impossible because the ban was imposed by the Constitutional Court, whose decisions cannot be overturned.
Nitrous oxide can cause severe injury, paralysis and even death. So why is it easier to get for teenagers than energy drinks or cigarettes?
Welcome to America’s next public health crisis, which is being underwritten by big business and ignored by the US government.
Nitrous oxide (N₂O) has been around since the end of the 18th century and is used in a variety of products, including whipped cream canisters and car engines, to give them an extra power boost. It is also popularly known as ‘laughing gas,’ which dentists administer to their patients for pain relief. In the 19th century, laughing gas parties were popular among the middle and upper classes.
Late 20th century drug culture rediscovered nitrous oxide, in the form of ‘whippets’ (from whipped-cream chargers) and laughing gas balloons. However, only lately has nitrous oxide, marketed under the name of ‘Galaxy Gas,’ exploded in popularity among today’s youth in search of a cheap buzz.
Although ostensibly marketed as a culinary product, Galaxy Gas is sold in colorful bottles with alluring flavors, such as Mango Smoothie, Strawberry Cream and Vanilla Cupcake.
Meanwhile, the product (Galaxy Gas is just one of dozens of brands selling nitrous oxide) has been popularized on social media, where influencers on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube have led millions of teens astray in search of a quick and affordable jolt of euphoria.
Various brands of nitrous oxide canisters can easily be bought online from major marketplaces including Walmart, Amazon and eBay. Though most companies require purchasers to be over 18 to order them, they’ve still found their way into the hands of many teens (Following reports of abuse, Galaxy Gas has paused direct sales from their website and is facing regulatory action due to health risks).
Across the US, more than 25 million people over the age of 12 may have tried inhalants, according to a survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. And data shows adolescents from 12-17 more commonly use whippets than those who are 18 and older.
Galaxy Gas attempts to skirt the law by stating on its canisters that “it is illegal to purposely inhale our product,” which of course has the effect of making the young and impressionable do exactly what they are told not to do. Despite the warning labels, the inhalation of Galaxy Gas is becoming an epidemic in the US and beyond, with an increasing number of victims every year.
In February 2023, Ellen Mercer, 24, died in a British hospital two weeks after she was left bedbound by burning her legs with a nitrous oxide canister. According to the coroner’s report, Mercer’s death was caused by her substance abuse and a blood clot. The young woman, clearly addicted to the inhalant, was said to have inhaled two to three “big bottles” of the gas per day.
Meg Caldwell is another individual who lost her life due to her addiction to Galaxy Gas. Caldwell began inhaling the gas during the pandemic. With everyone locked down and little to do, it seemed that a few harmless hits of nitrous oxide wouldn’t hurt. According to the young woman’s family, her addiction quickly spiraled out of control and wrecked her life. She died at the age of 23 of an overdose in a parking lot outside of a smoke shop where she purchased the gas. The Caldwell family has filed a lawsuit against Galaxy Gas and several other companies, alleging that they marketed the substance for recreational use while disguising it as a culinary product.
One reason the inhalation of Galaxy Gas has become so dangerous is people are inhaling the gas directly from the nozzle of the bottle.
“In medical use, nitrous oxide is given in conjunction with a pretty high flow of oxygen,” says Dr. Bryan Baskin, Co-Director of Operations of the Cleveland Clinic’s Emergency Services. “That helps to keep people safe from some of the dangerous effects of the gas. People using it recreationally aren’t taking those precautions. They’re just getting straight shots of it, which can be harmful, particularly with repeated use.”
The nitrous oxide that enters your body starves the brain of oxygen, creating a dizzy, heady feeling that can last anywhere from a few seconds to five minutes. The user takes a hit, enjoys the feeling, and then wants more of the same, leading to abuse of the product. Chasing the high again and again deprives the brain and other organs of the oxygen they need for normal bodily function. At the very least, users may lose consciousness while inhaling the gas, thereby sustaining physical injuries like concussions. But there are other worse side effects.
As mentioned, most people choose to inhale the gas directly from the canister, which is incredibly dangerous due to simple physics. Galaxy Gas and other such products seal the nitrous oxide in the canisters as a liquid, which, when released, comes out at extremely low temperatures. So low in fact that it can actually give the user frostbite on the mouth and throat. It can also freeze the lungs.
Long-term users of nitrous oxide report major nerve problems, impaired memory, loss of concentration and loss of coordination. The brain and spinal column could become inflamed, leading to cases of full-blown paralysis.
So what is the US government doing about the problem? Sadly, almost nothing. The level of regulation of nitrous oxide in the US is shockingly bad. There’s no official FDA certification; there’s no mandatory purity tests to ensure no contaminants of even more harmful substances; there are no size limits on the canisters; there are no import controls for cheaper, less regulated variants from other countries like China; there’s no guaranteed standardization of manufacturing or the content inside of these bottles. There literally could be anything inside, like heavy metal residue or hydrocarbons. In other words, a sticker saying it’s safe doesn’t make it safe. The same way that putting a ‘do not inhale’ warning on a canister won’t stop people from doing it.
Even the bottles themselves are dangerous. Keep in mind, these are pressurized metal canisters, weighing up to two or more kilos. Effectively pipe bombs that people can get a buzz from. Due to the pressure inside of the canisters, manufacturing defects, heat or poor handling can result in explosive decompression. A loosely fitting valve or a poorly fitted seal on the canister could mean the difference between life and death.
Perhaps worst of all is how the product, with its playful packaging, is targeted at a younger audience that is less able to differentiate between what is healthy for them and what is potentially fatal.
It’s time for the US government to get involved and crack down on the peddlers of this dangerous product before it kills anyone else.
Emaciated frontline troops left without food or water have exposed what critics call a wider pattern of mismanagement in Kiev’s war machine
Ukraine’s military has been hit by a starvation scandal after disturbing images surfaced of frontline soldiers so badly emaciated that relatives said some were fainting from hunger and drinking rainwater to survive.
The men, identified in Ukrainian and Western reporting as troops from the 14th Separate Mechanized Brigade operating near Kupyansk on the left bank of the Oskol River, had allegedly gone days without food and were relying on drone deliveries in one of the most dangerous sectors of the front.
The scandal erupted after relatives posted the images online and accused commanders of ignoring desperate pleas for help. Ukraine’s General Staff swiftly responded to the viral post, saying it had launched an investigation, replaced one commander, and demoted another.
Ukrainian and some Western outlets have framed the case as a result of brutal frontline conditions, with near-constant Russian drone strikes making logistics so dangerous that even food and medicine have to be flown in. Ukraine’s Joint Forces Task Force, however, described the case as a “horrible management shame,” saying commanders had failed to report the real situation up the chain of command.
The public backlash inside Ukraine, however, has been sharper, with commenters under the original Threads post suggesting the problem reflected a deeper breakdown in command, communication, and accountability amid the country’s long-running record of military corruption scandals.
Kiev has cycled through multiple defense ministers during the conflict. The only one to have any military experience, Aleksey Reznikov, was ousted in 2023 after procurement scandals that included overpriced military food contracts. Since then, corruption allegations have continued to plague senior wartime officials, and lower-level abuses have been tied to Kiev’s increasingly brutal military conscription drive.
Kiev aims to mobilize roughly 30,000 recruits per month in order to sustain its numbers at the front. Hundreds of videos circulating online show violent confrontations, with the Defense Ministry’s press gangs routinely resorting to force against uncooperative targets.
Ukraine’s police chief has admitted that many citizens are now afraid to call law enforcement because they believe officers might help draft officials seize their relatives. Earlier this week, an alleged kidnapping ring was busted in Odessa, in which conscription officials, aided by police informants, targeted affluent men and threatened them with forced mobilization unless they paid bribes.
The state obtained 10% of the chipmaker’s stock in 2025, near its lowest valuation in over a decade
The US government has profited an estimated $27 billion in unrealized gains from its Intel investment as the chipmaker’s shares have more than doubled since the beginning of this year alone.
Intel shares jumped more than 20% on Friday after the company reported better-than-expected results. The Silicon Valley firm revealed on Thursday that it had generated $13.6 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2026, up 7% year-on-year and above forecasts.
The results, along with a stronger outlook for the next quarter, put Intel on track for one of its biggest single-day gains in decades. The stock was trading at $82.50, up about 125% since the start of the year, making it one of the top performers in the S&P 500, helping lift the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, and nearing levels last seen during the dot-com boom.
The rally has significantly increased the value of the US government’s stake in Intel. The state acquired roughly 10% of the company in August 2025, purchasing about 433 million shares at around $20.47 per share as part of efforts to expand domestic chip production amid national security concerns and AI competition with China.
“The next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user, moving from foundational models to inference to agentic. This shift is significantly increasing the need for Intel’s CPUs, wafers, and advanced packaging offerings,” said CEO Lip-Bu Tan.
Intel’s rebound follows a steep decline in 2024, when its shares plunged 60% to less than $19 in their worst year on record, alongside leadership changes including the departure of then-CEO Pat Gelsinger.
The bloc must reopen communication with Moscow to have any say in the settlement of the Ukraine conflict, Edi Rama has said
The European Union made a “big strategic mistake” by severing all communication with Russia after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama told Politico in an interview published on Friday.
The bloc intensified its sanctions pressure and cut off diplomatic engagement with Moscow in 2022, moving to back Kiev with hundreds of billions of dollars in financial and military aid.
“Europe has to be always, always, always talking to everyone,” Rama told Politico at the Delphi Economic Forum in Greece, arguing that the EU shot itself in the foot when it “cut every channel with Russia.”
The “more we postpone it, the less we’ll have a say at the end, because Russia – however this war ends – Russia is not going anywhere,” he said, adding that he was being frank because his country has no “dependence on Russia.”
Several EU leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever and Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker, have recently made overtures about reengaging with Moscow. Some have expressed concern that Western Europe is being sidelined in the trilateral Russia-US-Ukraine peace talks, which kicked off following pressure from Washington last year.
However, three rounds of negotiations have so far failed to bear fruit, with Ukraine rejecting key Russian demands. Both Moscow and Kiev have admitted that the talks are effectively frozen due to Washington’s preoccupation with the war on Iran.
Moscow has repeatedly nixed European nations’ public demands to be admitted to the negotiations.
The EU has already “completely discredited itself” as a mediator, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last month, rejecting French and British plans to deploy troops in Ukraine as part of security guarantees for Kiev.
According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, European leaders deliberately make demands that they know are “utterly unacceptable to Russia” in order to sabotage US peace efforts and blame the collapse of the talks on Moscow.
The US president has realized that he stands to lose more than he would gain by imposing sanctions on New Delhi, Deepak Bhojwani has said
New Delhi “never stopped buying Russian crude” despite US sanctions on two of Russia’s biggest oil firms, Deepak Bhojwani, India’s former ambassador to several Latin American countries, including Colombia, Venezuela, and Cuba, told RT on Friday.
Washington imposed sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil in October, which were temporarily lifted last month after the US war on Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz wreaked havoc on global fuel supplies. The US Treasury extended the sanctions waiver last week.
This allowed India to import more than $5 billion in oil in April, Bhojwani said.
“No matter what [US President] Donald Trump does, even if he levies sanctions and threatens, we will buy oil from Russia,” he said, stating that New Delhi has “called Trump’s bluff.”
“India isn’t powerless. India doesn’t have zero recourse,” the career diplomat stressed. “It has agreements with other countries, the EU most recently, and Trump realizes that he could lose more than he could gain by sanctioning India.”
While New Delhi has found alternative sources for oil, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has almost entirely “choked off” gas supplies, Bhojwani said, adding that India relies on Gulf nations for imports of the fuel.
“It’s a horrendous proposition to think that this could go on for a few weeks more,” he said. “[Trump] has spent blood, American blood and American treasure on a wasted war, which he has lost already.”
The US president’s allies in Europe “are beginning to realize that he’s a losing proposition,” Bhojwani said, adding that he suspects New Delhi is “waiting his term out.”
RT’s Steve Sweeney looks at how the three‑week truce is playing out on the ground
A newly announced extension of the Lebanon ceasefire has been described by Israel’s UN envoy as “not 100%.” RT’s correspondent in Beirut, Steve Sweeney, says the remarks by Ambassador Danny Danon reflect the situation on the ground, with monitors recording repeated violations by West Jerusalem.
The 10‑day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, initially announced by US President Donald Trump last week, was extended by another three weeks on Thursday.
According to Sweeney, Israeli forces have used the lull to occupy swathes of southern Lebanon and impose a Gaza‑style “yellow zone” covering around 55 towns and villages where residents are barred from returning. He described the area as “in effect a kill zone,” pointing to reports that troops have been told to open fire on anyone entering and to the destruction of homes, hospitals, ambulances, schools, and other civilian infrastructure since the escalation in March, which has left nearly 2,500 people dead.
While the three‑week extension may offer some relief to Beirut after weeks of bombardment and Trump “seems to think he could work a longer‑term peace deal,” for people on the ground – particularly in southern Lebanon – “it seems a very distant hope,” Sweeney says.
Humanitarian shipments will continue, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said
Moscow will continue supplying Cuba amid the US blockade squeezing the island, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
In late March, Russia delivered 100,000 tons of crude to the island, which has faced severe fuel shortages and power cuts since late last year, when Washington began to escalate its decades-long trade embargo into a full-blown oil blockade. Russian Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilev has indicated that a second tanker is on its way.
“We will continue to provide humanitarian aid to our Cuban friends during this difficult period,” Zakharova said in a press briefing.
Cuba has faced nationwide blackouts and severe fuel shortages in recent months, since Venezuela, at one point the island’s main oil supplier, stopped crude shipments under pressure from Washington.
US President Donald Trump has signaled that he intends to “take” Cuba “one way or another” and threatened tariffs against countries exporting crude to the island.
However, late last month, after a Russian oil tanker bypassed the US blockade, he told reporters that Washington doesn’t “mind having somebody get a boat load” into the island, as “they need to survive.”
According to Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, the island relies on imports for between 40-60% of the seven million tons of fossil fuels it needs per year.
Cuba has had to lean more heavily into renewable energy sources like solar and biofuels due to the blockade, which has had a “tremendous impact on health systems,” education, transportation, and civilian infrastructure like water distribution, he said in an interview with journalist Breno Altman in Havana on Wednesday.
Diaz-Canel confirmed that talks with the US were ongoing but stressed that Cuba would reject any demands pertaining to its “political system.” In the meantime, the island’s communist party has worked to “update” the economy by giving more autonomy to private businesses and providing more investment opportunities for the Cuban diaspora abroad, he said.
The judges have cited disputed war crimes charges against the countries’ leaders as the basis for their decision
The jury of the Venice Biennale, an annual international cultural exhibition, will not give awards to artists from countries whose leaders are facing charges of crimes against humanity, according to a statement issued on Thursday.
It affects Russia and Israel, whose leaders are subject to International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants, something both countries have rejected.
The five-member jury announced the decision despite the event’s stated policy of non-exclusion. One member, Marta Kuzma, professor at the Yale School of Art, is of Ukrainian descent.
The move effectively introduces a separate criterion within the event, creating a divide between the Biennale’s institutional stance and the position taken by its own judges.
Although the statement does not explicitly mention Russia and Israel, it says the “jury will refrain from considering those countries whose leaders are currently charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
An ICC arrest warrant was issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023 over alleged deportations of Ukrainian children. Moscow, which does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction, has dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
Likewise, a warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was issued in 2024 over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israeli officials have also dismissed the case and denied the court’s authority.
It comes as the European Commission said it was slashing a €2 million ($2.3 million) grant to the event over Russia’s participation. The Biennale has welcomed Russia back for the first time in four years despite the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, saying the exhibition is “an open institution” that “rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of art.”
However, the jury criteria are tied specifically to ICC charges, which are not uniformly applied across all conflicts.
Earlier this month, a group of artists and curators issued an open letter opposing the participation the US, along with Russia and Israel, citing “occupation, and war” in Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela. However, the presense of American artists in the event running from May 9 to November 22 remains unaffected.
The US president claims to have “total control” of the waterway amid stalled talks
US President Donald Trump has threatened lethal force against any Iranian boats suspected of laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, claiming that Washington now has “total control” over the key waterway until Tehran agrees to a deal.
The warning comes amid a maritime standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial transit route that accounts for approximately 20% of global oil and gas flows. Traffic has largely come to a standstill following the US-Israeli campaign against Iran and Tehran’s subsequent retaliation.
Despite the fragile ceasefire that Trump extended indefinitely earlier this week, the US has maintained its blockade of Iranian ports.
“I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat … that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote in a social media post late on Thursday, adding that US mine-sweeping operations are ongoing.
According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon has suggested that clearing suspected mines in the strait could take months.
Trump claimed the US has “total control” over the strait. “No ship can enter or leave without the approval of the United States Navy. It is ‘Sealed up Tight,’ until such time as Iran is able to make a DEAL!!!” he wrote.
Tehran has pushed back, saying it has “the right” to act in the waterway if its national security is threatened and making the lifting of US restrictions a condition for resuming talks.
Tensions in the strait have escalated following recent maritime incidents. This week, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released footage showing the interception of two container ships in the waterway, while US forces have reported stopping and redirecting multiple vessels they described as suspected of violating sanctions.
Trump has made clear there is no firm timeline for ending the war, telling Fox News on Wednesday that there was “no time frame.” He claimed that US strikes hit “75% of targets” inside Iran and that any Iranian military buildup during the ceasefire could be neutralized “in about one day.”
The Hormuz disruption has rattled global markets, pushing Brent crude above $100 per barrel. International Energy Agency head Fatih Birol warned of “the biggest energy security threat in history,” while aid groups flagged risks to global food security as fertilizer and agricultural supply chains are hit.
Tehran’s ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali, told RT that Iran is not seeking war but is ready to respond, insisting the country remains open to diplomacy despite the escalation.
The latest prisoner swap was mediated by the United Arab Emirates and the US, the ministry said
Russia and Ukraine have conducted a prisoner of war exchange involving nearly 200 servicemen from each side, the Defense Ministry in Moscow announced on Friday. The United Arab Emirates and the US provided mediation, the ministry said.
In a statement on Friday, the MOD announced that “193 Russian servicemen have been returned from the territory controlled by the Kiev regime” and in exchange, the same number of Ukrainian Armed Forces prisoners were also transferred.
The Russian soldiers are currently in Belarus and are receiving psychological and medical assistance. They will later be transported to Russia for treatment and rehabilitation.
The previous POW exchange took place earlier this month during a temporary ceasefire for Orthodox Easter. The two sides exchanged 175 service members each. The swap also involved the return of seven civilians from Kursk Region, said to have been the last hostages taken in the Ukrainian incursion last year.
Since the resumption of direct Russia-Ukraine talks in May 2025, the two countries have regularly carried out exchanges of POWs, as well as of the bodies of fallen troops.
The largest such swap came shortly after talks resumed, when Moscow and Kiev agreed to exchange up to 1,000 prisoners each in a deal implemented in several stages the same month.
The move means London will lose access to a database of some 26,000 verified violations by West Jerusalem, the outlet has reported
The British Foreign Office has closed a special unit that had been keeping a record of breaches of international law by Israel in the Gaza Strip, The Guardian has reported.
The shutdown happened despite UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper saying in a speech earlier in April that support for international law is a “core British value” and that it would be the focus of the department under her leadership.
The termination of the operations of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) cell also means that funding will be cut for the Conflict and Security Monitoring Project run by the Center for Information Resilience (CIR), The Guardian said in an article on Thursday.
British officials have been warned that because of this, the Foreign Office will lose access to a database of 26,000 verified violations by Israel put together by the Conflict and Security Monitoring Project, the report read.
The database, which induces incidents that occurred after West Jerusalem began its attacks on Gaza in response to a deadly incursion by Hamas in October 2023, is believed to be the world’s largest repository of such information, the paper said. Among other things, it had been used by the authorities in London to decide if arms export control licenses to Israel should be suspended or not, it added.
The closure of the IHL appears to be driven by the UK cabinet’s decision to reduce the overseas aid budget to 0.3% of GDP, The Guardian noted.
The advocacy manager at Campaign Against Arms Trade, Katie Fallon, told the paper that the shutdown was aimed at making sure that the British government could “obscure unimaginable violations and crimes committed against the most vulnerable people in conflict and sustain arms sales at any cost.”
During the conflict in Gaza, the UK suspended around 30 of its 350 weapons export licenses to Israel, citing a “clear risk” of international law violations. However, Israel Tax Authority customs data last October suggested that West Jerusalem had imported almost £1 million ($1.3 million) worth of UK-made munitions in the first nine months of 2025, which was more than double the amount supplied in the previous three years.
Over 72,000 people have been killed and over 172,000 wounded by Israel’s airstrikes and ground campaign in Gaza so far, according to figures from the Palestinian health authorities.
Plans by Meta and Microsoft to cut up to 10% of staff reportedly come amid rising costs from heavy AI investments
American tech giants Meta and Microsoft are set to cut up to 10% of staff as both companies face rising costs linked to their expensive investments in artificial intelligence (AI), the Financial Times has reported.
The Facebook parent company is expected to lay off 10% of its workforce, or roughly 8,000 employees, and close about 6,000 open roles, according to an internal memo sent to staff and leaked on Thursday. Meta specified that the layoffs will start on May 20.
The move comes as the company invests billions of dollars in AI infrastructure, including costly data centers, while recruiting top talent to catch up with major tech rivals such as Google and OpenAI in developing advanced AI models, the newspaper noted.
In January, Meta said it expects capital expenditure for 2026 to reach $115 billion to $135 billion, driven largely by infrastructure costs, including payments to third-party cloud providers, higher depreciation of its AI data center assets, and rising operating expenses.
Meanwhile, rival big tech firm Microsoft said it is offering voluntary redundancy to around 7% of its US workforce. In a memo seen by the FT, the corporation told employees the option will be available to long-serving staff, whose combined age and years of service total 70 or more. More than 8,000 people will be eligible out of its roughly 125,000-strong US workforce, the news outlet reported.
According to Microsoft’s chief people officer, Amy Coleman, the offer is intended to provide these employees with “the choice to take that next step... with generous company support.”
It follows Microsoft’s decision to cut more than 15,000 jobs in 2025. Earlier this year, the company committed to spending $140 billion in capital expenditure, having pledged to accelerate the development of its own advanced AI models.
Job cuts linked to the development of AI are becoming increasingly common in the US labor market, raising concerns over the technology’s impact on employment. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that the number of layoffs due to the implementation of AI in the country’s tech sector exceeded 52,000 in the first quarter of the year.
A poll conducted earlier this year showed that 57% of Americans think the technology is advancing “too fast” and 79% are concerned the government has no plan to protect workers from job losses.
Defense Minister Israel Katz made the comment following the indefinite extension of an ongoing truce by the US
Israel is waiting for a go-ahead from the US to resume the campaign against Iran and bomb the Islamic Republic back to “the Stone Age,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has stated.
The message comes after US President Donald Trump extended the ceasefire with Tehran indefinitely on Tuesday to allow time for a potential deal, while keeping American naval blockade of Iranian ports in place.
”Israel is prepared to renew the war against Iran,” Katz said on Thursday. “We are awaiting a green light from the United States… to complete the elimination of the Khamenei dynasty… and to return Iran to the Dark Age and the Stone Age” by destroying its key energy facilities and economic infrastructure, he said.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several members of his family were killed on the first day of the Israeli-US campaign. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was appointed as his successor.
Some US politicians and media commentators have claimed Washington was “dragged” into the war, citing close military coordination with West Jerusalem. Others have pointed to the influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups in Washington. Trump has rejected the accusation.
In the days leading up to the attack on February 28 there were indirect talks and reports of extended rounds of discussion between the US and Iranian delegations in Oman. Oman’s foreign minister even suggested that peace was within reach and that diplomacy should be allowed to do its work.
The “Stone Age” rhetoric was first used by Trump on April 1, roughly five weeks into the fighting. At the time, he warned that US forces would “hit [Iran] extremely hard” and could “bring them back to the Stone Ages” within “two to three weeks” if Tehran refused US demands, including reopening the Strait of Hormuz and agreeing to a deal imposing stricter limits on its nuclear activities.
Tehran has rejected the demands, refusing to stop nuclear enrichment, which it says it needs for civilian purposes, including energy production and medical applications.
Tehran remains open to both diplomacy and continued fighting, according to Iran’s ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali. In an interview with RT published on Friday, he accused Washington of undermining diplomacy, citing its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and attacks carried out while talks were ongoing.
The Pentagon has suggested punishing Madrid for blocking bases and airspace during the war on Iran, according to an internal email cited by the outlet
The US is allegedly weighing unprecedented measures to punish NATO members it believes failed to support its war against Iran, Reuters reported on Friday, citing an internal Pentagon email. The options are said to include the possible suspension of Spain from the bloc, according to the outlet.
The document, reportedly circulating at high levels in the Department of War, expresses deep frustration with European NATO members who denied the US access to their bases and airspace during the war that started in late February, an American official familiar with the document told Reuters.
Among the measures under consideration are suspending “difficult” countries from key positions within the bloc, as well as temporarily revoking Spain’s NATO membership. While admitting that such a move would have a limited impact on US military operations, the Pentagon email argues it would carry significant symbolic weight.
However, a NATO official has stressed to the BBC that no provisions for member states to be suspended or expelled from the bloc actually exist. The only way a country can leave is by voluntarily invoking Article 13, which requires one year’s formal “notice of denunciation.”
Spain has been one of the most vocal critics of the US‑Israeli war on Iran and has consistently refused to allow US forces to use its military bases or airspace for offensive operations against the Islamic Republic. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has repeatedly denounced the campaign, calling it an “illegal, reckless, and unjust war.”
Commenting on the Reuters report, Sanchez brushed aside the threat, stating he was “absolutely not worried” about being suspended from the bloc, stressing that Spain is “a reliable member within NATO.”
Another option reportedly being considered by Washington is reviewing US diplomatic support for the UK’s claim to the Falkland Islands (Malvinas), which have long been disputed with Argentina. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer initially refused to join the US-Israeli war on Iran, although the UK later allowed “defensive missions” from its bases in the region.
Since the launch of the unprovoked attack on Iran, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly pressed NATO members to join the campaign and help secure the vital Strait of Hormuz.
When Spain and other European nations refused, Trump denounced NATO as a “paper tiger” and warned that the US could withdraw from the bloc.
At least 21 children, aged between five and 17, are among the victims, a new government inquiry has confirmed
More than 500 people, including children, were killed in mass disorder after Tanzania’s disputed election last year, according to an official report published on Thursday.
Violent protests erupted across the East African country after the October 29 vote. President Samia Suluhu Hassan, one of only two female heads of state in Africa, won 97% of the votes, granting her a first full five-year term as an elected head of state. She initially assumed the presidency in March 2021 following the death of former President John Magufuli.
A commission set up to investigate the unrest announced that at least 518 people died from “unnatural causes,” including 197 who were shot dead. More than 2,000 people were injured, with 833 suffering gunshot wounds, the report said, adding that the toll could rise due to undocumented burials and missing records.
“Of the 518 deaths, 21 were children. In this group, 15 were children aged between 15 and 17 years, four were aged between seven and ten years, and two were under five years of age,” the commission’s chairman, retired Chief Justice Mohamed Chande Othman, said on Thursday.
The report also stated that 245 people remain missing and that 39 families reported seeing the bodies of relatives in morgues before they later disappeared. While the commission did not assign responsibility for the deaths, it recommended further investigation into the use of firearms during the unrest.
The demonstrations were triggered by the disqualification of Hassan’s two main rivals, including Tundu Lissu, the leader of the opposition Chadema party, who has been in detention for months on treason charges.
The authorities imposed an internet shutdown during the unrest. In November, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) reported that hundreds of people were killed, with an unknown number injured or detained. It condemned the alleged use of “unnecessary or disproportionate force,” including lethal weapons, against protesters by the police.
A 208-page report released on Monday by the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition also documented claims of mass graves, citing accounts of bodies being taken from morgues and buried in undisclosed locations.
However, the government commission dismissed the allegations of mass graves. It concluded that the demonstrations were not peaceful, but rather unlawful and coordinated acts of violence in violation of the country’s laws.
“The information and evidence confirm that there were people roaming around in various places… inciting and recruiting various people to participate in violence during and after the general election,” it stated.
The commission said its findings will guide constitutional reforms and the creation of an investigative body to pursue accountability for those involved in the turmoil.
Fannie Masemola will be on “precautionary suspension” pending the conclusion of the case against him, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced
South Africa’s national police commissioner, Fannie Masemola, has been suspended following allegations of corruption linked to a 360 million-rand ($21 million) contract for health and wellness services, the presidency confirmed on Thursday.
Masemola appeared in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, facing four counts of violating the Public Finance Management Act. Prosecutors allege that the contract was awarded unlawfully, with some police officers receiving bribes from the winning bidders.
The charges against Masemola stem from his role as the accounting officer for the police service.
He has denied the accusations but has yet to enter a plea. Businessman Vusimuzi Matlala, whose company Medicare24 secured the controversial contract, has yet to enter his plea along with 15 others accused of corruption, fraud, and money laundering. The case has been postponed until May 13.
In a statement on Thursday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he has decided to place Masemola on “precautionary suspension” pending the conclusion of the case.
The decision is necessary “in consideration of the seriousness of these charges and the critical role of the National Commissioner in leading the fight against crime,” Ramaphosa stated.
The president announced the appointment of Puleng Dimpane as acting national commissioner. Dimpane has been serving as the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) divisional commissioner for financial management services.
The suspension comes amid growing concerns over corruption within South Africa’s law enforcement agencies. Last year, Ramaphosa took similar actions against Police Minister Senzo Mchunu following allegations that he had conspired with a criminal network and interfered with investigations into political assassinations.
Ramaphosa placed Mchunu on immediate leave and set up the Madlanga Commission of inquiry to investigate the allegations, which were brought forward by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
On Thursday, the president said both the Zondo state-capture inquiry, which investigated widespread corruption involving the government and private sector from 2018 to 2022, and the ongoing Madlanga commission, have identified procurement as a major source of abuse of office within the police service.
He said the newly appointed acting National Commissioner is expected to urgently address weaknesses in police procurement and “sustain the momentum” of Pretoria’s “fight against crime and corruption.”
Officials and experts question whether Brussels’ €2 million grant gives it real leverage over the Italian cultural institution
Moscow has condemned the EU’s decision to withdraw a €2 million ($2.34 million) grant from the Venice Biennale after the prestigious event allowed Russia to return.
The Italian cultural exhibition announced in early March that Russia would participate again this year, prompting the European Commission to warn it could lose funding. On Thursday, commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier confirmed that the EU would follow through, urging the Italian authorities to take action.
“This move by Brussels is disgraceful and shows that claims by the European establishment about being open to dialogue with Russia are empty,” Mikhail Shvydkoy, a Russian presidential aide for international cultural cooperation, told RBK on Friday.
“This is also blatant interference in Italian domestic politics, since cultural policy remains under national purview in the European Union,” he added.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova likewise criticized the move, calling it “a relapse into anti-culture, a condition that the West has been suffering from in recent years.” In remarks made to TASS, she warned: “Unless they cure it, they’ll remain uncultured forever.”
Russian officials and commentators questioned whether the funding cut would have any meaningful impact. Shvydkoy described the €2 million grant as significant but not essential for an institution of the biennale’s scale.
Art critic Elizaveta Likhacheva echoed that view, arguing that EU leaders were overestimating their leverage. “They are making a mistake by trying to use financial pressure,” she told BFM.ru, suggesting the funding represents only a small portion of the event’s overall resources – enough “for pencils and sweets.” According to Likhacheva, both Rome and Brussels must realize that their influence is limited.
The EU has backed Ukraine’s efforts to restrict Russian cultural activities abroad, arguing they can serve as instruments of state influence. In recent remarks, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, claimed that Russia “seeks to erase Ukrainian culture” and thus “should not be allowed to exhibit its own.”
There are multiple government programs supporting Ukrainian culture in Russia. Unlike Russian in Ukraine, Ukrainian is an official language in some Russian regions.
Teams have saved people of various nationalities from ten overcrowded boats near Tobruk
More than 400 migrants have been rescued off Libya’s eastern coast this week, after they were found at risk of drowning, the Libyan Red Crescent Society announced on Thursday.
The route via the Central Mediterranean is considered one of the world’s deadliest, with more than 1,300 people lost along it in 2025, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Missing Migrants Project.
The IOM also said earlier this week that 4,407 migrants had been intercepted and returned to Libya in 2026.
The rescue operation was carried out in coordination with the UN refugee agency, the Red Crescent reported. A total of 404 migrants of various nationalities were taken off ten overcrowded boats near the eastern city of Tobruk, about 1,600 km from the capital, Tripoli, after enduring difficult conditions that put their lives in danger.
Rescue teams were rapidly deployed to designated landing points, where migrants received immediate medical care and humanitarian assistance. Images released by the organization showed volunteers handing out food and blankets to those rescued.
Libya has become one of the main transit points for refugees from Africa and the Middle East trying to reach Europe via the Central Mediterranean. They are fleeing armed conflict, political instability, and economic hardship in countries such as Sudan and Nigeria, and parts of the Sahel.
The boats are usually overcrowded and unsafe, and many sink or capsize before reaching European waters.
In February, the IOM stated that at least 53 migrants, including two babies, had died or gone missing after a boat capsized off the coast of Libya.
“These tragedies are preventable. Urgent action is needed to protect lives and ensure safe, regular pathways on the Central Mediterranean route,” the agency said in a statement on Facebook.
The UN reported that 27,116 migrants were intercepted and returned to Libya in the Central Mediterranean in 2025. “Smuggling and trafficking networks continue to profit from desperate people by sending them to sea in unseaworthy boats,” the organization noted.
Many BRICS nations support Moscow’s stance on the conflict, Georgy Borisenko has told RT India
The Middle East crisis has been caused by the aggression of the US and Israel, Russia’s deputy foreign minister has said.
Georgy Borisenko told RT India in an exclusive chat on the sidelines of the BRICS Middle East and North Africa (MENA) consultations that the bloc’s members discussed the situation in Iran.
“It was a very good and fruitful discussion,” Borisenko told RT India on Friday. “Many of our friends supported this [Russia’s] position and we hope that with joint efforts we will be able to overcome current problems in the region.”
The conflict is causing hardship on a global scale due to the disruption of transportation routes and the rising prices of oil and gas, Borisenko added.
❗️BRICS MENA Meeting Kicks Off In New Delhi Brings Iran, UAE, India, & Russia Representatives Together
India is represented by MEA Secretary (South), Dr Neena Malhotra, while the Russian delegation is led by Deputy FM Georgy Borisenko.
Russia believes it is a necessity for the international community, “including all BRICS members” to make their best efforts to overcome the situation, he said.
There is no quick fix to the crisis surrounding Iran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier this month. The US needs to recognize its underlying causes, including Israel’s goal of destroying the country, he added.
Russia remains ready to assist in finding a solution, provided Iran’s right to develop a peaceful nuclear program is upheld, Lavrov said.
The BRICS MENA meet was convened to discuss regional security, specifically focusing on stability in the Gulf.
Iran’s special envoy for the Middle East, Mahdi Shoushtari, is also taking part in the conference.
A sociologist on M6 struck a nerve by comparing an unsanctioned devotional installation with far-right graffiti in Nice
French television channel M6 has aired a report comparing two unlawfully installed Christian crosses to an act of neo-Nazi vandalism, drawing sharp criticism, according to Tribune Chretienne.
The controversy followed a Wednesday broadcast in which sociologist Erwan Lecoeur drew parallels between the crosses and the work of right-wing vandals. The symbols of Jesus’s resurrection featuring the message “Ave Christus Rex” (“Hail Christ the King”) were recently installed on the Baou de Saint-Jeannet hill near Nice.
Lecoeur cited nearby graffiti reading “Nice is Germany,” a slogan associated with far-right groups and Nazism during World War II, framing the crosses as part of a broader ideological symbol system.
Critics said the parallel was unacceptable, arguing that the Christian cross is a religious symbol, while such slogans are tied to extremist ideology.
“Since when has the cross been a Nazi symbol?” French outlet Tribune Chretienne asked, condemning what it called an “indefensible media amalgam.” The outlet added that “confusing the two… amounts to trivializing one and denaturing the other: it is a true intellectual profanation.”
The crosses appeared in recent weeks on the hill, which is located within a protected natural area where unauthorized structures are prohibited. One was removed by authorities, while the other was later cut down, prompting a public debate over the legality of their installation under French secularism laws governing the use of religious symbols in public spaces.
The cross has symbolized faith, sacrifice and redemption for two millennia, while Nazi imagery is inseparable from an ideology of “hatred, domination and destruction,” the outlet wrote. The publication added that projecting “the shadow of totalitarianism” onto acts of faith distorts reality and prevents clear understanding.
Local reactions have been divided, with some residents describing the installation as provocative, while others have condemned the destruction of the cross as vandalism.
Similar controversies have surfaced in France in recent years involving perceived links between Christian traditions and Nazi imagery. In 2025, a France Televisions report suggesting a connection between Christmas markets and Nazism drew backlash and was withdrawn, according to Tribune Chretienne.
Historians have documented how the Nazi regime sought to appropriate Christian symbols, a legacy that continues to fuel debate.
Kiev’s draft campaign has intensified as manpower shortages and battlefield losses mount
Ukrainian conscription officers in Lviv have run over a woman as she desperately tried to prevent the forced mobilization of her son, local news outlets reported on Thursday, citing eyewitness video circulating on social media.
The incident comes as Kiev faces growing domestic and international criticism over increasingly aggressive conscription tactics adopted amid escalating manpower shortages and mounting battlefield losses in the conflict with Russia.
One video depicts at least four draft officers struggling with an unwilling conscript while a woman, restrained by another officer, tries to intervene. Other footage appears to show the same woman attempting to block the vehicle into which the man was forcibly pushed, moments before she was struck by it.
According to the Telegram channel Strana UA, police witnessed a draft officers’ vehicle strike a woman and immediately detained the driver. An investigation has reportedly been launched, while the regional conscription office later claimed to the channel the woman herself was at fault.
In recent weeks, local media have reported a rise in such incidents. In April alone, footage showed several separate events in Odessa, including pepper spray being used on a woman trying to prevent the mobilization of a man, the violent seizure and beating of an unwilling conscript, and an attack on a 16-year-old boy by draft officers.
In another widely shared video, a man is seen resisting several conscription officers with a metal chain, forcing them to withdraw and leave the scene.
Physical confrontations and tense altercations between draft officials and the public have recently led to violence against officers. Earlier this month, two conscription officers were stabbed by a passerby in Vinnytsia after a document check, while another draft officer was fatally stabbed in Lviv.
Earlier this month, Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kirill Budanov, admitted that mobilization had created what he called a “huge” problem in Ukrainian society, exposing a growing gap between Kiev’s calls to “fight until victory” and widespread draft evasion.
Moscow has accused Kiev of waging the conflict “to the last Ukrainian” in the interests of the West. Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov said Ukraine lost nearly 500,000 military personnel in 2025 alone, which he claimed has left Kiev unable to replenish its forces even through mandatory conscription.
Officers cut the symbol out of the religious head covering before returning it to him, Alex Sinclair has complained
A lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has said that he was detained by police for wearing a kippah with the Israeli and Palestinian flags on it.
Alex Sinclair said in a post on Facebook on Thursday that he had been sporting the kippah for 20 years due to “a messy ambivalence of my Jewish-Zionist identity” and it was never a problem.
But a few days ago, a man approached him at a cafe in his hometown of Modi’in in central Israel, telling him that his skullcap was illegal and that he was going to call the police, he wrote.
Officers arrived some five minutes later. “They immediately tell me that my kippah is against the law and that they are going to confiscate it,” Sinclair recalled.
The lecturer said he refused to give up his head covering as it “meant so much” to him and he ended up being detained. He was swiftly released, but the police tried holding on to the kippah.
When he demanded it back, a female officer returned it to him only after cutting the Palestinian flag out of the head covering, the educator wrote. The symbol is not illegal under Israeli law.
זו המדינה שאנחנו חיים בה: ד"ר אלכס סינקלר ישב בבית קפה במודיעין. לקוחה אחרת הבחינה שעל הכיפה שלו יש דגלי ישראל ופלסטין ביחד, סמל לשלום, והזמינה את המשטרה. המשטרה הגיעה והודיעה לו ש"הכיפה שלו נגד החוק". משסירב להסירה, נקלחה הכיפה בכוח, והוחזרה לו אחרי שדגל פלסטין נגזר ממנה. זהו. pic.twitter.com/cqCik3dUov
— Alon-Lee Green - ألون-لي جرين - אלון-לי גרין 🟣 (@AlonLeeGreen) April 23, 2026
"It’s hard not to say that this is the kind of thing that fascist regimes do,” Sinclair stressed, adding that he is “worried and anxious and frankly devastated that this is the direction that Israel is moving in.”
He said he filed a complaint with the Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI), demanding compensation for the destroyed kippah and “a written commitment that I can walk around Modi’in with it free from harassment.
The police confirmed that they had briefly detained a man for wearing a Palestinian flag, but refrained from further comments.
Since Israel started its military operation in Gaza in response to a deadly incursion by Hamas in October 2023, the powers of the police to enforce public order have been vastly extended, with multiple incidents of officers removing and seizing Palestinian flags being reported.
More than 72,000 people have been killed and over 172,000 others injured by Israeli attacks in Gaza over the past three years, figures from the Palestinian health authorities show.
The South Asian nation’s regulator is taking a cautious approach amid the conflict in the Middle East
India’s central bank has warned of rising inflation risks as part of the fallout from the Middle East conflict.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cautioned in its latest assessment that “upside risks have increased” on the inflation front.
“Though inflation remains contained within the tolerance band, upside risks have increased, driven by supply-side disruptions, including weather-related uncertainties,” the bank said in a bulletin on Thursday.
The RBI is taking a cautious approach but does not rule out the risk of inflation if the war persists, a top aide told the Economic Times.
Deputy Governor Poonam Gupta told the newspaper that the central bank’s assumption is that the conflict will be resolved in a few months, with “supply chains being restored subsequently and demand-supply normalizing thereafter.”
There is no evidence now of “second-round effects on inflation expectations,” she said, citing this as the reason the central bank “decided to watch and wait.”
The exact impact on the energy price would depend on the “duration of the West Asia conflict and how quickly normalcy returns to energy markets post conflict,” Gupta added.
Efficient coordination between monetary and fiscal policies has resulted in better management of inflation, she said.
The probability of El-Nino is unlikely to have a significant impact on agriculture, which has become more resilient to shocks, she noted.
Her comments come amid concerns that the Indian economy is expected to face inflationary pressure from rising petroleum product prices, following state elections.
On Thursday, HSBC downgraded India to underweight from neutral, a month after downgrading it from overweight.
The South Asian country’s economy is expected to grow 6.4% in FY27, slower than the 7.4% expansion estimated for FY26, due to the impact of the Middle East conflict, a UN report said on Tuesday.
The projections are in sync with the estimates of the Indian government and various multilateral agencies, the Mint newspaper reported.
The World Bank has projected India’s FY27 growth at 6.6% amid higher energy prices and supply chain disruptions. Despite this, New Delhi remains among the fastest-growing major economies, it said.
It is revealing that the growing social distress is generated not on the periphery of the Western world-system, but in the American metropolis itself. Equally revealing is that the West’s decline was not provoked by any catastrophe; on the contrary, it became evident at the very peak of the globalization-Americanization of humanity.
After the collapse of the USSR and the Soviet bloc, US military hegemony and the dominance of the world’s reserve currency turned the United States into a global center for the capitalization of resources – the supreme beneficiary of the outflow of capital, brains, and ambitious youth from across the world. Only twenty-five years have passed since the apotheosis of the food-chain “finalists” was captured in Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History, and already the desperate Donald Trump, calling to “Make America Great Again,” has drawn a line under Pax Americana.
What, then, happened?
A different country
Over the last quarter of the twentieth century and the first quarter of the twenty-first, the population of the United States grew by one hundred million people. Yet this impressive growth conceals a deep deficit: the United States is experiencing a decline in the production of life itself.
Since the 1970s, the American population has increased only due to immigration. Within the country’s own social space, the number of births has steadily fallen while mortality has risen. The story of religious salvation and the shine of economic success have turned into their opposites: a stream of seekers of the “American miracle,” inflated by financialization of GDP and the Pyrrhic victory of globalization, continues to pour in – but life itself is ebbing away from America.
In 2023, the number of births in the US dropped to the level of 1979, when the nation’s population was a third smaller than it is now. Fertility has declined to 1.6 children per woman (see chart below), and among white Americans to 1.5. Depopulation now affects all major demographic groups – not only whites, but also African Americans and Hispanics.
Because immigrants are predominantly from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, those communities continue to grow in the US, while the share of white Americans has plummeted. In the United States that, together with the USSR, won World War II, white Americans of European descent made up almost 90% of the population. In 1990, they still accounted for 80%; in 2010, for 72%; and by 2020 their share had dropped sharply to 62% (see maps below).
Spread of white American population over time
According to the 2020 census, whites became a minority in America’s three largest cities: New York (31%), Los Angeles (25%), and Chicago (31%), as well as in Washington, D.C. (38%). The 2020 demographic map clearly shows that the phrase “a different country” is no exaggeration – it merely records a demographic, genealogical, and ethnocultural transformation.
It is certain that since 2020 this transformation has only intensified, especially after President Biden effectively opened the border with Mexico. According to estimates from his opponents, another 10 million immigrants have moved to the United States.
Meanwhile, the 2020 census not only documented the declining proportion of white Americans but also recorded something unprecedented: for the first time in US history, the absolute number of white Americans decreased, by 5.1 million people in ten years.
The accelerating decline of the white population – a bitter hangover from the “end of history” – indicates that the elite of the “golden billion” is rotting at the root. The inflow of culturally different immigrants deepens the decay of the American nation but is not its primary cause. In a striking paradox, the inhabitants of the world’s most privileged summit have stopped reproducing and, even more strangely for a highly developed country, have begun dying more often.
Depression of the nation
Anne Case and Angus Deaton documented and analyzed the rise in mortality among Americans during the first two decades of the 21st century – particularly among white people aged 45–54 – due to alcoholism, suicide, and opioid addiction. In their study titled Deaths of Despair, the authors indict large pharmaceutical corporations, their lobbyists in Congress, and collaborators in the medical community who, in pursuit of profit, have cultivated widespread dependence on dangerous and addictive painkillers.
Another “progressive” way of combating alcoholism and mass depression has been the legalization of soft drugs. This created a legal and rapidly growing marijuana market worth $50 billion annually, a market now being exploited by fast-food giants as a related line of business. According to some estimates, the lion’s share of marijuana production remains under the control of drug cartels; since legalization, it has become much harder for police to maintain any semblance of order.
Scientific data add to the picture: over the past 30 years, the content of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – the main psychoactive component of cannabis – has quadrupled in the US supply.
The lobbyists for marijuana legalization promised it would reduce alcohol consumption. Marijuana has indeed “defeated” alcohol in the sense that its use now exceeds alcohol consumption in the US – but that does not mean alcohol use has declined. At the end of the yellow-line curve on the relevant graph, there is only a minor rebound after the spike in alcoholism during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Doctors warn that cannabis consumption – especially with THC levels four times higher than in the past – dramatically increases the risk of psychosis. Half of American teenagers now exhibit symptoms of depression, and dissatisfaction with life among US teens has doubled in the past decade. Psychologist Jean Twenge links this surge in youth depression to the pervasive internalization of digital social networks, and she is right. Yet it is also striking how closely her depression-trend graph mirrors the rise in marijuana use.
Many such “spikes” of problematic growth can be seen across US social data: symptoms of depression among youth have doubled; the number of daily marijuana users has reached 18 million people; 42% of the population is now overweight; the share of the LGBT community in the US has grown to 5.6%, and among Generation Z (born 1997–2002) to 15.9% of adults. (Gallup, notably, interprets this not as a problem but as a “progressive trend.”)
Growing anomie
The phenomena observed in recent years – the unprecedented decline of the native-born population and the growth of replacement immigration; the simultaneous increase in alcohol and marijuana use amid opioid addiction and mass obesity; the unnatural depression among youth alongside an unnatural transformation of sexual identity – all this, taken together, indicates that the United States has entered a phase of social anomie. To test this hypothesis, let us examine data on crime and homicide rates.
In 2020, there were 21,570 murders in the US – an immediate 30% increase compared to 2019, the largest single-year rise ever recorded in the country. Explaining this by the socioeconomic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic seems unconvincing, since all countries faced pandemic-related challenges, yet this dramatic surge in murders occurred specifically in the United States.
It is enough to compare the US trend with that of Russia, which under Putin has been moving steadily away from the dire criminal records of its post-Soviet collapse.
As can be seen, the number of homicides in Russia continues to fall, reaching historical lows for the country, while in the US, after the 2020 surge, the homicide rate stabilized at a much higher level.
The frequency of murders naturally correlates with overall crime levels. And since everything is known by comparison, let us again compare the US with Russia – which, to be fair, still remains far from the safest country in the world. The chart from 2020 shows the rates of murders, assaults, robberies, and rapes per 1 million residents in both nations.
The diagram is quite telling. One could assume that in Russia many assaults or rapes go unreported, but it’s hard to imagine the same about robberies. So if Russia’s crime rate, though still high, has declined, then the US is currently experiencing a true crime wave.
In addition, the United States has been swept by a surge of spontaneous street violence: the number of aggravated assaults in 2020 rose by 100,000 cases from the previous year, reaching 922,000 incidents.
The trigger for the police crisis and the sharp rise in crime in 2020 was the high-profile case of George Floyd and Derek Chauvin. Floyd – who died during arrest while under the influence of a large drug dose – became the icon of the Black Lives Matter protest movement. The police officer Chauvin, who detained Floyd and was charged with his death, became the scapegoat of liberal crusaders against alleged police violence and was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison.
The vilification of police and the tolerance of street crime, elevated to public policy, became a vivid expression of social anomie and a factor in its amplification. Thus, the post-2020 rise in crime is entirely logical. Here are a few notable examples:
Freight train raids have grown in arithmetic progression. In 2023, US shippers reported 1,183 cases of cargo theft, causing total losses of $694 million per year. The West Coast and California’s Central Valley are especially affected; in California, 54% of passing freight trains are attacked.
Union Pacific, the nation’s largest railroad company, considered rerouting because theft in Los Angeles County was harming business. In the three months preceding the holiday shopping season, an average of 90 containers per day were broken into, and over 100 arrests were made – but local courts treated these as petty offenses and released offenders within 24 hours, as the company’s letter to the Los Angeles district attorney complained.
Metal thieves have gone from raiding bridges, Tesla charging stations, and traffic lights to cutting main telephone lines, including those used by emergency services. In Washington State, 2-3 incidents of copper cable theft occur weekly, with each requiring up to 48 hours of repair and costing at least $100,000 per episode.
In New York, moped robberies have sharply increased. Gangs of illegal migrants enter cafés and restaurants, rob patrons, and escape before police arrive. In 2023 there were 32 such incidents, and in just the first six months of 2024 – 116.
When mass aggressiveness combines with a policing crisis, both criminal violence and broader social irresponsibility increase. Another manifestation of social anomie is reckless behavior on the roads and a rise in traffic fatalities. And since road mortality has long been a painful issue for Russia, let us again compare.
We see that traffic-death rates in the US follow the same upward trend as murder rates, reflecting the general rise in crime. In fact, the US level of these negative phenomena has now surpassed that of the Russian Federation.
Destruction of civil cohesion
Particular attention should be paid to the fact that the rise of anomie in the United States coincides with the degeneration of productive social inequality into counter-productive social divergence. Inequality, when moderate, is necessary for social order and development – but it always carries the risk of destroying civic unity and marginalizing the poor. Therefore, the state must constantly keep inequality within bounds that allow the competition of private interests to coexist with national cohesion.
The consolidation of the nation during World War II and the subsequent rise of the United States in its rivalry with the Soviet Union would have been impossible without the so-called egalitarian revolution – an unprecedented reduction of inequality during the war and the thirty post-war years that followed. Franklin Roosevelt’s and later Dwight Eisenhower’s progressive taxation on super-incomes – at rates from 72 % to 94 % – together with a progressive inheritance tax, subsidized retraining for demobilized servicemen, and the broad democratization of education, as well as Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty programs in 1964, all reduced inequality in the United States to its historical minimum and ensured the flourishing of the American middle class.
The radical liberalism that triumphed under Ronald Reagan launched the reverse process – an elitist counter-revolution, the essence of which was the financialization of capitalism and the concentration of financial assets in an ever-narrower elite. What came of it? “The Triumph of Injustice” – that is how economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman titled their analysis of the long, bipartisan policy of lowering taxes for the rich and for corporations, and of tolerating large-scale tax avoidance through the practical abolition of the inheritance tax and the rise of a whole industry helping corporations hide profits in offshore accounts. As a result, the US tax system became regressive. During Donald Trump’s first presidency, for the first time in a century, billionaires paid a smaller share of their income in taxes than steelworkers, teachers, or pensioners. And this, note, is not a purely American phenomenon: in this matter the Browns, Macrons, and Trumps of the entire globalized West agree with one another.
The calculations of these cited authors may be debated – but the objective reality cannot. Hyper-concentration of capital eliminates democracy: the American middle class has disappeared, and in nine cases out of ten, children no longer live better than their parents. To confirm this, let us look at the distribution of household wealth in the US:
Percentile GroupShare of National Wealth (%) 1990 Q4Share 2024 Q3Top 1 %14.922.080–99 %43.746.860–80 %18.214.640–60 %12.68.720–40 %7.54.70–20 %3.13.1
Source: Federal Reserve System, “Distribution of Household Wealth in the U.S. since 1989.”
From these figures we can conclude the following. The concentration of wealth in the United States has risen even further over the past thirty-three years. In 1990, the wealthiest fifth of households owned 58.6 % of all assets; by 2024, that figure had reached 68.8 %, while the remaining 80 % of households share only 31.1 %.
The bottom two quintiles (40 %) of poor households became even poorer: their meager share of assets fell from 10.6 % in 1990 to 7.8 % by 2025. The next two quintiles (another 40 %), representing the traditional middle class, suffered the greatest losses: their share shrank from 30.8 % to 23.3 %.
Even within the top fifth, wealth is highly unevenly distributed: of the 68.8 % of all household assets held by the top 20 %, nearly one-third belongs to the richest 1 %. And among that top 1 %, wealth is growing faster than for anyone else: from roughly 15 % to 22 % of all assets. In essence, almost all growth in American wealth now fits within the “golden” boundaries of this one-percent elite.
Ranked globally by the decile coefficient (DC) – the ratio of the income share of the richest 10 % to that of the poorest 10 % – the United States, with a value of 13.7, holds 96th place, showing more inequality than any other developed nation except Israel (14.5) and the United Kingdom (13.8).
The COVID-19 pandemic and the economic recession it triggered drastically worsened the condition of low-income groups. Looking at the enormous number of COVID deaths in the United States – over 1.138 million – it is important to note that in poor counties, people died from the virus nearly twice as often as in wealthier ones. At the same time, large-scale government spending drove up stock and housing prices, which, in turn, further enriched the wealthy while deepening poverty. A radical manifestation of mass pauperization is the rise in homelessness: according to the Institute of Global Homelessness, the US has 653,100 homeless people.
Income and educational polarization strongly correlate with racial and ethnic composition, leading to territorial segregation between states, counties, and cities – rich and white on one side, poor and non-white on the other. This is clearly visible on CNN’s detailed map “Race and Ethnicity Across the Nation.”
Segregation is most dramatic in the largest metropolises, where ultra-wealthy white districts border impoverished Black and Latino neighborhoods. This extreme polarization breeds anomie – vividly illustrated by New Year’s scenes of looting amid the ashes of elite Los Angeles villas. Perhaps it was not just looting: a viral video showing an arsonist suggests that the causes of California’s “most expensive wildfire” were as much social as natural.
If we compare the racial-ethnic map of Greater Los Angeles with a map of California wildfires, we can see that the fires engulfed areas of expensive real estate owned by the white minority. On the map, white population clusters are marked in blue, and the fire zones outlined in green overlap them.
In recent years, “Latino” sectors on the US map have clearly expanded. There are now over 60 million Latinos – roughly 20 % of the population – and they have become the predominant ethnic group in California and Texas. When migrants fill up the areas they have already settled, they move into neighboring ones, and former residents quickly move out. A more radical method of “redistribution” is the fire.
In the US, people now openly talk about civil war, and Hollywood has even portrayed it on screen. Everything suggests that, in Marxist terms, the agenda now includes a class war – with a racial dimension. Whoever writes the script, the villas of Hollywood seem destined to become a theater of combat.
Another terrifying manifestation of social breakdown was the murder of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson, a crime that defies the usual American categories of violence: psychopathic mass shootings, criminal feuds, killer cops, or partisan hunts for autocrats. The disinterested killing of the head of one of America’s largest companies, and the public sympathy for his 26-year-old killer Luigi Mangione, strongly recalls the social-revolutionary pathos of Russia’s early-twentieth-century “storm petrels.”
The black-hole effect
Luigi Mangione’s act would never have resonated so widely were it not for the public’s perception of health-insurance executives as people who turned medicine into a cynical business built on human suffering. Even those who condemn the murderer are compelled to acknowledge that they understand his motives and share his resentment toward the existing insurance-based healthcare system.
Let specialists debate the details of how that system functions; for assessing social well-being, what matters most are the cost and the result.
Healthcare in the United States is both a major component of the economy and an embodiment of the American spirit: private providers deliver medical services whose high cost is partly reimbursed through competing insurance systems, including public programs, while the rest is paid directly by patients. As a result, US medical spending is roughly twice the OECD average, amounting to about 18 percent of the nation’s GDP – the largest in the world.
Roughly half of that astronomical sum consists of government spending (federal and state budgets), and the other half comes from private sources (insurance premiums and out-of-pocket payments).
And regarding the growth of US GDP: the share prices of health-insurance corporations keep climbing, as do the prices of medical services, equipment, and pharmaceuticals. The flip side of this growth is grim: 66.5 percent of all personal bankruptcies in the country are linked to medical expenses. In the realm of “medical bankruptcies,” the United States is an unmatched world leader.
The nation’s achievements in increasing life expectancy, however, are far more modest. Despite leading the world in healthcare spending, the US does not rank among the top 30 developed countries where average life expectancy reaches or exceeds 80 years. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the US even fell below China in global life-expectancy rankings.
According to the data, US life expectancy stopped rising after 2010, never reaching 79 years. In China, the indicator continues to grow; in Russia, after a post-COVID dip, it has already surpassed the pre-pandemic level. But in the United States, life expectancy has not returned to pre-pandemic figures.
Another universal indicator of a healthcare system’s quality is infant-mortality rate. This metric reflects not only medical standards but also the state’s commitment to social responsibility and the overall culture of preserving life. And by this measure, the world’s top spender on healthcare looks unimpressive: the US ranks 48th in infant-mortality, between North Macedonia and Uruguay.
In the 2020s, the US infant-mortality rate has not decreased – it has even risen, reaching 5.6 deaths per 1,000 live births. By 2016, Russia had already overtaken the US on this metric and continues to lower infant mortality; China, according to recent data, has now surpassed the US as well.
But nowhere is the failure of the American healthcare system more vividly exposed than in comparison with Cuba: the island’s GDP per capita is six times smaller, yet its infant-mortality rate (3.94) is significantly lower than that of the transcontinental “American democracy.”
The lag of the United States behind China and Russia in manufacturing, agriculture, and several high-tech sectors is no longer news. But what is important is to grasp the general trend and the historical scale of transformation. Today, the metropolis of the globalized West has become a hotbed of social anomie, its viability sustained solely by assimilating external resources – every resource it can reach. As long as the American ruling elites continue to think of themselves as the subject of “global law,” the social well-being of the United States – and of the rest of the world – will remain a zero-sum game.
Hundreds of skilled specialists have indicated an interest in the program, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives has said
A total of 2,500 people have registered on a new Russian portal designed for skilled foreign nationals seeking expedited relocation, with 170 applicants having already submitted all the documentation, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) has reported.
ASI established the Headquarters for Support of Repatriation and Adaptation in late 2024, following an order from Russian President Vladimir Putin to streamline the relocation of skilled foreigners.
The body brings together representatives from the Presidential Administration, the State Duma, federal ministries, state corporations and pilot regions to coordinate the effort.
Russian officials presented the figures on Wednesday at a meeting of ASI’s headquarters, covering the first nine days since the “Time to Live in Russia” portal launched on April 15.
“We managed to develop and launch a mechanism to attract foreign specialists who are of interest to Russia in a fairly short time,” ASI head Svetlana Chupsheva said. She noted that the new process provides a clear path for talented foreigners who want to contribute to the country’s development.
Coordination is led by the Agency for Attracting Foreign Talent (APIT). The head of the agency, Irina Korotkova, said 54% of applicants who submitted full documentation are in-demand specialists, 16% are students and 15% are scientists; the average age ranges between 40 and 45.
The data also shows family relocation is a key trend, with 35% planning to move with spouses and 30% with children.
Russia’s Interior Ministry has issued the necessary orders to implement the decree, First Deputy Head of the Migration Service Konstantin Bukreev said. Under a separate program, the ministry has already received nearly 3,400 applications for temporary residence permits from citizens of Western countries, he added.
Alexander Vaino, the headquarters’ secretary, said 14 of the 40 planned measures have been completed, including allowing visa issuance at any Russian consulate and simplifying access to state services.
Officials also approved an updated “Regional Standard” for adapting foreign arrivals. The framework formalizes a federal operator, introduces the term “repatriate” and is due to be rolled out across 14 regions, including Moscow and Kaliningrad.
New Delhi has reacted to the US president reposting an anti-immigrant message by conservative radio host Michael Savage
New Delhi has hit back at US President Donald Trump’s controversial social media repost of a commentary that called India and China “hellholes.”
The US president on Thursday reposted a letter from American conservative political commentator and radio host Michael Savage describing immigrants from India as “gangsters with laptops.”
In a response posted on X, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal termed the remarks as “obviously uninformed, inappropriate, and in poor taste.”
“They certainly do not reflect the reality of the India-US relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests,” Jaiswal posted.
Our response to media queries regarding a social media post ⬇️
The US Embassy in New Delhi reacted to Trump’s controversial post by praising US-India ties. “The President [Trump] has said India is a great country with a very good friend of mine [Prime Minister Narendra Modi] at the top,” an embassy spokesperson said.
Podcaster Savage’s message criticizing the US birthright citizenship laws also claimed that immigrants have done more damage to US than “all the mafia families put together.” It also alleged bias in internal hiring mechanisms, claiming they are “run by Indians and Chinese.”
Trump signed an executive order in January last year seeking to limit birthright citizenship for certain children born in the US, prompting lawsuits.
US Congressman Ami Bera, a Democrat and son of Indian immigrants, called Trump’s post “offensive, ignorant, and beneath the dignity of the office he holds.”“They reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of who we are as a nation. America has always been strengthened by generations of immigrants who come here, work hard, and contribute to our country,” he wrote.
The fresh diplomatic row comes ahead of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s scheduled visit to New Delhi later this month, in what is seen by foreign policy commenters as an attempt to ease tensions amid ongoing turmoil in the Middle East as a result of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Trump earlier courted controversy by claiming he was instrumental in preventing a nuclear war between India and Pakistan during a military standoff last year. New Delhi has denied that Washington brokered a ceasefire.
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