At least three people, including a child, have been injured, dozens of homes damaged, and 5,000 left without power after an overnight Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow Region.

Governor Andrey Vorobyev said drones targeted multiple districts outside the Russian capital. In Ramensky, a drone crashed into a private home while people were sleeping, causing shrapnel injuries to a ten-year-old girl, Vorobyev said. A woman was injured by falling UAV debris in Bogorodsky District, while a 27-year-old man was wounded by shrapnel in Kolomna. All three have been hospitalized.

The most serious damage was reported in Pavlovsky Posad, where a UAV caused a fire which destroyed a private house in Kuznetsy and another blaze hit the roof of an apartment building, forcing dozens of families to evacuate. No injuries were reported. Elsewhere, falling drone debris sparked a fire and damaged several buildings in Kolomna, set construction materials ablaze in Kotelniki, and damaged a car and electrical substation in Elektrostal.

More than 5,000 consumers and 46 socially important facilities in Likino-Dulyovo and Orekhovo-Zuyevo were left without electricity, regional power company Mosoblenergo said. The outage followed equipment damage in the network supplying its Pavlovsky Posad branch.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said 180 UAVs were downed over the region, adding that a total of 620 UAVs had targeted Moscow and the surrounding area between Monday evening and 5 AM Tuesday.

The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses intercepted and destroyed 791 Ukrainian fixed-wing UAVs overnight across the country. Apart from Moscow, drones were downed over 15 Russian regions and the Azov and Black seas, according to the ministry. Nine UAVs were shot down over Ryazan Region, injuring three people, Governor Pavel Malkov said.

The August 18 attack was one of the largest Ukrainian drone raids since the beginning of the year, according to Defense Ministry data. It came just two days after an even larger attack on August 16, when the ministry reported intercepting and destroying 822 Ukrainian drones.

US rapper Kanye West will perform two shows in Russia after his concerts were canceled in several European countries over the star’s controversial remarks about Israel and Adolf Hitler.

The rapper, also known as Ye, will perform at St. Petersburg’s Gazprom Arena on October 10 and 11, his producer Joseph Karre and local organizer SAY Agency confirmed on Monday. The shows will be part of the Ye Live Concert Tour 2026 in support of his 12th album, Bully.

West will be one of the few big-name Western artists to perform in Russia since February 2022, when many Western countries cut cultural ties with Moscow over the Ukraine conflict.

pic.twitter.com/ByifQQvabA

— Joseph Karre (@JosephKarre) August 17, 2026

Ukrainian officials and activists have campaigned to dissuade foreign artists from visiting Russia and pressured other countries not to host Russian performers, including ballet dancers and orchestras. Moscow has described the campaign as a futile attempt to “cancel Russian culture.”

In June 2024, West flew to Moscow for the birthday party of Gosha Rubchinsky, a designer who collaborated with him on his Yeezy clothing brand. Rubchinsky cut ties with West the following year.

In recent years, West has been accused of spreading neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic views through social media posts and statements in interviews. Appearing on Infowars in 2022, he said, “I see good things about Hitler” and “I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis.” He has worn T-shirts and necklaces featuring swastikas and, in 2025, released a song titled Heil Hitler, which contained the line “All my n**gas Nazis, n**ga Heil Hitler” and an audio excerpt from a 1936 Hitler speech.

Kanye West wears diamond swastika necklace as he meets up with white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

“Yo you know I’m here with my white supremacist home boy Nick. We back.” pic.twitter.com/dslipUBnLi

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) March 18, 2025

West has since apologized, attributing his actions to bipolar disorder as well as “poor judgment and reckless behavior.”

In June, West indefinitely postponed a planned show in Marseille, France, after authorities reportedly sought to block him from entering the country. The mayor of Reggio Emilia, Italy, banned West’s concert scheduled for July 18, citing concerns raised by the Jewish community. His show the following day in Chorzow, Poland, was also canceled by the venue.

A US grand jury has indicted 14 people for allegedly operating a drug ring inside two fraternities at Pennsylvania State University (PSU), where pledges were allegedly forced to cut and package cocaine as part of their initiation.

According to Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, 13 of the defendants were students in 2023 and 2024, when the crimes allegedly occurred. The remaining defendant is the father of a student and is charged with tampering with evidence and hindering the investigation. At least four of those charged are current students. All were arrested as part of Operation Drugs Unlimited.

Investigators alleged that the group brought “large quantities” of cocaine from Philadelphia and New York, cut and packaged the drugs mainly at the Delta Upsilon and Sigma Chi fraternity houses, and distributed them to PSU students. The state attorney general’s office named Agostino Abbatiello and Thomas Robinson as “the main suppliers” for the group.

“This was a coordinated and highly-profitable drug-trafficking crew revolving around two senior members of the fraternities, other fraternity brothers, and pledges,” Sunday said.

“In fact, according to the evidence uncovered, cutting and packaging cocaine was, for some pledges, an indoctrination into the fraternities,” he added.

“Criminal activity, including hazing, such as this has no place at our institution, and we will cooperate with law enforcement in any way we can,” said Andrea Dowhower, vice president for Student Affairs.

Dowhower added that the university would review Delta Upsilon, while Sigma Chi was not a recognized organization at PSU and therefore fell outside the university’s oversight.

Delta Upsilon Executive Director Justin Kirk said the defendants had been expelled or suspended if they had not already resigned. “We will continue to work closely with the university on any investigative efforts,” Kirk said.

A staple of US college culture, fraternities are selective social organizations that have at times faced scrutiny over excessive partying and initiation rituals involving hazing. In February, three members of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity at Northern Arizona University were charged in connection with the death of a student during a hazing ritual.

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner repeatedly contacted the FBI on behalf of a model who alleged that Jeffrey Epstein had raped and trafficked her, but the agency did not contact her until 15 years later, the New York Post has reported.

According to a lawsuit filed against the US government by 32 of Epstein’s alleged victims and cited by the Post, former Playmate Audra Lynn Christiansen sought Hefner’s help in 2005 after telling him about the alleged abuse. Despite his repeated calls to the FBI, investigators did not contact her until 2020 – a year after Epstein’s death.

Christiansen also alleged that she had been trafficked to Macau casino billionaire Stanley Ho, known as China’s ‘Godfather of Gambling’, who died in 2020. She reportedly asked Hefner to approach the authorities on her behalf because she believed his law enforcement connections and “clout” would ensure her allegations were taken seriously.

Jordan Merson, an attorney representing the alleged victims, told the Post that the FBI’s attempts to use procedural technicalities to avoid accountability for its alleged failure to properly investigate Epstein for years were “deeply concerning.”

In June, the FBI sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing that the agency was not legally required to investigate every complaint it received. The case remains pending.

Earlier this year, the US Justice Department released more than 3 million pages of documents related to Epstein. The files mentioned more than 300 people, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former US President Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, and Kevin Spacey. Many appeared only in correspondence or news reports, and being named in the files does not in itself indicate wrongdoing.

Hefner himself faced posthumous allegations of sexual abuse and coercion in the 2022 documentary series ‘Secrets of Playboy’, five years after his death. Women featured in the series alleged that they had been coerced into sex and drugged.

The allegations were never tested in court. Hundreds of women, including Hefner’s former girlfriends and employees, as well as Playboy models and ‘Bunnies’ who worked at its clubs and other properties, later signed an open letter defending him.

The US would not allow the reconstruction of Gaza until the Palestinian enclave is fully demilitarized, President Donald Trump’s peace envoy Jared Kushner said following meetings with Hamas officials and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, held a rare in-person meeting with Hamas officials in Cairo on Sunday and spoke with Netanyahu the following day. According to the envoy, Hamas reaffirmed its support for Trump’s peace plan and committed to “giving up their weapons.”

“Time will tell whether that’s going to be implemented,” Kushner told Fox News’ Trey Yingst.

“We have a plan to rebuild Gaza, but we will not allow Gaza to be rebuilt until the demilitarization occurs,” Kushner said. “Nobody wants to put more money into a place that’s gone on for so long if it’s just going to be taken over by terrorists or blown up again,” he added.

Kushner said the US was “not going to restrict Israel’s right to defend itself if there are any imminent threats.”

The UN and human rights groups, both in Israel and abroad, have accused Israel of systematically targeting civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, including high-rise buildings, during its war with Hamas. More than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, and nearly all of the densely populated enclave’s pre-war population of 2 million have been displaced. Far-right Israeli politicians have argued that the Palestinian population should be driven out and Gaza resettled by Israelis.

Israel has denied deliberately targeting civilians and blamed Hamas for the destruction in Gaza.

At least 92% of Gaza’s housing units were either fully destroyed or damaged between October 2023 and October 2025, according to the UN. The organization’s special rapporteur on housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, described the devastation as domicide, defined as “the widespread or systematic destruction of housing and civilian infrastructure essential to the survival of a population.”

Last year, Trump unveiled a plan to redevelop Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” and floated the idea of removing Palestinians and resettling them elsewhere. The proposal was promptly rejected by Arab states, the EU, and the UN.

A farming family in rural America has rejected a multimillion-dollar offer to sell their land for a data center development, joining opposition to a rapid buildout of such facilities driven by the AI boom in the US.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a mother and daughter from Maysville, Kentucky, were offered $26.48 million for roughly 216 hectares of farmland, nearly ten times its estimated open-market value.

Delsia Bare, 54, and Ida Huddleston, 83, initially agreed to sell but reversed their decision after learning that their land would become part of a planned 2.2-gigawatt hyperscale data center. Such a facility could consume as much electricity as nearly two million average US homes.

A Kentucky mother and daughter turned down a life-changing offer for their farmland. The ensuing drama has left the town divided. https://t.co/AsGn0ZVVHR

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 16, 2026

The identity of the company behind the project was not disclosed, although evidence obtained through public records indicated it was Meta, the WSJ reported. Meta said that no decision had been made about working in the area.

The family has owned the land for nearly 200 years, using it over generations to raise cattle and grow tobacco and other crops. A hyperscale data-center campus, by contrast, typically comprises multiple buildings housing thousands of computer servers, along with extensive cooling, electricity, and backup-power infrastructure.

Several neighboring landowners agreed to sell property for the project, with purchase agreements worth a combined $110 million. Legal challenges brought by Bare and other opponents, however, delayed the transactions and the payments expected by participating landowners.

The Maysville case is one of a growing number of disputes over data-center construction in the US. Critics cite electricity and water consumption, noise, and effects on surrounding areas. A Gallup poll earlier this year found that seven in ten Americans opposed the construction of AI data centers in their local area.

The issue has also entered the campaign ahead of the November midterm elections. According to Washington Post analysis, hundreds of federal and state candidates from both major parties have included AI or data-center policies in their platforms, covering nearly 40% of US districts.

The government body overseeing Ukraine’s mobilization campaign has all the hallmarks of an “organized criminal group,” with some officials allegedly paying bribes of up to $150,000 to secure senior positions, Ukrainian lawmaker Aleksandr Kachura has said.

Draft officers ambush military-age men on the streets, at workplaces, and outside their homes, using physical violence against those attempting to resist or flee. The practice has been dubbed ‘busification’ because officers have often been filmed shoving potential recruits into vans.

In an interview published on Monday, the MP from Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s Servant of the People party said the conduct of the Territorial Centers of Recruitment and Social Support (TCC) went far beyond what he described as abuses of the conscription system.

“Is kidnapping someone in broad daylight, where they gouge out their eyes, break their arms, and take away their health – is that a serious crime?” Kachura said, adding that the authorities exhibited “all the signs of an organized criminal group.”

The average bribe to “get out” of a TCC after being detained is between $10,000 and $15,000, depending on the region, he said. However, people pay even larger sums to secure positions overseeing the process, according to the MP.

Kachura accused TCC officials of enriching themselves, claiming that the recruitment chief in his hometown “used to ride a bike, now he drives a Land Cruiser, while his wife drives a (Porsche) Cayenne.”

The MP went on to argue that the TCC should be abolished and replaced with a system centered on the voluntary recruitment of “motivated individuals.”

In May, Ukraine unveiled plans to rebrand the TCC, a name that has become synonymous with controversial and violent draft methods that have fueled widespread discontent among Ukrainians and drawn criticism from officials. Ukraine’s top human rights official, Dmitry Lubinets, recently warned that what he called systemic failures within the Defense Ministry had fostered a culture of impunity.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned Ukraine’s forced mobilization, with Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova arguing that Kiev is throwing recruits into “a meat grinder” on the front line.

Meta is heading to court on Tuesday to face accusations that it broke child safety laws and harmed underage users’ mental health. A loss could bankrupt Mark Zuckerberg’s company and force permanent changes to Facebook and Instagram.

Four US states – California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey – are suing Meta in a federal court in Oakland, California. The four states are parties to a wider lawsuit involving a total of 29 states, filed in 2023. The remaining 25 states are expected to have their trials at later dates.

Attorneys general in all 29 states have consolidated thousands of individual complaints – a practice known as multidistrict litigation – all alleging that Meta knowingly harmed its youngest and most vulnerable users.

What is Meta accused of?

All four states argue that the social media giant deliberately engineered its platforms to keep children and teenagers scrolling for as long as possible, while knowingly allowing under-13s to use these platforms without parental consent. 

“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains,” the lawsuit states.

This week, Attorney General Phil Weiser joined @Morning_Joe to discuss the ongoing fight to protect our young people from harmful social media algorithms and practices. pic.twitter.com/yA7MzfxymE

— Colorado Attorney General (@COAttnyGeneral) August 13, 2026

These addictive design features – including the infinite scroll feature and algorithms that encourage “compulsive use” – amount to unfair, fraudulent, or deceptive business practices in all four states, the plaintiffs allege. Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that Meta knows its products are harming users’ mental health, but “prioritizes engagement and profits to the detriment of young users’ well-being,” for example by recommending “content related to eating disorders” to young girls.

On top of these ‘addiction’ allegations, the four plaintiffs claim that Meta violated federal law, namely the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), by collecting personal information from under-13s without obtaining parental consent. “Meta does not obtain – or even attempt to obtain – verifiable parental consent before collecting the personal information of children on Instagram and Facebook,” the suit states, claiming that the company falls back on its nominal ban on under-13s to skirt its COPPA obligations.

“But Meta’s own records reveal that it has actual knowledge that Instagram and Facebook target and successfully enroll children as users,” the suit continues, pointing to internal documents detailing the company’s efforts to increase “penetration” in the 11- to 13-year-old demographic.

Has Meta been sued for causing ‘addiction’ before?

The Oakland case comes after Meta suffered back-to-back legal losses this year. In early March, a state court in New Mexico found the company liable for 75,000 violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act, fining the social media giant $375 million, before branding its platforms a “public nuisance” to teens’ mental health and imposing an additional fine of $567 million.

The Los Angeles case was a bellwether, in that the jury accepted the plaintiff’s argument that the design features of Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms – and not the content that Kaley was exposed to – caused her harm. 

Kaley’s lawyers presented some of the same internal documents included in the latest case, which show Meta employees discussing plans to bring in more under-13 users and maximize their screen time, and that the company is aware that heavy use of its platforms is linked to depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among teens.

The Oakland trial marks the first time that these arguments will be heard in a federal courtroom, and the first time that Meta will be tried for breaches of state and federal law in the same case. Should Meta lose, the case could be brought to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and potentially to the US Supreme Court, where any ruling would set a legal precedent. 

What do the states want?

The four states are seeking damages of up to $1.4 trillion, a figure that would almost equal Meta’s entire market capitalization and bankrupt the company. However, this figure assumes individual payouts for hundreds of thousands of users affected by Meta’s practices, rather than a single payout for every deceptive practice committed by the company.

The plaintiffs also want Meta to implement a process of parental verification for teenage users, change its “dopamine-manipulating recommendation algorithms,” remove image filters “designed around beautification,” end the autoplay of video content, and end “ephemeral” video content such as stories.

What has Meta said about the lawsuit?

“These lawsuits misportray our company and the work we do every day to provide young people with safe, valuable experiences online,” Meta said in a statement ahead of Tuesday’s trial. “We have listened to parents, researched the issues that matter most, and made real changes to protect teens online.”

Meta pointed to its introduction of restricted teen accounts on Instagram last year, and its use of AI to detect teens attempting to use adult accounts as examples of these changes.

However, during his testimony in Los Angeles in March, Zuckerberg admitted that it is “very difficult” to prevent under-13s from lying about their age to set up accounts.

Regarding the potential of a $1.4 trillion fine, Meta wrote in a court filing last month that “a sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement.”

Belgium is battling its largest wildfire on record, with the blaze scorching around 3,000 hectares and spreading toward the German border, according to local officials.

The fire broke out on Friday in the High Fens nature reserve in eastern Belgium and remained out of control on Monday despite cooler weather and overnight rain.

Around 500 firefighters have been deployed, supported by the military, farmers, and aircraft sent from several European countries. Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have also assisted the operation, while Belgium activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.

The blaze has already burned more than twice the area destroyed by Belgium’s previous record fire in 2011, according to European Forest Fire Information System data.

Authorities said the fire was moving toward the German town of Monschau, around 8km from the affected area. Residents near the border have been advised to leave as a precaution, primarily because of heavy smoke.

🇧🇪 BELGIQUE : Le pire incendie de l'histoire de la Belgique a doublé depuis hier et a désormais ravagé près de 3000 hectares en province de Liège. pic.twitter.com/F9x16QYgP1

— Infos Françaises (@InfosFrancaises) August 16, 2026

The difficult terrain has complicated firefighting efforts, with some areas inaccessible to ground crews. Officials have also warned that flames could continue smoldering underground in the region’s peat soil for weeks or even months before flaring up again.

Firefighting efforts elsewhere have also been complicated by EU sanctions on Russia. Spain has been left unable to use its former fleet of Russian-made Kamov Ka-32 helicopters, which are considered especially effective in difficult wildfire conditions due to their high water-carrying capacity and maneuverability.

EU restrictions have blocked access to spare parts and Russian maintenance specialists to service the helicopters, forcing the Spanish authorities to rely on less effective replacement aircraft.

Latvia wants Brussels to provide billions in additional funding as lost trade with Russia and soaring military spending put growing pressure on the Baltic state’s finances, Politico reported on Monday.

Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs told the outlet that he has asked Brussels to provide €7 billion ($8.2 billion) under the EU’s next seven-year budget, on top of other funding already earmarked for Latvia.

The sum would cover almost half of Riga’s projected €15.1 billion ($17.3 billion) military spending bill for 2028-2034.

Kulbergs said that Latvia is taking on debt to finance what its government views as security spending benefiting the rest of Europe. “We are getting our budget deficit to the maximum,” he told Politico, saying Latvia is borrowing to pay for “the defense of the whole of Europe.” 

Latvia has been one of the EU’s strongest advocates of sanctions on Russia and has steadily dismantled trade, transport and energy links with its eastern neighbor since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

The policies, however, have led to a significant economic decline across the region. Politico reported last year that cross-border trade with Russia had “largely collapsed” across the Baltic states, while tourism and investment had also declined, prompting Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to seek additional financial aid from Brussels.

“We are losing money … we are talking about how to support Ukraine, but we are a victim,” he told Politico, adding that economic ties with Russia should eventually be restored.

Despite seeking billions from Brussels to offset the fallout, Kulbergs has called for even tougher measures against Moscow, including a total EU visa ban for Russian citizens and renewed attempts to use frozen Russian sovereign assets for Ukraine.

Russia has long argued that the Baltic states have devastated their own economies by dismantling previously profitable ties while sharply increasing military spending over what their governments describe as a potential threat from Russia.

Moscow has repeatedly denied having plans to attack the Baltic states or other NATO members, dismissing such claims as “nonsense” and Russophobic fearmongering intended to justify inflated military budgets to taxpayers, while warning that European nations are preparing for a full-scale war against Russia.

Two Ukrainian children were attacked by two adults in Poland for speaking their native language, Kiev’s consulate in Gdansk has claimed.

The incident has come amid increasingly negative attitudes toward Ukrainians in Poland and a diplomatic row over Kiev’s veneration of nationalist groups implicated in the WWII-era massacres of ethnic Poles. Reports of hate crimes against Ukrainians have also risen sharply this year.

In a statement on Sunday, the Consulate General of Ukraine in Gdansk said the attack took place last week in Bydgoszcz, a city in north-central Poland.

A 14-year-old girl and her 12-year-old brother were “subjected to aggression by adults simply because they were speaking Ukrainian to each other,” the consulate said.

The alleged attackers, a man and a woman, used obscene language and threatened the children “based on national intolerance,” according to the statement. They later allegedly twisted one child’s arm, smashed a drone the children had and threw pieces of it at the boy, leaving him with scratches.

“We strongly condemn any manifestations of xenophobia,” the consulate said.

The case comes as public sentiment toward Ukrainians in Poland has hardened. Reported hate crimes targeting Ukrainians rose by more than 30% in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2025, according to police data cited by Polish media.

More than two thirds of Poles also believe Ukrainian men of military age who are not legally employed in the country should be deported, according to an IBRiS survey published last week.

Moscow has long accused Kiev of venerating Nazi collaborators and nationalist figures at the state level, while claiming Ukraine’s Western backers deliberately overlook the practice. The “denazification” of Ukraine is among Russia’s stated goals in the conflict.

A US Navy destroyer spent four days without power in the South China Sea last month, depriving its crew of hot meals, flushing toilets, and air conditioning, CNN has reported. The report comes as US sailors in the Persian Gulf are facing similar conditions.

The USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, suffered an “engineering casualty involving its generators” while on an exercise in the South China Sea last month, a Navy spokesman told CNN on Monday.

The Benfold lost the ability to maneuver on its own, and lost galley services, toilets, air conditioning, and drinking water, the spokesman said. At the time of the incident, temperatures in the South China Sea averaged between 32 and 37 degrees Celsius.

Another US warship, the guided missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls, provided hot meals to sailors aboard the Benfold, before it was towed to the Philippines for repairs. The Benfold has since returned to duty.

The USS George Washington has since been ordered to redeploy to the Persian Gulf to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose crew have been at sea for almost nine months. Conditions on board the Abraham Lincoln have deteriorated, with toilets reportedly out of order, food running short, and multiple sailors attempting suicide. 

A photo circulating on social media last week suggested that frustrated sailors were writing anti-Israel messages on the wings of the Lincoln’s aircraft, including “be a good goy and do what Israel tells you to,” and “Bibi’s cucks.”

US servicemen’s morale is completely depleted in war against Iran, writing anti-Israel messages on a dust flap:

"Be a good goy and do what Israel tells you to"

"Operation Epstein Fury"

"Peace deal #64 incoming... ALL THIS FOR THE HOLY LAND"

"LOVE ISRAEL I AM A GOOD GOYIM"… pic.twitter.com/xBmHE6MyCQ

— AF Post (@AFpost) August 16, 2026

The Pentagon already rotated one aircraft carrier – the USS Gerald R. Ford – out of the Persian Gulf after it suffered repeated malfunctions, including a fire in its laundry room and the overflow of raw excrement from its toilets. The Ford, which is the only vessel in its class and the most advanced aircraft carrier in the US Navy’s fleet, is now undergoing repairs at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia, and is expected to be out of commission for around a year.

The UK is deliberately escalating the Ukraine conflict and acting as an accomplice to Kiev’s terrorist attacks, Russia’s embassy in London has said, warning that Britain will be held accountable for its actions.

The statement comes after a Sunday Times report claiming that Ukrainian forces have used drones supplied by two British manufacturers for long-range attacks inside Russia over the past six months.

Multiple Ukrainian military sources told the newspaper that British UAVs had been deployed against industrial and military targets, including oil refineries in Volgograd and Yaroslavl.

The Russian Embassy responded on Monday, saying that the report confirms that “London is deliberately opting for an escalation of the Ukraine crisis, while hypocritically professing a desire for peace.”

“In doing so, the United Kingdom is acting as an accomplice and co-perpetrator of the bloody crimes and terrorist attacks committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis, seeking to contain Russia and inflict maximum damage on it by proxy,” the embassy wrote, warning that “London’s actions will inevitably carry consequences for which it will have to answer.”

“The deeper its involvement in the conflict and the greater its support for Kiev’s terrorist machinery, the higher the price it will pay,” the statement concluded.

Kiev has sharply intensified its long-range attacks in recent months, launching hundreds of UAVs at a time against Russian territory. Moscow says the strikes have increasingly hit energy infrastructure, residential areas and other civilian sites, killing and wounding dozens of civilians, including children.

Russia has responded by stepping up its own missile and drone strikes against Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities, logistics centers and infrastructure supporting its armed forces.

Moscow has repeatedly argued that Western weapons deliveries, intelligence sharing and targeting assistance make NATO countries direct participants in the conflict. Last week, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Russia would continue to adopt “much harsher methods to destroy everything that enables the West to fuel Kiev’s war machine.”

Russian officials have also warned that Ukraine-linked weapons manufacturing facilities scattered across Europe could be regarded as legitimate military targets.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to “bomb the sh*t out of” Oman if it strikes a separate deal with Iran on control of the Strait of Hormuz, despite Oman’s key role as a mediator between Washington and Tehran.

In addition to brokering talks between the US and Iran, Omani negotiators have been conducting parallel negotiations with Tehran aimed at establishing a safe route for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran reportedly wants to charge fees for safe passage of the strait after an interim period, and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters on Monday that Iran had reached an “understanding” with Oman on the matter.

Asked about these Omani-Iranian talks, Trump told Fox News that “if Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh*t out of them.” 

The US rejects any agreement that would involve Iran collecting tolls, and Washington has signaled that it will not lift its blockade on Iranian ports unless Tehran relinquishes this demand. Speaking in New York on Friday, Trump claimed that the Islamic Republic was “very badly defeated,” and that he would soon “be declaring the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the US.”

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Iran is prepared “to escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and wider region” if diplomacy fails, and to launch “timely and precise strikes” to break the US naval blockade if necessary. Trump did not reply directly to this threat in his comments to Fox News, but demanded that Iran “raise the white flag of surrender.”

In a post on X on Saturday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi urged Trump to “accept the reality” that the US had suffered “strategic and heavy defeats.”

“The Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian,” Gharibabadi wrote, adding that the waterway “will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command.”

US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February prompted Tehran to close the Strait of Hormuz, with Washington responding by imposing a naval blockade of Iranian ports. The blockade disrupted traffic through one of the world’s most important energy corridors, sending global oil prices soaring to as high as $120 a barrel.

Israel should carry out 30 to 40 “targeted assassinations” in Gaza every night, National Security Minister and prominent war hawk Itamar Ben-Gvir has said, claiming that some in the Palestinian enclave “are not people.”

While a claimed ceasefire is supposed to have been in effect over Gaza, Israel has continued air strikes while negotiations stalled over the issue of disarmament by Hamas and the withdrawal of the IDF from the territory.

In a podcast interview Saturday, Ben-Gvir reiterated his opposition to the reduced level of Israeli military operations under the armistice.

“We need to carry out targeted assassinations in Gaza, taking down 30-40 every night. Not just those who endanger you at that moment,” he said.

There are people there who are not human beings. They don’t need to live, they are not people.

“In my imagination, I see all of Gaza as ours, very consolidated settlements, throughout Gaza,” he said.

Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war, Ben-Gvir has consistently advocated policies well to the right of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including harsher conditions for Palestinian prisoners and the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorism.

West Jerusalem’s hardline policies and conduct in Gaza have generated widespread international condemnation, while Netanyahu’s push for military action against Iran has further strained perceptions of the Jewish State in the US, its most important ally.

A Pew Research Center survey published in June found that 60% of Americans had an unfavorable view of Israel, compared with 42% in 2022. Across 36 countries surveyed by the pollster, majorities in most expressed unfavorable views of Israel, including 68% in France, 69% in the UK and 73% in Germany.

Afghanistan has marked five years since the Taliban swept back to power amid a chaotic US withdrawal. Celebrations have been held across the country, with officials describing Afghanistan as safer and “free.”

The US invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 following the September 11 attacks, for which Washington identified Al-Qaeda as being responsible. The group’s leaders, including Osama bin Laden, were based in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan at the time. US forces withdrew as the country’s Western-backed government rapidly collapsed and the Taliban recaptured Kabul in August 2021. Once central to US foreign policy – with American taxpayers footing an estimated $2.3 trillion bill for the 20-year occupation – Afghanistan has since largely faded from Western attention.

However, Afghanistan remains under sweeping sanctions, while the Taliban government is still largely unrecognized abroad.

Watch her report below, part of RT India’s upcoming series on Afghanistan.

Moscow is alarmed by reports that Ukrainian military personnel are involved in operations carried out by illegal armed groups against countries in Africa’s Sahel region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. 

Speaking after talks with Ghanaian Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa on Monday, Lavrov argued that the involvement of serving troops, rather than individual mercenaries, indicated activity conducted at the state level.

The Russian minister also accused former colonial powers of fueling terrorism in Africa. “It is no secret that this is done by France, which directly works with illegal armed groups, arms them, finances them and instructs them,” he said.

“First and foremost, [France] instructs them on creating problems for those countries, in this case in the Sahara-Sahel region, that have decided to finally, completely and irreversibly break with their former colonizers and are consistently pursuing this course,” Lavrov stressed.

Ablakwa, meanwhile, described the Sahel as the “global epicenter for terrorism, violent extremism.”  He said that Ghana and Russia had agreed to work together to support Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali in addressing the security challenges facing the region.

The Ghanaian foreign minister also thanked Moscow for supporting a UN resolution that declared transatlantic enslavement a grave crime against humanity. “We see in Russia a reliable partner,” Ablakwa noted.

Russia and Ghana are set to sign an agreement allowing visa-free travel for holders of diplomatic and service passports. Lavrov said the measure is expected to facilitate contacts between the two governments in areas ranging from foreign policy and trade to investment, humanitarian exchanges and education.  

Southern African countries should process their critical minerals domestically instead of exporting raw materials that create wealth and manufacturing jobs elsewhere, the region’s top official has said.

Southern Africa is regarded as the continent’s richest and most diverse critical-minerals region. Members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) hold major deposits of cobalt, copper, lithium, graphite, manganese and platinum-group metals, placing the bloc at the center of global competition for resources used in clean energy, electronics and military technology.

At the 16-member bloc’s summit in Durban, South Africa, on Monday, Executive Secretary Elias Magosi pressed leaders to turn that mineral wealth into industries and jobs.

“We do not need permission from anyone to start this process. Let’s start now,” he said.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), a SADC member since 1998, is the world’s leading cobalt producer and second-largest copper supplier. Zambia is another leading copper producer, while Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique hold significant deposits of lithium, platinum-group metals and graphite, respectively.

China already controls major copper and cobalt operations in the DR Congo and has invested heavily in Zimbabwe’s lithium industry. Beijing is also funding a $1.4 billion refurbishment of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, an export route linking Zambia’s mining belt to the Indian Ocean.

Washington and Brussels are backing the Lobito Corridor, a competing trade route linking mining areas in Zambia and the DR Congo to Angola’s Atlantic coast. The European Commission has said the project will help secure raw materials for Europe’s green and digital industries while creating jobs in Africa.

The bloc also announced steps to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia on the sidelines of the summit. SADC said Deputy Executive Secretary for Regional Integration Angele Makombo N’Tumba met Tatiana Dovgalenko, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Partnership with Africa, on Sunday to advance a draft action plan under a 2018 cooperation agreement.

SADC said the proposed plan covers industrial development, trade, digital infrastructure, agriculture and technology. The two sides also discussed military-technical cooperation and preparations for the third Russia-Africa Summit.

Gulf states are covertly shipping oil through the Strait of Hormuz on tankers with their transponders switched off despite severe disruptions to normal traffic and intermittent attacks, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the shipments.

The de facto closure to normal traffic through the strait due to the US-Iran conflict has affected a strategic waterway that has historically been the route for around a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade. The conflict initially sent global oil prices soaring to nearly $120 a barrel. Some energy experts have warned that oil prices could reach $150 over the coming months.

The volumes shipped through the heavily disrupted passage exceed market estimates of 4 million barrels per day, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg on condition of anonymity, without specifying by how much. The UAE, Iraq, Qatar, and Kuwait have reportedly been moving barrels through Hormuz using “dark” tanker transits, with crude later transferred to other vessels in the Gulf of Oman.

The risks remain significant, with ADNOC telling Bloomberg that 23 of its vessels have come under attack since the US-Iran conflict began, leaving one crew member dead and 20 others injured. Last week, ADNOC reported that two of its vessels came under attack in Hormuz, with all crew members reported safe. UAE authorities blamed Iran for the attacks, calling on Tehran to reopen the strait.

Saudi Arabia also appears to be preparing to use the route, with 16 supertankers positioned off Oman’s coast and three more expected in the coming days, the news agency noted, adding that the vessels can carry up to 38 million barrels of oil.

Insurers say they are seeing a steady stream of requests for coverage from Gulf producers despite the dangers. “It’s a dark trade,” Pankaj Khanna, CEO of Heidmar Maritime Holdings, told Bloomberg, describing it as the only option even as many shipowners remain unwilling to take the risk.

Botswana President Duma Boko has challenged the characterization of Africa as the world’s next major economic frontier, arguing that the continent has already reached that position and should deal with foreign partners accordingly.  

African nations should approach investors from a position of strength rather than as supplicants, Boko told RT in an exclusive interview. He said governments must set their own conditions for access to resources, including local processing, technology deployment and skills transfers. 

“Africa is actually the ‘now’ frontier,” Boko said. 

The president said Botswana is also seeking deeper ties with Russia and is planning to open an embassy in Moscow. He noted that Russia is the only permanent member of the UN Security Council in which Botswana does not have a mission, describing the absence as an “anomaly” that needed to be corrected.

“We need these collaborations to explore the rest of the country, about 70% which remains largely unexplored,” the leader said.  

Boko sees cooperation with Russia as important for Botswana’s diamond industry. He said the two countries need to work together to protect the market from oversupply.  

He also argued that African economies have historically been geared toward extraction and the export of unprocessed resources, with insufficient emphasis on developing local industrial capabilities and skills. 

“We now must focus on not being big on extraction, but take it all the way to actually producing finished goods, which the world needs,” he said. 

A historic Palestinian village widely described as the last entirely Christian community in the occupied West Bank is facing near-daily Israeli settler attacks and growing restrictions, residents and activists have told RT.

RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij visited the Kaa’bneh family, part of a Palestinian Bedouin community living in Taybeh, east of Ramallah, where she witnessed settlers approaching with sheep and goats at sunset, hurling rocks, and trying to breach the fences. The family says such incursions can happen several times a day.

“They come and vandalize our property, cut through the fencing and bring their sheep onto our land,” Naif Kaa’bneh said. “They break the water tanks and cut off the electricity. If someone is filming, they beat them.”

Kaa’bneh said the harassment has continued for years but intensified recently, blaming Israeli military inaction for allowing settlers to act with near-total impunity. He said troops can take hours to respond to attacks and have never detained those responsible.

“They have never once come and arrested a settler. We tell them, ‘There’s the settler.’ The soldier just turns his head, pretends he hasn’t seen anything, and they leave,” he said.

Meanwhile, locals say new settler outposts are appearing on the hills around Taybeh, fueling fears that residents are being steadily hemmed in and pushed from land they have inhabited for generations.

Watch Charlotte Dubenskij’s full report below.

At least 355 people were detained by the Moroccan authorities near Ceuta on Saturday as security forces sought to prevent another mass crossing into the Spanish enclave called for on social media.

Moroccan state-owned broadcaster Medi 1 TV said 294 migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa and 61 Moroccans accused of facilitating the attempted crossings had been detained. Reuters had earlier reported at least 111 detentions in and around the border city of Fnideq, citing a Moroccan Interior Ministry source who identified 109 Sub-Saharan African migrants and two Moroccan citizens.

Police reportedly fired tear gas at groups gathering on hills near the border. Spain, meanwhile, deployed soldiers and hundreds of additional police officers to Ceuta.

The security operation followed online calls for a mass crossing on August 15 and came two weeks after more than 72,000 people crossed into Ceuta on July 30, overwhelming the enclave. At least 100 people reportedly died while attempting to reach Spanish territory.

The crisis has revived a sovereignty dispute between Madrid and Rabat. Morocco has claimed Ceuta and Melilla since gaining independence in 1956. Spain regards the enclaves, which it has controlled for centuries, as integral parts of its territory.

Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles rejected the claim, declaring that Ceuta and Melilla were Spanish and “cannot be touched.” Spain’s Foreign Ministry said the country’s territorial integrity was not open to discussion.

More than 8,000 people entered Ceuta in 2021 amid allegations that Morocco had eased border enforcement during a diplomatic dispute with Spain. The incident was widely viewed as retaliation for Madrid’s decision to provide medical treatment to Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali, an advocate of Western Sahara’s independence from Morocco. Morocco denied using migration to pressure Spain.

Spain sent more than 500 additional police officers to Ceuta and installed a maritime barrier after the July 30 surge. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said about 5,000 migrants remained in the enclave. Those without the right to stay would be returned to Morocco and barred from travelling to mainland Spain, except in cases of extreme vulnerability, he added.

Russia seeks foreign technologies and management expertise rather than investment based on simple “screwdriver assembly,” presidential adviser Anton Kobyakov has said.

Speaking to TASS on Sunday ahead of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, a major international platform for attracting investment to Russia’s Far East and expanding economic ties with the Asia-Pacific, Kobyakov said Moscow favors pragmatic, “win-win” cooperation involving joint production, capital-intensive industries and scientific research.

“We need the best management practices and the best technologies – all of it!” Kobyakov said. “We no longer want to engage in ‘screwdriver assembly’ of some components of their products. We have done this before,” he explained, referring to a model where foreign manufacturers import largely finished components for basic final assembly.

Numerous US, European, and Asian companies pulled out of Russia due to supply problems caused by the sanctions imposed on Moscow by the West after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Other firms left due to the risk of secondary sanctions or public relations pressure.

Moscow has since tightened the rules for potential returns. Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin signed legislation allowing Russian courts, under certain conditions, to terminate buyback rights held by foreign investors.

Kobyakov said businesses from Germany, France, Italy, the UK, Switzerland, Spain, Greece and the Netherlands continue maintaining contacts with Russia despite political pressure from their governments.

Russian officials have argued that Western sanctions ultimately strengthened domestic industry by spurring import substitution and domestic production. Putin said last year that sanctions had become “a powerful catalyst for structural changes” in the economy, prompting Russian businesses to occupy market niches abandoned by foreign companies and accelerate the development of domestic technologies.

Hundreds of Moroccan migrants have protested in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, demanding asylum as thousands remain stranded in the area following mass border crossings last month.

The crisis erupted on July 30-31, when an estimated 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta from neighboring Morocco – equivalent to roughly 70% of the enclave’s population of around 84,000. While most returned shortly afterward, an estimated 7,000 to 9,000 remain, straining reception centers, hospitals, and law enforcement.

The influx has triggered a bitter dispute over the migrants’ fate. Ceuta Mayor-President Juan Jesus Vivas has called for asylum claims linked to the surge to be rejected and migrants returned to Morocco.

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska backed the hardline approach last week, saying irregular arrivals would not be allowed to remain in Ceuta, reach mainland Spain, or obtain legal status, except in rare cases of extreme vulnerability. Judicial associations have pushed back, insisting claims must be assessed individually and that illegal entry does not forfeit the right to seek asylum.

Amid the row, several hundred migrants staged a sit-in on a popular Ceuta beach on Sunday, urging the Spanish authorities not to return them to Morocco. Footage shows protesters waving Spanish flags and banners while chanting: “We need asylum!”

“We Moroccans are protesting without food or water, we will continue sitting here,” one protester told the Ruptly video agency. Separate footage shows security forces detaining several migrants on the beach, though it is unclear if they were part of the protest.

Another wave of nearly 300 migrants attempted to enter Ceuta on Saturday but was stopped by Moroccan police, according to state broadcaster Medi 1 TV. Another 61 Moroccans accused of facilitating the attempt were arrested, the broadcaster said.

Brussels sticks to sidelines as migrant row deepens

Multiple EU members have pinned the blame for the Ceuta crisis squarely on Madrid and its permissive approach toward migration. Leaders of 22 EU nations accused Spain of undermining the bloc’s security in an August letter, with several calling for its exclusion from the Schengen borderless travel zone. Italy introduced temporary checks on travelers arriving from Spain on August 1, while France tightened border security.

Brussels, meanwhile, has largely sought to sit out the increasingly bitter dispute. The European Commission has refrained from penalizing Spain over the Ceuta crisis and praised Madrid for preventing irregular migrants from reaching mainland Europe, while dismissing calls for Schengen restrictions. However, it has also stopped short of offering Madrid substantial backing, so far limiting its response to sending a team of migration experts to Ceuta to assess what additional financial and operational support may be needed to secure the EU’s external border.

Commenting on the crisis, Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev also blamed EU migration policies, suggesting that “migrants are coming en masse to personally thank Ursula [von der Leyen] and other migration-friendly EU bureaucrats for their great migration incentives.” In a separate post, he warned that the “failure to admit migration mistakes is undermining what is left of Europe.”

Legacy media tries to hide this and calls the stories about Ceuta “Russian propaganda.” Failure to admit migration mistakes is undermining what is left of Europe. https://t.co/4rjJlfNa1S

— Kirill Dmitriev (@kadmitriev) August 17, 2026

Hamas has reaffirmed its commitment to disarm and demilitarize Gaza during direct talks with US President Donald Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Axios reported on Sunday, citing a source familiar with the matter.

The meeting was aimed at locking in a pledge Hamas first made in late July, when Trump announced that his Board of Peace – an international body he chairs to oversee the implementation of his Gaza peace plan – had reached a “historic agreement” with the Palestinian group on disarmament and the transfer of civilian and security control to a technocratic administration.

In exchange, the Board of Peace would press Israel to make corresponding moves, including initial troop withdrawals, while accelerating humanitarian relief and reconstruction.

During a rare 90-minute in-person meeting in Egypt on Sunday, Kushner reportedly told Hamas political chief Khalil al-Hayya that the group must take “tangible steps on disarmament if they want Israel to take steps of its own.”

Al-Hayya reportedly asked Kushner to tell Trump that Hamas remains committed to relinquishing its weapons, the source claimed.

“We thanked them for the commitment, but we want to see real efforts [from Hamas] and not just words,” the source stated. “It was important for Kushner to lock them into this commitment in person.”

Kushner is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to discuss reciprocal measures. Last week, Netanyahu rejected the roadmap, insisting that Israeli forces would not withdraw until Hamas was “genuinely disarmed.”

Meanwhile, on Sunday, the foreign ministers of Türkiye, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s rejection of the peace framework and Palestinian statehood.

The eight countries said West Jerusalem bears “direct and full responsibility” for obstructing peace efforts. They urged active US involvement in implementing the plan, which has been endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803.

Six civilians have been killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on Russia’s Belgorod Region, acting Governor Aleksandr Shuvaev has said.

The attack targeted the village of Koloskovo in the Valuysky district on Monday morning, according to the regional head. Four other people were also injured, including a 14-year-old child.

Two of the injured received medical assistance but declined hospitalization. The two others, including the teenager, were taken to the Valuysky district hospital for treatment, the official said.

A structure at the site of the strike burned down, and a passenger car was damaged, Shuvaev added.

The attack came amid a large-scale overnight Ukrainian drone raid on Russian territory. The Defense Ministry said air defenses intercepted and destroyed 205 UAVs over several regions, including Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, and Rostov, as well as Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.

Belgorod Region, which borders Ukraine, has been subjected to repeated missile, artillery, and drone attacks since the escalation of the conflict in 2022. In recent months, Ukraine has sharply intensified its long-range drone campaign in the region, targeting oil facilities, warehouses, residential buildings, and other civilian infrastructure deep inside Russian territory. The escalated attacks come as Kiev’s forces continue to suffer setbacks on the battlefield.

Moscow maintains that its strikes only target military sites and infrastructure supporting Ukraine’s armed forces.

Tehran will pay out cash rewards to any Iranian citizen who kills or captures a US serviceman, Army Chief Amir Hatami has announced, warning Washington against putting troops on Iranian soil.

Speaking at an event on Sunday in remarks carried by state broadcaster IRIB, Hatami said the initiative had been drawn up after “numerous requests” from Iranians seeking to take part in the nation’s defense.

“Any individual who kills or captures and surrenders an American aggressor will receive a reward of $30,000 or 5 billion Iranian tomans from the Iranian Army,” Hatami said. “Iranian women who successfully carry out this action will receive double the reward.”

Hatami also said weapons used to kill American troops would be purchased by the state for twice their value and displayed in a planned museum, with their owners receiving replacements.

The US has yet to launch a ground operation in Iran. However, Western media have reported that Washington is considering missions that could put large numbers of troops on Iranian territory.

The Pentagon has reportedly examined a major raid to seize Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium from heavily fortified nuclear facilities. According to the New York Post, the operation could involve thousands of troops, with elite units retrieving the material while larger forces secure the sites.

Hatami also called on American forces to leave the Middle East, saying they are “no longer permitted to enter the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, and the Strait of Hormuz.” He added that Tehran would not allow US bases in the region to return to their “previous state.”

The US and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran in late February, accusing Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons. Iran retaliated with strikes on American and Israeli targets across the region.

A temporary ceasefire later collapsed, while indirect negotiations have failed to produce a lasting settlement. Washington has continued military and economic pressure on Tehran, while Iran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful.

A Ukrainian drone attack on a civilian car in Russia’s Kherson Region has killed a married couple, according to Governor Vladimir Saldo.

The vehicle was hit by a UAV identified as a ‘Hornet’ near the village of Druzhbovka on Sunday, Saldo wrote on the Max messenger service.

“The car was carrying a married couple – business owners from Nizhniye Serogozy. They were traveling to Melitopol to purchase goods for their shop. Both were killed at the scene as a result of the strike,” he added.

The regional head accused the Ukrainian military of deliberately targeting civilians and extended his condolences to the victims’ families.

Russian officials have accused Kiev of systematically targeting civilian transport. On the same day, a Ukrainian drone hit a car in the village of Budki in Kursk Region, killing a female passenger and injuring the driver, according to Governor Aleksandr Khinshtein.

Moscow has condemned Ukrainian drone attacks on civilian infrastructure and residential areas as acts of terrorism aimed at compensating for Kiev’s battlefield setbacks.

Russia has responded by intensifying long-range missile and UAV operations against Ukraine’s military-industrial and logistics infrastructure.

The Russian military maintains that it does not target civilians and that its strikes are directed solely at military sites and related infrastructure.

Officials in Washington are allegedly discussing the possible use of nuclear weapons against Iran as the months-long conflict continues to escalate, former US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed.

Greene, once a prominent MAGA ally, made the allegation in a post on X on Sunday. She said the issue had been raised during strategy meetings, but did not identify those involved or provide evidence.

“They are discussing using nuclear weapons on Iran in strategy meetings,” she wrote. “I’m not speculating, I know. And it’s pure evil.”

Greene claimed Washington is considering lowering the threshold for nuclear use despite US President Donald Trump repeatedly declaring victory in the conflict. She warned that such a move could trigger a “nuclear holocaust” and drag the world into a much wider war.

The White House has not publicly confirmed that any such discussions are taking place.

Greene has increasingly criticized Trump over the US-Israeli war on Iran, putting her at odds with a political movement she was once closely associated with.

The US and Israel launched their unprovoked military campaign against Iran in late February, accusing Tehran of being on the verge of creating a nuclear bomb. That was despite US intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stating there was no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Iran retaliated with strikes on American and Israeli targets across the region and later restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Washington and Israel have continued to demand “zero enrichment” and the removal of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

Tehran has rejected the demands, insisting its nuclear program is peaceful and enrichment is a sovereign right. At the same time, it has warned that it could reach weapons-grade levels if attacked again, while noting it has made no decision to build a bomb.

Ukraine’s largest steel plant has partially suspended production after a Russian missile strike damaged key facilities.

Located in Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk Region, ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog is an integrated steelworks that produces rolled products, including steel used in Ukrainian weapons and military equipment, according to the Russian military.

In a Telegram post on Sunday, the company said the overnight attack had damaged “the main energy and blast-furnace production facilities” and partially halted operations. It added that specialists were assessing the extent of the destruction and the prospects and timeframe for recovery.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed striking workshops at the metallurgical complex, saying the site was targeted in a combined attack involving ground- and air-launched precision weapons and long-range drones.

Another target was Kiev-111, a facility operated by Ukrdefense Company that manufactures components for attack drones, Khrushch interceptor UAVs, and Harpia anti-aircraft drones.

Russia has intensified strikes on Ukrainian defense-related facilities and logistics following a 40-day “operation of influence” announced by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in late June. Kiev portrayed the campaign of long-range drone attacks as an effort to force Moscow into negotiations on its terms.

Over the following weeks, Ukraine targeted Russian oil refineries, logistics warehouses operated by retailer Wildberries – often described as “Russia’s Amazon” – and sites far from the front line.

Moscow described the attacks on energy infrastructure, residential buildings, and logistics hubs as terrorism, saying they killed dozens of civilians.

As the deadline expired in early August without the campaign achieving its objectives, the head of Zelensky’s office, Kirill Budanov, dismissed the significance of the timeframe, claiming that “what matters is the result.”

The ensuing Russian strikes on Ukraine’s defense industry have depleted Kiev's stock of Patriot interceptor missiles, leaving air-defense crews “helpless” against the barrages, according to the Financial Times. Moscow maintains it never targets civilians.

US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to substantially scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, citing his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said he was “not happy” that Washington had agreed to take part in the annual exercises, which are due to begin on Monday.

“These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile,” he wrote, describing North Korea as “unthreatening and respectful” during his presidency.

Trump said it was too late to cancel the drills outright and had therefore instructed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” them.

The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises were scheduled to run through August 27, with around 18,000 South Korean and roughly 5,000 US troops expected to take part.

Trump also took a swipe at Seoul over its refusal to join Washington’s campaign against Iran.

“I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’” he wrote.

During his first presidency, Trump sought to improve ties with North Korea after years of strained relations, meeting Kim three times and scaling back some joint exercises with Seoul. In 2019, he became the first sitting US president to enter North Korea during a meeting with Kim at the Demilitarized Zone. 

Pyongyang has long described such drills as rehearsals for an invasion and has responded by expanding its own nuclear arsenal, describing it as necessary to deter a US attack.

On Friday, ahead of the latest Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, Pyongyang denounced the drills as a “new level of threat” and vowed to respond with a “new level of deterrent.” 

Russia has also backed Pyongyang’s security concerns. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last month that Moscow no longer supports calls for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, arguing that expanded US-led military activity has left North Korea to see no alternative to nuclear weapons for safeguarding its sovereignty. 

At least 15 cases of rape have been recorded in the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta since it was swarmed by the massive influx of migrants in late July, El Mundo reported on Sunday, citing Spain’s national gendarmerie.

The crisis erupted on July 30-31 when an estimated 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta. While many have already reportedly returned, the invasion has put heavy pressure on infrastructure in Ceuta, a small city whose population was around 84,000 as of last year, according to government data.

Multiple media reports and videos have since shown thousands of migrants remaining on the streets and in makeshift camps on Trampolin Beach and elsewhere in the city.

This came after at least four migrant girls under 14 have reportedly been treated for alleged sexual assaults.

The influx has come as immigration has become an increasingly divisive political issue in Spain and elsewhere in Europe, spurred on by high-profile sexual abuse and assault cases involving migrants.

The Ceuta crisis has also fueled tensions within the EU and triggered criticism of Spain’s lax immigration policies from politicians across Europe. The leaders of 22 EU nations signed a letter accusing Madrid of undermining the bloc’s security in early August, while several countries called for Spain to be excluded from the Schengen borderless travel zone.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has rejected criticism, calling the joint EU letter ”selfish, polarizing and unlawful” and insisting that the current crisis was not a consequence of Madrid’s overall migration policies.

Russia has historically protected itself across several fronts by maintaining buffer states along the borders it shared with threatening powers. These states didn’t necessarily have to like Russia, much less become its allies, but their usefulness lay in causing even greater problems for Russia’s potential adversaries.

For a long time, the Crimean Khanate played such a role by consuming Polish resources that might otherwise have been directed against Russia and Poland, in turn, helped shield Russia from the full weight of German pressure, while in the east, the Dzungar Khanate performed a similar function during the 17th and 18th centuries. Its horsemen sometimes burned Russian settlements in Siberia, but they were a much greater scourge for China.

This remains a useful principle of Russian strategy because when Moscow lacks the resources to act decisively in a particular region, it can benefit from independent powers pursuing their own interests there, provided they cause Russia’s adversaries more trouble than they cause Russia itself. The US and Israeli attack on Iran in February 2026 opened a second, southern front in the West’s struggle to preserve its global dominance after the first front opened in Ukraine more than 12 years ago and a third is now taking shape in East Asia, where China will be the principal target.

Hostilities between the US and its allies on one side, and Iran and its direct or indirect supporters on the other, have now entered a protracted phase and Russia must watch these developments closely because its ability to intervene directly in the Middle East remains constrained by the concentration of its forces on the Ukrainian front.

Earlier this month, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye signed a trilateral collective-defense agreement in Mecca. The document contains something resembling mutual obligations in the event that one of the signatories comes under military attack and some observers immediately described the new grouping as a “Sunni NATO” or “Muslim NATO.”

The agreement will not overturn the geopolitical order of the Middle East and none of the three states has surrendered its independence or committed itself to an integrated military structure, yet the initiative shouldn’t be dismissed. Its members could create as much difficulty for Russia’s Western adversaries as they might for Iran, Russia’s friend.

The appearance of such an agreement also weakens the political order that Washington established in the region after 1991 as major regional powers are beginning to discuss their security among themselves rather than waiting for the US to organize it for them.

It is often claimed that Washington benefits from instability in a region that supplies energy to Europe and China and there’s some truth in this, but the US is deliberately dismantling parts of the globalized system it created during the second half of the 20th century because China now draws at least as much benefit from that system as America does.

None of these countries possesses either the strength or the determination to end US hegemony in the Middle East. So the importance of the Mecca agreement lies elsewhere. Governments in a region long treated as strategically subordinate to Washington are discussing how to provide for their own security and that’s a warning for the US and good news for countries seeking a more just international order.

There is little reason, however, to expect the Mecca grouping to become a functioning military alliance, given the interests shared by its members are primarily political. They can use one another’s influence and regional authority to improve their respective positions, but they have few grounds for fighting a war together. The existing Saudi-Pakistani defense relationship didn’t produce any substantial response from Islamabad when Iranian forces attacked targets in the kingdom and Türkiye, meanwhile, speaks constantly about Palestinian rights but has avoided measures that would inflict serious damage on Israeli interests.

A durable military alliance requires more than declarations of solidarity and history suggests that it also needs a dominant power capable of directing joint defense planning and establishing a common adversary.

The circumstances surrounding NATO’s creation were exceptional. Western European governments had emerged from the Second World War exhausted and financially ruined and they needed an enduring American presence. Washington, for its part, required a secure territorial base from which to contain the Soviet Union. Even the US failed to reproduce this arrangement elsewhere and its attempts to create NATO-style organisations in Southeast Asia through SEATO and in the Middle East through CENTO didn’t survive. Neither region offered the political discipline, accepted hierarchy or common definition of the enemy that made NATO possible.

A successful military alliance also requires a common understanding of domestic political order and NATO has one with controlled oligarchic democracy at home and Russia abroad, with the Soviet Union occupying the role of external enemy during the Cold War.

For Russia, this is reassuring. Each member of the new grouping could create difficulties for Moscow independently, whether in the South Caucasus, Central Asia or the wider Muslim world, but there’s little chance that they will coordinate a sustained attack on Russian interests.

Nor are they likely to form a united front against Iran because their disagreements, ambitions and competing partnerships will prevent that, so the Mecca agreement will therefore contribute more to Russia’s objectives than it will threaten them. It complicates American strategy, encourages regional independence and places further limits on Washington’s ability to impose a single political order across the Middle East.

Russia doesn’t need the members of this new grouping to become friends or allies, it just needs them to occupy the attention and resources of its adversaries while Moscow remains concentrated on Ukraine.

On Russia’s southern flank, that is the only calculation that matters.

This article was first published by Vzglyad.ru, translated and edited by the RT team.

Ukrainian draft officers detained Metropolitan Sergius of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) on Sunday, a lawyer for the church said, in the latest escalation of Kiev’s long-running crackdown on the country’s largest denomination.

Ukraine’s conscription drive has grown increasingly violent and corrupt as it attempts to make up for battlefield losses and with the supply of willing recruits long since exhausted. Regional mobilization officials have been detained on charges of taking bribes for deferments, and the threat of being pressed into military service has reportedly been used to pressure journalists to not publish damning reports.

Sergius heads the UOC’s Tulchin diocese in Vinnitsa Region. Draft officers detained him, along with Archpriest Anatoly Vishnev, in southeastern Kiev, according to a Telegram statement by Archpriest Nikita Chekman, a lawyer who represents the UOC.

Sergius was released later in the day, but his passport was seized, Chekman said in an update.

Both the detention and the seizure were carried out “without proper procedural formalities,” with no paperwork or legal basis provided for either action, he said, adding that the UOC considers the TCK’s actions unlawful.

Conscription officers were still attempting to process Archpriest Vishnev as of Sunday evening, Chekman added.

Our team will take all measures provided by law to challenge the unlawful detention, confiscation of the passport, and illegal mobilization of the clergyman.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Ukrainian authorities have imposed sanctions on UOC clergy, raided its monasteries and churches, and backed efforts to transfer its properties to the Kiev-affiliated Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). The schismatic organization was launched in 2019 under then-President Pyotr Poroshenko.

Moscow, meanwhile, has called it an attempt to “destroy Orthodoxy in Ukraine.”

In late June, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned plans to rebury prominent Ukrainian political figures at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, accusing the authorities of using the iconic monastery to promote “anti-heroes disguised as heroes.”

The head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, Aleksandr Alferov, who previously served as a spokesman for the neo-Nazi Azov unit, said last month that the government plans to establish what he called a national “Pantheon” at the Lavra.

Lebanese families are struggling to make ends meet as the country’s long-running financial crisis deepens amid Israeli attacks that have devastated homes and farmland, RT correspondent Steve Sweeney reports from Beirut.

Gasoline prices soared by around 25% in February, while food and rent costs spiked by around 20% last year, adding pressure in a country where more than a third of the population lives below the poverty line, according to World Bank estimates.

Many Lebanese are also grappling with unpaid wages, Sweeney reports.

“If the economic situation continues as it is, I’m telling you, there will be a social explosion. People will turn against one another because when hunger strikes, boundaries disappear,” a local taxi driver told RT. Lebanon is “living on borrowed time,” dependent on international decisions and aid for basic necessities, added.

IDF have reportedly deliberately ignited wildfires in woodland, farmland, and olive groves in southern Lebanon since the June 17 ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Watch the full RT report below:

Except for the unfortunate victims of Western information blackouts and propaganda, it has long been obvious that Ukraine under its leader-beyond-elections Vladimir Zelensky is not a democracy, even by the real world’s low standards. Zelensky’s regime is extremely corrupt, authoritarian, and lethally vicious.

Critics, for instance, are imprisoned and killed by a combination of torture and neglect, such as the late Gonzalo Lira, or locked away for 15 years for, in effect, the thought crime of calling for unity among Russian and Ukrainian workers, such as the socialist Bogdan Sirotyuk. Other targets of the regime are subject to assassination attempts, including abroad. Precisely because the Zelensky regime is so lawless, scary, and vicious, Ukrainians usually do not speak openly about just how terrible it is.

That’s why a recent YouTube interview with pop star Olya Polyakova has caused national uproar. Famous, outspoken, and uninhibited, Polyakova deplored Ukraine’s oppressive and stifling atmosphere. “Are we in a concentration camp, in a camp for political prisoners?” she asked and predicted that “soon, we will all be terrified, frightened mice that sit in their holes and do not even dare stick out their nose.”

Polyakova also fearlessly pushed the Zelensky regime’s single most painful button: “They’ll grab someone from your family, or anyone, in the street and you’ll just walk past” pretending not to see anything out of fear, just to be left alone. That was not a general point but a very concrete one: The conversation quickly turned to Ukraine’s institutionalized manhunts to feed the meat-grinder war.

Polyakova had watched “scores of videos” of these violent kidnapping operations, she insisted, breaking another taboo: In Ukraine, it is verboten to acknowledge what these very real videos, filmed and shared by Ukrainian witnesses, demonstrate: that, in reality, citizens are helpless, even hunted subjects in a great sordid bargain with the West, trading Kiev’s cannon fodder for Western money, privileges, and sheer ego flattery for a small, rapacious, and ruthless establishment.

The Zelensky regime dishonestly dismisses the videos of press-ganging those sacrificial Ukrainians as unrepresentative or “Russian propaganda,” applying its dull default dodge. But for Polyakova, the videos are not only representative and true – as they are – but evidence of a larger problem: In a country where anyone “can now be snatched in the street,” the fundamental sense of right and wrong, of good and bad, is gone, and principal notions of humane conduct have fallen apart. 

Even according to a Ukrainian official, the rights of Ukrainians are infringed in 90% of all military mobilization procedures. In reality, the videos showing teams of people snatchers beat and kick and drag away their victims are merely the tip of the iceberg. Physical violence at the point of entry, as it were, is only part of a brutal and criminal mix that continues with long forced disappearances, isolation, deprivation of legal counsel, threats, torture, extorted signatures, and, last but not least, the brutalization of those trying to help the victims, including lawyers brave enough to approach the military recruitment centers.

It is these aspects of Polyakova’s surfeit of honesty that explains the massive backlash the most. Ukraine’s de facto propagandists and regime talking heads have come out in force to discredit her and signal to ordinary Ukrainians that hers is a way of thinking and, worse, talking they better not be caught applauding or even emulating. The main line of attack is – drum roll, trumpet blasts, and big surprise confetti – Russia, Russia, Russia. That is, the smear that Polyakova is playing into the hands of Moscow’s propaganda.

Neither the Western proxy war, sacrificing Ukraine – and masses of ordinary Ukrainians – for a perverse and futile Western dream of defeating and demoting Russia, nor the Zelensky regime that would long be gone without that war, can survive the truth. It may be ironic that it takes a pop star combining conventional beats with revealing outfits to state that truth loudly, but then the regime she is up against is led by a low-taste comedian gone very, very dark. Polyakova may stand her ground or she may be forced to recant. The genie is out of the bottle either way: The showman Zelensky can be upstaged.

Striking footage of this week’s total solar eclipse filmed from Russia’s Arktika-M satellite has been released, showing the Moon’s shadow sweeping across Earth.

Russian space corporation Roscosmos shared the video on Telegram, giving viewers a glimpse of the eclipse from hundreds of kilometers above Earth.

Roscosmos also shared another view from orbit, publishing four photographs taken by cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov from the International Space Station, around 400 km above Earth. The images show the Moon progressively ‘eating’ into the Sun from different sides.

The total eclipse occurred on August 12, with the path of totality stretching from Greenland and Iceland across the Atlantic to parts of Spain, Portugal, and northern Russia. A partial eclipse was visible across much of Europe, North America, and northwest Africa.

Total solar eclipses occur somewhere on Earth roughly every 18 months, but any given location can wait centuries to experience one.

The next total solar eclipse is due on August 2, 2027, when totality will pass across southern Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Yemen, according to the US National Solar Observatory.

Russian MMA champion Islam Makhachev has made UFC history with a commanding welterweight title defense against Ireland’s Ian Machado Garry, notching his 17th straight victory and smashing a UFC record.

UFC 330 at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia on Saturday went the full five rounds, with Makhachev dictating the 25-minute bout through wrestling and ground control while mixing in dynamic striking, including a damaging second-round head kick which knocked Garry down.

A former lightweight world champion, Makhachev had not entered the octagon since November, when he won the welterweight title on his debut in the division.

He faced Garry unbeaten for nearly a decade and riding a 16-fight winning streak – a UFC record he shared with Brazilian legend Anderson Silva. The victory took Makhachev’s overall record to 29 wins and one defeat, while the 28-year-old Garry suffered the second loss of his 19-fight career.

“We, Russia, have proven that we are number one in the world. We’ll beat all records,” Makhachev told the press after his victory. He admitted, however, that securing a victory in the championship rounds is “always hard.”

“I have nothing but respect for Islam… He won. I have no complaints, no excuses,” Garry said after the decision. In a social media video, the Irishman remained upbeat, saying it “wasn’t my night” and congratulating Makhachev, whose career he said he had always respected.

Numerous sports federations and governing bodies barred Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competition following the February 2022 escalation of the Ukraine conflict, ostensibly in solidarity with Kiev and following a recommendation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Russian fighters, however, have remained active in global MMA, with major promotions including UFC, Bellator and One FC declining to follow the guidance.

“We’re a global business,” he said. “Bad sh*t happens all the time all around the world and…yes we will run the business like we always have.”

While the UFC stopped holding events in Russia due to logistical and financial hurdles stemming from sanctions, Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoy for investment and economic cooperation, previously said efforts were underway to bring UFC tournaments back to the country.

Last month, the International Olympic Committee provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, clearing the way for Russian athletes to return to international competition en masse, a development Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova welcomed, saying: “Common sense has prevailed!”

The US is looking to Russia’s air defense technology as it develops a new generation of mobile radars following losses suffered during the war with Iran, Military Watch has reported. New THAAD radars are reportedly set to gain a mobile sensor platform function similar to those built into Russia’s S-300 and S-400 systems from the outset.

According to a report published earlier this week, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) destroyed more than $3 billion worth of American air defense radars during the first week of the war on the Islamic Republic launched by Israel and the US in late February.

The losses reportedly included lower-value radars such as the AN/TPS-59, valued at around $70 million, as well as an AN/FPS-132 radar and two AN/TPY-2 X-band mobile radar systems from the THAAD anti-ballistic missile system, each valued at more than $1 billion. The destruction of the radars dealt a major blow to the situational awareness of US forces and their allies, the military-focused magazine noted.

The reported approach would potentially move away from the traditional Western concept of a self-contained air defense battery, according to the report. Instead, radars would serve as nodes in broader networks, allowing a mobile sensor to detect a target and relay data to remote launchers while remaining physically separate from the interceptors, the magazine noted.

According to Military Watch, the destruction of the radars reportedly forced the US and Israel to rely more heavily on ship-based sensors and an AN/TPY-2 radar stationed in Turkey. 

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Iranian strikes had caused up to $13 billion in damage to US military assets and facilities in the Middle East. Since the start of the US-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic, Tehran has carried out more than 2,000 air, missile, and drone strikes, damaging at least 20 sites in eight countries used by the US military. Iran has also damaged or destroyed more than 42 US military aircraft, several while parked at air bases.

Ukrainian conscription officers reportedly sprayed civilians with tear gas in Odessa after they tried to stop a press gang from seizing a man for military service.

According to the Novosti Odessa Telegram channel, several people approached a vehicle carrying draft officers during an alleged attempt at ‘busification’ – a pejorative term denoting a practice whereby draft officers snatch military-age men in public and drag them into vans to take them to conscription centers, often using violence against those who resist.

A video posted online by the outlet shows several people trying to pull away a young man whom the press gang was presumably after, while pushing the draft officers back into their vehicle. The officers then appear to spray tear gas at the crowd before hastily driving off amid expletives and angry shouts of “get out of here.”

Kiev has increasingly relied on violently enforced conscription amid battlefield losses and Russian advances, with reports of ‘busification’ emerging almost daily.

While officials insist mobilization is unavoidable in the conflict with Russia, many citizens see the system as rife with state-sanctioned corruption and as disproportionately targeting the poor.

Recruits and their families have also accused authorities of systematic abuse, ignoring exemptions and drafting men medically unfit for service. Meanwhile, military-age men have resorted to various means to avoid the draft, from fleeing the country illegally to setting military recruitment offices on fire or hiding in their homes for months.

Saturday’s incident is not the first reported case of draft officers using tear gas on civilians. Earlier this month, a video purportedly showed a press gang assaulting a young couple in a taxi and repeatedly spraying them with what appeared to be tear gas while trying to drag the man from the vehicle. In late June, a press gang reportedly used tear gas on a 12-year-old girl caught up in an attack on a vehicle carrying draft officers.

Moscow has argued that growing public resistance to forced conscription shows that the Ukrainian government has lost its legitimacy and can only survive through increasingly authoritarian measures. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova recently described the situation as “absolute lawlessness.”

An 83-year-old man died and six more people were injured as a result of an overnight Ukrainian drone strike in Moscow Region, local governor Andrey Vorobyev has said, adding that electronic warfare shot down or intercepted 187 Ukrainian UAVs.

The strike comes as Kiev has intensified long-range attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure and residential areas. Earlier this month, a Ukrainian drone struck a crowded beach in the southern resort of Gelendzhik, killing at least seven people, including three children, and injuring dozens more.

Drones were intercepted over Domodedovo, Podolsk, Stupino, Odintsovo, Naro-Fominsk, Ramenskoye, Chekhov, Kolomna, Kashira, and Yegoryevsk, Vorobyev said on Sunday in a post on Telegram.

The governor said that the 83-year-old man was killed when a drone fell on the grounds of a private house. Three people were injured in Podolsk as a truck driver suffered a hand injury in Klimovsk. Another man sustained shrapnel wounds at the Lesnoy allotment association, where a private house was also damaged, while a woman in the settlement of Zheleznodorozhny suffered a shoulder injury. None of the injuries were life-threatening, Vorobyev added.

Several homes and a shopping center were damaged in Domodedovo, where a balcony also caught fire. A private house and a church school were damaged in Chekhov, while a bathhouse was destroyed in Stupino, Vorobyev noted.

Wildberries press office confirmed the fire at its warehouse in Podolsk, saying that the facility had been evacuated and deliveries rerouted to other sites.

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Sunday that 822 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over Russian regions and the Black and Azov seas. Five people were killed in the Rostov Region, while attacks also injured civilians in Belgorod and Bryansk regions. Damage was reported in several regions, including to homes, public buildings, and industrial facilities. In Belgorod, a drone attack on a civilian bus killed one woman and injured nine more people.

Russian authorities have condemned Kiev’s drone raids as terrorist attacks targeting civilians. In May, a triple wave of Ukrainian UAV strikes on a student dormitory in Donbass’ Starobelsk killed 21 people, mostly teenage girls, and partially collapsed the five-storey building.

Russia has responded to the raids by stepping up its long-range missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s military-industrial and logistical infrastructure. Moscow maintains that it never targets civilians, only military sites and infrastructure supporting Kiev’s forces.

Israel has spent tens of millions of dollars to boost its image in the US by seeking to influence how AI platforms portray the country, Politico has reported.

US public attitudes toward Israel have deteriorated in recent years, first over its response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and more recently over the US-Israeli war on Iran and its cost to taxpayers. Six in ten US adults now view Israel somewhat or very unfavorably, according to a June Pew Research Center poll, up from 53% last year and 42% in 2022. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is even less popular, with 65% expressing little or no confidence in his policies.

In a report on Friday, Politico detailed a $100,000 Israeli campaign aimed at influencing how large-language models such as ChatGPT answer questions about Gaza and the Israel-Hamas war. The effort centers on the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, a website publishing anonymous reports on anti-Semitism and geopolitical issues. The project was set up through French PR firm Havas Media, which handles much of Israel’s US influence work registered under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and its subcontractor, ad agency Piro Inc, on behalf of the Israel Government Advertising Agency (LaPam).

The website hosts multiple unattributed reports framed as questions, including “Is Torture of Palestinian Prisoners a War Crime?” and “Who Is the Aggressor in the Israel-Palestine Conflict?”, which Politico said suggests the material was designed to be picked up and cited by LLMs. The outlet also said technical markers linked the website to Res, a Seattle-based AI startup that helps clients get recommended by AI models. The link was confirmed by Res CEO Hai Tran in an email.

While Piro’s FARA filings do not explicitly identify influencing LLMs as a goal, Politico said both ChatGPT and Perplexity cited Hanover Institute material in response to neutral queries about Gaza and Israel.

US frustration with Israel has extended beyond the general public, with politicians also becoming increasingly critical. Last month, more than 100 House Democrats backed an amendment that would have cut $3.3 billion in US aid to Israel. The measure failed due to Republican opposition but highlighted a growing partisan divide: just over two years ago, only 37 House Democrats backed a similar effort.

Germany’s governing CDU/CSU bloc has fallen to its lowest level of support in almost five years, trailing the opposition AfD by eight points, according to an INSA poll published by Bild.

Approval ratings for Merz’s coalition, comprising the Christian Democratic CDU/CSU bloc and the Social Democratic Party, have declined steadily since it took office in May 2025. The government has faced criticism over continued economic stagnation and its failure to deliver on pre-election promises.

The survey, conducted by INSA for Bild am Sonntag and published online by Bild on Saturday, surveyed 1,203 people across Germany between August 10 and 14, with a reported margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

Support for the CDU/CSU dropped one point from the previous week to 20%, its weakest INSA result since October 2021. The AfD remained unchanged at 28%, making it the most popular party in the poll.

Together, the two governing parties received 32%, only four points more than the AfD alone. Several major reforms remain unresolved following coalition disputes over taxes, welfare, and spending priorities.

The findings also showed that 16% of respondents were satisfied with Merz’s performance, while 78% expressed dissatisfaction. Four in five disapproved of the federal government’s work.

Around 10,000 people demonstrated against the government in Plauen last week, according to Saxony police, demanding snap elections, lower energy costs, and changes to healthcare, migration, and military policy.

While unchanged from the previous week, the AfD’s 28% rating represents a substantial increase from the 20.8% it secured in the February 2025 federal election. The party has continued to rise in national surveys despite efforts by Germany’s mainstream parties to exclude it from governing coalitions.

Its growing support comes ahead of regional elections in eastern Germany, where it is polling at around 41% in Saxony-Anhalt and 36% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Researchers cited by Reuters have linked the party’s strength there to lower incomes, population decline, labor shortages, and perceptions of political neglect.

Local police are investigating a shooting at Charles Young Park that killed one person and injured four others in Lexington, Kentucky, on Saturday evening.

A four-year-old, a 14-year-old, and two adults were taken to hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, local police chief Lawrence Weathers said. The person who was killed was not immediately identified.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear announced the shooting while speaking at a Democratic Party dinner at a downtown hotel. The Lexington Police Department blocked off several roads around the park, while State Police officers were also at the scene, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

Authorities have not released information about a suspect or possible motive. Weathers said he did not believe there was an ongoing threat to the public.

Unverified videos posted online appeared to capture the moment the shooting began, with music and conversation stopping abruptly as gunshots rang out and people ran for cover.

WATCH: Moment shooting erupts at Charles Young Park in Lexington, Kentucky; 1 killed, 5 injured pic.twitter.com/myTSSvV8Gg

— Rapid Report (@RapidReport2025) August 16, 2026

At least one person was killed and five others injured (14 and 4 year old) in a mass shooting in Lexington, Kentucky at Charles Young Park. pic.twitter.com/QsPeHqdJtf

— Mr.TeaBagzzzz (@mrteabagzzzz) August 16, 2026

The shooting took place during East End Day, a local community event held at the park. Tents remained at the scene as police investigated.

🇺🇸 Une fusillade s’est produite dans le parc Charles Young à Lexington, dans le Kentucky, faisant un mort et quatre blessés, a rapporté la chaîne de télévision WKYT, citant la police de Lexington.
Selon la police, parmi les blessés figurent un enfant de quatre ans, un adolescent… pic.twitter.com/9HFzXjEAzD

— Pascal Laurent (@Pascal_Laurent_) August 16, 2026

“Gunfire at a peaceful event, in broad daylight, with women and children present is unacceptable,” Carama said.

Luigi Mangione has admitted to fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and pleaded guilty to two federal stalking charges.

The 28-year-old entered the plea before US District Judge Margaret Garnett in Manhattan on Friday, according to the Department of Justice. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole, with sentencing scheduled for December 18.

Federal prosecutors said that Mangione traveled across state lines and tracked Thompson’s movements before the killing. He pleaded guilty to interstate stalking resulting in death and cyberstalking through interstate facilities resulting in death.

“I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione told the court. He did not enter into a plea agreement with prosecutors, which can allow defendants to receive reduced charges or a lighter sentence in exchange for pleading guilty.

Mangione still faces eight felony counts in New York, including second-degree murder, six weapons charges, and possession of a forged instrument, with his trial due to begin on Sept. 8. Following his federal plea, his lawyers moved to dismiss the murder and firearms charges, arguing that New York’s double-jeopardy protections bar him from being prosecuted twice for the same crime.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has said it will oppose the motion, which must be resolved before the case can proceed.

The discharged shell casings and bullets found at the scene had the words “deny,” “depose,” and “delay” written on them, apparently in reference to the practice of denying health insurance payouts to clients.

A manifesto attributed to Mangione and published by the media referred to decades of “corruption and greed” in the US healthcare system, describing industry executives as “parasites” and accusing them of abusing the country “for immense profit.”

The case renewed public debate over health-insurance industry practices and access to care. Expressions of support for Mangione on social media have also prompted officials to warn against glorifying the killing or portraying him as a hero.

The DOJ announced in April 2025 that it would seek the death penalty. Garnett dismissed the capital murder and silencer-related charges in January, leaving two federal stalking counts. None of the remaining state charges carries the death penalty, following a 2004 ruling by New York’s highest court that struck down the state’s death penalty statute.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Saturday called on Pyongyang to engage in dialogue to formally end the Korean War, which has remained unresolved for more than 70 years.

The two countries have technically continued to be at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Lee, who became South Korean president last year after his predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached over his attempt to declare martial law, has sought to improve relations with North Korea and its ally China, which had deteriorated under Yoon.

Lee made the proposal in a speech at a ceremony marking the 81st Liberation Day, which commemorates Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945.

“Let us put aside our intentions to threaten each other and begin discussions to end the long-running war as the directly involved parties,” Lee said, adding that they could also discuss “effective ways to halt the advancement of the North’s nuclear capabilities.”

North Korea has yet to respond to Lee’s proposal.

In April, President Lee Jae Myung apologized to North Korea over drone incursions into the country. South Korean prosecutors indicted three people – a National Intelligence Service employee, a military officer, and a graduate student – for sending unmanned aerial vehicles into North Korea between September 2025 and January 2026. Seoul had previously denied official involvement in the incursions, saying that they were carried out by civilians.

In March, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un described South Korea as the “most hostile state,” vowing to “thoroughly reject and disregard it.” Seoul would “pay the price” for its provocations, he stated.

Saudi Arabia has announced the formal launch of a multinational maritime defense coalition aimed at safeguarding shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, as escalating hostilities with Yemen’s Houthis threaten one of the world’s most important trade routes.

Thirteen countries have completed the procedures required to formally join the alliance, while 15 have signed its joint statement, the Saudi Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

Riyadh described the development as the “actual launch” of the coalition and the beginning of its institutional and operational activation. Saudi Arabia will provide its first commander, while Pakistan is expected to appoint the deputy commander. The alliance is expected to coordinate intelligence sharing, joint exercises and maritime operations aimed at protecting commercial navigation in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Earlier this month, the Houthis announced coordinated ballistic missile and drone strikes against military camps belonging to Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government. The group said it acted after detecting preparations for an offensive against Houthi-held territory.

Government forces acknowledged casualties, while Reuters cited government sources as saying at least 30 soldiers had been killed.

Tensions have been building since July, when a dispute over direct flights between Houthi-controlled Sanaa and Tehran helped unravel the longstanding truce. After Saudi-backed forces struck Sanaa airport on July 13 to prevent an Iranian aircraft from returning a Houthi delegation from Tehran, the group blamed Riyadh, declared the ceasefire over, and subsequently announced a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia.

The confrontation poses a particular threat to Riyadh because the Red Sea has become an increasingly important outlet for Saudi oil amid the US-Iran conflict and severe disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Saudi Aramco has redirected crude away from Hormuz through its cross-country pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Loadings there have averaged more than four million barrels per day since June, more than four times the level recorded during the same period last year, Reuters reported, citing tanker-tracking data.

With oil and petroleum products accounting for more than three-quarters of Saudi exports, a sustained disruption of Red Sea shipping could therefore threaten a crucial alternative export route.

The coalition’s activation also comes amid reports that Riyadh is preparing for a potentially broader confrontation with the Houthis. The Guardian reported earlier this month, citing Yemeni sources, that Saudi-backed forces were being re-positioned for a possible sea and ground offensive.

US-based tech billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump have rekindled their friendship after falling out last year, with Musk preparing a major donation to Republicans for the midterm elections, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people who accompanied the two to China.

Relations between the two men soured in mid-2025 when Musk attacked Trump’s signature tax-and-spending package, calling the draft “utterly insane and destructive.” The rift came despite Musk’s outsized role in the 2024 election cycle. After Trump’s victory, the billionaire was appointed to head the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Musk’s return to Trump’s inner circle became apparent during their flight to Beijing in May, when he joined the president, Cabinet officials, business executives and family members aboard Air Force One. The two appeared friendly, with Musk discussing plans for new US factories, while Trump talked about a space-launch video and asked about one of Musk’s sons, people aboard the plane told the WSJ.

During the flight, Musk also told Trump he planned to spend at least $100 million on a voter-turnout operation to support Republicans in the November midterm elections and help them retain control of Congress, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the strategy.

The rapprochement reportedly followed nearly a year of behind-the-scenes efforts, including private calls, pressure from mutual friends, invitations to Mar-a-Lago and a White House dinner. Trump and Musk briefly spoke at the memorial service for slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who had reportedly sought to reconcile the two.

The two men are unlikely to return to the close relationship they once had, according to Trump’s aides. Still, they have resumed speaking roughly once a month, discussing artificial intelligence, China, and world events, people familiar with the conversations said.

Musk played a major role in Trump’s 2024 election victory, publicly backing the president and reportedly spending at least $288 million to support Trump and other Republican candidates.

The renewed alliance comes as Democrats hold an edge over Republicans in the latest national polls ahead of the November midterms, while Trump’s net approval rating has fallen close to a record low amid growing public dissatisfaction with his presidency, including over his handling of the Iran conflict.

Iran has invoked Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky to accuse Washington of basing its foreign policy toward Tehran and the wider Middle East on “lies,” as efforts to end the months-long conflict remain stalled.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei cited a passage from Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ in a post on X on Saturday, saying it “aptly describes” the predicament in which the US system of governance and its regional foreign policy have found themselves.

“The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him,” Baghaei quoted the Russian writer as saying.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump claimed Iran was being “very badly defeated” and described the Islamic Republic as “a very evil country.” He also urged Americans to accept higher gasoline prices while the conflict continues, arguing that paying “a tiny little bit more for your gasoline” was worth preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The price increases have come amid severe disruption to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, after Iran restricted the strategic waterway in response to US-Israeli strikes in late February and Washington imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports. The escalation initially sent global oil prices soaring to as high as $120 a barrel.

The dispute over the Strait of Hormuz remains one of the principal obstacles to a settlement, with Tehran and Washington making competing claims over control of the strategic waterway.

Despite the conspicuous difference in size, speed, and strength between the sexes, a debate is now raging in women’s professional basketball in the United States whether to let men compete alongside the ladies.

Nobody would ever confuse Royce White, 35, with a woman. The man with stands 6 feet 8 inches tall, weighs 260 pounds (118 kg), sports a bushy beard, and is bald. He has an ex-wife and two children. In other words, not exactly somebody you would expect to find in the glossy pages of Playboy magazine. But what would never sell at the newsstands may eventually sell at professional women’s basketball games.

Coming out of college, White was selected by the Houston Rockets in the first round of the 2012 draft, although he never played for the team due to a severe fear of flying. But apparently he has recovered from that condition because now he has said he would welcome the chance to play in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).

White, who was a Republican candidate in Minnesota’s Senate primary, admitted to Fox News that he’s transgender and identifies as a woman “sometimes … for [the] purpose of basketball, professional basketball.”

“I think I’d be unstoppable,” White candidly admitted with no apparent shame. “I’ll do whatever the coach needs me to do. I’ll do whatever the girls need me to do… I think it’s only fair.”

Yes, you heard that right. White thinks it’s “only fair” that he be allowed to play in a professional female league where the average height of the players is just 6 feet 0.8 inches (184.9 cm), whereas the average height for male players is 6 feet 7 inches (200 cm).

In a lengthy ESPN piece on the WNBA superstar, Cunningham said: “I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,’” she says. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

The comment reverberated through the world of sport like a category 8 earthquake. After all, with over 3 million followers on TikTok, Cunningham carries a lot of clout. When she talks, people listen.

Regrettably, however, Cunningham’s comment has turned a regular evening of basketball into a political circus, with half the audience condemning the woman while the other half declaring its support. A popular T-shirt for Sophie supporters is emblazoned with XX-XY, referring to the female and male chromosome pairs and pointing to the inescapable biological differences between men and women. On the other side of the debate, Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve wore a shirt that carried the caption “Trans Kids belong,” when the conversation involves grown men, not children.

The furor was so loud that the White House even remarked on it. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Cunningham during a press briefing.

“The backlash she is receiving from Democrats and left-wing figures across the country is astonishing. They are clearly very out of touch with the American public on this issue, which again, is an 80/20 issue. It’s common sense,” she said.

Some progress has been made. The US Supreme Court has ruled that states can lawfully ban transgender women and girls from competing in female school and college sports teams. In the 6-3 decision, the court upheld restrictive laws from Idaho and West Virginia, concluding that separate teams based on biological sex do not violate the Constitution or Title IX, the law against sex-based discrimination in education.

Meanwhile, transgender women have been barred from competing in the female categories of the Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced an eligibility policy restricting the female category to biological females, verified via a one-time gene screening, starting with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

The US world of professional sport may wish to take a cue from the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which recently updated its guidelines to restrict participation in women’s sports categories strictly to athletes assigned female at birth. Athletes assigned male at birth may practice with women’s teams or play in the transgender category, but they cannot compete in women’s collegiate events.

It’s time for women to speak up and show solidarity with their fellow athletes in the realm of professional sport, lest the entire feminist movement has been for nothing.

The planned transfer of US-made missiles and other weapons from Türkiye to Ukraine will “inevitably undermine mutual trust” with both Washington and Ankara, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned.

The US State Department notified Congress earlier this month that it was prepared to authorize the re-export of weapons from Turkish stocks to Ukraine. The package reportedly includes 70 M39 ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles, 12 M270 multiple-launch rocket systems, more than 2,500 M26 rockets with cluster warheads, and 47,000 203mm cluster artillery shells.

The total value of the proposed transfers is estimated at around $280 million.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has similarly claimed that NATO military specialists provide Kiev with intelligence and help coordinate precision strikes, including attacks that have hit homes, energy facilities, schools, and hospitals.

The Strait of Hormuz will remain under Tehran’s control, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has said, calling on Washington to “stop indulging in delusions.” The statement comes in response to President Donald Trump saying he would soon declare the sea passage a “territory of the US.”

US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February prompted Tehran to close the strait, with Washington responding by imposing a naval blockade of Iranian ports. The blockade disrupted traffic through one of the world’s most important energy corridors, initially sending global oil prices soaring to as high as $120 a barrel.

“Once and for all, accept the reality: up to this point, you have suffered strategic and heavy defeats; the Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian,” Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said in a post on X on Saturday, adding that the waterway “will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command, and as long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and cease your fanciful delusions, Iran will continue to enforce the blockade.”

Speaking on Friday at a police academy in Nassau County, New York, Trump claimed that the Islamic Republic was being “very badly defeated” and said that, once victory was secured, “pretty soon, I’ll be declaring the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the US.”

Earlier this month, Tehran set out a series of conditions for reopening the strait, including compensation for war damage, the lifting of sanctions, and the release of frozen Iranian funds, and a permanent end to hostilities against Iran and its regional allies. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has also said that reopening Hormuz will depend on Washington fully accepting Tehran’s conditions.

Last week, Trump said his administration was in no rush to reach an agreement. In an interview with Axios, he said Washington was “low-keying” the negotiations while allowing economic pressure on Tehran to build.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday outlined the country’s achievements and priorities for future growth as the world’s largest democracy marked its 80th Independence Day.

Addressing the nation after hoisting the Indian national flag at Delhi’s iconic Red Fort, Modi cited India’s rapid economic growth from being one of the ‘Fragile Five’ economies in 2013 to a $4.15 trillion, fast-growing major economy, and said the country is emerging in the eyes of the world as a widely accepted and respected nation.

The ‘Fragile Five’, was a term for Türkiye, Brazil, India, South Africa, and Indonesia, which were overly dependent on unpredictable foreign investments and large current account deficits to fuel their economic growth.

“Our country is not going to move forward with small dreams,” Modi said, noting the country rises through the “strength of its dreams, its resolutions, and its capabilities.”

📹🇮🇳 ‘We Can No Longer Move Forward With Small Dreams’: Modi’s Big Message From Red Fort

The prime minister urged Indians to “dream big,” saying a nation rises through the strength of its dreams, resolve and capabilities. https://t.co/F71jMC9sPT pic.twitter.com/GgzxMjxJmL

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 15, 2026

Fuel for growth

Listing India’s achievements in the last 12 years since his Bharatiya Janata Party came to power, Modi said the country’s defense production has increased fourfold, electronic manufacturing has increased sevenfold, and digital transactions have increased 100 times.

This, however, raises the demands for energy security, Modi acknowledged, stating that the South Asian nation will need electricity “on a very large scale.”

The Indian leader reiterated the country’s target of achieving a capacity of 100 GW of nuclear power by 2047 and highlighted the need for accelerating offshore exploration to find oil and gas that could replace imported energy that makes the national economy vulnerable to external shocks.

⚛️ AI Needs Power, PM Modi Wants Nuclear To Bring It

Pointing to GPUs, AI and data centres, Modi said, “Energy security is the need of our times,” adding that India will need electricity “on a very large scale” and is targeting 100 GW of nuclear power by 2047.

The SHANTI Act,… https://t.co/dIK8Pogw5h pic.twitter.com/Ihr51lv9xx

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 15, 2026

New Delhi in December 2025 passed the SHANTI Act (the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act), which modernizes India’s nuclear framework and opens the door to greater private sector participation in India’s nuclear energy industry, which has been lacking so far.

The country currently operates 24 nuclear power reactors across seven different sites with a total installed capacity of 8.78 GW. This includes Russia-built Kudankulam designed to house six VVER-1000 reactors with a total planned capacity of 6,000 MW. Units 1 and 2 were connected to the national grid in 2013 and 2016, respectively, while units 3, 4, 5, and 6 are at different stages of implementation and construction.

Overall, India currently has ten reactor units with a combined capacity of 8,000 MW are under construction, while pre-project activities for ten additional reactors are also underway.

Focus on self-relaence

“It is our conviction that India must not be dependent on other countries. We must become self-reliant,” Modi stated, calling for strengthening the country’s capabilities and protecting national interests.

“India possesses a stable political mandate, a stable government, a vibrant democracy, a robust judiciary, and guiding all of us is the Constitution of India,” Modi said. He also noted that the youth are the “biggest beneficiaries” of India’s development, and said his government will run free online coaching networks for competitive exams for students. The move comes weeks after student-led unrest rocked the country’s capital and led to the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Celebrating friendship

India achieved independence from British rule on August 15, 1947, through largely non-violent means and beginning the end of Western colonial rule over the world. Independence Day celebrations were held across the country, in state capitals and various offices.

In Moscow, Indian Ambassador Vinay Kumar raised the tricolor at the Indian Embassy as the Indian national anthem was sung. In a symbolic move, a group of Russian and Indian motorcyclists rode across the city to celebrate the decades of close ties, marked by cooperation and trust.

🇮🇳 Tricolour Goes Up In Moscow As Indian Embassy Marks Independence Day

India’s Ambassador to Russia Vinay Kumar hoisted the National Flag at the embassy as Independence Day celebrations brought together the Indian community in Moscow.

He also read a passage from the President… https://t.co/WE13aT72aW pic.twitter.com/edLPHQfUe7

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 15, 2026

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated India on the occasion, saying ties with New Delhi continue to develop under the two countries’ “special and privileged strategic partnership.”

Moscow’s ambassador to India, Denis Alipov, assured New Delhi in his Independence Day message that Russia’s support “remains the same today and will continue tomorrow as well” amid the West’s attempts to coerce India into isolating its traditional friend. “Jai Hind. Long live the friendship of Russia-India,” Alipov added.

🧵 🇷🇺-🇮🇳 The Unbreakable Bond: Momentous Milestones in the Russia-India Partnership

📜 The Age of Discovery:

Decades before Vasco da Gama arrived, the Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin was already exploring Indian lands.

In 1469, he reached the west coast of India, in… https://t.co/zEUGPJilEN pic.twitter.com/3pc9t3tRG2

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 15, 2026

India and Russia maintain what both describe as a special and privileged strategic partnership, grounded in decades of defense cooperation, energy trade, and diplomatic alignment. Trade turnover between the two countries has grown rapidly since 2023, driven largely by India’s imports of Russian crude and other energy resources despite Western pressure on New Delhi to reduce engagement with Moscow. The strategic cooperation program adopted by the leaders of the two countries in December last year set a course for achieving $100 billion in trade turnover by 2030.

Servicemen belonging to a far-right Ukrainian military unit have held a torch-lit farewell ceremony in Kiev for Evgeny Konovalets, the founder of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which collaborated with Nazi Germany.

Konovalets’ remains were exhumed at a cemetery in the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands earlier this week and delivered to Ukraine on Wednesday. They will be temporarily reburied at the National Military Memorial Cemetery outside the capital.

After dark, fighters of the 3rd Army Corps staged a farewell ceremony for the Nazi collaborator at a cathedral in central Kiev.

The unit was formed earlier this year by members of the Azov nationalist movement, which stems from the neo-Nazi Azov regiment that emerged in 2014 during Kiev’s crackdown on Donbass. The regiment faced repeated accusations of war crimes, including torture, rape, and looting, from the UN and international NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Велике повернення великого Провідника: полковник Євген Коновалець — на рідній землі!

Минулої ночі через майже 90 років на цвинтарі Кросвейк у Роттердамі засновник ОУН та командир Січових Стрільців, полковник Євген Коновалець, повернувся до України.

На почесну варту до… pic.twitter.com/gwGBqqedlz

— Третій армійський корпус (@ab3army) August 14, 2026

The coffin with Konovalets’ remains was driven to the cathedral in a historic Austin armored vehicle from the period of the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922. It was greeted at the scene by two rows of troops, holding torches in their hands.

The unit’s commander Andrey ‘White Leader’ Biletsky hailed Konovalets and claimed that the current generation of Ukrainian fighters should accomplish the objectives he fought for.

Konovalets fought the Soviet Union during the Russian Civil War as a colonel in the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and led the OUN from its founding in 1929 until he was killed by Soviet agent Pavel Sudoplatov in Rotterdam in 1938. According to declassified documents, a group of Ukrainian nationalists that he led – codenamed ‘Consul I’ – supplied German intelligence with data on Poland from 1925 and moved into “espionage and sabotage” work inside the Soviet Union after 1939.

The reburial of Konovalets is part of a push by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky to build a “Pantheon of outstanding Ukrainians,” which he says will fulfill a “moral duty” to bring home those who “defended the idea of independence.” Kiev has already reburied several Nazi-linked figures, including another OUN leader, Andrey Melnik, in May.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova previously blasted efforts to reinter Konovalets, accusing Zelensky of “dancing on the bones” of those who fell victim to the OUN and once again confirming the “misanthropic essence” of his government.

The Hungarian government broke the law when it seized the servers of Fidesz, the party of former Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the Prosecutor General’s Office has said. The country’s new leader Peter Magyar is meanwhile continuing his quest to purge the remnants of Orban’s 16-year stay in power.

Last month, investigators arrived unannounced at a facility hosting Fidesz’s servers, confiscating all of the party’s communications systems and databases. The raid was carried out as part of a probe into the suspected misuse of some 17 billion forint (€47 million) in funding for the National Cultural Fund by local officials during Orban’s tenure. Fidesz described the actions of Magyar’s cabinet, which came to power after an election win in April, as an “unprecedented” overreach unseen in the country since the fall of Communism in 1989.

On Wednesday, the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement that while the order to seize the servers was valid, the way it had been carried out “amounted to a fishing expedition.”

“This approach constitutes an unlawful practice under both EU and Hungarian law,” the statement read.

The General Prosecutor’s Office has ordered the Bács-Kiskun County chief prosecutor in charge of the case to repeat the seizure, but this time to only collect data directly related to the investigation.

Fidesz was left dissatisfied with the ruling, again insisting that the actions of the investigators were “illegal.” 

“We call on the government to immediately put an end to the arbitrary political revenge campaign packaged in the form of an official procedure… and to return our servers,” said one of the party’s senior MPs, Boka Janos.

“You would have to be naive to think that this data has not already been copied… and shared with the relevant people,” Bollobas argued.

Magyar’s Tisza party, which came to power on the promise of “regime change,” has begun to actively dismantle the legal, media, and financial structures set up by Fidesz. The new government changed the constitution to impose a 12-year term limit on MPs, effectively banning Orban from running again. Fidesz has repeatedly labeled Magyar’s conduct “authoritarian.”

Russian swimmer Evgeniia Chikunova has taken the gold at the European Aquatics Championships in Paris despite continuing restrictions on Russian athletes.

The 21-year-old won the 200-meter breaststroke on Friday in 2 minutes 19.32 seconds, setting a new championship record. Chikunova has held the world record in the event since April of 2023, when she broke the previous mark at the Russian National Championships in Kazan.

Chikunova is competing in France as a neutral athlete under European Aquatics rules, which still prevent Russian swimmers from representing their country at the championships.

Russia was banned from some international events starting in the mid-2010s, and the trend sharply accelerated following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

Evgeniia Chikunova has an emotional reaction to her win in the 200m Breaststroke Final 💙

She proves that hard work pays off 💪

Where to watch #Paris2026 ▶️ https://t.co/Hhlj1DcK88#EuropeanAquatics #Swimming pic.twitter.com/CZsHRUkILk

— European Aquatics (@EuroAquatics) August 14, 2026

Since the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision last month to provisionally lift the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee and withdraw its recommendations restricting Russian athletes’ participation, various sporting bodies have lifted their bans on athletes from the country.

In April, World Aquatics moved to restore full participation rights for Russian and Belarusian swimmers, including the use of national flags and anthems. However, European Aquatics has delayed implementing the change until September 1, meaning Russian competitors in Paris remain neutral.

Moscow has repeatedly accused Western countries of politicizing sport, insisting that competitors should be judged solely on sporting merit.

Chikunova’s victory was one of five medals won by Russian swimmers on Friday, including gold in the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay. By the end of the day, Russian athletes had collected 26 medals, including nine golds, at the Paris event.

A massive 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia just before 6 AM local time on Saturday, damaging buildings causing a tsunami. At least five people were killed, according to preliminary reports.

The earthquake’s epicenter hit the seafloor around 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) northeast of Mbay in eastern Indonesia, the country’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said.

Tsunami waves up to 0.94 meters tall were reported in several regions, according to the agency.
Three aftershocks of magnitudes 5.6, 6.1 and 5 followed the initial quake, the US Geological Survey (USGS) reported.

At least five people were killed, Melki Laka Lena, governor of the southeastern province of East Nusa Tenggara, said in a statement cited by the media.

Videos circulating on social media, purportedly capturing the earthquake, show building facades crumbling as terrified people flee.

Other footage shows buildings that had entirely collapsed.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago of thousands of islands, sits at the meeting point of several major tectonic plates and lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the most seismically active regions on Earth.

The country has faced devastating earthquakes in recent decades, including a devastating 9.1 magnitude event in 2004, which killed more than 220,000 people in the broader region.

A Ukrainian Red Cross driver was detained by police and then conscripted while evacuating two vulnerable families from a dangerous area near the front line on Friday, the organization reported.

Kiev has increasingly relied on violently enforced mandatory conscription amid battlefield losses and Russian advances on the front lines. Reports and videos of what has now been sardonically dubbed ‘busification’ crop up almost daily, showing draft officers ambushing men in the streets and dragging them into vans, often brawling with relatives and passersby.

According to the Ukrainian Red Cross, one of its vehicles was stopped at a police checkpoint in the Nikolaev Region. A police officer took the driver into custody for a blood alcohol test but instead delivered him to a local branch of the Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support (TCK), the body tasked with overseeing Ukraine’s mobilization, the Red Cross said in an Instagram statement.

Nikolaev regional police said that it has launched an investigation into the incident but stressed that the driver had no draft exemption and was subject to conscription.

The incident came a day after the head of Nikolaev Region’s TCK was arrested on corruption charges. The official took bribes up to $10,000 per person to take men off the national conscription tracking register, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said in a statement on Thursday.

Kiev’s forced conscription campaign has led to escalating tensions within Ukrainian society. Many citizens see it as disproportionately targeting poor people, with richer Ukrainians can afford to bribe corrupt officials in order to dodge the draft.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an overture to win over India’s youth on Saturday, as he led 80th Independence Day celebrations of the world’s largest democracy. 

Addressing the nation after hoisting the national flag at the historic Red Fort in Delhi, he noted that the “biggest beneficiaries” of India’s development will be the youth. 

Modi announced that his government would set up free online coaching networks for various competitive examinations, leveraging India’s robust digital public infrastructure and freeing families from the heavy financial burden they incur from sending their children to private coaching institutes.

The government will also train 11 million young people in artificial intelligence skills to prepare them for the new jobs that are opening up.

India, the world’s most populous nation with 1.4 billion people, also has the world’s largest youth population, with the average age around 29. 

#WATCH | Delhi: From the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, "The race for coaching classes has become a massive burden for our middle-class families. Every parent feels that if they don't send their child to a coaching class, they aren't considered a… pic.twitter.com/Qq74edZTl2

— ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2026

The country recently saw widespread youth protests over the leaks of the questions for a national medical entrance test, ultimately forcing the then federal education minister to resign. The fiasco, and the police violence against the protesting students in the national capital and other cities, stoked anger in the country, especially among the middle class. 

The prime minister’s online coaching initiative would be a blow to the country’s thriving private coaching networks, some of which have been blamed for the exam scams in recent years. The industry is valued at up to $15 billion.

India achieved independence from British rule on August 15, 1947 through largely non-violent means. Most of Britain’s other colonial possessions and those of other European powers would follow suit in the coming decades.

When European officials talk about migration, their lexicon is rich with high-minded platitudes – “humanitarian values,” “human rights,” “rules-based order,” and “shared responsibility.” Yet behind this rhetoric lies a transactional reality: The European Union’s single overarching policy on migration and asylum is keeping people out, regardless of the human cost and despite all the EU common values.

For decades, Brussels has refused to address the root causes of global displacement. To do so would require confronting a persistent colonial mindset – one that views the Global South, and Africa in particular, as a warehouse of raw resources to be extracted, while abandoning its populations to economic destruction and conflict.

As the late Muammar Gaddafi once bluntly observed, the Africans heading toward Europe are simply chasing the wealth that was stolen from them, leaving their own countries impoverished – a simple logic that is hard to argue with. Instead of fostering genuine development or equitable partnerships, Europe’s approach relies on outsourcing its border enforcement to North African buffer states, effectively turning neighboring regimes into outsourced jailers for Fortress Europe.

Rabat understands precisely how vulnerable Brussels is; whenever diplomatic frictions arise, border controls suddenly soften, demonstrating that North Africa holds the ultimate asymmetric leverage over European security. In the end, we should not lose sight of the fact that both Ceuta and Melilla are historically Moroccan territories occupied by Spain – an unresolved colonial footprint that Rabat can exploit whenever it seeks to pressure Madrid.

However, the Ceuta shock loses its “spontaneous” appearance when viewed alongside shifting diplomatic signals from Washington. Despite the Trump administration’s signature anti-immigration rhetoric, official Washington quietly signaled an unprecedented openness to Rabat’s territorial ambitions weeks before the surge.

This signal was further compounded by Washington’s growing frustration with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez over his refusal to allow US military bases to be used for operations against Iran, his vocal opposition to Israeli policy in Gaza, and Madrid’s lagging defense spending.

The crisis exposed the hypocrisy of the EU foreign policy establishment and laid bare ideological fractures across Europe. When similar migration spikes occur along Europe’s eastern borders, Brussels officials such as Kaja Kallas immediately decry them as “hybrid warfare” and an existential threat to democracy. Yet when a key Western partner in North Africa utilizes the exact same border pressure mechanisms against a dissenting member state like Spain, the EU’s reaction is a fractured double standard. Madrid’s isolation was engineered not only from Washington and Rabat, but from within Europe itself, led by conservative governments hostile to Sánchez’s unyielding pro-Palestinian stance and defiance of the mainstream Atlanticist consensus.

Capitalizing on the chaos, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government swiftly suspended the Schengen free-movement agreement with Spain, reinstating border checks to punish Madrid politically. Countries as far away as Denmark even called for Spain to be suspended or expelled from Schengen – a reactionary escalation never directed at Germany when it welcomed over a million asylum seekers in 2015. Rather than standing in solidarity with a member state, Europe weaponized the shock, demonstrating that Rabat succeeded in triggering a secondary systemic crisis inside Fortress Europe itself.

The possibility of high-level geopolitical manipulation behind the Ceuta surge was not entirely dismissible. As many observers point out, the sudden border breach served a dual purpose: providing European far-right “vultures” with an immediate anti-immigrant weapon while simultaneously delivering geopolitical punishment to Sanchez’s government for its principled foreign policy. The reaction of Israeli officials – such as UN Ambassador Danny Danon cynically mocking Spain’s state of emergency and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir demanding Madrid “open its doors” to Gazans – exposed an unmistakable appetite for retaliation against Spain’s recognition of Palestinian statehood and accusations of genocide.

Whether through explicit collusion or strategic alignment, the convergence of Moroccan territorial ambitions, American pressure over military bases and trade, and Israeli anger created an asymmetric pincer movement. In this framework, Morocco acted as the operational hammer on the ground, while Washington and Tel Aviv provided the diplomatic cover, turning human desperation in Ceuta into a deliberate, multi-national strike aimed at crippling an unyielding European administration.

This geopolitical pincer movement exposes the fundamental structural flaw at the heart of Europe’s externalized border regime. By converting displaced people into diplomatic currency and neighboring states into indispensable jailers, Fortress Europe has not secured its frontiers; it has rendered them volatile flashpoints for foreign leverage.

As long as Europe relies on externalized repression rather than addressing the structural roots of global inequality, its southern perimeter will remain an open fault line – ready to be activated whenever its autocratic partners decide to demand a higher price.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the UK as the “Islamic Republic of Britain,” as the country’s new Labour government weighs taking measures against Israel.

Speaking on an Israeli Army Radio podcast on Friday, Netanyahu criticized the British media’s coverage of Israel, while comparing it to reporting during the 1967 Six-Day War.

“Go find that in Britain today, which you could call the Islamic Republic of Britain,” he said, as cited by Israeli media.

Netanyahu then echoed a 2024 joke made by US Vice President J.D. Vance, saying Britain could become the first “Islamic republic with nuclear weapons.”

According to the latest census-based figures, Muslims account for around 6% of the UK’s population, while Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has possessed nuclear weapons since the 1990s.

An industrial facility in Russia’s Samara Region was attacked by Ukrainian missiles, local governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said.

Emergency services have been deployed on site, Fedorishchev wrote in a Saturday morning post on Max.

The information regarding damage and casualties is currently being verified, he added.

In the Rostov Region, around 1,000 residents of seven villages were left without electricity after a Ukrainian drone damaged powerlines in the area, according to local governor Yury Slusar.

Around a dozen UAVs and three missiles were destroyed by air defenses in the region overnight, Slusar said. There have been no reports of injuries, he added.

Ukraine has several types of long-range missiles in their arsenal, including British-supplied Storm Shadow and homemade Flamingo munitions.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin wrote on Max that at least 16 incoming drones were shot down on the approach to the Russian capital during the night.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that a total of 598 Ukrainian UAVs were shot down or intercepted by electronic warfare means above 20 of the country's regions overnight.

Moscow has condemned Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia’s civilian infrastructure and residential areas as terrorist attacks aimed at compensating for Kiev’s setbacks on the battlefield, where Russian forces continue their steady advance.

Russia has responded by intensifying long-range missile and drone strikes against Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities and logistics infrastructure. Moscow maintains that it does not target civilians and that its strikes are directed solely at military targets and infrastructure supporting Kiev’s forces.

The Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Friday that a total of 14 such strikes had been launched over the previous week, hitting drone production plants, weapons, and logistics centers, as well as fuel, energy, and transport infrastructure. Military airfields and ports where cargo used by Kiev’s troops are unloaded and stored have also been targeted.

The board of the Kennedy Center has voted to restore Donald Trump’s name to the Washington arts venue, multiple media outlets report, just two months after it was removed on a federal judge’s orders.

The Trump-aligned board voted to rename the institution after Trump and John F. Kennedy last December, and his name was subsequently added to its facade. However, US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in May that the board lacked authority to change the name established by Congress and ordered the Trump signage removed. Workers complied in June.

This time, the board is not formally renaming the Kennedy Center after Trump. According to Axios, an inscription below the Kennedy Center sign will read “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump,” while the physical site will be named “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”

The board also voted on Thursday to move forward with a two-year closure of the center’s main venue for renovation. The proposed overhaul would refurbish aging infrastructure, polish the building’s marble facade, and renovate its halls and theaters.

“Under President Trump’s bold leadership, the Kennedy Center is on its way to becoming the finest cultural institution anywhere in the world,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Axios.

The naming saga has already inspired legislation in Congress. In January, Senator Bernie Sanders and several Democratic colleagues introduced the Stop Executive Renaming for Vanity and Ego (SERVE) Act, which would prohibit federal buildings, land, and other assets from being named after a sitting president. The bill remains at the committee stage.

Jason Arday, the former University of Cambridge professor who recently resigned amid allegations of plagiarism and misrepresenting his credentials, was found dead in his home on Friday, police said in a statement cited by the media. The death is not being treated as suspicious.

Arday, 41, was recognized as the youngest-ever black professor at the institution when he joined as a professor of sociology of education in 2023. He resigned from that position after he was accused of plagiarizing his 2015 PhD dissertation and questions arose regarding his academic posts and other achievements. Arday denied the plagiarism allegations.

The Metropolitan Police said first responders called officers to the academic’s south London home on Friday afternoon after finding him “unresponsive.” He was pronounced dead at the scene.

“At this time, his death is being treated as unexpected but is not believed to be suspicious,” the police said.

The academic’s resignation came just two days after Cambridge announced that it had launched an investigation into his academic qualifications and honorary appointments, as the wider controversy burst into the spotlight. Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded him his PhD, had carried out its own probe but did not uphold the plagiarism allegations.

“Many passages are lifted with minimal editing, sometimes retaining copy-editing mistakes from the original source,” he wrote, calling Arday a “plagiarist and fabulist.”

According to a detailed investigation by The Guardian, several institutions have disputed Arday’s claims regarding his academic posts and achievements, while police contradicted his account of an investigation into alleged racial abuse.

After being approached by a journalist investigating the alleged plagiarism, Arday allegedly reported him to the authorities. 

UK police have faced several controversies and accusations concerning ‘two-tier’ policing.

The debate reignited in June after bodycam footage was released showing the arrest of Henry Nowak after he had been stabbed by 23-year-old Vickrum Singh Digwa. The 18-year-old lay mortally wounded in handcuffs as officers  dismissed his repeated pleas that he’d been stabbed after his attacker falsely accused him of racism. One officer’s words, “Don’t think you have, mate,” ignited lasting public outrage over the event.

Cases of infectious disease, including gastroenteritis, have been reported among migrants in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta since the mass influx from neighboring Morocco occurred in late July.

Spain’s National Institute for Health Management (INGESA) confirmed that gastroenteritis has broken out among recently arrived migrants, Spanish media reported on Friday. The agency also confirmed cases of scabies and impetigo, while noting that both conditions were present in Ceuta before the latest influx.

However, INGESA has rejected claims that Ceuta’s healthcare system has collapsed. The agency also refuted reports of a tuberculosis outbreak, saying a suspected case had tested negative.

Gastroenteritis is an inflammation of the stomach and intestines, usually caused by a viral or bacterial infection, with symptoms including diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal cramps. Scabies is a contagious skin infestation caused by microscopic mites that produces intense itching and a rash, while impetigo is a bacterial skin infection characterized by sores that can rupture and develop yellowish crusts.

More than 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta on July 30-31, many by swimming or crossing coastal breakwaters – a figure equivalent to roughly 70% of the enclave’s regular population. The influx has overwhelmed reception centers and put additional pressure on healthcare and law-enforcement resources. Most of those who entered have since been returned to Morocco, but up to 11,000 are estimated to remain in Ceuta, according to local officials.

Once the naked hatred of German journalism prompted Vladimir Zelensky’s most fervent British backers to criticize Ukraine’s “gamification of killing” Russians, things went from bad to worse for Kiev – on the battlefield and in the diplomatic arena.

Russia punishes Ukraine with ‘harsher methods’

Vladimir Zelensky’s long-range strikes against Russia have already provoked a fearsome response from Moscow, but the Ukrainian leader doubled down this week, with his forces killing more than a dozen civilians in drone raids on Tatarstan and Krasnodar. 

Russia responded by wiping out military-industrial and dual-use facilities in Kiev and Zaporozhye and destroying port infrastructure on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. RT has already covered Russia’s campaign against Ukrainian ports in detail, which Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said will intensify in an interview released on Friday morning.

Zelensky’s moaning, as Lavrov calls it, has been directed at his Western donors, who possess a dwindling supply of Patriot interceptor missiles that could help repel Russia’s missile barrages. However, the US used the bulk of the world’s Patriots in its war on Iran, and the Europeans aren’t in the mood to share. Moreover, as RT explained, Zelensky’s math is fundamentally flawed. Even if he were to get all the missiles he wanted, he’d only have enough interceptors to repel two attacks at best.

With all other options exhausted, Ukraine reportedly asked Russia for a truce with regard to attacks on shipping in the Black Sea. Moscow rejected the proposal, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accusing Kiev of “brazen acts of terrorism” against civilian ships and ruling out “half-measures that merely grant the Kiev regime a temporary ​breathing space.”

Zelensky learns how to lose friends and influence

Diplomatic relations between Poland and Ukraine are already strained due to Kiev’s stubborn veneration of Nazi collaborators, and the Polish public’s goodwill toward Ukraine is evaporating. According to a poll published on Wednesday, 67% of Poles support the deportation of unemployed Ukrainian men living in Poland as refugees.

Across the Atlantic, US Vice President JD Vance reportedly gave Zelensky a dressing down for attacking Black Sea shipping. According to the Financial Times, Vance’s patience reached its limit when Ukrainian forces attacked ships bound for a partly US-owned terminal in Russia’s port of Novorossiysk. 

Russia frees US Marine

Diplomacy paid off for the US this week when Russia agreed to release former US Marine Robert Gilman, who was arrested in 2022 after a drunken assault on a policeman in Russia. Gilman was pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and arrived back on US soil on Tuesday.

Welcome home, Robert Gilman! 🇺🇸

After more than four years detained in Russia, American citizen Robert Gilman is finally back on U.S. soil.

Thanks to the Trump Admin, another American is safely home where he belongs.

God bless Robert Gilman, and GOD BLESS AMERICA. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Tn8C8h9QBD

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 12, 2026

“After my discussions with President Vladimir Putin, Russia has agreed to release him, very much on a humanitarian basis,” US President Donald Trump stated. “We appreciate this decision.” US envoy Steve Witkoff apparently played a central role in the negotiations and thanked Putin for his “personal ​engagement throughout this process.” 

Gilman’s mental health has reportedly deteriorated in incarceration, and he is expected to receive treatment at home in Texas.

Germany’s spy expansion

Under the new legislation tabled by Merz’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, the BND will be permitted to carry out offensive cyberattacks on Russia and other foreign adversaries, while the BfV will be allowed to infiltrate Germans’ smartphones and computers. The new powers were described as “a revolution” by Dobrindt. Moscow described them as another example of Germany’s “rabid militarization,” while Germany’s right-wing AfD warned that they will turn the BfV “from an early warning system of democracy into an architect of a totalitarian reality.” We’ve seen this before in Germany, and it did not end well. 

The BfV’s new powers will likely be turned against the AfD, the country’s most popular political party and a poll-topper in Saxony. The agency has already tried to list the party as a “right-wing extremist” group and been granted permission to surveil the AfD’s Bavaria chapter. 

The rise of Islamic NATO

As Europe tears itself apart, the Middle East’s Sunni powers are drawing closer together – with profound implications for the region. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan signed the ‘Mecca Pact’ this week, agreeing to treat an attack against one member as an attack against all three. However, it remains unclear how the three countries would react to such an attack. The so-called ‘Islamic NATO’ has already been criticised in Iran as a “paper agreement” that will make Saudi Arabia no safer than the presence of American troops on its soil. 

If any country is concerned about the pact, it’s India, foreign policy analyst Robinder Nath Sachdev told RT India on Tuesday. With a nuclear-armed Pakistan strengthening its alliances, New Delhi must work out what it needs to do “to counter this new reality, which is a worrisome reality,” he said. He added that India will have to look at “our other partnerships with other nations, including, of course, Russia.”

Tucker meets RT

As the fallout from Tucker Carlson’s political manifesto continues to settle, historian and RT columnist Tarik Cyril Amar looked at why Israel is potentially more worried about a third-party challenge by Carlson than the US Republican establishment is. Meanwhile, RT’s Rick Sanchez sat down with Carlson himself for an exclusive, hour-long interview.

Carlson ruled out any plans to run for president, but unloaded on the US’ “criminal” leadership class, the “permanent bureaucracy,” and the Democrat/Republican consensus on money and foreign policy that has created a “one-party state posing as a democracy.” The conservative journalist revealed how Israel had attempted to recruit him to share the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, and promised to keep speaking out against the neocon “war lobby” and Israeli influence in Washington, no matter the risk.

“What are you going to do about it? Kill me? OK, I’m not afraid of that. I’m a Christian. So I’m just going to keep talking,” he told Sanchez in one particularly powerful exchange. 

Showdown in the West Bank

The US-Israeli alliance seemed to meet its limits this week when a group of armed Israeli settlers laid siege to three Palestinian families in their homes in the West Bank village of Qusra. As it turns out, one of these families had relatives living in the US, and the response from Washington was unusually sharp.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee – who has previously equated Tucker Carlson’s criticism of Israel with antisemitism – described the settlers as “unsettlers” and “Israeli terrorists,” saying that “doing this to this family’s home is criminal.” Huckabee is typically supportive of the illegal settlement of Palestinian land, and his condemnation of this incident looked like an attempt to draw a line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ settlers as much as a message to West Jerusalem.

RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij traveled to Qusra, but was unable to reach the besieged Palestinian homes despite her having received clearance from the IDF due to Israeli settlers who harassed her crew. Watch the full encounter below:

The Kiev regime is fighting a NATO proxy war against Russia at the expense of its own people, while its leadership pockets Western funding, US journalist and geopolitical analyst John Varoli said.

Speaking to RT on Friday, Varoli said Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and “his clique” have “absolutely no interest” in the Ukrainian people, adding that they neither represent, care for, nor serve them.

“The Ukrainian regime serves the interests of the NATO countries, which are fighting a proxy war against Russia,” Varoli said. “They are literally willing to fight until the last Ukrainian,” he added.

Varoli said Zelensky’s “masters” in Brussels, Washington, DC, and London are telling Kiev to keep fighting Russia for as long as they can.

Kiev is refusing to accept the bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers because it would have to compensate their families, the journalist claimed, adding that the regime has “huge amounts of money” and receives billions of dollars from NATO every month.

“But the question is, where is that money going?” Varoli said, adding: “It’s going into the pockets of Zelensky and his oligarchs. That money is being stolen.”

WATCH the full video below.

The US Republican Party must address the economic pressures facing Americans or risk driving more young people toward socialism, Vice President J.D. Vance has said.

Vance made the remarks in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, pointing to the cost of housing and education, access to well-paid jobs, and the ability to start a family as key concerns.

“Our response to that can’t just be to ignore the economic concerns that I think are feeding this rising interest in socialism,” Vance said.

He pointed to what he described as trillions of dollars in new investment flowing into the US, saying it would create middle-class jobs. He also cited stabilizing housing prices and the administration’s push for lower interest rates, while acknowledging that the effects of its policies could take time to be felt.

“My warning to my fellow Republicans would be if we don’t get this right, don’t blame young people for being sympathetic to socialism. We’ve got to blame ourselves,” Vance said.

He added that Republicans could not counter the trend simply by defending the free market, saying “You don’t stop socialism by throwing slogans at people about the free market. You stop socialism by making people’s lives better.”

Vance’s comments come ahead of November’s midterm elections, with the cost of living among the main issues worrying voters. A national poll conducted by Marquette University Law School in May showed inflation and living costs were the public’s top concern, cited by 37% of respondents.

Economic pressures have been compounded by higher energy costs fueled by the US-Israeli war on Iran and by Trump’s tariffs, while high home prices have made homeownership more difficult to attain. The median asking price for a US home stood at $430,000 in June, according to data cited by Forbes.

The divide has also become more visible in electoral politics, with progressive candidates making gains in Democratic primaries across the country. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, rose to prominence on an affordability-focused platform.

Republicans have also faced weak ratings on the economy. The Marquette survey put Trump’s approval on the economy at 30% and on inflation and the cost of living at 22%, while respondents favored Democrats over Republicans on handling both issues.

US hospitals have billed tens of millions of dollars for sex-changing interventions on minors, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The ‘Wolves in White Coats’ report, released this week and citing watchdog research, said hospitals and clinics have billed nearly $120 million for more than 5,500 surgeries and 8,500 courses of hormones or puberty blockers for minors since 2019.

Some providers may have used misleading or potentially fraudulent billing codes to get insurers to cover the interventions, according to HHS. The department identified nearly $50 million in claims for puberty blockers given to children aged nine to 17 under a general hormone-disorder code without a gender-related or early-puberty diagnosis on the same claim.

Hospitals and clinics identified in the report have been referred to the Department of Justice and investigators from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for potential violations of federal law. According to HHS, the observed billing patterns require additional investigation.

The report said the procedures offered hospitals a long-term source of revenue, as minors who begin hormone drugs can remain in medical care for years. Citing outside estimates, it put lifetime costs at up to $75,000 without surgery and as much as $170,000 when operations are included.

“The Biden Administration ... contributed to the expansion and normalization of sex-rejecting interventions through nondiscrimination policies ... and other federal programs,” the report stated.

The move is part of a broader rollback of transgender-related policies since Trump returned to office. His administration has moved to restrict medical transition procedures for minors, bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, and restrict people with gender dysphoria from serving in the US military.

At least 27 US states have enacted restrictions on gender-transition procedures for minors, while several major hospitals have stopped offering some services amid legal challenges, funding pressure and changing medical guidance.

The British government is refusing to disclose information on how an Israeli “information warfare” firm targeted Scotland’s pro-Palestine first minister. Nobody’s saying who ordered the operation, but a trail of clues leads through Africa to Tel Aviv.

RT already covered the French plot in our ‘Wired for War’ series, and BlackCore’s activity in Scotland followed a similar playbook. At least 256 accounts were created to spread disparaging information about First Minister John Swinney, a vocal supporter of Palestine who has publicly stated that “a genocide is unfolding in Gaza as a result of Israel’s actions,” banned public funding to Israeli-linked companies, and called on the British government to recognize the State of Palestine.

The British government has refused two separate Freedom of Information requests filed by The National, a Scottish newspaper. In one response, the government said it would not disclose any information it had on BlackCore, as to do so would “prejudice relations between the United Kingdom and any other state,” The National reported on August 11. In a second response, it explained that the request was denied in order to “avoid giving offence to other nations and retain the trust of our international partners.”

Let’s be clear - a genocide is unfolding in Gaza as a result of Israel’s actions.

We all have a moral and legal responsibility to act, and Scotland will play its part.

Today I have set out a range of diplomatic, economic and humanitarian measures. Read below for more. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/suoMbpNu2j

— John Swinney (@JohnSwinney) September 3, 2025

The other state referenced here is evidently Israel.

Is BlackCore an Israeli intelligence cutout?

Little is known about BlackCore. The company scrubbed its online presence immediately after the Viginum report was published, but according to archived material from its website, BlackCore is “an elite influence, cyber, and technology company built for the modern era of information warfare.” It specializes in “shap[ing] narratives” and “influenc[ing] perceptions” for clients in politics and government, and supposedly has been operating for 15 years.

According to an investigation by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, the company is not registered anywhere in the world, but shares web infrastructure with two companies founded by tech entrepreneur Guy Geyor and lawyer Doron Afik. Both of these firms employ veterans of Israeli intelligence agencies, including one former member of the Israel Defense Forces’ Unit 8200.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said France has demanded information on BlackCore from the Israeli government. However, it is unclear whether Israel has responded.

The Africa connection

BlackCore’s operations went beyond the US and Europe. In the course of their investigation, Vigilum agents discovered that some of the same social media accounts used to spread falsehoods about three left-wing candidates in France were used to spread content promoting Angola’s ruling MPLA movement. The accounts switched their usernames from French to Portuguese to reach Angola’s Portuguese-speaking population, but forgot to switch languages in some cases, continuing to post in French.

Investigators found a BlackCore-associated web address – ‘angola-plan.blackcore.online’ – which detailed a four-week training program that the company provided to the Angolan government in February. The program covered “communicating positive government campaigns” and “social media operations.”

BlackCore was also tied to a project called ‘Politizando Angola’ on multiple social media platforms, and a TikTok account called ‘Deep Dive Africa’. Both accounts use the same branding, and are linked by phone number to a fake Islamic charity that BlackCore used in its French and Scottish operations.

‘Deep Dive Africa’ promoted an Israeli medical mission to Togo in February. A humanitarian project of the Sheba Medical Center, the mission was in no way connected with BlackCore’s election operations. However, the Sheba Medical Center is entirely funded by the Israeli state, meaning BlackCore was using the same web infrastructure to carry out ‘information warfare” in some countries, and state-backed soft power operations in others. 

All roads lead to Israel

The hospital post is not a smoking gun. Rather, it is an example of how every detail in the BlackCore story is another thread leading back to Tel Aviv. The same pattern is borne out across the growing sphere of Israeli private intelligence agencies and cyberwarfare companies: ‘former’ Israeli spies working in the private sector, almost exclusively to advance Israeli interests, often with the tacit backing of the Israeli government.

While it is understandable that Israel would seek to wash its hands of any involvement in foreign interference, the fact that the UK would trade political capital to protect Israel’s reputation – after the EU also refused to investigate Israeli election meddling in Slovenia and Cyprus – raises another uncomfortable question: just how much influence does one Middle Eastern state have on the leaders of Europe?

The US is making military support for NATO members contingent on how closely they align with President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, Bloomberg has reported.

Washington has recently sent NATO members a document containing a series of questions aimed at gauging their alignment with the Trump administration, the agency said.

Governments were asked whether they had “been publicly supportive” of US foreign-policy initiatives, including those in the Middle East and Western Hemisphere, the outlet reported, citing a copy it had reviewed. Washington also wanted to know what “restrictions” individual countries have imposed on US forces operating from military bases on their territory.

The apparent loyalty test comes amid widening tensions between Washington and its traditional European allies, with Trump repeatedly accusing NATO members of relying on US protection while failing to contribute enough to their own defense.

Trump has long been a fierce critic of NATO countries’ defense spending, repeatedly accusing European members of underfunding their militaries and effectively relying on Washington to bankroll their defense.

Earlier this summer, he renewed his criticism ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara, arguing that the US “spends more money on NATO than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit.” He contrasted nearly $1 trillion in annual US defense spending with significantly smaller expenditures by individual European allies.

Defense spending is not the only source of friction, however. Tensions have intensified further over the US war with Iran, with Trump criticizing European allies for refusing to become more directly involved and complaining that “they were not there for us.”

Several NATO members also refused to allow Washington to use jointly operated military bases for offensive operations against Iran. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth branded the restrictions “shameful,” arguing that they had put American troops “at risk.”

The growing disagreements have, in turn, fueled debate in Europe about reducing its reliance on Washington for security. European officials have increasingly discussed “strategic autonomy” and the need to develop greater capacity to defend the continent should US priorities diverge from the rest of NATO.

Two developments in recent days offer a revealing picture of how Russian-Syrian relations are evolving after the change of power in Damascus.

On August 9, after roughly 18 months of negotiations, Russia and Syria agreed on a new memorandum defining the future framework for the use of facilities of the Russian military bases in Tartus and Hmeimim. Almost simultaneously, a delegation from Rossotrudnichestvo (the Russian federal agency responsible for foreign humanitarian and cultural cooperation) delegation held talks with Syrian officials and preparations were announced for reopening the Russian House cultural exchange centre in Damascus. Military cooperation is being reformulated rather than dismantled, humanitarian links are being restored, while trade, food supplies, energy and education continue to connect the two countries.

Much of the Western debate assumed that the fall of Bashar Assad’s government would sharply reduce Russia’s position in Syria. Moscow had been one of Assad’s principal political and military partners, while the forces that replaced his government had fought against the old order. Yet foreign policy is rarely governed by symbolism alone, especially in a country emerging from a devastating conflict. Syria’s new authorities are increasingly judging external partners by a more practical measure. What can each of them offer Syria now, when the country needs reconstruction, food, energy, security and political room for maneuver?

The new Damascus authorities have no past Russia relations to remain loyal to, but they do have present problems they need to manage. Syria faces damaged infrastructure, weak fiscal capacity, serious energy shortages, high dependence on imported food and a still incomplete process of restoring effective state authority. Under such conditions, ideological preferences give way to utility. Partners are assessed by the markets, resources, technologies and security assistance they can provide.

This helps explain why the new Syrian leadership is seeking closer relations with the United States, the European Union, Türkiye and the Gulf states while avoiding a rupture with Moscow. That policy only appears contradictory if Syria is expected to choose one geopolitical camp. Damascus needs Western investment and access to international finance, but it also needs functioning supply chains, energy resources and military expertise. A country that has spent years under sanctions and war has little incentive to close channels that still work.

The discussion around Russian oil illustrates this clearly. In early August, Reuters reported that the Syrian side had signalled to Washington its willingness to substantially reduce purchases of Russian oil. Limiting Moscow’s economic presence is part of Washington’s regional strategy, but Russia has become a major supplier of oil to Syria, and replacing those volumes quickly is much harder than declaring an intention to diversify imports.

Damascus may try to reduce dependence on Russian supplies over time, but diversification is not the same as disengagement. The former increases Syria’s autonomy, while the latter would remove one of the few external channels already functioning at scale. Better relations with the West do not require the elimination of ties with Moscow, just as closer cooperation with Moscow does not prevent Damascus from attracting Western or Gulf investment. The more external options Syria has, the harder it becomes for any single partner to dictate the terms of its foreign policy.

Russia’s importance is most evident when bilateral trade is examined not merely by total value, but by its composition. For Syria, what matters is that Russian supplies are concentrated in sectors directly affecting daily life, social stability and the government’s ability to keep the economy functioning – such as food security.

According to Syrian customs data cited by Reuters, around 85% of the wheat imported by Syria in the 2025-2026 season came from Russia, amounting to approximately 2.9 million tonnes. In a country where bread remains a basic element of mass consumption and household budgets have been weakened by years of conflict and inflation, such supplies have significance far beyond ordinary commerce. Grain affects state procurement, consumer prices, subsidies and public sentiment. A disruption in wheat imports can quickly spill over from the economic sphere and become a political problem.

Russia already has the production capacity, commercial interest and logistical experience needed to deliver large quantities. Abandoning such a source without a reliable substitute would be economically reckless.

The same applies to energy. Russia supplied Syria with around 16.8 million barrels of oil in 2025, while in the first months of 2026 deliveries reached roughly 60,000 barrels per day, an increase of about 75% over a relatively short period. Syrian domestic production remains far below pre-war levels and is insufficient to meet national demand. Imported oil is vital for transport, electricity generation, agriculture, industry, public utilities and reconstruction.

In a fragile post-conflict environment, oil shortages can undermine public confidence and deepen social tension. Western and Gulf actors can offer finance, investment and advanced technologies, but many such opportunities require time and political negotiations. Russian food and energy supplies respond to immediate needs, which is crucial for a government trying to stabilise the country now rather than several years from now.

The new memorandum concerning the Russian military bases in Tartus and Hmeimim is a product of the same pragmatism. It can be seen as a reduction of Russia’s military footprint because Syria is regaining control over part of the civilian infrastructure and the old legal model is being revised – but it is still a restructuring, not a full withdrawal. After 18 months of negotiations, Moscow and Damascus managed to avoid the breakdown of military cooperation, instead finding a way to transform it.

According to the information made public, civilian facilities are to pass under Syrian management, while military sites are expected to be transformed into joint Russian-Syrian training and professional development centres. Part of the Russian military presence is also expected to remain. Its importance lies in creating a model the new Syrian leadership can defend politically. The previous framework was closely associated with the Assad era and could be portrayed as an infringement on sovereignty. The new model gives Damascus greater formal control while preserving access to Russian military expertise.

This compromise would make little sense if Syria had already decided to remove Russia from the country. The 18 months of negotiations suggest the opposite. Damascus wanted different terms, not a complete break, while Moscow wanted to preserve a meaningful role without insisting that previous arrangements remain untouched. The result is a framework better suited to the new political reality.

Syria’s armed forces face a long process of reconstruction. Training, command structures, equipment maintenance, border security and territorial control all require resources and external assistance. It is far from certain that the US or the EU are prepared to take responsibility for rebuilding Syrian defence capabilities comprehensively. Their interests in Syria are also fragmented, shaped mostly by counterterrorism, border security and regional competition. Support for a stable Syria does not necessarily mean support for a militarily stronger and more autonomous Damascus.

Russia has decades of experience dealing with Syrian military institutions, familiarity with much of the equipment in service and long-standing knowledge of the country’s defence infrastructure. Moscow is not Syria’s only possible security partner, but replacing its accumulated expertise quickly would be difficult.

The new Syrian leadership is clearly not trying to reproduce Assad’s foreign policy. Damascus wants better relations with Europe and the United States, investment from the Gulf, expanded trade with Türkiye and reintegration into the international economy. Yet none of these goals requires a break with Russia. In fact, the wider Syria’s network of partners becomes, the more useful Russia may be as one of several external poles that help Damascus preserve strategic flexibility.

Value, not ‘values’

Russia remains important not because Syria’s new authorities share the worldview of their predecessors, but because Moscow still offers tangible value in sectors vital to recovery. It supplies food and energy, retains military expertise and possesses established institutional links. For a government trying to stabilise a country after years of war, predictability and practical capacity can matter more than political sympathy.

Western pressure may influence individual areas of Russian-Syrian cooperation, particularly where energy trade, sanctions and security arrangements are concerned. But persuading Damascus to abandon a partner already embedded in critical supply chains and security structures is much more difficult than urging it to diversify. Syria can cooperate with the West without accepting a zero-sum logic in which every gain in relations with Washington or Brussels must be matched by a loss for Moscow.

The USS Abraham Lincoln has been grappling with dismal conditions for months during the US-Israeli war on Iran, amid mounting reports of severe exhaustion, supply shortages, and mental-health problems among crew members. The problems have sparked an uproar among crew members’ families and prompted demands for answers from US lawmakers.

The vessel, a 5,000-person nuclear-powered Nimitz-class aircraft carrier capable of carrying up to 90 aircraft and conducting more than 100 combat sorties a day at peak capacity, left San Diego in late November. It has now been deployed for more than 260 days, including more than 200 consecutive days at sea – an extraordinary stretch by Navy standards.

On top of that, the flattop has spent much of that time in a combat environment, with Iran claiming to have targeted it on numerous occasions. Even as US officials insist the carrier remains operational, the hardships of a prolonged campaign appear to be taking their toll.

Here is what we know about the issues facing the aircraft carrier and its crew.

What are conditions like aboard the Abraham Lincoln?

The complaints from crew members and their families go well beyond the usual discomforts of a long deployment.

They include shortages of toothpaste, deodorant, and soap, problems with hot and potable water, broken toilets, unreliable laundry facilities, disruptions to food supplies, and mail delays so severe that some care packages reportedly disappeared into the system for months. Other reports describe mold, failing plumbing, and holes worn through parts of the flight deck from extensive use without adequate repairs.

Democratic Congressman Mike Levin claimed that the food situation is so bad that crew members’ meals “came down to half a cup of rice and two tortillas.” The meager meals were first reported by USA Today as early as mid-April, although the Pentagon denied that there were food shortages at the time.

The USS Abraham Lincoln has been at sea for more than 250 days, pushing its crew to the limit. Sailors report exhaustion, deteriorating living conditions, shortages of basic supplies and serious food problems: small portions, poor-quality meals and periods of depleted stocks. The… https://t.co/iWYaeKchzU pic.twitter.com/C4cheR4N2M

— Tom Antonov (@Tom_Antonov) August 13, 2026

According to Maritime Executive, the supply problems are partly due to logistics, as the main base of the 5th Fleet is located in Bahrain, deep inside the Persian Gulf, meaning many shipments must pass through the Strait of Hormuz and risk Iranian strikes.

Is the crew burning out?

There are strong indications that it is. One of the most striking episodes confirmed by CENTCOM occurred on August 3, when a sailor went overboard from the Abraham Lincoln and was recovered roughly an hour later.

🚨🇮🇷🇺🇸 Text messages from a sailor aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln reveal no milk in three months and ROTTEN food arriving at sea...

He reportedly wrote that almost nothing fresh makes it out except meat, because only frozen goods survive the supply run, and called it the worst… pic.twitter.com/ylCgsHap26

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) August 13, 2026

Citing US officials, CNN reported that the Navy treated the incident as a mental-health episode, adding that the sailor was medically evaluated and later removed from the ship for further care.

At a meeting with Navy leaders, another spouse said her husband had sent a message saying he hoped he “doesn’t wake up tomorrow,” according to Stars and Stripes.

“The morale is not good,” one family member said, as cited by MS Now. “Apparently, the ship’s doctor or therapist said they need to hit port soon, or people are going to start, you know, losing their minds.”

Could stress on the flattop lead to violence?

Citing an unnamed “informed military source,” Iranian news agency Tasnim reported earlier this month that seven US Navy personnel had been killed and several others wounded in a violent confrontation aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

According to the report, an adviser to CENTCOM, commander Adm. Brad Cooper, boarded the carrier to address complaints about the prolonged deployment but was booed and pelted with water bottles before the confrontation escalated into a knife fight.

How much pressure has Iran put on the Abraham Lincoln?

Multiple analyses have suggested that Iran,  which is militarily inferior to the US,  has been relying on attritional warfare to hold its ground and gain concessions from Washington. Kamal Kharrazi, head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, said Iran was prepared for a “long war” and argued that the longer the conflict continued, the greater the economic pressure on other countries would become.

As the conflict has dragged on, Tehran has claimed to have mounted numerous attacks on the Abraham Lincoln. On March 1, Iran announced it had fired four ballistic missiles at the carrier, with CENTCOM saying the missiles “didn’t even come close.” Later that month, Tehran claimed that missiles and drones had struck the vessel, rendering it inoperable and forcing it to withdraw – an allegation also rejected by Washington.

In early April, Iran said it had launched multiple waves of attack drones toward the Abraham Lincoln group in the northern Indian Ocean, forcing it to withdraw.

While it is unclear whether the Abraham Lincoln sustained any damage during the attacks, it was hardly operating in a benign environment, with CENTCOM reporting roughly 10,000 aircraft flights and the expenditure of about 1.5 million pounds of ordnance during the mission.

What beef do US lawmakers have with the Pentagon?

On Wednesday, a member of the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, published an open letter to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, raising “serious concerns” about the situation aboard the ship and questioning whether it could sustain continued operations.

“The Lincoln is not an isolated case. Recent carrier deployments have repeatedly stretched beyond their originally anticipated durations, suggesting that extended deployments may be becoming a feature rather than an exception of the Navy’s force-generation model,” he added.

Fellow Senator Ruben Gallego has called for a bipartisan congressional oversight visit to the Abraham Lincoln, casting doubt on Pentagon assurances.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has gone further, blaming Hegseth personally and saying sailors are “paying the price” for Pentagon failures. “When Pete Hegseth was nominated, everyone knew he was completely incompetent... Pete Hegseth must be fired immediately,” he insisted.

What does the Pentagon say in response to the accusations?

Hegseth dismissed reports of poor living conditions and food shortages aboard the Abraham Lincoln as “completely misrepresented,” while acknowledging that some deployments could last longer and be tougher than others.

Meanwhile, the AP reported that the USS George Washington is now moving toward the Middle East from Vietnam to replace the Abraham Lincoln. The redeployment is expected to weaken the US footprint in the Pacific amid tensions with China, however.

Bottom Line

While the Pentagon insists that the Abraham Lincoln “remains fully capable of meeting all mission tasking,” and there is no credible evidence that Iran managed to cripple the ship, its crew appears to have come dangerously close to the breaking point.

After more than eight months of deployment, the vessel appears to be struggling with logistics and supplies of basic amenities, amid growing concerns over its crew members’ mental health. While the Abraham Lincoln is expected to be relieved soon, its performance raises questions about Washington’s overall ability to sustain effective long-term operations against even a militarily inferior adversary.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has won back his seat in parliament, in a by-election boycotted by every other major British party. Farage vacated his seat and triggered the election in an effort to “stick two fingers up to the establishment.”

Farage was declared the winner in his Clacton constituency on Thursday, with the Reform leader taking 63% of the vote, a 17% increase from 2024.

However, Farage’s only opponents this year were novelty and fringe candidates, with the Labour Party, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and Greens boycotting the election. Out of these candidates, Count Binface, a BBC comedian whose costume includes a bin on his head, won 27% of the vote.

The boycott was a calculated move by the UK’s establishment parties aimed at delegitimizing the election. Farage vacated his seat in July in an attempt to win it back with a larger majority than in 2024, an outcome that would have humiliated his opponents in the mainstream parties. In a statement at the time, he described the election as a chance for voters to “stick two fingers up to the establishment.”

LIVE: Nigel Farage declares victory against the establishment. 🔥https://t.co/YNLoGFCdmT

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) August 14, 2026

While Farage was denied the opportunity to defeat Labour and the Conservatives for the second time in two years, he still portrayed his win on Thursday as a “victory against the establishment.”

“I called this by-election because I wanted the people of Clacton to be my judge, not the mainstream media in Britain, and the political establishment who paint us as criminals,” he told supporters after results were announced. “We have beaten the candidate for the uniparty.”

At the time Farage vacated his seat, he had been under investigation by Britain’s parliamentary standards watchdog since May, over a £5 million ($6.7 million) gift he received from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne before he took office in 2024. The probe was set to be expanded after the Sunday Times revealed that he failed to declare funding from convicted fraudster George Cottrell between 2019 and 2024.

Farage maintains that he did nothing wrong, and that Harborne’s donation was “a large personal gift” which will allow him to pay his security bills. Farage insists that he was under no obligation to declare benefits from Cottrell – who allegedly allowed the Reform leader to stay in his properties and avail himself of private security – as he was not in office when he received them.

The investigation was paused when Farage relinquished its seat, but was immediately reopened once results came in on Thursday.

What is there in common between Ukrainians and the highlanders of the Caucasus, and what parallels can be drawn between Russia and Great Britain in the 19th century, and these same countries in the 21st century? In the 19th century, the British Empire fought against the Russian Empire using the highlanders in the Caucasus in a way that’s very similar to how Britain is now using Ukrainians. 

In the 19th century, the Russian and British empires clashed fiercely over spheres of influence in the Caucasus. This geopolitical rivalry made use of all the means available at the time: wars between spies and diplomats, covert operations, arms smuggling, ideological battles, and active media propaganda. Read more about the confrontation between Russia and Britain, the secret operations in the Caucasus, and the lessons that those who now place their trust in Britain should draw from history. 

To India via the Caucasus 

“Britain will defend the freedom-loving nation from Russian aggression,” “British military advisers supplied fighters with weapons to resist the Russian army,” “British diplomats organized elites to combat Russian influence” – such headlines have become commonplace in Western media during the Ukraine conflict. Yet these same phrases could very well describe another historical conflict where British and Russian interests collided: the covert war waged by the British Empire against Russia in the 19th century, aimed at undermining Russian influence in the Caucasus.

At first glance, it might seem odd that events in the Caucasus, occurring far from Britain, could threaten London’s interests. But it only appears so. 

After the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian Empire was at the height of its power. It led the “Holy Alliance” – a coalition of European great powers that shaped continental politics. Additionally, during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Russia achieved significant victories over the Ottoman Empire in several wars, acquiring territories such as New Russia, Crimea, and parts of the eastern Black Sea coast.

Britain, however, perceived this as a direct threat to its interests in India. London believed that Russia wouldn’t stop in the Caucasus but would advance further, potentially threatening Persia. And through Persia, and then Afghanistan, there lay a direct path to India, which was then referred to as the “jewel in the crown” of the British Empire. Although there was no concrete evidence that Russia intended to seize distant India, British elites firmly held this belief. In order to safeguard India against the mythical “Russian threat,” Britain encouraged tensions in the Caucasus.

In service of the Crown

Britain’s active intervention in Russian affairs in the Caucasus was preceded by two wars: the Russo-Persian War of 1826-1828 and the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829. As a result of these military triumphs, Russia solidified its position in Transcaucasia and gained control over much of the eastern coastline of the Black Sea.

Fearing Russia’s growing power in the region, Britain started supplying the Circassians with weapons and ammunition as early as 1830. For instance, in December of that year, six weapon-laden vessels were intercepted off the coast of what is now Abkhazia. However, for a time, these arms shipments remained limited to smuggling.

A turning point in Russia-Britain relations came with the arrival of British diplomat David Urquhart in Istanbul. A highly energetic individual, Urquhart had joined the rebels who fought for Greek independence when he was just 16 years old. After the war, he stayed in the region and developed a keen interest in the politics and culture of the Ottoman Empire. By 1833, he was appointed to the British trade delegation in Istanbul, and in 1835 he became the embassy secretary. It was Urquhart who crafted Britain’s aggressive anti-Russia policy in the Caucasus.

Urquhart initiated the work of British diplomats and spies directly in Circassia, as the Northern and Western Caucasus regions were then called. He attended elder councils and fervently promoted the idea of waging war against Russia. Notably, he was behind the adoption of a “national oath” by the mountain peoples, proposing that the Circassians unite for a common cause against Russia instead of fighting each other. 

He also persuaded the Circassians to take an oath according to which anyone who entered negotiations with the Russians would be killed, their possessions divided among their executioners, and their families sold into slavery. A parallel can be drawn with contemporary Ukrainian politics, where any possibility of peacefully resolving the conflict with Russia is utterly unacceptable, and proponents of such initiatives face severe repercussions.

Britain also supplied the highlanders with arms. British intelligence agents James Bell and James Longworth oversaw smuggling operations that delivered firearms to the Caucasus, bribing tribal leaders and elders in the region. For an extended period, they lived undercover in the Caucasus, adopting Muslim names and fictitious titles. On behalf of the British government, they promised the Circassians that Britain was committed to protecting their independence and even vowed to fight against Russia. Throughout the 1830s, dozens of British agents were active in the Caucasus.

Most importantly, Urquhart focused on a propaganda war. An ardent Russophobe, he convinced the British public that Russia posed a deadly existential threat to the British Empire. He argued that Russia was preparing to conquer Persia and further invade India. The British press played a crucial role in spreading fears of a “Russian threat.” 

Newspapers reported on the struggle of the “freedom-loving highlanders” against the “barbaric Russian oppressors.” They conveniently overlooked the fact that the highlanders themselves were quite savage at the time – slave trade and blood feuds were common in the region, and the enlightened Russian Empire resolutely opposed this. 

But just like in Ukraine today, the London media exaggerated the losses of the Russian Army, insisting that the decisive support of the highlanders would ensure Russia’s defeat in the Caucasus.

The ‘Vixen’ case 

While Britain’s supply of weapons to the highlanders and its organizational and ideological efforts harmed Russia, this did not decisively influence the course of the conflict. British hawks opted for provocation, aiming to ignite a conflict between Russia and Britain and other Western European nations. The pretext they found was rather unusual.

Russia was defending its legitimate interests in the Caucasus and sought to halt arms shipments to the highlanders. To this end, the Russian Navy patrolled the eastern Black Sea coast, directing all foreign commercial vessels to only two ports: Anapa and Redoubt Kali (near modern-day Poti). Britain viewed this as a violation of free trade and resorted to blatant provocation.

In November 1836, Russian military brig the Ayaks detained British schooner the Vixen in the port of Sujuk-Qale (modern-day Novorossiysk). The British vessel was unloading arms intended for the highlanders: eight cannons, nearly 13 tons of gunpowder, and a large quantity of firearms. Clearly, this wasn’t about free trade; this was direct military support for Russia’s adversaries.

The expedition was organized by none other than Urquhart, while the captain of the schooner was the British spy Bell. Remarkably, Bell didn’t hide his intentions; he openly sought to provoke the Russian fleet. After the capture, the Vixen was confiscated, and its crew expelled to Türkiye. 

Russian Emperor Nicholas I refused to back down. Instead, he placed the armed forces on heightened alert and demonstrated an unwavering commitment to defending Russia’s interests in the Caucasus. No one in Europe was willing to wage war against Russia either.

As a result, London had to recall Urquhart from Istanbul and abandon all its demands regarding Russian influence in the Caucasus.

Not just the Crimean War

The war in the Caucasus could have concluded as early as the late 1830s. However, the British weren’t ready to accept defeat and began preparing for another conflict.

Agitators infiltrated the eastern Caucasus, modern-day Chechnya and Dagestan, inciting the highlanders to resist Russia. British agents assured them that London would support a rebellion against Russia and provide the necessary weapons and supplies.

The strategy was based on the assumption that Russia would become bogged down in the Caucasus and unable to counter British actions elsewhere. And that’s indeed what happened. When the Crimean War broke out from 1853 to 1856, 270,000 Russian troops were stationed in the Caucasus to maintain order in the region. 

Simultaneously with the onset of the Crimean War, attacks on Russian settlements intensified, led by the forces of Imam Shamil, who controlled territories in Chechnya and Dagestan. In the North Caucasus, the Circassians launched assaults on Novorossiysk and Yekaterinodar (modern-day Krasnodar). While these raids had little impact on the overall course of battles, they undoubtedly diverted the focus and resources of the Russian command.

Throughout the Crimean War, the British press frequently raised the issue of “Circassian independence.” At the Paris Conference, London also highlighted the Circassian question, demanding that Russia recognize Circassia’s independence or, at the very least, withdraw troops from the Caucasus; in exchange London would prevent the highlanders from attacking Russian territories. 

Despite this diplomatic pressure, the Russian Empire successfully defended its rights in the Caucasus. The likely reason lies in the fact that after more than 20 years of fierce struggle against Russia, the highlanders didn’t achieve any considerable progress. As for Russia, even amid a brutal war with the leading European powers of the time, it managed to retain control over the Caucasus.

Last attempt

Although the Crimean War ended in defeat for the Russian Empire, its position in the Caucasus remained stable. In an attempt to undermine Russia and lay the groundwork for future operations, the British dispatched a group of insurgents to the region in 1857.

The contingent was led by Polish military officer Teofil Lapinski, who participated in the 1848 uprising and fought against the Austrians in modern-day Ukraine and Hungary. During the Crimean War, Lapinski fought against Russia while serving in the Polish Corps, which was part of the Ottoman Army. 

When, after the Crimean War, it became clear that Circassia had no chance of achieving independence, Lapinski began planning a military operation in the area. His mission was financed by pro-British General Zamojski and the Circassian elites that had settled in the Ottoman Empire. The intellectual driving force behind this operation was Stratford de Redcliffe, the British ambassador in Istanbul. Leveraging his considerable influence at the Sultan’s court, he secured the support of Ottoman officials and supplied the group with arms and ammunition.

Russian envoy Apollinary Butenev managed to uncover the plot and alerted the governor of the Caucasus, Prince Baryatinsky. Nevertheless, British steamship the Kangaroo, commanded by Captain Neggs, eluded Russian cruisers, and in February 1857, the insurgents landed in Tuapse.

The insurgent unit was bolstered by defectors from the Russian Army, primarily Poles and Ukrainians, increasing its numbers to around 800 fighters. For about a year and a half, supported by the Circassian nobility, Lapinski effectively resisted the Russian Army. He skillfully utilized the terrain and was supported by the British and Turks.

However, General Philipson, who commanded Russian forces in this part of the Caucasus, successfully recruited one of Lapinski’s associates, who relayed crucial information about Lapinski’s actions to the imperial troops. During a bold Russian naval landing in Gelendzhik, Lapinski narrowly escaped capture. Additionally, the Russians managed to cut off supply lines for weapons and reinforcements to Lapinski’s forces and, having gathered reserves, inflicted several painful defeats on the insurgents.

The situation worsened when the British realized the inevitable defeat of the Circassians and their insurgent allies and withdrew their support. By the end of 1859, Lapinski and what remained of his insurgent group retreated to Istanbul.

That same year, Russian troops captured Imam Shamil, the leader of the highland peoples of the Northeast Caucasus. Though some scattered groups continued to resist, the overall campaign was over. Hundreds of thousands of Circassians unwilling to live under Russian rule relocated to the Ottoman Empire.

It was also a triumph for Russia over Britain, which, despite all its diplomacy, intelligence efforts, and covert operations, failed to overcome the strength of Russian intelligence services, diplomacy, and army. 

This serves as an important reminder to the nations and states that count on the support of Britain when waging war against Russia. While they may have some occasional success, ultimately, the outcome will always be the same.

Palestinian residents of the West Bank village of Qusra have been ordered to leave their homes after a days-long siege and repeated attacks by Israeli settlers, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declaring the area a closed military zone in what it claims is a move to protect civilians.

In an interview with RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij, Han Abdul Karim Hassan, a besieged Palestinian resident of Qusra, said the IDF declared the village a military zone after days of enabling terror by the settlers.

“The army came and entered the area while I was standing here, accompanied by a whole procession of settlers, so I asked them, ‘Aren’t you here because of the settlers?’” Hassan said. “Then they told us, evacuate the house now.”

“Then the girl called me, and I told her not to come out; in other words, I told her, ‘Don’t come out because you’ll be killed,’” he added.

Hassan stressed that Jewish settlers established the outpost in January, launching daily attacks and intimidation. He said they tore down the gates of the farm and the doors of the house, blocked roads, and cut off electricity, water, and food supplies.

“That situation has been going on for two weeks, and they still haven’t resolved it,” he added. “My children are exhausted, they’re being confined.”

Earlier this year, Israel allocated 1.3 billion shekels ($431 million) for 34 new West Bank settlements, as its expansionist policies face criticism from the UN, Arab countries, and EU members. Settler violence against Palestinians has also surged since Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.

Watch RT’s full report from the area below:

A NATO fighter jet has destroyed a drone that entered Latvian airspace, the US-led bloc has said.

The announcement came as Ukraine carried out a major UAV attack against Russia’s northwestern Leningrad Region on Friday. A total of 54 drones were shot down or intercepted above the region overnight, local governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said. A fire broke out at the key Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga during the raid, but it was swiftly extinguished, according to the governor.

There have been multiple reports in recent months of Ukrainian drones violating the airspace of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Finland, or crashing inside those countries, while on their way to Russia.

NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said on Friday that “this morning, we saw Italian Eurofighters based in Lithuania and Turkish F-16s out of Estonia scramble, with one Eurofighter downing a drone over Latvian airspace.”

The Latvian Defense Ministry also confirmed the incident, saying in a statement that “fighter jets participating in the NATO Baltic Air Policing mission successfully shot down a foreign unmanned aerial vehicle.”

“This is well-known to everyone, and we are not going to prove anything to anyone here,” Peskov stressed.

British energy giant Shell’s plan to search for oil and gas off South Africa’s Wild Coast has come to an end after the African country’s Constitutional Court set aside its exploration rights on Friday.

The ruling overturns a 2024 Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) decision that had upheld the exploration right. That decision gave the mineral resources department a chance to keep the project alive by going back to the Wild Coast communities for the proper public consultation that never happened in the first place.

Impact Africa was granted the right in 2014 and brought Shell in on a half share seven years later, with the two companies spending about R1.1bn on it. It was first scrapped by the Makhanda High Court in 2022, which found the communities had never been properly told what a seismic survey off their coast would involve.

The court found that consulting the communities now, more than a decade late, and then taking the decision again would not repair the violation. “Consultation is not merely about the opportunity to express a view or influence an outcome,” the court said.

“To tell communities, more than a decade after the fact, that they may now be consulted, would not be curative to their right to dignity.

“Instead, it would say to them that the violation of their rights was not a matter of substance but rather a matter of process.”

Any other outcome, it held, “would allow financial investment to outweigh grave constitutional violations and would signal that the rights of affected parties are subordinate to commercial interests”.

The Wild Coast is a 250km strip of Eastern Cape shoreline carrying customary fishing rights and spiritual practices for the communities living along it. Impact Africa applied for the right in 2013 and was granted it on April 29 2014, then had it renewed in 2017 and 2021 without doing any meaningful exploration in its first three-year term.

The director-general signed off in June 2021 on the transfer of a 50% participating interest in the right to Shell. In October that year Shell gave notice that it would start a 3D seismic survey along the coast, and Sustaining the Wild Coast, All Rise Attorneys for Climate and Environmental Justice, members of the Umgungundlovu and Dwesa-Cwebe communities, Wild Coast fishers and Kei Mouth Fisheries obtained an interdict stopping it that December. Natural Justice and Greenpeace later joined the case.

The SCA agreed the right had been granted unlawfully but suspended the setting aside so that the minister could still decide a third renewal application, with a further round of public participation to cure the defects. The communities took that order to the Constitutional Court, which heard argument in September last year and found the renewal process does not allow for the kind of consultation the SCA had in mind.

In a dissent, justice Owen Rogers, with justice Savage agreeing, said there were no grounds to interfere with the SCA’s remedy and would have preserved the possibility of a final three-year exploration period after proper consultation.

Rogers accepted that the communities’ right to be consulted had been neglected and their cultural, religious and environmental concerns not properly considered, but held that a fair remedy had to accommodate all sides. The majority’s order, he said, had consigned the application to “an impermissible twilight zone: supposedly neither granted nor refused, but practically incapable of ever being granted”.

First published by IOL

More than 500 people have been evacuated in the southwestern French department of Landes as wildfires continue to spread and threaten nearby communities.

Prefect Gilles Clavreul ordered an expansion of the evacuation zone after the blaze grew to cover around 1,100 hectares, or roughly 2,700 acres, officials said on Friday. Some 525 people have now been moved to safety, up from around 400 on Thursday, when the latest fire broke out.

France is among several European countries battling wildfires amid a spell of extreme heat that has caused health emergencies and disruptions to power generation across the continent. Temperatures in Landes are expected to reach around 36°C, raising the risk of fresh flare-ups, fire chief Arnaud Fabre warned, according to French media.

Around 500 firefighters have been deployed to contain the blaze. Flames reportedly advanced to within a few hundred meters of the community of Luglon, although no homes or other property have so far been reported destroyed.

”The next fifteen hours will be decisive,” Clavreul told reporters.

🔥 L'incendie de Luglon, dans les Landes, est toujours actif mais a perdu en intensité

🌳 Les flammes ont parcouru 1 100 hectares

🚒 500 sapeurs-pompiers et sapeurs-sauveteurs sont mobilisés, dont des renforts venus de plusieurs départements français

✈️ Un hélicoptère… pic.twitter.com/TVGH4ubDET

— Association Prévention & Signalement Feux De Forêt (@asso_psfdf) August 14, 2026

Landes is heavily covered by pine forests and is particularly vulnerable to wildfires. The area burned in the current fire season has already surpassed levels recorded during the severe wildfire year of 2022. Across France, around 120,000 hectares, or nearly 300,000 acres, have reportedly burned.

The French Interior Ministry has said that 420 people were detained on suspicion of starting fires, either deliberately or through negligence.

The only nuclear power plant in Romania has been completely shut down due to record-low Danube River levels, state-owned energy company Nuclearelectrica announced on Thursday.

River water is essential for cooling many European nuclear plants, making low levels an increasing constraint on power generation. The severe heatwave and drought across Europe have pushed the Danube and Rhine, two of the region’s most vital rivers, to historic lows, disrupting stable electricity generation in several countries while hampering industrial output and major trade routes.

Cernavoda, which accounts for about 20% of Romania’s power output, has two reactors, each with a capacity of 706 MW. In late July, Nuclearelectrica shut down one of them as water levels in the drought-hit river fell dramatically.

Last week, Romanian authorities sank four rock-filled barges near the Danube’s Bala Canal in an unprecedented effort to redirect water toward the Cernavoda plant after the military blasted a channel through the riverbed. Water levels, however, ultimately fell below the threshold needed to keep the reactor operating, forcing the management to disconnect it from the power grid.

At the same time, Bucharest declared a state of energy emergency for August, urging businesses and households to voluntarily reduce consumption during peak evening hours. The government has prepared a system to cut power for industrial consumers in ‌stages and with prior notice if needed.

The energy strain has been felt across the region, with Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant forced to sharply cut output as the Danube fell to record lows.

France has also reduced nuclear generation amid high river temperatures and low water levels. Earlier this week, French state-run energy group EDF said a massive swarm of jellyfish had forced the operator to shut down three reactors at Gravelines, one of the largest nuclear power plants in the country.

The severe drought has hit hydropower generation in Italy, while Norway’s reservoirs have fallen to their lowest level in three decades.

Analysts warn the reactor cuts and outages could increase electricity import dependence among the bloc’s most vulnerable countries and drive up power prices across the EU. The disruption could further deepen the bloc’s energy crunch, which began with the loss of cheap Russian gas following Ukraine-related sanctions on Moscow. The strain has worsened this year amid the US war on Iran and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key global energy shipping route.

Western governments are using the term ‘shadow fleet’ to justify what amounts to unlawful attacks on Russian maritime trade, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Countries supporting Ukraine have sought to limit Moscow’s oil revenues by imposing a price cap on Russian crude exports. As enforcement proved ineffective, Western authorities increasingly began targeting vessels suspected of transporting Russian cargo, including through detentions based on unilateral sanctions, documentation, and other alleged violations. Proposals to confiscate and sell seized oil and transfer the proceeds to Kiev have also reportedly been discussed.

“They de facto enacted a ban on Russia’s ability to sell energy resources, while designating all ships which are not obeying the European Union, no matter the flag these ships sail under, as being part of the so-called ‘shadow fleet’,” Lavrov said in an interview published on Friday.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that it could retaliate against what it describes as piracy and theft on the high seas. On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin said Russia “will be forced to take mirror responses” if actions targeting its maritime trade continue, adding that Moscow would decide for itself where and how such measures would be applied.

Lavrov reiterated the warning, saying the Russian Navy could begin “focusing on the ships serving countries which have made pillaging and piracy their official policy.”

At least a dozen vessels accused by Western governments of belonging to Russia’s so-called ‘shadow fleet’ have reportedly been detained since last year. The UK and France have taken prominent roles in the interdictions, while Germany, Belgium, and Estonia have also participated in such operations.

A blaze broke out at the key Russian Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga after a Ukrainian drone strike on Friday, Leningrad Region Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko has said.

The northwestern region, which surrounds Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg, was targeted by 54 UAVs overnight, Drozdenko wrote in a post on Telegram on Friday morning.

The fire at the port of Ust-Luga was extinguished after several hours. There were no deaths or injuries, the governor wrote.

The port area, which is home to a major gas-processing complex, as well as Europe’s largest oil terminal specializing in the transshipment of petroleum products from rail to sea tankers, has been targeted by Ukraine on a number of occasions in recent months.

St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport said that it had been forced to reschedule some flights due to aerial incursions.

Also on Friday, Ukraine struck a residential building in the city of Bryansk in western Russia, killing one person and injuring at least six others, according to Bryansk Region’s acting governor, Egor Kovalchuk.

The Defense Ministry in Moscow said that a total of 553 Ukrainian UAVs were shot down or intercepted by electronic warfare means above 19 Russian regions overnight.

Moscow has condemned Ukrainian drone strikes on infrastructure and residential areas inside Russia as terrorist attacks aimed at compensating for Kiev’s setbacks on the battlefield where Russian forces have continued their steady advance.

Russia has responded by intensifying long-range missile and drone strikes against Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities and logistics infrastructure. Moscow maintains that it does not target civilians and that its strikes are directed solely at military targets and infrastructure supporting Kiev’s forces.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, a total of 14 such strikes took place over the past week, hitting weapons and drones production plants, logistics centers, fuel, energy and transport infrastructure, military airfields and ports where cargo used by Kiev’s troops is being unloaded and stored.

India has expanded a pilot scheme that uses Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to transfer welfare payments to two federally administered territories, as it races ahead with testing the digital rupee among a wider audience.

The digital rupee for direct-benefit-transfers initiative was launched in the Union Territories of Chandigarh, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli on Friday. It aims to cut out middlemen from government-run beneficiary schemes, leveraging the digital rupee’s traceability and transparency.

Those receiving the digital money in their wallets can purchase foodgrains from recognized merchants through a secure, traceable, and real-time digital payment mechanism – eliminating the leakages and corruption that have long bedeviled welfare schemes in the country.

The proof-of-concept pilot was earlier rolled out in federally administered Puducherry, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat.

The RBI governor said on Tuesday that all BRICS nations are discussing linking their payment systems and CBDCs as they explore ways to reduce the costs and increase the speed of cross-border payments.

BRICS members China, India, Russia, and Brazil have already implemented pilot rollouts of CBDCs.

Mali’s transitional leader, General Assimi Goita, has granted a presidential pardon to French national Yann Christian Bernard Vezilier, who was serving a 20-year prison sentence for undermining the West African country’s security.

The Malian government announced the move in a decree issued on Thursday, saying it requires Vezilier’s “immediate removal” from the West African country.

The authorities stressed that the clemency “does not call into question the facts established” by the court during a trial in which “all the rights of the defense were respected.”

Vezilier was arrested in Bamako in August 2025 alongside several Malian military officers, including two generals. Bamako accused him of working for French intelligence and recruiting political figures, civil-society representatives, and military personnel for activities intended to destabilize the transitional government.

France confirmed after his arrest that Vezilier worked at its embassy in Bamako but rejected the accusations as “baseless.” The French Foreign Ministry argued that he held diplomatic accreditation and was protected from arrest under the Vienna Convention.

The case further strained already fraught relations between Mali and its former colonial ruler. Ties between Bamako and Paris deteriorated after the military seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021. Mali and its allies Niger and Burkina Faso have since expelled French forces, accusing Paris of supporting terrorism to undermine their military-led governments. The three Sahel states have turned to new partners, including Russia, to combat a protracted jihadist insurgency they say French troops failed to quell during a decade-long counterterrorism mission.

Russian forces have struck a railway hub at the Ukrainian Danube port of Izmail, the Defense Ministry in Moscow reported on Friday, as Russia continues to target logistics networks in Ukraine’s Odessa Region.

According to the ministry, overnight drone strikes hit railway infrastructure in Izmail used for “unloading, storing, and transporting military cargo and fuel supplied to the Ukrainian armed forces.”

The Russian military had also targeted infrastructure at the port the previous night, along with a temporary troop deployment site, according to a ministry report issued on Thursday. A military command post at the port of Reni some 45 km to the west was also struck, Moscow said.

Izmail and Reni, along with the port of Ust-Dunaisk in Vilkovo, are located along the Danube River separating Ukraine’s Odessa Region from Romania. The facilities have become increasingly important to Ukrainian logistics as access through Black Sea routes has come under growing pressure from Russian attacks.

Moscow has started regularly targeting vessels serving Ukrainian maritime ports, describing the campaign as retaliation for repeated Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian ships in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

Kiev’s attacks were part of what Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky described last month as a 40-day “pressure campaign.” The effort coincided with a diplomatic effort to secure supplies of a significant number of Patriot interceptor missiles, which many observers said was a failure.

Pressure on Ukraine’s maritime infrastructure has also continued. In its latest report, the Russian Defense Ministry said two tugboats were hit off Nikolaev.

Russia will intensify its military campaign in Ukraine and seek to destroy every element used by the West to sustain Kiev’s war effort, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

The top diplomat was commenting on actions by Ukraine and its Western supporters that they claim are intended to pressure Moscow into peace negotiations. Russia continues to seek a “lasting, reliable and sustainable settlement” to the conflict and cannot agree to suspend it, Lavrov told Russian media.

His remarks came in response to a series of Ukrainian attacks that caused mass civilian casualties, including incidents in Starobelsk in May and Gelendzhik earlier this month. Russian officials, including Lavrov, have described the drone strikes as deliberate acts of terrorism.

“We will not sink to their level. Instead, we will adopt much harsher methods to destroy everything that enables the West to fuel Kiev’s war machine. We are already doing this, and they are already moaning.” he said.

The minister also reiterated that Ukrainian and Western proposals to freeze the conflict along the current front line are unacceptable. He argued that doing so under present conditions would amount to betraying both the Soviet victory over the Axis powers in World War II and the broader history of Russian statehood.

Moscow has repeatedly accused the Ukrainian government of embracing neo-Nazi ideology and pursuing policies aimed at suppressing Russian language, culture, and identity in the country.

Last month, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky announced a 40-day “pressure campaign” that included large-scale attacks on Russian civilian vessels, energy infrastructure and facilities linked to e-commerce giant Wildberries. Kiev has argued that the long-range strikes demonstrate that Ukraine has a viable strategy for confronting Russia and bolster its case for additional Western military assistance, particularly Patriot interceptor missiles needed to counter Russian retaliatory strikes.

According to Reuters, Zelensky is now seeking a limited ceasefire in the Black Sea and has conveyed his proposal through an intermediary. Turkish officials have also publicly called for a pause in hostilities in the area.

Lavrov argued that Russia did not initiate the latest escalation and criticized what he described as the failure of some countries to condemn Ukrainian attacks on neutral vessels, including oil tankers contracted to carry Kazakh crude through the Russian port of Novorossiysk.

“Neither Türkiye nor the United States publicly declares that such actions by Ukrainian terrorists are unacceptable,” the minister said.

An American missionary abducted in Niger last year has been released after spending more than nine months in captivity, the Christian organization Serving In Mission (SIM) said on Friday.

“Kevin is in good health and is currently in the care of US officials,” the group said, adding that he is expected to reunite with his wife Krista, their children, and other relatives shortly.

Rideout, a missionary pilot, was kidnapped in the capital, Niamey, on October 21, 2025. According to reports at the time, three unidentified men seized him before apparently taking him out of the city. 

No group publicly claimed responsibility for the abduction, and the circumstances surrounding his release, including who held him and whether any deal was reached to secure his freedom, remain unclear.

The kidnapping came amid persistent security problems across Niger and the wider Sahel, where armed groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Islamic State have operated for years. Foreign nationals have increasingly become targets: an Austrian woman was abducted in Agadez in January 2025, two Chinese nationals were kidnapped the following month, and a Swiss woman was seized from her home in Agadez in April.

In another high-profile case, two employees of a Russian geological exploration company were freed in neighboring Mali in April after spending nearly two years in captivity. They were abducted in Niger’s Tillaberi region in July 2024 by JNIM, an Al-Qaeda-linked militant group, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

Russia’s Arctic region of Arkhangelsk is in talks with India on leveraging the economic potential of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), a top local official has said.

“For India, the NSR is truly beginning to take on a new dimension,” the governor of Arkhangelsk Region, Aleksandr Tsybulsky, told RT India on the sidelines of the ‘Arctic – Regions’ Forum, where India is a key partner.

India plans to send its first cargo ship along the NSR, also called the Arctic route, next year, a top official attending the forum said on Thursday, adding that New Delhi sees “huge possibilities” in the route.

The options being discussed between India and Arkhangelsk include those “from building ships for India at shipyards in the Arkhangelsk region, to using our port facilities to deliver cargo from India and to export cargo to India, and technological options such as placing and locating production around the ports of the Arkhangelsk Region,” Tsybulsky said.

Located on Russia’s Arctic coast, the city of the same name sits on the Northern Dvina River and is a major cargo hub linked to the NSR.

‘For India, the NSR is Truly Beginning to Take On a New Dimension’ - Alexander Tsybulsky, Governor of the Arkhangelsk Region

Tsybulsky revealed that the parties are discussing a range of opportunities at the ‘Arctic-Regions’ forum in Arkhangelsk.

‘From building ships for India… https://t.co/rZnUnYfZQc pic.twitter.com/nv3Hz7vFQe

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 13, 2026

The NSR is a 5,600-km sea passage that runs through Russia’s Arctic waters. It is covered by thick ice for most part of the year, but climate change and receding sea ice are widening the annual window for navigation. Still, specialized ice-strengthened ships are required to navigate the NSR. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said separately that Moscow was seeing “growing interest” from countries including China and India, wishing to engage in exploiting the economic opportunities offered by the NSR.

Russia is investing heavily in the infrastructure of the Arctic route, and Moscow is happy with the attention the effort is getting from its global partners, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said at the forum, Interfax reported.

“We can see that our Chinese and Indian colleagues are the most enthusiastic,” he said.

“We very much hope that we will be able to use our Arctic resources both in our own interests and in the interests of… our partners, which will make us and them stronger in the increasingly competitive global economic and political environment,” said Grushko, adding “the Arctic as a region should remain a zone of low tensions, and we are doing everything to keep it this way.”

Brad Pitt has started drinking again and this really is cause for celebration among millions of ordinary people around the world, because after all, what brings us closer to the great and famous, but our vices?

I have often heard people who enjoy a glass of cognac in the morning point out that Winston Churchill used to do much the same, but when asked in what other respects they resemble the First Lord of the Admiralty, twice British prime minister, and Nobel Prize winner, they usually have less to say. And now, if Brad Pitt has started drinking again, perhaps he has become a little closer to us ordinary people, or perhaps we have become closer to him.

But if Pitt has started drinking again, there must have been a reason he stopped, given in 2019, Pitt spoke openly about giving up alcohol. “I’d taken it as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges,” he said, and by then, he had been sober for about three years.

Of course, it wasn’t as though he had accidentally got drunk for the first time in his life that day, and the point isn’t how much someone consumes on one particular occasion, it’s the cumulative effect. Alcohol can erode a person’s character slowly and gradually, so gradually that the person himself may barely notice, with good physical health, professional success, wealth, and modern medicine allowing someone with a serious drinking problem to remain highly functional for an extraordinarily long time.

Brad Pitt was never found unconscious under a fence and that particular image is worth mentioning because, in our society, lying under a fence is traditionally regarded as the definitive proof that someone has finally become an alcoholic. But alcoholism rarely looks like that, and many people with serious alcohol problems remain successful, go to work, raise families, and are seldom seen visibly drunk. However, money and status don’t change what ethanol does to the human body.

Then came sobriety, but now, according to a recent interview, Pitt has begun allowing himself an occasional drink again. Bottles were noticed at his home, and when asked about them he reportedly described what he was doing as “moderate drinking.”

Here’s what I would tell you, dear Brad Pitt, should you ever care to listen: those morning cognac drinkers are no more Churchill than I am Brad Pitt. I’ve never appeared in a film, I’ve never seen Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Aniston up close, I’ve won neither an Oscar nor a Golden Globe, millions of female admirers have never written to me, and advertisers have somehow resisted offering me multimillion-dollar contracts.But there’s one respect in which you and I are not merely similar but indistinguishable, because illness is wonderfully democratic and dear Brad, I too am an alcoholic.

You are 62 years old and by my standards, you possess an almost unlimited amount of money and access to the finest medical care in the world, but you know something as well as I do, for an alcoholic, the idea of “moderate drinking” is a dangerous one. A person who returns to alcohol after years of sobriety doesn’t necessarily return as the person he was before he began drinking, but decades of habits and associations are still there.

That’s the insidious thing about alcoholism as gradually, every important event becomes connected with alcohol. Celebration means alcohol, disappointment means alcohol, meeting friends means alcohol, being alone means alcohol, and success, failure, boredom, anxiety, holidays, funerals, Friday evenings all mean alcohol. Eventually the brain finds a reason to drink in almost everything.

The way out begins with understanding that life is richer, more interesting, and ultimately more fulfilling than the experiences alcohol promises us. Pitt already knows this and he’s spoken about Alcoholics Anonymous and about the men he met there with considerable affection and respect.

Seven years of sobriety is no small achievement, but neither are three decades of drinking habits easily erased, so think again, Brad. Remember that flight from Europe. Remember the row with your family and the beer spilled over your wife, remember the moment when you decided that enough was enough and, in your own excellent phrase, revoked your own drinking privileges.

Perhaps there was wisdom in that decision that shouldn’t now be discarded simply because enough time has passed to make the past seem less dangerous. There’s an English expression about “falling off the wagon.” Don’t fall off the wagon, Brad, because it’s much harder to climb back on.

This article was first published by Gazeta.ru, translated and edited by RT team

Victims of alleged abuses involving British soldiers in Kenya have called on the African nation’s parliament to block the renewal of a defense agreement with the UK until outstanding cases are resolved.

Survivors, bereaved families, workers, and residents marched in Nairobi on Wednesday before submitting a petition to the National Assembly. They are demanding that lawmakers implement the recommendations of a November 2025 parliamentary inquiry before approving the pact, including holding British troops accountable for crimes, providing victims with legal aid, and enforcing child-support obligations.

Renewing the agreement, which is currently before parliament, without providing redress would be a “grave disservice” to victims, local daily The Standard reported, citing the petition.

The inquiry documented allegations of rape and sexual assault, deaths, and injuries involving unexploded ordnance, environmental destruction, and mistreatment of Kenyan employees by personnel from the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK).

BATUK, the British Army’s largest contingent in Africa, is based mainly near Nanyuki in Laikipia County. According to the British Army, it comprises about 100 permanent British personnel, 280 rotating troops, and more than 500 Kenyan employees.

Its presence has long faced opposition over alleged abuses and disputes over whether British personnel accused of crimes in Kenya should be prosecuted by Kenyan or UK authorities.

The activists cited the 2012 killing of 21-year-old Agnes Wanjiru, whose body was found in a septic tank at a Nanyuki hotel after she had reportedly spent the evening with British soldiers.

“Those who witnessed the so-called commandos, the white British soldiers, murdering Agnes Wanjiru will not forget that instance, even if the law says that they did not kill her,” activist Booker Omole told The Standard.

BATUK was also blamed for a 2021 wildfire that destroyed more than 12,000 acres at the Lolldaiga Conservancy. London later agreed to pay £2.9 million ($3.9 million) in compensation to thousands of claimants.

The British Ministry of Defense has said it “deeply regrets” problems linked to the unit’s presence and is prepared to investigate new allegations once evidence is provided.

A powerful explosion has ripped through a weapons factory in Italy owned by Franco-German defense group KNDS, a major arms supplier to the Ukrainian military.

No casualties were reported in the blast, which occurred near the town of Colleferro, about 45 km southeast of Rome, on Thursday.

Mayor Giulio Calamita told reporters that the community of roughly 50,000 people, which has longstanding ties to the factory, narrowly avoided a tragedy because many employees were away for the summer holidays. Twenty-four workers were inside the building at the time of the explosion and all were reported safe, according to the RAI news agency.

Footage circulating online shows flames rising behind a group of buildings before a powerful blast sends burning debris into the air.

NOW - Massive explosion tears through an ammunition plant near Rome owned by Franco-German defense giant KNDS, a major supplier of weapons systems and munitions to Ukraine.pic.twitter.com/v9pBj26Zsz

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) August 13, 2026

KNDS owns the facility through its national subsidiary, KNDS Ammo Italy. The plant manufactures medium- and large-caliber ammunition, including 155mm artillery shells that are reportedly supplied to Ukraine through European intermediaries. KNDS has close defense ties with the Ukrainian military and opened a subsidiary in Kiev in 2024.

#Roma, incendio ed esplosione nel deposito di un'azienda a Colleferro: 10 squadre #vigilidelfuoco in azione per operazioni di spegnimento delle fiamme, che si sono propagate anche alla vicina vegetazione. Elicottero Drago in ricognizione sulla zona [#13agosto 17:30] pic.twitter.com/hCc1JFBNug

— Vigili del Fuoco (@vigilidelfuoco) August 13, 2026

A preliminary investigation found no indications of foul play, Italian media reported, citing law enforcement sources.
Colleferro has previously seen deadly accidents linked to weapons production at the site, which over the years was owned by Bombrini-Parodi-Delfino (BPD), Snia Viscosa, and Simmel Difesa before being acquired in 2014 by Nexter Systems, now renamed KNDS France, according to media reports.

Earlier this week, a fire also damaged a munitions factory in Bulgaria’s Gabrovo Province. Authorities declared a seven-day partial state of emergency on Thursday because of the danger posed by shells scattered within a 500-meter radius by secondary explosions.

Israeli defense officials have been shocked by the rapid recovery of Iran’s military capabilities since the heavy bombardment by the US and Israel in the opening stages of the conflict, the Jerusalem Post has reported.

Earlier this week, a senior adviser to the chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said that Iran’s output of ballistic missiles and drones exceeds the rate at which they are being deployed. “Even if the war lasts for several years, our ballistic missiles will continue to rain down on the enemy,” Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Naqdi told Press TV.

In an article on Thursday, the Jerusalem Post said it has independently confirmed that statements by senior Iranian officials of accelerated arms production in the country are accurate.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has claimed for months that Iran’s defense industry was set back years after US and Israeli forces attacked the country around 30,000 times, striking over 2,600 missile and industrial military targets, during the hottest phase of the conflict in late February and early April, the article read.

According to Israeli officials, the Iranians were not only able to swiftly access underground missile sites affected by the US-Israeli airstrikes, but also figured out other creative ways to rebuild their arsenals.

If Tehran keeps manufacturing between 100 to 300 missiles per month, it could become a prohibitive threat for Israel already in 2028, the paper suggested.

This possibility will likely influence broader Israeli strategy about when and if another attack on Iran might be needed, it added.

“The IDF will continue to analyze developments and to be prepared accordingly,” the spokesman stressed.

While Israel has refrained from military action against Iran since June, the standoff between Washington and Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz continues.

The traffic in the key waterway, which accounts for a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas trade, has reduced to eight ships per day amid reports of more strikes on vessels, according to Reuters. It stood at between 130 and 140 ships daily before the conflict.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the Americans had “total control” over the strait. Tehran denied the claim the next day, saying that the waterway remains “under Iran’s control and management” and will stay closed until the US changes its behavior.

A new US report that includes India among the countries allegedly helping China to evade steep American tariffs has added another wrinkle to India-US relations.

The White House report, titled ‘The Great Transshipment Scam’, flagged over 40 US trading partners, including India, for aiding Chinese tariff evasion by operating a “shadow trans-shipment network.”

The concern raised in the report is about the practice of a country facing steep US tariffs sending its goods through a third country that faces lower tariffs – which Washington calls “illegal transshipment.”

The report by Peter Navarro, the top trade adviser to US President Donald Trump and a known India-baiter, said “India’s Pune-Gujarat-Chennai production belt absorbs pumps and compressors… affecting industrial supply chains in Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus.”

“A Chinese pump that leaves Pune as Indian is a pump not machined in Cincinnati, Dayton or Columbus,” Navarro told reporters on Thursday.

India is included in the first group, along with Canada, the EU, Israel, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan.

New Delhi has not yet responded to the report.

The US has used sweeping sanctions and tariffs as it tries to bend the world to comply with its geopolitical, technological, and economic goals. China exports face an average of 23.2% US tariffs, while India faces 10% tariffs on about 70% of its exports to the US.

Navarro’s report adds another pressure point to the tense dynamic between Washington and New Delhi. “Countries that relabel or reroute tariffed goods to evade U.S. law should face immediate interdiction, penalty tariffs, sanctions, and potential loss of market access,” it warned.

The report gave a wide range for the annual value of the transshipped goods, from $40 billion to $303 billion, based on the methodology and definition used. The Customs and Border Protection agency, it said, is using an AI architecture that fuses “anomaly detection, link analysis, capacity validation, and mirrored-flow verification” to detect such practices.

The White House has accused more than 40 nations, including some of its closest partners, of helping Chinese goods evade US tariffs by exploiting differences in levies imposed on third countries. 

A new 25-page report titled ‘The Great Transshipment Scam’, released by the White House on Thursday, names Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, India, Israel, Taiwan, and the EU among those allegedly involved in the practice. 

The document claims the “scam” involves sending Chinese-made goods through another country, where they are lightly processed, repackaged, or relabeled before being shipped to the US under a new declared origin. 

Washington says the practice took off after President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on Chinese products in 2018. Since returning to office, Trump has expanded levies to much of the world, creating wide differences in tariff rates between trading partners. Last month, he also imposed new tariffs on imports from 60 countries over alleged failures to combat forced labor, drawing protests from several major US partners. The White House acknowledged that such gaps may themselves have increase incentives for rerouting. 

China has repeatedly condemned Trump’s tariff regime, accusing Washington of protectionism and economic coercion and arguing that its trade and technology restrictions disrupt global commerce.

Earlier this month, the Chinese Commerce Ministry announced tighter export controls on drones and related technologies and retaliatory measures against several American entities, warning of further countermeasures if Washington introduces new restrictions.

US President Donald Trump has imposed steep tariffs on imported drones and their components, potentially complicating Ukraine’s plans to expand UAV sales to Washington.

Under a proclamation signed on Thursday, drones weighing more than 25 kg and those equipped with thermal imagers will face tariffs of 100%, along with certain docking stations and critical components. Smaller unmanned aircraft will be subject to a 25% levy.

Lower rates will apply to selected US partners, including 15% tariffs for the EU, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, and Taiwan, and 10% for the UK. The measures are set to begin taking effect in 21 days, with some delayed for 180 days.

Trump said a Commerce Department review found that the US was “too reliant” on foreign drones and components. The White House said the measures are intended to reduce supply-chain and security risks while rapidly expanding domestic production.

The move, however, could complicate Kiev’s recently revived push to sell drones to the US.

Trump said last month that Washington would buy Ukrainian UAVs, while Reuters later reported that Kiev had agreed to export drones for the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program. During discussions last year, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky suggested a broader drone deal with the US could eventually be worth between $10 billion and $30 billion.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe has been accused of knowingly using a “cookie stuffing” scheme at her shopping startup that allowed the company to collect commissions for sales it did not actually generate, according to Bloomberg.

Phia, co-founded by Gates and fellow Stanford graduate Sophia Kianni, markets itself as a digital shopping assistant that finds cheaper products and discount codes. Despite Gates trying to distance herself from the “nepo baby” label and present the venture as independent of her billionaire father, it immediately attracted tens of millions of dollars from prominent Silicon Valley and celebrity investors during its first funding round and was actively promoted by Bill Gates.

The controversy around the company first erupted last month, when Bloomberg reported that Phia’s browser extension was automatically inserting affiliate tracking cookies into online purchases, allowing it to claim commissions even when shoppers had not used its coupons or links.

The practice, known as “cookie stuffing,” can constitute federal wire fraud, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

However, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that internal Slack messages and source code show Gates and Kianni had known about the practice for months.

In one December exchange, Gates reportedly asked developers to ensure automatic cookie drops were working across retailers so Phia could monetize “every transaction.” Kianni later told engineers that “whatever we can do to keep these cookies dropping will be amazing.”

After the features were disabled in July, average daily revenue reportedly fell from about $80,000 to between $10,000 and $28,000. Phia claims part of the decline came from suspending other monetization tools and says it has begun reversing improperly attributed commissions while hiring a compliance chief.

Gates has denied involvement in Epstein’s crimes and told the US Congress this year that the financier had tried to blackmail him over his extramarital affairs. He has called his association with Epstein a serious mistake.

German camera maker Leica has excluded a Russian photographer from its prestigious Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA) following Ukrainian criticism over his links to the Russian RIA Novosti news agency.

Valery Melnikov, a three-time World Press Photo winner, said in a social media post this week that his long-term series, ‘Mariupol. Open Wounds’, had initially been selected by the Leica jury for the 2026 shortlist before being dropped.

The project, which Melnikov has worked on since 2022, documents civilians living in the Black Sea port city of Mariupol, in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). The city was liberated by Russian forces in May 2022 following an 85-day battle that left much of it in ruins. The DPR, along with Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions, voted to join Russia in referendums later that year. 

Leica had initially described the series as focusing on residents who “suffer the unbearable humanitarian consequences of the war.”

Melnikov said the complaints came from “either photographers or bloggers from a neighboring country” who described him as a “Kremlin-media-linked photographer.”

Ukrainian photographer Sergey Korovainiy, who has covered the conflict, had publicly criticized Leica’s decision to shortlist Melnikov, according to media reports.

According to Melnikov, Leica representatives told him that some of the photographs in the project had been taken while he was working for RIA Novosti. He stressed that his employment history had always been public, adding that the competition rules contained no restrictions on such circumstances.

Leica has not publicly addressed Melnikov’s account of the conversation.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, several EU member states have seen discrimination against performers from other nations perceived to have sympathy for Russia. Moscow has denounced such measures as “Russophobic censorship,” warning that attempts to “cancel” Russian culture will ultimately fail.

Melnikov, a 2015 LOBA finalist, has covered global conflicts, including in Syria, Afghanistan, and Mali. The winners of the 2026 award are due to be announced on October 8 in Wetzlar, Germany.

Russian gymnast Angelina Melnikova has claimed her second gold medal at the European Gymnastics Championship in Zagreb, winning the vault. The Olympic champion earlier took gold in the individual all-around, as well as bronze on the balance beam and in the floor exercise.

Earlier this week, Russian gymnasts dominated the women’s all-around at the tournament, claiming gold and silver. Melnikova took first place ahead of teammate Anna Kalmykova, while another Russian, Liudmila Roschina, narrowly missed the podium, finishing behind France’s Elena Colas in her first senior season.

At the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, Melnikova won gold in the women’s team event and bronze in the individual all-around and floor exercise.

The participation of the Russian team was marred by hostile actions from the host country, which initially refused to provide visas to nine members of the Russian delegation, including both of the medal winners, a coach, and the team’s physician. Russian diplomats managed to secure visas for four of the affected athletes, while others remained barred from entering Croatia.

In addition to the visa troubles, the host country also refused to allow Russian athletes to compete under their national flag. 

European Gymnastics reinstated Russian athletes to competitions earlier this year, enabling them to perform under the national flag, following a ruling from World Gymnastics.

However, for the events for which hosting rights were awarded before July 28 this year, Russian teams can be barred from displaying the country’s flag and other symbols at the host’s decision.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has branded Israeli settlers besieging three Palestinian families in their West Bank homes “terrorists.” The days-long siege has targeted several properties, including one owned by a dual US citizen.

According to the UN, the blockade in the village of Qusra began last Sunday, leaving approximately 15 Palestinians, including at least two children, trapped in their homes without access to electricity or water supplies. The Palestinians are also believed to be running out of food and medicine.

Huckabee, known for his pro-Israel views and support for the settler movement, issued the rare rebuke in a post on X on Thursday.

“The actions of those doing this to this family’s home is criminal… Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting. No excuse for such thuggish behavior,” the diplomat wrote.

The US envoy also claimed that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the police had removed the “Israeli terrorists” from Qusra at the US Embassy’s request.

The US intelligence community doubted reports of an Iranian plot to kill President Donald Trump by shooting down Air Force One as it departed a NATO summit in Türkiye, the Washington Post has reported. Their assessment was reportedly conveyed to the administration, yet the Secret Service still opted to covertly move Trump to another aircraft.

US media broke the story of the clandestine maneuver this Monday. On leaving the meeting, Trump abruptly switched from his new Qatari-gifted Boeing 747-8 to the previous Air Force One, but it turned out he secretly left that aircraft as well in an airport catering truck, flying aboard a smaller military plane to the UK. He is said to have reboarded the older Air Force One there to create the impression that he was on it the entire time.

CIA analysts were highly skeptical of intelligence on an imminent assassination plot and conveyed that position to the administration. Reports about the threat were “Israeli-derived, not US-generated, and viewed as low confidence,” an unnamed intel official told the Post.

Trump admitted to switching planes on Tuesday, insisting he was only doing what the Secret Service considered the best course of action. “I go by Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go in a different flight, different plane. I just have to do what they say,” Trump told reporters. 

The scandal also coincides with the departure of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who announced on Wednesday she would leave her position at the end of the month “so she can spend more time” with her family. The 28-year-old, who became a mother for the second time in May, returned to the White House after a hiatus in June. Leavitt’s abrupt departure has sprouted theories that she was among the unwitting officials left on the decoy aircraft and that the affair may have been the final straw for her.