A group of mostly European states and middle powers is seeking to build a new global coalition on artificial intelligence, as countries outside the US-China technology race scramble to retain influence over how increasingly powerful systems are governed.

Leaders representing 20 countries, alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, signed the declaration on Monday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly High-level Week in New York, calling for frontier AI to remain “under human direction, oversight and control.” The initiative was spearheaded by Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store.

The world’s two leading AI powers – the US and China – did not sign. Neither did several major European players, including the UK, France and Italy, although Germany, Spain and a number of smaller EU states joined the initiative. The statement remains open for additional endorsements.

AI can improve people’s lives, advance science and strengthen our economies. At the same time, the rapid development of AI models creates risks that we must manage together.

We can choose to compete, to co-operate, or to step back. I hope we choose co-operation.

President… pic.twitter.com/DR7HaaJDHp

— Alexander Stubb (@alexstubb) September 21, 2026

The declaration warns that advanced AI systems have already circumvented testing safeguards, exploited vulnerabilities and gained unauthorized access to real-world systems. It calls for mandatory pre-deployment testing, independent evaluations with sufficient access to frontier models, common international standards and shared reporting of serious safety incidents.

Stubb acknowledged that bringing the dominant AI powers on board will be crucial, telling Politico that the goal was to create “momentum” and eventually attract both Washington and Beijing.

“I think it will be in the interest of both China and the United States to have some kind of guardrails,” he said, arguing that “humans need to be in charge.” Stubb said his preferred model would resemble the International Atomic Energy Agency, although organizers deliberately left the institutional format open to avoid alienating governments wary of creating another UN body.

Washington’s Pax Silica initiative has expanded to 24 partners and centers on securing semiconductor, critical-mineral and AI supply chains among what the US describes as “trusted” partners.

Beijing, meanwhile, established the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) in July with 29 founding countries, including Russia, many of them from the Global South. China has paired that initiative with open-weight models, training programs and infrastructure projects, presenting itself as an alternative to Western-controlled AI ecosystems.

Some countries are keeping a foot in multiple emerging AI governance camps rather than choosing a single bloc. Kazakhstan has gone furthest in hedging its bets, joining China-backed WAICO and the US-led Pax Silica initiative while also signing Monday’s “human control” declaration. Kenya and South Africa, meanwhile, are founding members of WAICO and have now backed the new European-led initiative as well.

Occasionally, history does dish out poetic justice. It can also be exceedingly funny, if in a merciless way. Germany’s well-known tragedy – or let’s say, one of them – is that it suffers from a chronic deficiency of irony, so many Germans will fail to see the funny side of what has just happened. And yet, there is something very deserved as well as ironic about the recent catastrophe of the country’s establishment parties in three turning-point regional elections – in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Berlin.

The stunning successes of the new-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in two of them (Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) have attracted most attention. And rightly so: For one thing, any remaining establishment delusions about marginalizing the AfD out of German politics using a “firewall” are now where they have belonged for a very long time: on the trash heap of history. The last desperate firewalling efforts may continue for a little longer here and there, but it’s a Zombie now: not only ugly and brainless but dead to boot.

While German mainstream media can’t stop fretting and hyperventilating about “democracy-in-danger,” in reality, the end of the “firewall” – that is, a systematic discrimination cartel against a legal party – is, obviously, a very good thing for genuine democracy. Because the “firewall” policy was an insult to the latter, as it de facto partially disenfranchised the voters of Germany’s most popular party.

However, there are other important aspects of the three political earthquakes that have just shaken Germany’s establishment. Most importantly, both parties that make up Germany’s ruling coalition – the mainstream conservatives (CDU) and the centrist social democrats (SPD) have suffered humiliating, and in the case of the CDU even crushing, defeats.

In Berlin, the SPD was trounced so badly it ended up in fifth place. With the city is historically associated with SPD giants such as Ernst Reuter and Willy Brandt, everyone agrees that this is a disaster that may well end the political career of its local candidate.In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, it is true, the regional SPD leader, Manuela Schwesig, ruthlessly distanced herself from her own party and was rewarded with second place. Not first place, because that went to the AfD. Schwesig’s defeat is now being sold as a success. That tells you much about how desperate the establishment is.

And then there is the CDU. What’s left to say, really? Historically, the CDU was the founding party of postwar (West) Germany, when it was led by a genius of political cunning and hardheaded realism, Konrad Adenauer. Since then, while it has, of course, not always been in charge in first Bonn and then Berlin, the CDU (with its Bavarian cousin CSU, strictly speaking) has been Germany’s default ruling party.

Now, for the first time in its history, the CDU has failed so abysmally that it is no longer represented in a regional parliament: In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Adenauer’s once proud party which has morphed into Friedrich Merz’s unmerry band of stragglers has not cleared the five percent barrier and is out. The significance of this debacle cannot be overestimated, even if this is a regional result and not (yet) a national one.

There are plenty of rumors about the fate of Friedrich Merz, the obstinate chancellor of catastrophe and probably the greatest single loser in postwar German history (yes, beating even Erich Honecker). Yet those speculations are much less interesting than something generally overlooked. Which brings us back to why this is also a very funny moment of poetic justice in German history: The CDU has not been knocked out just anywhere, but in the former East Germany, which is also where the AfD has triumphed and shattered the “firewall.”

This is capital-H History in the making. Because it is about much more than just an irreversible fiasco for the CDU; it also goes beyond the wider decline and fall of Germany’s establishment parties and their political, media, and cultural ecosystem. What is really happening now, at long last, is the end of West Germany. Unlike the former East Germany, the GDR, West Germany did not really end with reunification in 1990. On the contrary, where the two Cold War Germanies could have come together fraternally to devise a new political home, that chance of national lifetime was missed with gusto, and instead West Germany simply took over East Germany: inside Germany as well, the Cold War ended not with a genuine new beginning but with the West seeking to impose its ways on the East.

Not much more than one generation after unification ended Cold War East Germany, West Germany’s time is finally up as well. For those in the former East Germany who were promised “flourishing landscapes” by yet another CDU icon, “Chancellor-of-Unity” Helmut Kohl, but got persisting national second-class status instead, this may well feel like richly deserved payback for a Western establishment that has cheated and used and, at best, looked down on them.

West Germany’s impending end is good news, in principle, even for the many Germans still anxiously stuck in their dated West German mindset who cannot understand this yet. At the same time, there also is great danger ahead: The process of finally shedding the old and ill-fitting skin of a West Germany designed as a Cold War client state has begun, but the political and psychological resistance will be great and perhaps even violent. West Germany’s ghost will leave history, but it may still do much harm on the way out.

The EU is divided over a deal to un-sanction Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov. Brussels’ allies in Kiev aren’t happy, but the alternative – a legal showdown – could call the bloc’s entire sanctions regime into question.

Ambassadors from EU member states met on Monday to discuss Usmanov’s case. According to Euronews, France pushed for Usmanov’s removal from the blacklist, in exchange for Azerbaijan freeing two alleged French spies.

Ireland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, proposed that Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, another Russian businessman, be delisted on the condition that the EU renew its anti-Russian sanctions regime for 36 months instead of the usual six.

After a second round of talks on Monday that stretched into the night, EU envoys failed to agree to remove Usmanov and Fridman from the list. Meaning no agreement has been reached on extending the bloc's sanctions.

Usmanov is at the centre of a discussion that could undo a central pillar of the EU's personal sanctions policy.

Why was Usmanov sanctioned?

A highly successful entrepreneur in the final years of the Soviet Union, the Russian-Uzbek businessman snapped up metal and mining businesses during the rapid privatization of the 1990s, breached into media with his acquisition of Russia’s Kommersant newspaper in 2006, and expanded his wealth with a series of savvy investments in Apple, Twitter, and Facebook over the following decade.

Usmanov, believed to be Russia’s seventh-richest person with a net worth of more than $16 billion, was sanctioned by the EU four days after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. 

The EU’s sanctions ledger declared that Usmanov “has particularly close ties to the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin,” has “acted on behalf of the President of the Russian Federation in a number of business deals,” and gave former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev “personal use of luxurious residences” controlled by his companies. 

“Kommersant under Usmanov’s ownership published a propagandist anti-Ukrainian article by Dmitry Medvedev” the entry continued, concluding that “therefore he actively supported the Russian government’s policies of destabilization of Ukraine.”

EU media: Unreliable sources 

According to Usmanov’s lawyers, Brussels sourced all of its “reasons and evidence” for sanctioning the billionaire from “mass media and social media publications.” In a letter to the European Council last month seen by Intellinews journalist Ben Aris, Usmanov’s legal team argued that this evidence has been proven false in courts in all 27 EU member states.

Among his other legal victories were judgments against Forbes, Germany’s Der Tagesspiegel, Austria’s Kurier, and Switzerland’s Blick, all of which used false claims by deceased anti-Kremlin activist Alexey Navalny to back up their stories of Usmanov’s ties to the Kremlin.

The European Council could stand accused

Since 2022, his lawyers reportedly claimed in the letter, more than 3,200 articles about Usmanov have been corrected and 1,300 deleted, in 60 countries. Almost 100 cease-and-desist letters have been issued and 58,000 pieces of online content and ads about the businessman have been pulled down, many of which “relied on the Council’s narrative.”

The European Council, meanwhile, has quietly removed at least 18 documents from its “evidence packs” against Usmanov, the letter claimed. 

The wave of retractions and deletions – issued by the same sources used to back up the sanctions decision – “must be accepted as exculpatory evidence,” Usmanov’s lawyers wrote. “To sum up, the allegations used to maintain Mr Usmanov’s designation have been discredited and refuted in 27 out of 27 EU Member States.”

The EU’s dilemma

The EU’s Court of Justice has already dismissed two attempts by Usmanov to appeal his blacklisting. In rejecting the second attempt last September, the court ruled that the council’s decision to sanction Usmanov was based on a “specific, precise and consistent” body of evidence.

However, even Politico, the Brussels elite’s leak-factory of choice, has reported that the “evidence packs” used to justify sanctioning figures like Usmanov are often “hastily compiled” and based on “shaky evidence.” 

On shaky grounds: The secret, slipshod evidence the EU uses to sanction Russian oligarchs.#tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/uATyU0YjCO

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) September 20, 2023

In 2023, Politico found that evidence against Russian businessman Grigory Berezkin was drawn from articles written by an AI chatbot, and a website called ‘Russian Crimes’ written by journalists that didn’t exist. Another evidence pack cited an advertisement in a Russian lifestyle and cooking magazine. Yet another cited a Ukrainian gossip site. Berezhkin was removed from the EU’s blacklist that September.

More than a dozen individuals have since been removed from the list. Some, like Formula 1 driver Nikita Mazepin, had been sanctioned over the alleged offenses of their relatives. At least six – including Pavel Ezubov, cousin of metals magnate Oleg Deripaska, and former e-commerce tycoon Aleksandr Shulgin – were delisted after taking legal action against the EU.

To the envoys who met on Monday, cutting Usmanov loose may have been seen as a necessary sacrifice to preserve the legitimacy of the sanctions regime.

National interest

The push to delist Usmanov began in Slovakia this March, when Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar argued that there were “very strong legal arguments” against the sanctioning of him and Fridman. Uzbekistan and a number of other Turkic countries – including Türkiye – reportedly lobbied Bratislava to push for his removal from the blacklist.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is a vocal critic of EU sanctions against Russia, but Slovakia found an ally when France unexpectedly began advocating for Usmanov’s delisting, citing unexplained “national security” interests. According to multiple media reports, France has been negotiating behind the scenes with Azerbaijan, where President Ilham Aliyev has apparently agreed to release two imprisoned French citizens in exchange, one of whom was jailed for spying on the country’s military on behalf of French intelligence. 

According to Reuters, Luxembourg backed the delisting of Fridman, who has sued the duchy for $16 billion over its freezing of his assets in 2022. Luxembourg reportedly argued that its case against Fridman would be weakened if Usmanov alone was let go, and insisted that the two billionaires be treated as a package deal.

EU diplomats took to Politico to vent at the French last week, with one complaining that “if France goes ahead with this, others will come forward with their own oligarchs that should be delisted ... [then] the house of cards starts to fall.” 

What nobody in Brussels will admit on the record is that if Usmanov is un-sanctioned, politicians and publishers across Europe will likely breathe a sigh of relief that their media outlets – many of them government-funded – will not be dragged into a legal showdown that could result in massive payouts and the collapse of the sanctions system itself.

What does Usmanov’s case tell us about the EU?

The case exposes cracks in the EU’s “united front” for Ukraine, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put it during her State of the Union speech last week. As France and Luxembourg demonstrated, no EU member is above breaking ranks when their national interest is at stake, and the EU is sometimes capable of putting its own members’ needs above Ukraine’s.

Is the Kiev tail wagging the EU dog?

Kiev remains incandescent at the thought of its EU masters going off-script. “How can anyone seriously discuss sanctions delisting while Russia’s war continues?” Vladimir Zelensky’s sanctions adviser, Vladislav Vlasiuk, complained on Monday. 

“Usmanov and Fridman were listed because they are part of Russia’s aggressive regime waging a war of aggression against Ukraine,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sybiga wrote on social media. “Delisting is unacceptable and would send the wrong signal to Moscow at a time when pressure needs to increase.”

Usmanov and Fridman were listed because they are part of Russia's aggressive regime waging a war of aggression against Ukraine.

What has changed? Nothing. Delisting is unacceptable and would send the wrong signal to Moscow at a time when pressure needs to increase.

On the…

— Andrii Sybiha 🇺🇦 (@andrii_sybiha) September 21, 2026

What does this tell us about the EU's info-culture?

No matter how unsavory a character Brussels finds him, Usmanov’s string of legal victories against Western Europe’s most prestigious news outlets – seen in Moscow as paranoid pillars in an increasingly hysterical echo-chamber – sends an important signal to the EU: As long as it believes what it tells itself about Russia and Russians, the legal ground it stands on is incredibly shaky.

Tens of thousands of auto workers across Germany have staged protests demanding protection for employment and factories after Volkswagen announced plans to cut 100,000 jobs.

Employees at Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Porsche, and major suppliers are taking part in more than 280 actions nationwide on Monday. Germany’s largest industrial union, IG Metall, has warned that the country’s automotive industry “faces the risk of total collapse” as it grapples with high energy costs following reduced imports of Russian oil and gas, US tariffs, and growing competition from China.

”We expect corporate leaders and management teams to take responsibility for Germany as an automotive nation, for employees and for jobs,” IG Metall chief Christiane Benner told workers at Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg.

Other German carmakers are also scaling back. BMW is cutting about 8,000 jobs, while Mercedes-Benz is reducing production at home and expanding capacity in lower-cost Hungary.

The industrial contraction extends beyond layoffs. Volkswagen ended car production at its Dresden plant last December, marking the first closure of a German car factory in the company’s 90-year history.

The automaker has also dropped out of the Euro Stoxx 50 for the first time in 15 years, with its shares down more than 75% from their 2021 peak. By contrast, shares in German defense giant Rheinmetall have soared over 1,100% since the start of 2022 as Berlin boosts military spending.

Germany has budgeted €108.2 billion ($124 billion) for defense this year, with spending set to rise further under Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s drive to build what he has called Europe’s strongest conventional army.

Moscow has criticized the buildup. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in June that NATO had moved beyond supporting Ukraine and was now “openly” discussing preparations for war with Russia while increasing military budgets.

On September 17, 1939, Soviet troops crossed into eastern Poland. By that time, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was about to collapse under the assault of Nazi forces. Soon, the Soviet military moved westward to meet the advancing Germans. Moscow and Berlin established a demarcation line according to which the USSR acquired parts of eastern Poland. Today, these territories belong to Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania.

This event still sparks debates both in Russia and Europe, and particularly in Poland. In Ukraine and Lithuania, political discourse has taken a surprising turn, suggesting that while the USSR was the aggressor state that invaded Poland on September 17, neither Ukraine nor Lithuania will yield any territory that they gained as a result of this aggression. For Lithuania, the situation is quite ironic, since it acquired its capital, Vilnius, precisely as a result of the Red Army’s Polish campaign. 

Any commentary on this event provokes an intense and painful reaction from all sides that consider themselves victims of it. Nevertheless, it is essential to examine the circumstances surrounding the Soviet army’s invasion of Poland. For Russians, who lost countless lives during the Second World War, this topic is particularly sensitive; but the same holds true for Poles, who suffered comparable losses relative to their population size, and for Belarusians and Ukrainians, who found themselves in the middle of this significant territorial reallocation. 

Buffer zone of discord

By 1939, both the Soviet Union and Poland were new states established on the basis of old nations. They had come into existence following the disintegration of the Russian Empire and the subsequent Russian Civil War. However, from the outset, there was a significant territorial dispute between Russia’s reincarnation in the form of the Soviet Union and Poland’s rebirth as the Second Polish Republic. The Poles laid claim not only to their own lands but also to all the lands Poland had once possessed, which included vast territories in Belarus and Ukraine. In Poland, this region is referred to as “Kresy Wschodnie,” which means “Eastern Borderlands.”

Overall, Poland’s ambitions extended even further. During the Russian Civil War, Polish forces advanced deep into Ukraine and captured Kiev before ultimately being defeated. The Red Army then launched its Polish campaign which also ended in failure a short way from Warsaw. Ultimately, the Poles acquired what they referred to as “Kresy” – the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. For the most part, these territories weren’t populated by Poles, yet Poland had governed them before the territorial divisions of the 18th century and viewed them as its historical lands. During the interwar period, these regions underwent a process of polonization, with Ukrainian and Belarusian populations facing discrimination. One somewhat counterintuitive fact is that Ukrainian nationalist terrorism during that period was directed primarily not against the USSR, but against Poland.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union regarded these lost territories as unjustly seized and was unwilling to relinquish its claims on them. In short, neither party was satisfied with such ‘peace’ and there was no warming of relations between the USSR and Poland. 

The territorial dispute over the Vilnius region caused additional challenges. Poland seized Vilna (Vilnius), a city that Lithuania claimed as its historical capital and which was highly important to it both historically and culturally. 

Throughout the negotiations regarding Czechoslovakia, the interests and positions of the USSR were overtly disregarded by Western allies – i.e. England, France, and Poland. The Soviet Union gained considerable political weight on the global stage only after WWII. Before that, its influence hardly rose to the level of a superpower. Consequently, Stalin had to swallow this bitter pill and prepare for the events to come. 

Meanwhile, Hitler was determined to continue his aggressive expansion. The regime he constructed in Germany had a significant yet subtle flaw – its structure resembled a financial pyramid. The rapid growth of the country’s military industrial complex threatened to undermine its economy. The only salvation for the Third Reich lay in war or the unconditional submission of neighboring countries to its demands and threats. Poland was next on Hitler’s list of intended victims. He used the “Polish Corridor” – the strip of land separating mainland Germany from East Prussia – as leverage. The Germans maintained contact with this exclave solely by sea. Today, this area remains an exclave, but belongs to Russia: the current Russian city of Kaliningrad is the former German city of Königsberg. Additionally, Hitler demanded reconsideration of the status of Danzig, a city with a significant German population that had been designated a “free city” under the League of Nations’ protection.

Understandably, Poland wasn’t satisfied with these demands. The question was, how could it stand up to Germany, which was much more powerful. Clearly, the best option was to seek help from Western allies – Britain and France. They readily provided Poland with security guarantees and did indeed declare war on the Third Reich on September 3, just two days after it invaded Poland. However, what the Polish leaders didn’t realize was that their allies weren’t prepared to offer immediate assistance. Britain needed time to transport troops across the English Channel, while France had to mobilize and strategically deploy its troops. This couldn’t be done immediately, but it was uncertain whether Poland could hold out long enough.

Poland’s dialogue with Soviet diplomats was quite rude. Polish officials bluntly told People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov that they would ask for help “when it will be needed.” Throughout this time, the Polish government believed that “the dismemberment of Russia is at the heart of Poland’s eastern policy.”

The USSR aimed to safeguard its interests in Eastern Europe. Moscow had no doubt that a large-scale war was imminent. And the USSR found itself in a vulnerable position. The key centers of Soviet power were located too close to the border. Leningrad (currently St. Petersburg) faced threats from both Finland and Estonia which it bordered, while Minsk and Kiev were dangerously close to the Polish border. The USSR wasn’t concerned about a threat coming directly from Estonia or Poland, but rather feared that a third party could use these regions as a launchpad for an attack on the USSR (by 1939, it was clear that this would be Germany). Stalin and his inner circle understood that the USSR would eventually confront Germany and were eager to secure the most advantageous position before the inevitable confrontation. 

Mistrust and the fog of war

The USSR still had another option – direct negotiations with Western allies. Stalin was primarily interested in a coordinated plan of action against the Nazis. However, the Soviet Union had its own fears and biases. It’s important to note that, just like in the situation with Poland, neither British nor French leaders could foresee the future any better than their Soviet counterparts. And in 1939 they considered such an alliance no better than one with Hitler.

This might sound odd in 2026, but in the summer of 1939, Hitler wasn’t yet “the Hitler” that we’ve come to know. The Third Reich was still largely focused on repressing its own citizens. Anti-semitism with its discriminatory laws was abominable, yet not necessarily worse than the repressions in the US against African-Americans or the colonial practices of European powers. On the other hand, Stalin’s USSR, with its own repressions and ideology aimed at dismantling the capitalist world, certainly didn’t present itself as a beacon of virtue. This is why Moscow had its doubts about whether Britain and France were more reliable negotiating partners than Germany, and the same skepticism was shared by Paris and London in regard to Moscow. Additionally, Britain and France significantly underestimated the real weight of the USSR as an ally – and this was an error they would soon regret.

Both sides distrusted each other and preferred to secure maximum guarantees with minimal commitments. Ultimately, the negotiations failed. 

In response, the Soviet Union made a controversial move: it struck a deal with Hitler. On August 23, a non-aggression pact was signed between the USSR and Germany, outlining spheres of influence in Europe. 

Under the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR aimed to buy time and establish a buffer zone in Eastern Europe. Moscow secured a significant condition – the incorporation of Eastern Poland (currently Western Ukraine and Belarus) into the Soviet sphere of interest. 

Even today, this pact is often regarded as a deal with the devil. However, it did not serve as an immediate trigger for war. For Hitler, war was inevitable. Stopping the war would lead to the collapse of his entire foreign policy, and Germany’s bloated military system could not come to a stop without causing economic disaster. Moreover, Hitler did not regard the Soviet Union as a formidable opponent; he even devised plans of a complete military defeat of the USSR in three months.

Looking back, we may say that the 1938-1939 negotiations represent one of the greatest failures in the history of diplomacy. Had the world powers united against the Nazis in 1939 – or better yet, in 1938 – there might have been no WWII, but only a major clean-up of issues left over from WWI. However, there’s no way to change history. 

Poland’s pre-war planning was based on several questionable assumptions. Poland believed that its army was sufficiently large and was capable of holding off the Nazis long enough for Western allies to come to its aid. Ideas to form a defensive line along the Vistula River and use the river as a natural barrier were ultimately dismissed. Marshal Edward Rydz-Smigly, who led Poland’s defense, aimed to cover all fronts and surrender nothing. However, in reality, Poland had far fewer military resources than the enemy and couldn’t seize the initiative. Moreover, after the annexation of Czechoslovakia, the Third Reich bordered Poland on three sides. Even without additional complications, this combination spelled disaster for Poland. Yet another problem existed: between the wars, the Germans developed a range of operational, tactical, and technical solutions known as “Blitzkrieg,” which prioritized rapid, decisive maneuvers. And Poland became the testing ground for this strategy in real-life conditions.

On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, marking the start of WWII. On September 3, the Allies declared war on Germany. The Wehrmacht charged at the Polish army like a gorilla breaking free from its cage. Within the first week, the Polish forces retreated chaotically on all fronts, and some units became encircled. By September 5, the Polish government fled toward the border. On September 16, before the USSR entered the conflict, the Polish leadership was already negotiating with Romania regarding evacuation. The high command moved to Brest and lost contact with the main body of troops.

After September 10, there was no longer any centralized control of the Polish army. By September 16, German forces reached Bialystok, Brest, and Lviv. Most organized Polish units remained to the west and were encircled. The Allies were unable to assist Poland; French troops were slowly deployed and managed to carry out only a limited offensive that pushed the front back a few kilometers into German territory. The Allies could have saved Poland by 1940, if only it could hold out until then – but this was clearly an insurmountable task for the country. 

Soviet political leaders decided that further delay was pointless. On September 6, Moscow announced “large-scale military exercises” which in reality meant that the country mobilized its armed forces. However, it soon became apparent that the Soviet military was not as combat ready as was anticipated. The troops weren’t ready for combat, military equipment required repairs, and there was a great shortage of additional vehicles.

On the night of September 17, Stalin personally informed German ambassador to the USSR Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg that the Red Army was about to start its operation. A similar note was delivered to the Polish ambassador to the USSR. The next morning, Soviet mechanized columns crossed the border into Poland.

The Polish government promptly fled the country. Commander of the Polish armed forces Marshal Rydz-Smigly ordered, “I command an immediate retreat to Romania and Hungary by the shortest routes. Do not engage in combat with the Soviets.”

The entry of the Red Army into Poland was accompanied by considerable disorder. Polish resistance was sporadic and was largely initiated by local junior commanders. The advance of Soviet troops was marked by confusion and there were many non-combat losses. In areas where the Poles put up resistance, the Soviet army fought, but generally for the Poles, it looked more like disarmament than defeat in battle. For instance, during the assault on Grodno, 57 Red Army soldiers were killed, while about 1,500 Polish soldiers and officers surrendered. During the campaign, an estimated 737-1,475 Soviet soldiers and officers died – many of them for non-combat reasons; and about 240,000 soldiers were taken prisoner.

While Polish soldiers and officers offered some resistance, the Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Jewish people often sympathized with or even assisted the advancing Red Army units. Poland’s ideology was one of triumphant nationalism, so non-Polish cultures found themselves in a subordinate position and were often openly discriminated against.

The Wehrmacht immediately halted its advance into territories that were claimed by the USSR. A few days later, the demarcation line was finalized. Tensions arose only in Lviv, where Soviet forces encountered German troops. As a result, all three sides – the Red Army, the Polish garrison, and the German army – lost both soldiers and equipment. 

By September 29, the Red Army’s campaign in Poland was essentially over. The Soviet Union expanded its territory by 196,000 square km (half of the territory of Poland) with a population of up to 13 million people. The Vilna region, including the city of Vilnius, was handed over to Lithuania, while areas populated by Belarusians and Ukrainians were assigned to the respective Soviet republics.

The fate of prisoners of war and the people detained by Soviet security agencies raised further questions. Many Polish officers were later executed at Katyn. But most captives were either sent home or fled to the West through third counties where they formed the Anders’ Army, which became part of the Western coalition. In western Belarus and Ukraine, Soviet authority was established, which caused certain upheavals that always accompany such transitions. Many people suspected of disloyalty were deported further east. However, considering the war which would soon break out, such exile often saved their lives.

Liberation for some, occupation for others 

Setting politics aside and focusing on the actual circumstances surrounding the Soviet campaign and its alternatives, we see that the situation didn’t look flattering from any side. 

Firstly, we need to dismiss the idea that Hitler would not have started the war without the pact or that the war was started jointly by the Nazis and the USSR. The Soviet Union lacked the diplomatic weight to impose its will on partners in negotiations. Indeed, the Nazis didn’t want more problems in the East. However, from Hitler’s perspective, he struck a fantastic deal: he resolved a potentially contentious issue and rid himself of possible complications by ceding territories that he considered worthless – that didn’t have any significant resources or industrial centers – to the Soviet Union.

As for Poland, it was outright opposed to an alliance with Moscow. Indeed, there was another option: to do nothing. This meant handing over the Kresy to Hitler. On September 17, 1939, the choice was not “Poland or Hitler” or “totalitarians or democrats”; it was simply “Hitler or Stalin.” Given this reality, it’s worth asking the moralists whether they consider Hitler a more legitimate or humane ruler of Lviv and Grodno than Stalin.

In this grim world of ‘realpolitik’, Poland’s position proved to be extremely vulnerable. The leaders of the Second Polish Republic consistently rejected any ideas of jointly fighting against Hitler with the USSR. Of course, they reasonably feared being drawn into Moscow’s orbit and ultimately finding themselves living in a socialist Poland. Ironically, by the end of the war, this is indeed what happened, but by that time Poland had lost one-fifth of its population due to the war and the Nazi occupation, and Warsaw and the entire country were in ruins. Should Poland have considered making political concessions to the USSR earlier instead of waiting until Moscow controlled Poland’s territory, army, and political institutions? That’s a question only the Polish people can answer. Indeed, it’s hard to shake the feeling that in 1939, faced with two evils, Poland chose to do nothing and simply perish. The idea of doing nothing in such a situation might look good in a novel, but it’s hardly practical in politics. 

For Western allies, 1939 clearly became the year of lost opportunities. One could argue that an allied operation against the Nazis involving Britain, France, the USSR, and what remained of Poland could have been a better option than what happened in reality: Germany’s swift occupation of France, followed by Britain and the USSR fighting Germany on their own – Britain at sea and in the air, and the USSR on land. However, at the time, deep mutual distrust and a poor understanding of the situation played a fatal role in forming an alliance between Western democracies and the Soviet Union.

The USSR ultimately benefited from the events of September 1939, but not as much as it had hoped. Its territorial gains included western Belarus and Ukraine, and this was soon followed by the annexation of the Baltic states. Since a larger war loomed on the horizon, this territory became valuable only as square kilometers. These buffer zones proved crucial in 1941 when the USSR entered the war against Germany. The issue of Finland’s status, which the USSR declared war on several months later, remained unresolved. 

Most importantly, Stalin hoped that he would gain far more time than he actually did. The USSR had hoped that it would have several years to prepare for war, while France put up active resistance. In reality, the defense of France collapsed in the summer of 1940, and the USSR gained only one year and nine months of breathing room. And rather than becoming weaker, the Wehrmacht grew even stronger in the course of the conflict against Western allies.

In 1939, politicians gave more candid and sensible assessments of the situation. Winston Churchill observed: 

“Russia has pursued a cold policy of self-interest. We could have wished that the Russian armies should be standing on their present lines as the friends of the allies in Poland, instead of as invaders. But that the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace. In any case, this line exists, and this means that an Eastern Front has been established that Nazi Germany would not dare attack.”

The Soviet Union operated within the framework of ‘realpolitik’, which didn’t look either nice or noble. 

But in less than two years, the Russians found themselves engaged in the greatest war in history, which was a battle for their very survival. And undoubtedly, the Soviet Union used every means at its disposal to strengthen its position before that day arrived.

Hungary’s new government has asked for an exemption from US sanctions targeting Russian energy buyers, despite pledging to reduce the country’s dependence on supplies from Moscow.

The request comes after US President Donald Trump signed a sweeping expansion of sanctions against Russia into law on Friday. The legislation, criticized by the Kremlin as an “unfriendly move,” allows tariffs of up to 100% on goods from major buyers of Russian oil and gas, while providing for exemptions on US national security grounds.

The Hungarian Foreign Ministry approached the US State Department over the potential impact of the legislation before it was adopted, according to local media reports on Monday. The issue was also raised in Washington last week by Marton Hajdu, chairman of the Hungarian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the ruling Tisza party.

Hajdu said he told Republican lawmakers that Tisza was aware of the “risks and disadvantages of dependence on Russian energy,” while asking them to help exempt Hungary from the measures.

Washington reportedly said the legislation could apply to Hungary only after its existing US sanctions exemption expires on November 21 and if it is not renewed. The exemption was secured under former Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Tisza pledged during its election campaign to end Hungary’s dependence on Russian energy by 2035, describing it as a “systemic risk.” The new pro-EU government under Prime Minister Peter Magyar has also described Moscow as a “threat.”

Hungary remains heavily reliant on Russian supplies, which accounted for around 90% of its crude oil in 2025, according to S&P Global. Much of the oil has traditionally arrived through the Soviet-built Druzhba pipeline, where flows were halted for nearly three months earlier this year after Ukraine claimed its section had been damaged by a Russian strike, a claim disputed by Moscow. Hungary and Slovakia accused Kiev of deliberately delaying the restart for political reasons.

The EU has sharply reduced Russian energy purchases since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Russia’s share of the bloc’s gas imports fell from 45% in 2021 to 12% in 2025, while Russian crude dropped from 27% to around 2%. Brussels plans to phase out Russian LNG by the end of 2026 and pipeline gas by late 2027.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has acknowledged that the EU “cannot remain an industrial powerhouse” if energy prices remain structurally high.

US President Donald Trump is weighing several options regarding Iran, including blowing the “entire nation up,” Fox News has reported. At the same time, Trump has reportedly signaled that he is open to talks with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The US and Israel launched their war against Iran in late February, killing senior officials and commanders, including longtime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. A June 17 memorandum intended to halt the fighting expired in mid-August without a lasting agreement. Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted, pushing up global energy prices.

On Sunday, Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst reported that Trump had told him he was in “deciding mode” and teased “very big things… happening in the not-so-distant future.” Trump is considering “wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically, or making a deal,” according to Yingst.

The president also reportedly indicated that he is “open” to meeting Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York this week.

Washington shifted toward greater economic pressure last month, announcing a “crushing economic operation” aimed at isolating Iran and penalizing countries that continue trading with it.

Meanwhile, Tehran has warned that any renewed US attack would trigger retaliation against American bases and interests across the Middle East.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said over the weekend that Tehran had conveyed seven conditions to Washington for the start of negotiations. He later told Al Jazeera that they include an end to the war on all fronts, the release of frozen Iranian funds, and an end to the US naval blockade. Qatar has been acting as an intermediary.

“Trump’s threats will not achieve any results. We are prepared for a decisive war,” Rezaei said.

Against this backdrop, US diplomatic missions across the Middle East issued security alerts over the weekend, urging Americans to exercise heightened vigilance amid the risk of further escalation. The warnings also cited renewed fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthis.

Police and protesters clashed in Paris over the weekend as thousands demonstrated against a proposed law that critics claim would give law enforcement officers a “license to kill.”

Video from the French capital showed police firing tear gas and chasing demonstrators as the streets filled with smoke, with protesters attempting to kick smoking canisters back toward officers.

Protesters carried signs reading “The people are not a target,” “Justice for victims of police violence,” and “No to the firearms permit.”

The demonstrations erupted over a new bill that would alter the legal procedures for when a police officer shoots someone. Under the proposed legislation, the authorities would start from the assumption that the officer used their weapon legally. That assumption could still be challenged if evidence showed otherwise.

Supporters of the bill argue that officers should not automatically be treated as suspects for firing their weapons while on the job.

Critics, however, claim that the change would effectively shift the burden of proof and make it harder to hold police accountable after shootings. Activists and rights groups have branded the measure a “license to kill,” saying it could “prepare the ground for blood and tears.”

Protests were held in more than 20 cities. Police said around 4,500 people demonstrated in Lyon and 3,700 in Toulouse. In Rennes, eight people were arrested and three police officers were injured after projectiles were thrown.

Rights groups called the weekend protests to pressure senators ahead of a debate they expect in October. A petition opposing the measure has drawn more than 730,000 signatures but has been dismissed by the parliamentary law committee.

The latest state elections in Germany have confirmed a trend that is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss. The issue is no longer the occasional success of one party or failure of another, but the gradual dismantling of a political system that for decades appeared almost permanent.

The postwar German model rested on competition between two “people’s parties,” the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats and this conservative-social democratic axis provided stability after the upheavals of the first half of the 20th century, allowing governments to alternate while remaining within broadly accepted political boundaries.

Germany adhered to this model particularly closely, so the political landscape expanded significantly only twice, first with the rise of the Greens in the 1980s, which brought the rebellious generation of 1968 into the establishment, and then after reunification with the emergence of the Left from the former East German political tradition, but that orderly system is now breaking down.

The results in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, following Saxony-Anhalt two weeks earlier, leap off the page, as the AfD won 38.2% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while the CDU fell below the 5% threshold for the first time in a German state election. In Berlin, meanwhile, the Left finished first, with the CDU second and the SPD falling to fifth place.  

For the leaderships of the CDU and SPD, it’s tempting to reduce the problem to the rise of the AfD and concentrate on how it should be contained, but the deeper problem is the fragmentation of the entire electoral landscape and the disappearance of the political manageability that Germany once took for granted.

Germany is therefore moving towards something resembling the politics of smaller European countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, or Austria, with fragmented parliaments and increasingly complicated multiparty coalitions.

There’s nothing inherently unworkable about such a system and plenty of European countries function this way, but Germany is different. Its political culture has traditionally valued predictability and institutional continuity, but if fragmentation now spreads inside the CDU and SPD themselves, the consequences will extend beyond election arithmetic.

Germany isn’t particularly comfortable with political upheaval and when Germany becomes politically nervous, its neighbors have historically had reason to pay attention.

Furious anti-immigration protesters attacked a car carrying a local politician in the troubled Spanish enclave of Ceuta on Sunday. Locals, whose communities have been overrun by thousands of illegal migrants invading from Morocco, believed the vehicle carried a member of a pro-migrant activist group.

Footage shows protesters surrounding the vehicle, kicking and striking it, pelting it with eggs, and smashing its windows as police tried to hold them back. Riot police opened fire to disperse the crowd, multiple media outlets have reported.

Decenas de personas destrozan en el puerto de Ceuta el coche de la diputada Julia Ferreras y el activista de la Flotilla Rafael Borrego: “Nos iban a matar”https://t.co/32E9uNVo81 pic.twitter.com/Z4mouzg3vd

— elDiario.es (@eldiarioes) September 20, 2026

Una turba destroza en Ceuta el coche de una diputada y un activista con ellos dentro: “Nos iban a matar” https://t.co/32E9uNVo81

Hay al menos una persona detenida, acusada de provocar daños al vehículo y de atentado a la autoridad pic.twitter.com/cMaJrAZgtX

— elDiario.es (@eldiarioes) September 21, 2026

The crowd had gathered at the port awaiting the Pamplona-based Negu Gorriak/Derecho a Techo (Right to a Roof) group, which had planned to travel to Ceuta to distribute humanitarian aid to migrants and protest alleged “violence” against them by the authorities.

Instead, the car carried local assembly deputy Julia Ferreras, Gaza Flotilla activist and lawyer Rafael Borrego, and UN human-rights lawyer Sofía Cánovas. Borrego told elDiario.es that protesters mistakenly identified him as one of the expected activists. Europa Press said that some protesters claimed the occupants had been filming and mocking them.

🇪🇸 Ceuta, España | 🔴 Revientan el coche de la ONG etarra que acaba de llegar a Ceuta. pic.twitter.com/wro84jHviu

— 𝐄𝐥 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 (@ElImperialEsp) September 20, 2026

According to El País, protesters described the Pamplona activists as “radicals” and “pro-ETA.” ETA was a Basque separatist organization that waged a decades-long armed campaign for independence before dissolving in 2018. The allegation had reportedly circulated in WhatsApp groups used to organize the demonstration.

It is unclear whether the activists ever reached Ceuta. As of Monday afternoon, El Español reported that the group had not arrived.

Ceuta has faced a migration crisis since more than 72,000 people crossed from Morocco in late July. While most were returned, thousands remained, many in makeshift beach camps. On Friday, police and the military began moving them to temporary shelters, using rubber bullets and batons to control crowds.

Earlier on Sunday, more than 1,000 residents marched toward the Moroccan border, demanding stronger controls and criticizing the central government’s handling of the crisis.

The US has proposed creating an alert system with China to notify each other when artificial intelligence incidents become serious enough to threaten national security.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the proposal after talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York on Sunday, ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington this week.

“We want a shared vision of common goals and common threats,” Bessent told reporters. “We think that just like any cross-border activity, that moving from opaque to more transparency between the No. 1 and the No. 2 AI powers in the world is very important.”

The proposed mechanism could cover serious incidents such as AI-enabled cyberattacks or major model failures, according to experts cited by AP. Chinese researchers have also pointed to risks to critical infrastructure including electricity, telecommunications, finance and transportation.

The proposal comes as Washington and Beijing have been locked in an increasingly intense race to dominate AI. Trump has repeatedly argued that the US cannot afford to slow development while China is rapidly narrowing the technological gap. 

His position comes amid increasingly stark warnings from leading technology executives. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for development of the most powerful AI systems to be slowed, warning of risks including loss of human control, cyberattacks, bioterrorism and major economic disruption. OpenAI chief Sam Altman and xAI owner Elon Musk have backed calls for greater caution.

A series of recent incidents has added to the concerns. Google confirmed this month that its Gemini system breached three real companies during a cybersecurity exercise after it was mistakenly given internet access. OpenAI agents have separately bypassed restrictions during testing, accessed outside systems and used websites to communicate with one another without being instructed to do so.

Beijing has rejected the accusations and accused Washington of seeking an AI monopoly. Despite US restrictions, Chinese developers including DeepSeek and Moonshot have released increasingly capable systems that compete with leading American models, often at a lower cost.

China has also been building a broader international framework around AI. In July, it joined Russia and 27 other countries in establishing the Shanghai-based World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, presenting it as an alternative approach based on wider access to AI technology and international cooperation rather than technological blocs.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has lashed out at the results of Russia’s parliamentary election, dismissing it as a “veneer of democracy.” The senior EU official, a noted Russia hawk who was appointed, not elected, to her post in 2024, made no mention of the 1,600 drones Ukraine launched into Russia during the vote.

Her claims of democratic dysfunction did not include Ukraine’s own indefinitely suspended elections, but stuck to a vote whereby some 60 million people cast ballots across 11 time zones.

In a post on X on Monday, Kallas targeted the three-day elections in which the ruling United Russia party retained a commanding parliamentary majority with nearly 58% of the party-list vote, well ahead of its rivals, according to preliminary results. Turnout exceeded 59% from 51.7% in 2021, according to Central Election Commission chief Ella Pamfilova.

Kallas also claimed to have “proposed measures against those facilitating these sham elections in occupied Ukrainian territories.” The EU said separately that it would never recognize voting held in Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions – all of which voted to join Russia in public referendums in 2014 and 2022.

However, neither Kallas nor other Kiev’s backers made mention of a huge Ukrainian drone raid on Moscow amid the election. The attack – which Russian officials said involved more than 1,600 drones and was aimed at derailing the vote – killed two civilians in the capital suburbs and damaged an oil refinery, residential buildings, and civilian infrastructure. Ukrainian strikes in frontline regions also damaged dozens of buildings housing election commissions, according to local officials.

Kallas was ridiculed by social media users over the fact that she herself was not elected by EU voters to the position, having taken office as the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy in December 2024 after serving as Estonian prime minister and a member of the European Parliament.

Kallas and Kiev’s Western backers have consistently refrained from calling on Ukraine to hold its own presidential election, after Vladimir Zelensky’s term expired more than two years ago and he refused to call a new vote, citing martial law. Russia has since declared him “illegitimate,” arguing that Zelensky’s dubious status complicates any eventual peace settlement.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded to the election criticism by mocking Kallas’s earlier call for EU states not to recognize the Russian results, saying that “EU countries had stopped recognizing Kallas herself a long time ago.”

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky sought to drag Poland into war with Russia in 2022, even floating the prospect of creating a single state, Polish opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has claimed.

The head of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party recalled how the government of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki reacted to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Kaczynski was deputy prime minister at the time and chaired the government committee responsible for national security and defense affairs.

“The Ukrainians sometimes expected things that – for various reasons I cannot discuss here – we simply could not agree to,” the veteran politician said during a meeting with the PiS youth congress last weekend.

“Initially, they held a somewhat strange concept, namely, that they would drag us into the war, perhaps even to the point of creating a single state,” he added, noting that Zelensky’s speech in the Polish parliament was “heading in that direction.”

Other Polish politicians made similar criticisms of Zelensky

Krzysztof Gawkowski, a deputy to incumbent Prime Minister Donald Turk, similarly accused Kiev of trying to drag Poland into the war in 2024, as he rebuked Zelensky for “pestering” Warsaw with demands for greater military involvement.

Poland suffered casualties early in the conflict when a missile fired by Ukrainian air defenses struck a farm near the border village of Przewodow in November 2022, killing two civilians. Zelensky initially insisted that the projectile was Russian and urged for a collective NATO retaliation.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that deeper NATO involvement in Ukraine risks a direct conflict. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week that if Europe attacked Russia, the resulting war would be “different” in nature and “very short.”

Historic grievances divide Poland and Ukraine

Poland and Ukraine have a long-running dispute over the legacy of the Nazi-collaborating Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which Warsaw holds responsible for mass killings of Polish civilians during World War II.

The issue flared again earlier this year after Zelensky gave an elite military unit the honorary name “Heroes of the UPA,” prompting sharp criticism from Warsaw.

The historic grudge feeds into tensions over territories that belonged to interwar Poland and became part of Soviet Ukraine after World War II. A reference to lost Polish lands sparked a public quarrel last week between Tusk and conservative President Karol Nawrocki.

Nawrocki wrote on X that Poland “may lose territory, but we will never lose [its] soul.” The prime minister rebuked the sentiment, saying: “We do not intend to give up even a scrap of our territory.”

Judging by the preliminary results, Russia’s new State Duma will look remarkably similar to the old one, after this weekend’s elections. Yet amid dramatically different domestic and international circumstances, that continuity is perhaps the most notable result of all.

The 2026 result has produced some changes, but the new is considerably less significant than the familiar.

Turnout, at around 57%, was the highest in a State Duma election for a decade, although hardly unprecedented as participation exceeded 60% four times in earlier elections.

United Russia was the clearest beneficiary, taking almost 58% of the party-list vote, up sharply from 49.8% in 2021. Even so, it remained below the party’s record 64.3% in 2007, during Vladimir Putin’s second presidential term. 

The Communists again established themselves as Russia’s principal opposition party, comfortably finishing second with almost 14%, but that represented a significant retreat from their roughly 19% in 2021, and was far removed from the turbulent 1990s, when the party could attract almost a quarter of the electorate.

The ultra-nationalist LDPR improved from 7.55% to about 8.8%, but its hopes of overtaking the Communists proved misplaced, while liberals New People also advanced substantially, from 5.3% to around 7.9%, climbing from fifth to fourth. but the breakthrough suggested by some summer polling, when second place appeared possible, never materialized.

The larger story, therefore, is how little Russian voting preferences have changed during five extraordinarily eventful years.

Since the previous Duma election, Russia has experienced the Ukraine conflict, unprecedented Western sanctions, sweeping economic changes, and a profound reorientation of its foreign relations. Such circumstances might reasonably have produced either a radicalization of political opinion or widespread political apathy, but instead, voters largely chose continuity. Thus, United Russia strengthened its position, but the familiar parliamentary opposition survived alongside it.

That may be the election’s real surprise, given amid unusually volatile conditions at home and abroad, Russians have largely preserved the existing balance of political forces, suggesting that while there has undoubtedly been consolidation around the flag, maintaining alternative voices within the established political system still matters to a significant part of the electorate.

This article was first published by Kommersant, and was rewritten by the RT team.

In the past few years, BRICS has seen rapid expansion. In 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE joined the organization; this was followed by the introduction of a new ‘partner country’ category. As a result, BRICS broadened its geographic reach and effectively transformed into a new organization. Against this backdrop, the September 2026 summit in New Delhi might appear less groundbreaking. This time, no expansion or major political or economic initiatives were announced. However, this signals a shift in the development stage of the group rather than a loss of momentum. Following the high-profile decisions of previous years, members have decided to focus on fleshing out the new BRICS architecture. 

This process is particularly evident when it comes to Africa. Just a few years ago, South Africa was the only African country within BRICS; other African nations engaged primarily through the BRICS+ format. Now, the situation is fundamentally different. Three African states – South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia – are full members of the group, while Nigeria and Uganda have attained partner country status. The organization’s focus has shifted from building external relations with Africa to establishing an African platform within BRICS.

As a result, Africa is now represented at virtually every level of the emerging BRICS architecture: through full members, partners, and the AU as the primary pan-African organization.

The expansion of African representation within BRICS is gradually influencing the political agenda as well. In the New Delhi Declaration, BRICS reaffirmed its support for a greater representation of African nations on the UN Security Council. The broader issue of the underrepresentation of developing nations, particularly African ones, within the global governance system was also highlighted. BRICS has consistently advocated for the interests of the Global South.

The African agenda was also prominent in security matters. BRICS advocates for increasing cooperation with the AU and supporting African conflict-resolution mechanisms. The crisis in Sudan was specifically addressed in the final declaration; the organization called for a cessation of hostilities, humanitarian access, and a political settlement based on the ‘African solutions to African problems’ principle.

Therefore, the focus is shifting from merely including Africa in BRICS documents to recognizing the continent’s growing agency.

This process lays the groundwork for the NDB’s gradual transformation into a financial institution with a broader presence on the continent. At the New Delhi summit, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed proposed opening an NDB office in Addis Ababa. Should this idea move forward, the bank would gain another institutional foothold on the African continent – and moreover, in the city that hosts the AU headquarters.

September 2026 marked another significant step: the approval of NDB’s new strategy for 2027-2031. This strategy aligns with the development of BRICS itself: the expansion of membership is to be followed by an expansion of the bank’s actual operations. Key priorities include a gradual and balanced expansion of the membership base, active engagement with new members, increased financing, and the further development of operations in national currencies.

The NDB leadership aims to launch full-scale operations in all new borrowing countries. This is of fundamental importance for Africa. Currently, a noticeable gap remains between the NDB’s institutional presence on the continent and the geographical distribution of its actual projects. The bulk of the portfolio is still concentrated in South Africa. In 2026, support was provided for new projects concerning railway infrastructure, water supply, and financial guarantees.

The nature of requests from African members is also shifting. In addition to broader political representation within Africa, Ethiopia has pointed out the importance of having access to financing and markets, attracting investments, and developing regional connectivity.

South Africa advocates for a similar agenda: industrialization, local value addition, infrastructure development, and leveraging the opportunities offered by the African Continental Free Trade Area. For African states, the benefits of BRICS are increasingly tied not just to membership in a major non-Western group but to the ability to utilize its tools to address domestic and regional development challenges.

At the same time, it would be premature to claim that the transition to a new phase in the history of BRICS is already complete. Rather, the year 2026 has set the direction. The political and institutional ‘Africanization’ of BRICS is currently outpacing the economic aspect. The number of African member-states and partners has grown significantly, their representation in the NDB has expanded, and African issues have secured a firm place in BRICS documents. However, the volume of mutual investments and the number of major joint projects do not yet match the scale of the institutional changes that have taken place.

In this sense, Africa is becoming a key test for the renewed BRICS. The next stage of its development should demonstrate the extent to which the new architecture is capable of delivering tangible economic results.

Eight giraffes from Namibia have arrived in Russia by plane and are settling into their new home at Kazan Zoo, city authorities said on Friday. The group of three males and five females was transported to the capital of Tatarstan on a specially chartered Il-76 cargo aircraft.

The animals were accompanied by specialists throughout the journey, who monitored the animals and their transport conditions. According to Kazan officials, they handled the long flight well and are now being kept under observation while adapting to their new surroundings.

“We have a state-of-the-art giraffe enclosure – one that meets not only Russian zoo standards but also global ones. It has everything necessary, and every detail has been carefully thought out, including arrangements for winter housing,” noted Kazan Mayor Ilsur Metshin.

The animals, which are between one and two years old, will spend 21 days in quarantine, with zoo staff monitoring each giraffe individually, local media reported. Metshin said rhinos could also be brought to Kazan in the future.

The shipment marked the first time in 19 years that giraffes had been brought to Russia by air, according to Kazan officials.

The arrival comes amid efforts to bring more African wildlife to Russian zoos. In 2023, Russia’s veterinary watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said it planned to discuss imports of hippos, elephants, giraffes, zebras, antelopes, and rhinos from game reserves in South Africa’s Limpopo and Gauteng provinces. As of July 2025, Russian zoos had only six female South African giraffes, with no new animals imported for more than 15 years, according to RBK.

The giraffes are not the only African animals brought to Russia this year. In July, 30 zebras from Namibia arrived in Moscow for keeping and breeding at a local zoo, along with dozens of reptiles and other exotic animals from Namibia and Togo.

Houthi missiles and drones struck several “sensitive sites” across Saudi Arabia, including in the capital Riyadh, the Yemeni militant group announced on Sunday, marking a new escalation in their renewed conflict with the kingdom.

Flames and a large column of black smoke was seen rising near King Khalid International Airport on Saturday, as flights were delayed and canceled. Saudi Arabia said its air defenses intercepted a ballistic missile headed toward Riyadh and thwarted several other attacks.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group also targeted facilities belonging to state oil giant Saudi Aramco in the western city of Yanbu. He described the weekend strikes as retaliation for recent Saudi-led coalition attacks on Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has backed Yemen’s internationally recognized government against the Houthis since intervening in the country’s civil war in 2015. Large-scale fighting largely subsided after a UN-brokered truce in 2022, but the conflict erupted again this summer after an airport in Houthi-controlled Sanaa was bombed to prevent an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation from Tehran from landing. The Houthis blamed Riyadh, declared the ceasefire over and began a new campaign against Saudi targets.

Houthi forces struck the Saudi capital today, hitting fuel storage infrastructure at Riyadh International Airport. pic.twitter.com/lpRHpyIsXf

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) September 19, 2026

They have since seized key territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, including positions around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most important shipping routes. Officially known as the Ansarullah movement, the Houthis currently control the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north and west.

Saudi-led forces have responded with renewed airstrikes inside Yemen.

Saudi political analyst Faisal Alshammeri told RT that the latest attacks could force Riyadh to respond more strongly despite its efforts to avoid being dragged back into a major ground war in Yemen.

He also noted that the escalation could become the first major test of the Mecca defense agreement between Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan, predicting that Ankara and Islamabad would provide intelligence and air-defense support rather than join direct attacks on the Houthis.

The renewed Yemen conflict has increasingly entangled with the wider US-Israeli war on Iran. The Houthis openly sided with Tehran earlier this year, while fighting around the Strait of Hormuz has forced Saudi Arabia to rely increasingly on Red Sea oil routes now threatened by the Houthi advance.

The mounting pressure on Middle Eastern energy supply routes has kept oil above $100 a barrel, with Brent futures trading around $104 on Friday.

India’s fertilizer industry is facing renewed pressure from soaring sulfur prices as attacks on energy infrastructure in Russia and the Middle East tighten supplies of a key raw material used in phosphate fertilizers.

Landed sulfur prices in India have doubled since the start of the year to around $1,050-$1,100 per ton, raising costs for producers of diammonium phosphate (DAP), single super phosphate (SSP), and other complex fertilizers.

India consumes around 3.8-3.9 million tons of sulfur annually, with more than half used by the fertilizer industry. Indian companies use sulfur and phosphate rock to manufacture fertilizers domestically. Sulfur availability is key for food security in the world’s most populous nation.

Most sulfur is recovered as a byproduct of oil refining and natural gas processing rather than mined directly. It is then converted into sulfuric acid, which is used to process phosphate rock for fertilizers such as DAP and SSP.

Ukraine doubled the number of Russian refineries targeted in the first five months of the year compared with the same period in last year, Reuters reported. Moscow has restricted exports of sulfur and sulfuric acid to protect supplies for its domestic fertilizer industry amid the disruptions. Sulfuric acid export restrictions are set to remain in place through the end of the year.

Kenyan runner Agnes Ngetich has broken the women-only half marathon world record by one second, clocking 1:05:15 to win gold at the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Copenhagen.

The 25-year-old eclipsed the 1:05:16 mark set by compatriot Peres Jepchirchir in Gdynia, Poland, in 2020.

Race data published by World Athletics on Sunday showed that Ngetich led from the start and opened a ten-second advantage by the five-kilometer mark. She finished 50 seconds ahead of fellow Kenyan Veronica Loleo, who took silver in 1:06:05, while Rwanda’s Florence Niyonkuru claimed bronze with a national record of 1:06:08.

The women-only record applies to races contested without male athletes or pacemakers. Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey holds the overall women’s half marathon record of 1:02:52, achieved in a mixed race in 2021. Ngetich herself ran 1:03:04 in a mixed race in Valencia in 2024, the second-fastest women’s half marathon time recorded at the time.

The Copenhagen victory gave her a second global title this year following her triumph at the World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, Florida, in January. She also holds the mixed-race and women-only 10 km world records of 28:46 and 29:27 respectively.

Ngetich said she would consult her coach about her next steps but planned to return to track racing for the 2027 World Championships in Beijing. “It is my dream to win a gold medal on the track,” she said, describing it as “the only one I am missing.”

Unstoppable 🤯

Agnes Ngetich storms to her second global title of 2026, dominating the women’s half marathon in a women-only world record of 1:05:15* 💪

🥇 Agnes Ngetich 🇰🇪 1:05:15* WR
🥈 Veronica Loleo 🇰🇪 1:06:05
🥉 Florence Niyonkuru 🇷🇼 1:06:08 NR

🔗 https://t.co/clRNip5jFP… pic.twitter.com/QEp0xDV7U3

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) September 20, 2026

At the 2026 championships, Kenya won the women’s team title, ahead of the US and Ethiopia. The East African country also claimed the men’s team gold, while Nicholas Kipkorir took individual silver in the half marathon.

The country will reinforce that status by hosting the 2029 World Athletics Championships, the first edition to be held in Africa. Nairobi defeated bids from London, Rome, and Munich to secure the hosting rights, World Athletics announced last week. Kenya previously staged the 2017 World Under-18 and 2021 World Under-20 championships.

Ukraine has effectively lost its steel industry after Russian strikes brought production at the country’s three largest plants to a halt, a senior Metinvest executive has told the Financial Times.

Ballistic missiles have disabled major steelworks in Kiev-controlled parts of Russia’s Zaporozhye Region and Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk Region, repeatedly striking Metinvest’s Zaporozhstal and Kamet Steel plants and ArcelorMittal’s facility in Krivoy Rog. The latest attack on Thursday damaged production equipment, workshops and railway infrastructure, the outlet reported on Sunday.

The three plants, which together accounted for about 90% of Ukraine’s steel output, are now idle, Aleksandr Vodoviz, head of the CEO’s office at Metinvest – owned by Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov – told the FT. “As of today, [Ukraine] doesn’t have a steel industry any more,” he said.

Vodoviz said it was unclear when production could resume, with repairs potentially taking “days, weeks, months, or years.” The plants employ more than 15,000 people, and their shutdown could have a major impact on tax revenues for the Ukrainian budget, he added.

Zaporozhstal has been struck several times over the past month, with Vodoviz claiming the attacks had targeted its blast furnaces. “They knew everything about the plant, they knew exactly where to hit,” he said.

Moscow has also reported strikes on industrial and logistics facilities related to Kiev’s military. Russian forces last week hit the Radionix electronics plant and a data center in Kiev, which were involved in missile production and data processing for the Ukrainian Army, according to the Defense Ministry.

The attacks come as Kiev has ramped up long-range strikes on Russian energy, industrial, and civilian infrastructure, including residential buildings, warehouses, and oil refineries.

Kiev claims it considers Russian oil facilities legitimate military targets because they allegedly help finance and supply Moscow’s military campaign. Russia has condemned strikes on civilians as acts of terrorism, while maintaining that its forces only target military and defense-related facilities.

“There is a war of attrition, and now an economic war of attrition – Russia is trying to hurt Ukraine’s economy as much as possible and so does Ukraine,” Alyona Bilan, chief economist at investment bank Dragon Capital, told the FT, adding that Ukraine is unlikely to record any economic growth this year.

Ukraine’s steel industry was already shrinking before the latest strikes. The country produced around 7.4 million tons of crude steel in 2025, down from 7.6 million tons a year earlier and far below pre-conflict levels, according to the World Steel Association.

Producers have also faced growing pressure from cheaper Turkish steel made with Russian raw materials and tighter EU import restrictions. Metinvest COO Aleksandr Mironenko said last week that Kiev had been too slow to protect domestic producers with anti-dumping measures, adding to pressure on an industry now left without its three biggest plants.

A Ukrainian TV employee has been forcibly detained by a press gang outside his workplace in Kiev, with footage showing police and draft enforcers in military fatigues shoving the resisting man into a vehicle.

The incident occurred outside the main studio of Inter, one of Ukraine’s major national television channels. The detained man was identified by local media as an editing director working for the broadcaster’s news operation.

The clip, posted on Telegram on Sunday, captures a chaotic scene outside the studio as several officers surround the employee while other people attempt to intervene.

Scuffles can also be seen nearby, with a man in military fatigues pushing a civilian to the ground.

The footage appears to have been recorded by the detained man’s colleagues, who can be heard warning the officers that their conduct will be shown on television.

Российское "ипсо" в виде бусификации нагрянуло к сотрудникам телеканала Интер.
Вот тут поддерживаю, пропагандонов войны нужно отправлять на передовую в первую очередь pic.twitter.com/3APXt7qi1e

— 𝓓𝓸𝓷 𝓑𝓪𝓼𝓼 (@ZePrisoner) September 20, 2026

The Kiev branch of the Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support (TCC), the body overseeing mobilization, later defended the detention, insisting that the officers had done nothing unlawful.

According to the TCC, the editing director had no registered deferment from military service and was wanted for violating Ukraine’s mobilization rules. The agency added that neither the employee nor his employer had taken steps to secure his exemption.

The country’s conscription drive has become increasingly contentious amid Kiev’s battlefield setbacks and a shortage of willing recruits.

Ukraine does not provide regular updates on its battlefield losses, but Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last week that Ukrainian forces had recently been suffering around 27,000 killed and wounded per month, citing information from Ukrainian partners.

Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, meanwhile, said in December that Ukraine had lost nearly 500,000 troops killed or wounded in 2025 alone.

Numerous videos of so-called “busification” – a term Ukrainians use for the forcible detention and transportation of military-age men to recruitment centers – have circulated online. Such incidents have repeatedly triggered confrontations between TCC personnel and civilians.

African defense manufacturers should cooperate with countries such as Russia to develop licensed production on the continent, the CEO of South African defense company Milkor has said.

Speaking to RT at the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) 2026 exhibition, Jackson Mampa said African countries need this partnership because they currently lack some of the skills required for domestic production.

“If you cooperate with a country like Russia, you know very well that their materials are better tested. So, if you produce those under license in Africa, it will be much, much better,” he said.

Russia, for its part, is placing technological partnerships at the center of its defense cooperation with foreign partners, Denis Gizunov, head of the Rosoboronexport delegation, told RT.

“We can offer projects related to production localization and, above all, other technological cooperation projects,” he added.

Russian Ambassador to South Africa Roman Ambarov told TASS that the country’s display at AAD had drawn significant interest from South African partners and representatives of other countries.

Russia showcased 494 exhibits at AAD 2026, including 30 pieces of military equipment, according to the Russian Embassy in South Africa.

The display included the Lancet-E, KUB-2E, Skat-350M, Orlan-10E, and Orlan-30E drones, as well as Mi-171Sh and Mi-28NE helicopters and the Yak-130 aircraft. The modernized RPG-29M grenade launcher was also presented in Africa for the first time.

Rosoboronexport, Russia’s military export agency, brought together products from leading Russian manufacturers for different branches of the armed forces under the joint Russian defense display.

AAD 2026 took place from September 16 to 20 at Waterkloof Air Force Base in Pretoria. The biennial aerospace and defense exhibition brings together manufacturers, government delegations, and industry representatives and showcases military and civilian technologies across the aerospace, land, and maritime sectors.

Romanian right-wing politician Calin Georgescu, who won the first round of the country’s 2024 presidential election before the result was controversially annulled, has been detained in connection with an alleged €1 million fraud scheme.

Georgescu’s surprise win on an anti-NATO platform was met with accusations from Brussels and Bucharest of fake online campaigning. He was disqualified from running when a new vote was held, despite revelations that the suspected digital campaign in question was run by a party opposing him.

Romania’s Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) said on Monday that it had detained a suspect and searched five properties linked to the case, with local media identifying Georgescu as the person of interest. His key ally George Simion described the latest case as a warning that “any of us can be next.”

The media report came days before Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the presidential election, sparking mass protests.

Simion, the leader of the right-wing Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) who was also a candidate in the 2024 election and supported protests against their annulment, denounced Georgescu’s latest detention.

“Any of us can be next. Stop the abuse!” he wrote on Facebook. “Romania is a dictatorship!!!!”

The fraud investigation is one of several cases opened against Georgescu, who has claimed to be a victim of political persecution. He was previously accused of campaign-financing violations and plotting against the constitutional order, which disqualified him for the election rerun in 2025.

The administration of US President Donald Trump cited the annulment of the Romanian debacle when it accused Brussels of overseeing an erosion of democratic values in Europe.

The EU leadership said Bucharest is free in taking measures against “foreign interference.” The bloc’s general policy is to force censorship on social media platforms in response to alleged meddling. Tools established under its Digital Services Act (DSA) powers have been activated in several races, including in Moldova, which is not an EU member.

French-educated pro-EU former Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan was elected president in the wake of the political turmoil caused by the court ruling. Last week, he nominated MEP Siegfried Muresan, a vice-chair of the European People’s Party Group who previously worked as an adviser in the German Bundestag, to form the next government, despite a lack of a clear parliamentary majority.

It’s the third attempt to form a new government since a vote of no confidence in May plunged the country into its latest political crisis, potentially leading to yet another snap parliamentary election.

Ukraine has failed in its attempts to derail Russia’s parliamentary elections through mass attacks during the vote, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

The comments came after Moscow and its suburbs were hit by a huge Ukrainian drone raid overnight Saturday into Sunday. The attack killed two civilians in the capital suburbs and damaged an oil refinery, residential buildings, and civilian infrastructure. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said the “unprecedented” raid involved more than 1,600 UAVs on all directions.

The three-day vote wrapped up late on Sunday, with preliminary results showing the ruling United Russia party far ahead of its rivals and retaining its commanding majority in the State Duma.

With more than 95% of precinct protocols processed as of Monday, United Russia had 57.82% of the party-list vote, followed by the Communist Party with 13.8%, the LDPR with 8.99%, and New People with 7.96%, while A Just Russia scored slightly above the 5% threshold for party-list seats, according to Central Election Commission data.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Peskov weighed in on Ukrainian attacks both on Moscow and frontline regions during the elections. “It is sabotage. It is also an attempt to disrupt these elections,” he said, stressing that the effort “had no effect.”

Rodion Miroshnik, the head of the Foreign Ministry’s mission tasked with documenting alleged Ukrainian war crimes, said 74 buildings housing election commissions had been damaged or destroyed in ten Russian regions during the vote.

“This is material confirmation of planned actions by Kiev and its partners aimed at disrupting elections in Russia,” he said. “Kiev, which is not seeking to hold elections at home, is investing in attempts to disrupt elections in Russia, but without result.”

Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the upper chamber of the parliament, argued that the election results had demonstrated Russia’s resilience in the face of Western pressure. “The West has once again failed: The voting results confirmed that the idea of inflicting a strategic defeat on us by dividing us from within and splitting our society is hopelessly doomed,” she said.

United Russia chairman Dmitry Medvedev called the vote a “real result” but said it also marked “the start of a great deal of work.” “Having received such a mandate from the electorate, we must now set about implementing our national program,” he said. “I have no doubt whatsoever that our party… will rise to the challenge... We will prevail.”

China, meanwhile, has congratulated Russia on the election, saying that Beijing “firmly supports the Russian people’s independent choice” and that it is ready to continue working with Moscow to implement agreements between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping and take bilateral relations “to new heights.”

India’s exports to its four core BRICS partners jumped 34% in the first five months of the current financial year, with engineering and electronics exports to China driving the growth as New Delhi expands trade across major emerging markets.

Shipments to China, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa rose to $19.9 billion in the April-August period, from $14.9 billion a year ago, according to Indian Commerce Ministry data.

Indian exports to China rose 39% to $9.6 billion, with industry executives linking some of the increase to demand from the global build-out of artificial intelligence and data centers.

“It shows that Indian manufacturing is beginning to win credibility in one of the world’s most competitive global value chains,” chairman of the Indian Cellular and Electronics Association Pankaj Mohindroo told the Business Standard newspaper.

India and China have been rapidly normalizing bilateral ties, which had largely frozen following a border skirmish in 2020.

South Africa recorded the fastest growth rate, with shipments climbing 58%, while exports to Brazil and Russia increased 13% and 11%, respectively. Shipments to Brazil stood at $3.46 billion, and those to Russia at $2.04 billion.

India-Russia trade rose to $79 billion last year, Russian Economic Development Minister Maksim Reshetnikov told RT on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in New Delhi. The two countries have a trade target of $100 billion to be achieved by 2030.

India still runs large trade deficits with Russia and China. India, the second largest buyer of Russian crude, imported about $40.8 billion of Russian oil in the year ended March. New Delhi imported about $131.6 billion worth of goods from China in the same period.

Ten lions have been found dead at Tanzania’s UNESCO-listed Ngorongoro Conservation Area, prompting an investigation into suspected poisoning, the authorities have said.

The animals were discovered on Friday in the Ndutu area of Endulen Ward, according to a notice issued by the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA). “Preliminary findings suggest the animals may have died after ingesting poison,” the agency said.

The NCAA has launched an expert investigation to establish the cause of the deaths and identify those responsible. It did not disclose the animals’ ages or sexes or say what substance may have been involved.

Poisoning is a recurring threat to large carnivores in East Africa and is frequently associated with conflict between predators and livestock owners. However, the authorities have not established whether the latest deaths resulted from deliberate poisoning or identified a possible motive.

The latest deaths come a month after 18 elephants were found dead in Kenya’s Amboseli ecosystem near the Tanzanian border. Preliminary tests indicated possible exposure to a toxic substance. Four suspects were arrested and later released on bail pending further investigation. In January, six lions and more than 30 vultures were killed in a poisoning incident in Kenya’s Kitenden Conservancy, also near the Tanzanian border.

Ngorongoro is a UNESCO World Heritage Site where ethnic Maasai pastoralists coexist with lions, elephants, buffaloes, black rhinos and other wildlife.

The Tanzanian Tourism Ministry said the country received 993,771 international tourists during the first half of 2026. Attractions managed by the NCAA recorded 331,349 domestic and foreign visits during the period, an annual increase of 7.6%.

Iran has shut down a French-language center in Tehran, accusing the embassy-affiliated institution of operating illegally and engaging in activities which threaten the country’s national security.

Relations between Paris and Tehran have deteriorated despite France staying out of the war which the US and Israel launched against Iran in late February and denouncing the initial strikes as a breach of international law.
In July, two French diplomats were detained by Iranian security services, which accused them of interfering in the country’s internal affairs. They were subsequently expelled from the country. France retaliated in August by expelling two of Iran’s diplomats.

“Based on the Tehran prosecutor’s office’s order, the illegal center affiliated with the French Embassy in Tehran, which has operated for years under the guise of language instruction, has been closed,” the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency said on Sunday.

Iranian authorities claimed that the institution had repeatedly ignored warnings to obtain the licenses required under the country’s laws and had conducted activities that “violated diplomatic conventions.” They also accused it of using language instruction as cover to promote projects opposed to Iranian-Islamic culture, identify and build networks, and facilitate the departure of skilled Iranians from the country.

Nike-owned Converse has pulled a sneaker ad after critics said its imagery evoked lynch mobs and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a US white supremacist group.

The campaign featured K-pop singer Karina of the girl group Aespa dressed in a long white skirt and holding a pair of black high-top sneakers beneath a spotlight. Critics said the lighting made her outfit resemble a KKK hood, while the dangling shoes evoked the feet of a lynching victim.

“Nike and Converse, what the hell were you thinking?” Democratic Congressman Troy Carter said in a statement on Friday. He described the campaign as “racist, reckless and deeply offensive.”

Converse apologized on Saturday, saying it understood why the image was “deeply upsetting” and acknowledging that it had “got this wrong.”

“We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared. This should not have happened, and we will do better,” the company said.

I'm late to this. Apparently, a new Converse sneaker ad/commercial featuring K-Pop star Karina was deemed "racist" because it reminded black people of the KKK and lynching. I genuinely thought it was a joke, but it's not a joke. Converse has pulled the ad and apologized 😬 pic.twitter.com/VXNacxUbad

— Asian Dawn (@AsianDawn4) September 21, 2026

Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt argued that removing the ad did not address how it had been approved in the first place.

The apology “doesn’t undo what got past legal, marketing and leadership at every step,” he wrote on Instagram. “Do better means catching this before it airs – not after we’re offended.”

#Converse under fire for allegedly including KKK imagery in new ad starring Karina of aespa. pic.twitter.com/jmxlIV6hlJ

— Viral Takes (@viraltakes) September 19, 2026

Converse CEO Aaron Cain has since told employees that the company is reviewing the internal processes that allowed the campaign to be published. According to a memo seen by Bloomberg, Cain said that “the leadership team and I are taking a hard look at our internal review process and the critical lens we apply to our work” and pledged to “make needed changes.”

Founded after the US Civil War, the KKK became notorious for terrorizing racial and ethnic minorities, primarily blacks, through murder and various forms of intimidation. Membership peaked at an estimated 4 to 5 million people nationwide during the mid-1920s, at a time when only 10-11 million Americans were black.

Nike and its subsidiaries have faced criticism over advertising before. In April 2025, the company apologized for a London Marathon billboard reading “NEVER AGAIN. UNTIL NEXT YEAR” after critics linked the phrase to Holocaust remembrance. Nike said it had intended to reference runners vowing not to compete again before eventually returning.

In April this year, the sportswear giant drew fresh criticism over a Boston Marathon ad declaring: “Runners welcome. Walkers tolerated.”

The controversies come as Converse parent Nike is struggling to reverse a prolonged decline in its business and share price. The sportswear giant has lost more than $200 billion in market value since its shares peaked in 2021, as it has faced increased competition, weaker demand in China and criticism over a lack of product innovation.

Nike, which has owned Converse since 2003, is also set to leave the S&P 100 index after nearly 18 years, although it will remain part of the broader S&P 500.

The Pakistani air force struck alleged militant hideouts in eastern Afghanistan early Monday, killing at least three people and sharply escalating cross-border tensions.

The pre-dawn strikes in Nurgal district of Kunar province and Barmal district of Paktika province were in retaliation for a suicide bombing at a mosque in a police facility in northwestern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday which killed at least 16 people and injured scores of others.

Pakistani officials claimed 28 suspected militants were killed when its fighter jets and drones struck their targets in Patang area of Nurgal district as well as the Torkandi and Rukha areas of Barmal district, reports said. However, Afghanistan’s Taliban government said the strikes killed three civilians – one woman and two men.

Afghan deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said a home belonging to a villager named Noor Ahmad in Nurgal’s Pathan village was destroyed, killing him and two members of his family and wounding four other relatives.

Pakistan’s military has not yet issued a statement on the strikes.

“We condemn this aggression and oppression, regarding it as a repetition of such crimes,” Mujahid posted on X. “Pakistani military circles have once again committed such a crime to divert attention from their country’s security failures.”

Militant attacks have risen in Pakistan’s border areas in recent months. Islamabad has accused Afghanistan of hosting the militants and its military has launched attacks inside the country in response. Kabul, however, says the strikes are hitting civilians, including women and children.

French President Emmanuel Macron has hit out at Donald Trump after the US president posted a map depicting France’s archipelago of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon as US territory.

Trump posted an AI-generated image on social media earlier this month showing the US flag covering Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Central America and the Caribbean, as well as Iceland. Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, a small French overseas territory off the Atlantic coast of Canada with a population of just over 5,500, was also depicted as part of the “United States of America.”

Speaking to reporters after arriving in Saint-Pierre on Saturday for a two-day visit and talks with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Macron said it was “obvious” that the archipelago remains French territory.

“We’re not going to reiterate this every morning because some people have strange ideas or say strange things,” he added.

Macron’s remarks came a week after the French UN mission issued an apology for a social media post that “called into question the US commitment to human rights.” In July, the mission had criticized Washington for voting against extending the mandate of UN human rights chief Volker Turk.

“The US used to be a beacon of human rights. Not anymore. Today, it stands alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali & Russia, isolated. And the world no longer listens to it,” the mission wrote on X at the time.

Since returning to office in early 2025, Trump has revived his claims on Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory, and repeatedly suggested that Canada should become the 51st US state. He has also vowed to take control of the Panama Canal and issued threats against Mexico and Cuba, while saying that the US should “own” the Gaza Strip. In January, Trump ordered a commando raid in Caracas that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom he accused of helping a drug cartel.

Trump’s push to acquire Greenland initially caused outrage in Copenhagen, prompting European NATO members to rally around Denmark. Nevertheless, the US, Denmark, and Greenland announced an agreement last week that Trump said would grant Washington “permanent control” over the Arctic territory’s security.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have vowed not to target countries other than Saudi Arabia after their forces captured strategic positions around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, an important shipping chokepoint at the entrance to the Red Sea.

The Houthis, an Iran-backed Shiite group, declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia earlier this year, accusing the kingdom of imposing an illegal “siege” on the territories under their control.

“We confirmed that we are not targeting the United States, or any other nation, in the strait, with the sole exception of the Saudi enemy,” Houthi political spokesman Mohamed al-Bukhaiti told AP in an interview published on Sunday.

“The goal of our military operations is not to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, but rather to ensure freedom of navigation through it for everyone, including Yemen,” he added.

Al-Bukhaiti confirmed indirect contacts with Washington through Oman. According to earlier media reports, Saudi Arabia had asked US President Donald Trump to intervene militarily, but America has so far limited its cooperation to intelligence sharing and targeting assistance.

The escalation comes as the Strait of Hormuz, the other major maritime chokepoint linking the Middle East with global markets, remains effectively closed to most commercial shipping amid the US-Iran conflict.

Saudi Arabia first launched a military intervention on behalf of Yemen’s internationally recognized government in 2015, following the fall of the capital, Sanaa, to the Houthis the previous year.

Large-scale fighting in Yemen largely subsided following a UN-brokered truce in 2022 but erupted again after September 8 strikes on Sanaa airport aimed at preventing an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation from Tehran from landing. The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks, which the kingdom attributed to Yemeni government forces.

The US State Department issued security alerts across the Middle East on Saturday night, warning of a potential escalation between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, as well as possible attacks on American diplomatic facilities. According to CNN, Trump was briefed on potential strike options in Yemen but has not authorized military action.

The Houthis reached a separate ceasefire with the US in May 2025, under which Washington halted its air campaign in Yemen and the group agreed to stop targeting American vessels in the Red Sea.

A senior Polish Foreign Ministry official has been critically injured after falling from a third-floor window at a building located within the country’s embassy compound in Slovenia, local media have reported.

The incident occurred at around 3 AM on September 13 but only came to light several days later. The man was identified by Polish outlets as the head of the Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Security Bureau, which oversees the security of ministry facilities in Poland and the country’s diplomatic missions abroad. He has remained in critical condition in a Slovenian hospital since the fall.

The official had reportedly collected a diplomatic package and was expected to deliver it onward without a formal assignment.

The Polish mission refused to grant consent to local Slovenian police to enter the diplomatic premises or inspect the scene. Poland said its own investigators would examine the site and investigate the circumstances, TV Slovenija journalist Marko Saksida said.

Polish Deputy Sejm Speaker Krzysztof Bosak described the circumstances as suspicious and called for a thorough investigation.

“Security-related positions in the Foreign Ministry are often filled by people from the security services. If someone falls from a window at a diplomatic mission and it turns out that he was on vacation and carrying some kind of package, the case is no longer merely mysterious but very, very suspicious,” he said.

According to Polish news portal Zero.pl, the official was attending a private party with several other people when he fell. The other participants were also reportedly off duty.

“He was on leave. It was his private time. He was in an apartment adjacent to the diplomatic mission. That is where the accident occurred,” ministry spokesman Maciej Wewior told Niezalezna.pl.

The mission is headed by charge d’affaires Leszek Soczewica, whom Polish media have described as a close friend and associate of Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski.

In December 2022, Poland faced another high-profile security controversy when national police chief Jaroslaw Szymczyk was hospitalized after a grenade launcher presented to him as a gift by Ukrainian officials exploded inside police headquarters in Warsaw. Szymczyk said he had been assured that the weapon was unloaded, but security experts criticized his decision to bring military equipment into Poland and keep it in his office.

German General Carsten Breuer has been chosen as the next chair of the NATO Military Committee as European countries seek to strengthen their armed forces, citing the need to deter Russia.

Breuer, inspector general of the Bundeswehr, will succeed Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, with his three-year term set to begin in the summer of 2027.

The chiefs of defense of NATO member states backed Breuer during a vote at the annual Military Committee conference in Copenhagen on Saturday. The committee is the main forum where the bloc’s top military leaders coordinate what their armed forces should do together and provide advice to NATO’s political leadership.

Breuer has overseen the major rearmament drive initiated by Berlin following the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict the year before he took office as inspector general in 2023. His election to one of NATO’s most senior military positions was a sign of “recognition of the numerous measures Germany has introduced to strengthen the alliance,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said.

According to estimates cited by Handelsblatt, Germany currently ranks first among European NATO members in military spending, at around €125 billion ($143 billion). German officials also hold a growing number of senior positions within the bloc’s military command structure.

Germany ordered around €85 billion ($97 billion) worth of military equipment in 2025, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, while Berlin plans to increase defense spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2029.

In recent months, several lawmakers and officials have suggested that Germany could reinstate the draft, which was suspended in 2011, as early as next year, citing military personnel shortages.

Russia has repeatedly said it has no intention of attacking a NATO member unless attacked first and has dismissed claims to the contrary as reckless warmongering. Moscow has also described NATO’s increase in military spending as evidence that Western governments are preparing for a possible confrontation with Russia.

Speaking to journalists earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov argued that Merz’s drive to make Germany Europe’s leading military power amounted to “in effect, declaring war” on Russia and accused the chancellor of failing to learn the lessons of history.

US President Donald Trump has signed into law a sweeping expansion of sanctions against Russia, giving Washington new powers to target Moscow as well as major buyers of Russian energy. The legislation authorizes tariffs of up to 100% on goods from certain countries purchasing Russian oil and gas, while imports from Russia could face duties of up to 500%.

The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act also expands restrictions on Russian officials, financial institutions and other entities linked to the government. The White House has said the legislation is intended to increase economic pressure on Moscow over the Ukraine conflict while giving the president broad discretion over waivers and the eventual termination of sanctions.

RT examines the law’s key provisions, who could be affected and what the measures could mean for Russia’s trade partners.

The legislation was approved by the Senate 86-11 in August before passing the House 262-159 on Wednesday. It originated with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal.

Unlike earlier sanctions focused largely on designated companies and individuals, the law broadens restrictions covering Russian government-linked officials, financial institutions and enterprises. It also targets vessels Washington says are used to circumvent restrictions on Russian oil exports.

One of its most consequential provisions gives the president authority to impose tariffs of up to 100% on goods from countries among the five largest buyers of Russian crude oil or natural gas. That is considerably below the 500% secondary tariff proposed in earlier versions of the legislation.

Who could be targeted?

China and India are among the countries most exposed to the secondary tariff provisions because of their large purchases of Russian crude.

Türkiye, a NATO member, is also a major importer of Russian energy, while EU countries continue to purchase Russian oil and gas despite the bloc’s efforts to phase out Russian supplies.

The picture is particularly significant for natural gas, where the EU remains a major market for Russia. China has also expanded its purchases, while Türkiye remains another important destination.

The law, however, does not make maximum tariffs automatic. It contains exemptions and gives the US president broad discretion over their application, meaning the eventual impact will depend heavily on how the administration implements it.

How are major buyers responding?

China’s Commerce Ministry has said Beijing reserves the right to take “all necessary measures” to protect its sovereignty, development interests and Chinese companies, while calling for dialogue with Washington.

India’s Foreign Ministry has reiterated New Delhi’s “firm commitment to ensuring energy security for its 1.4 billion people,” saying it would continue diversifying supplies according to market conditions.

Could US-Russia trade grind to a halt?

The legislation retains a 500% tariff on goods imported directly from Russia into the US.

In practice, however, the legislation contains exemptions and gives the president considerable waiver authority. The White House highlighted that discretion while backing the bill, including the president’s authority to lift sanctions following a peace agreement.

Washington has used similar exemptions before. A 2024 ban on Russian uranium imports included waivers allowing purchases to continue under certain circumstances. Moscow subsequently imposed temporary restrictions of its own on enriched uranium exports to the US, while allowing exceptions.

Moscow has criticized the legislation, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying the new restrictions would not achieve their stated objectives and could complicate efforts to reach a settlement of the Ukraine conflict.

”Clearly, this cannot have a positive effect,” Peskov told reporters on Saturday.

The Russian Embassy in Washington has argued that the measures could also have consequences for the US economy, particularly amid tight global energy supplies. It warned that additional restrictions on Russian exports could put upward pressure on fuel prices and said escalating economic confrontation with Russia and China would be damaging to all sides.

Germany’s regional elections have dealt a major setback to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, with preliminary official results showing a crushing defeat for his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the party failed to clear the five-percent hurdle, and a weak showing in Berlin.

The CDU/CSU was languishing at just 20% nationwide as of last weekend, according to an INSA ‘Sunday Trend’ poll. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) remained the country’s most popular party, with 29% support. This comes despite pressure on the AfD from Germany’s domestic security agency over its alleged ‘extremist’ tendencies and efforts by mainstream parties to keep it out of government.

The CDU therefore entered Sunday’s vote under considerable pressure, compounded by its electoral drubbing in Saxony-Anhalt earlier this month.

Preliminary results

The Left Party (Die Linke) came first in Berlin with 25.7% of the vote – up from the 12.2% it garnered in the previous election in 2023, according to preliminary official results. The party’s lead candidate, Elif Eralp, a first-generation German with Turkish-born parents, told cheering supporters on Sunday evening that “from today on, we will change Berlin together.”

Merz’s CDU took 18.8%, representing a considerable decline compared to its performance in 2023, when the Christian Democrats won 28.2% of the vote.
The AfD, by contrast, nearly doubled its support compared with 2023, coming in third with 16.3%.

The result puts the Left Party in pole position to lead Berlin’s next government, potentially for the first time since German reunification in 1990.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD finished first with 38.2% of the vote in a dramatic turnaround – an improvement of 21.5 percentage points compared with the party’s result in the 2021 election. Party co-leader Tino Chrupalla said the result showed that the AfD “clearly have the mandate to govern here.”

Even before it became clear that the CDU would fall short of the minimum, Merz described his party’s showing as a “disaster.” However, he refused to change course or step down in the face of yet another electoral defeat.

Who is voting for what?

In Berlin, which is both a city and one of Germany’s 16 federal states, approximately 2.5 million people are eligible to elect the House of Representatives, the local legislature.

Voters have cast two votes: one for a direct candidate in one of 78 constituencies and the other for a party’s state or district list. The second determines the overall distribution of seats. The legislature normally has 130 lawmakers, although its size can increase through so-called ‘balancing’ seats.

Preliminary data suggest turnout in Berlin has surpassed that recorded in the previous regional election in February 2023.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, around 1.3 million people are eligible to elect the state parliament. They similarly voted for both a constituency candidate and a party list.

Sunday’s elections also marked the first time 16- and 17-year-olds had been allowed to vote in either contest.

The rising cost of living has been among voters’ biggest concerns. Some 67% of respondents in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and 56% in Berlin named it as their primary preoccupation in an Infratest Dimap poll conducted earlier this week. In Berlin, unaffordable housing also emerged as a major campaign issue.

Why do the elections matter nationally?

Sunday’s votes came just two weeks after the AfD won another eastern state, Saxony-Anhalt, with 43.8%, while the CDU finished a distant second with 17.2%.

That result intensified scrutiny of Merz’s future as leader of the party.

Table.Briefings reported earlier this week that he planned to convene the CDU executive committee on Sunday and put the question of confidence to a test. ZDF has also reported that talk of replacing Merz has circulated within the party for months, although no clear successor has emerged.

Reuters reported earlier this week, citing an anonymous government source, that the chancellor had canceled a planned trip to the UN General Assembly in New York to attend a special meeting in Berlin on Sunday.

A YouGov poll published on Thursday found that 48% of respondents expect Merz to be out of office by the end of the year.

Merz under pressure

Merz took over in May 2025 promising sweeping economic reforms and a stronger German leadership role in Europe. His coalition government, which also includes the Social Democrats (SPD), has struggled to revitalize the country’s economy.

At the same time, Merz has committed billions of euros to an ambitious rearmament program and continued military aid to Ukraine, while calling on Germans to work more.

The regional results do not directly determine the composition of the federal government, but the CDU’s projected showing – particularly its 5% result in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania – could intensify debate within the party over Merz’s leadership and political strategy.

In the past few days, Israeli media has been actively talking about contacts between Saudi Arabia and Israel, facilitated by the US Central Command (CENTCOM). Reportedly, Riyadh is seeking intelligence from Israel to counter the Houthis. The very fact that such contacts are taking place raises a question: is Saudi Arabia preparing to take an even more significant and risky step, one that could alter the balance of power in the Middle East?

Escalating tensions with Yemen’s Houthis are compelling the Saudi leadership to seek help where it can be found. The Houthis have missiles and drones, enabling them to strike Saudi Arabia’s energy infrastructure and threaten shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. For Riyadh, this presents a military, economic, and reputational challenge. This new phase of the conflict jeopardizes oil facilities, maritime routes, and sabotages plans to transform Saudi Arabia into a leading global investment and logistics hub.

Israel, for its part, has amassed considerable experience monitoring the activities of the Houthis and Iran-linked groups. Its intelligence capabilities – including satellite surveillance, signals intelligence, and the analysis of troop movements across the Red Sea and Persian Gulf – could be valuable to the Saudis. The only question is, what price is Riyadh willing to pay for access to this intelligence information? 

Things become even more apparent when we consider Washington’s stance. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked US President Donald Trump for assistance in striking Houthi positions. Trump declined direct military intervention, proposing instead to expand intelligence sharing and target-selection assistance. A meeting between the Crown Prince and CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper has been confirmed by Saudi state media. Washington is prepared to provide intelligence support but does not intend to shoulder the main burden of a new campaign in Yemen – at least not now.

This raises a key question: has Riyadh decided to take a step it had long and carefully avoided? Until recently, Saudi Arabia sought to maintain cooperation with the US while preserving the possibility of normalizing relations with Israel in the long term; however, it avoided entering into a direct confrontation with Iran. This approach allowed it to maneuver between competing power centers. Even after the outbreak of a major regional war, Riyadh did not want to be viewed as a direct participant in the war and kept channels of communication with Tehran open.

The risk for Saudi Arabia extends beyond Iran’s potential reaction. Direct cooperation with Israel remains a highly sensitive issue for the Arab world, especially as the Palestinian issue remains unresolved. Riyadh will have to explain why military rapprochement with Israel precedes the political settlement that Saudi diplomacy had long cited as a prerequisite for normalization. 

This is precisely why the mediation of CENTCOM is of fundamental importance. The US command acts as a kind of political buffer. Saudi Arabia can obtain the necessary intelligence without acknowledging the existence of a bilateral military mechanism, while Israel can defend shared regional interests without a formal agreement with Riyadh. This arrangement allows both sides to deny the formation of a coalition, even as specific elements of that coalition begin to function.

For Israel, this development is strategically advantageous. It allows for the gradual integration of Saudi Arabia into the regional security architecture even before diplomatic relations are established. Moreover, West Jerusalem gains the opportunity to demonstrate that its military and intelligence capabilities are essential for Arab states in countering threats posed by Iran. In doing so, normalization evolves from a purely political project into a matter of practical security.

Israel has long and consistently pursued a strategy aimed at forging an alliance with the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf. Just a few years ago, such an alliance seemed almost unthinkable, since the burden of the Arab-Israel confrontation remained too heavy, and the unresolved Palestinian issue made open rapprochement with Israel politically risky for any Arab nation. 

The attacks by the Houthis, the threat to the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, and new attacks on Saudi infrastructure have left Riyadh with an extremely unpleasant choice. Saudi Arabia must either again enter into a difficult and unpredictable war with Yemen on its own, or seek support from those nations that have the necessary capabilities. The US is not ready to get involved in hostilities, the UK limits itself to sending advisers, and Riyadh’s regional partners don’t want to get involved in a direct clash with Iran. And the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, signed by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan in August, hasn’t been of any use so far. Against this background, Israel is perhaps the only country capable of providing the Saudi side with operational information about the location of the Houthis, their infrastructure, and the preparation of new attacks.

If the information provided by Israel is used in the preparation of Saudi operations, the first operational mechanism of military-intelligence cooperation between the two countries will emerge. Although such a mechanism may be initially viewed as a temporary emergency measure, if it proves effective, it will be much more difficult to dismantle.

This is a big risk for Riyadh. Most likely, Tehran won’t draw a clear line between Saudi Arabia’s fight against the Houthis and its inclusion in the Israeli strategy to contain Iran. Even if the Saudi leadership intends to solve only the issue with Yemen, Iran may regard this as a step toward the formation of a hostile bloc. Then not only Saudi military facilities will come under threat, but also oil enterprises, ports, tanker routes, and other elements of infrastructure on which Saudi Arabia’s economic stability rests.

Apparently, Israel has been waiting for such a moment. Circumstances are pushing Saudi Arabia towards cooperation with Israel, which only a short while ago had been impossible for political reasons. 

At the same time, it is too early to say that Riyadh has made a final choice in favor of an alliance with Israel against Tehran. The Saudi leadership is most likely trying to solve a specific military problem without long-term commitments. It is interested in Israeli intelligence, American support, and British advisers, but at the same time it does not want to become the front line of someone else’s war.

If Saudi Arabia really decides to enter into a stable relationship with Israel, directed not only against the Houthis, but also against Iran as a whole, the regional confrontation will move to a completely different level. This will no longer be a struggle between Israel and the US against Iran and its allies, but a clash of two coalitions encompassing the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Arabian Peninsula.

For Tehran, this would mean the emergence of a single military-intelligence space from Israel to Saudi Arabia. For Riyadh, it will mean a rejection of its previous cautious balancing role in favor of direct participation in the conflict. And for the entire troubled Middle East region, it will pose a threat of a full-scale interstate confrontation, the consequences of which would no longer be limited to the territory of Yemen.

Therefore, the current contacts should not be viewed as evidence of an already established alliance; rather, they are a test of whether the sides are ready for such an alliance. Riyadh has not yet crossed the line. But for the first time in a long while, it has come extremely close to doing so.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has described his Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU) performance in Sunday’s state election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as a “disaster,” after the party suffered its worst-ever result in a state election. The CDU fared better in Berlin, but its result there still appeared to dash its hopes of leading the next government.

The CDU received just 4.9% of the vote, according to the preliminary official result, its worst showing in a state election since the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949. The result leaves the party below the 5% threshold required to enter the regional parliament.

“The result in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania cannot be talked away. It’s a disaster,” Merz acknowledged during a press conference on Sunday evening. However, he defended his government’s course, insisting that there “cannot be a return to the good old times.”

Merz’s party fared better in Berlin but still trailed the Left, which led with 25.7%. The CDU came second with 18.8%, followed by the AfD at 16.3%.

The results come two weeks after the AfD finished first in Saxony-Anhalt and amid mounting pressure on Merz over the CDU’s declining support. The chancellor called a meeting of the party leadership for Sunday evening to discuss the election results.

Europe is facing “the worst energy crisis in history,” Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev has warned, describing the situation as a “self-made.” He has repeatedly blamed the EU’s decision to cut Russian energy imports as a key factor behind the crisis.

Dmitriev made the remarks after reports of worsening fuel shortages across the EU. Government data on Sunday showed that 15% of French gas stations were facing supply problems with at least one type of petrol or diesel.

German media also reported record fuel prices, with Super E10 gasoline reaching around €2.3 ($2.6) per liter and diesel averaging a record €2.45. Across the EU, petrol prices are 24% higher than a year ago, diesel is up 38%, and jet fuel costs more than double. Benchmark gas prices have surged 150% year-on-year to €81 per megawatt hour, with analysts warning they could reach €100.

“Europe finally understands it is facing the worst energy crisis in history,” Dmitriev wrote in a series of posts on X on Saturday, calling it “a self-made crisis with zero attempts to analyze root causes and adjust course.”

Self-made crisis with zero attempts to analyze root causes and adjust course. https://t.co/zvdb0RkYsE

— Kirill Dmitriev (@kadmitriev) September 20, 2026

The bloc this year has faced mounting supply pressures from the US-Israeli war on Iran, which disrupted the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global oil and LNG.

The Middle East conflict, however, has further pressured energy markets already strained by Europe’s sharp reduction in Russian supplies following sanctions imposed after the 2022 escalation of the Ukraine conflict. Before then, Russia supplied around 45% of EU gas imports and 27% of crude oil. By 2025, its share had fallen to 12% of gas imports and around 2% of crude.

Meanwhile, the EU is entering the heating season with its lowest gas storage levels in 15 years. According to Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), underground facilities were just 69.3% as of Saturday, below the 85% average for this time of the year over the last five years, prompting warnings of heightened price volatility and higher energy bills this winter.

Despite the dire situation, von der Leyen reaffirmed in her State of the Union address this week that the EU will continue with its REPowerEU plan to permanently end reliance on Russian energy, with Russian LNG set to leave the EU market completely by the end of 2026 and pipeline gas by autumn 2027.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has cleared the criminal record of former IDF soldier Elor Azaria, who was convicted of manslaughter for shooting a wounded and incapacitated Palestinian dead in Hebron in 2016.

The case dates back to 2016, when Azaria, then an IDF sergeant and medic, was filmed shooting alleged knife attacker Abdel Fattah al-Sharif in Hebron’s Tel Rumeida neighborhood.

According to accounts of the incident, al-Sharif and another Palestinian man, Ramzi Aziz al-Tamimi al-Qasrawi, approached an Israeli military post and stabbed an Israeli soldier, lightly injuring him. Qasrawi was subsequently shot and killed by Israeli forces. Al-Sharif was shot, seriously wounded, and left lying on the ground. Several minutes later, Azaria approached him and shot him in the head.

The shooting was filmed by a human rights activist. Azaria was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison, despite prosecutors seeking a three- to five-year term. His sentence was later commuted to 14 months, and he was released in May 2018 after serving nine months.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem described it as an “extrajudicial street killing.” The UN human rights office called Azaria’s sentence “excessively lenient,” warning that it will reinforce “the culture of impunity.” The case also divided Israeli public opinion and contributed to tensions between political leaders and the military, with then-Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon later resigning.

Despite the controversy, Herzog’s office announced on Saturday that he shortened the remaining period before Azaria’s record could be erased, effectively clearing it.

“The president believes that the circumstances as a whole, the passage of time, and the regret he expressed justify allowing him to open a new chapter in his life,” the President’s Office said.

Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, welcomed the decision, saying, “canceling the criminal record of someone who killed a terrorist” makes him “very happy.” Defense Minister Israel Katz called it a “humane and worthy decision.”

The IDF, however, opposed the move. Azaria’s conviction was a rare case of an Israeli military court ruling against a soldier over a deadly action in the field. Military prosecutors argued that Azaria was seeking revenge rather than responding to an active threat. According to Israeli media, IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir formally opposed clearing Azaria’s record, arguing that he had not fully accepted responsibility or demonstrated genuine remorse.

Scrutiny over military accountability

Extrajudicial and targeted killings by Israeli forces against Palestinians have long been a source of international scrutiny. Palestinian and international rights groups have accused Israeli forces of unlawful and extrajudicial killings. The government argues that its forces act lawfully against individuals involved in planning or conducting attacks.

Israeli and international rights groups also said prosecutions of Israeli soldiers for killing Palestinians are rare. Last month, after the military announced internal investigations into the deaths of Palestinian girl Hind Rajab in 2024 and 15 emergency and aid workers in 2025, Israeli rights group Yesh Din pointed to what it called the military justice system’s poor record of securing convictions.

“Nearly zero indictments are served relative to the number of complaints of soldiers and commanders who commit offenses. In rare cases when commanders or soldiers are convicted, they receive ridiculously lenient sentences compared with the severity of the offense,” the organization’s spokesperson said.

Ukraine made a “huge mistake” by caving in to its Western backers and walking away from a potential peace deal with Russia in 2022, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said. He also argued that years of Western military backing have failed to defeat Russia and are now raising the risk of a direct clash between Russia and NATO.

In a video address posted on X on Saturday, Fico argued that both sides have sustained “terrible” losses over the years, and that Western military support has failed to contain Russia’s advances. “There is no supranational force to compel Russia to withdraw from the militarily controlled Ukrainian territory,” he said.

“Ukraine made a huge mistake in April 2022, a few months after the start of the conflict, by listening to the Russophobic West and not signing the prepared peace agreement,” he said, adding that the Western strategy “to support the war in Ukraine to the last Ukrainian soldier and defeat Russia” has “completely failed.” He reiterated that his government will not provide military assistance or loans to Ukraine.

“Someone must have gone crazy here,” he said, arguing that “Russia cannot be defeated in a conventional war” and noting that it has a vast nuclear arsenal.

He noted that the Slovaks had their own experience with the Munich Agreement in 1938, saying that “the powers bound to us by treaty deceived us, betrayed us, and served us up to Hitler like a roasted chicken.” The Munich Accord – which was a prelude to World War II – was signed by Nazi Germany, Britain, France, and Italy without Czechoslovakia at the table and compelled Prague to surrender the predominantly German-speaking Sudetenland.

In spring 2022, Russia and Ukraine made substantial progress toward a peace deal, including a tentative draft agreement on Ukrainian neutrality, security guarantees, and other core issues.

Russia accused then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson of helping derail the peace process, which he has denied. Ukrainian chief negotiator David Arakhamia later confirmed that Johnson played an influential role. He said Russia was prepared to end the conflict if Kiev accepted neutrality, adding that Johnson told Ukrainian officials, “We won’t sign anything with them at all, and let’s just fight.” 

While the peace settlement process intensified after US President Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025, no breakthroughs have been achieved. In February, the Russian Defense Ministry said Ukrainian military casualties exceeded 1.5 million since 2022, including more than 520,000 in 2025 alone.

US President Donald Trump has vowed not to slow the development of AI despite warnings from leading technology executives about the potential risks posed by increasingly powerful systems.

Trump also announced the creation of an ‘AI Force’ and said he would appoint an AI czar, while pledging to maintain America’s lead over China in the rapidly developing technology.

“We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,” he wrote on Truth Social on Saturday. “Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!”

Trump accused his political opponents of seeking the “decimation, or destruction” of AI, describing the push as the latest in a series of hoaxes generated by “Radical Left Dumocrats.” He argued that abuses of the technology can be addressed through the justice system.

“For this purpose, I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS, in my First Term,” Trump wrote, referring to the sixth branch of the US armed forces, established by Congress in 2019 to conduct military operations in space and protect American assets such as satellites.

Trump also said he would soon announce an AI czar, adding that “only High I.Q. individuals need apply!” He did not provide details about the proposed force’s composition, powers, budget, or position within the federal government.

Trump’s position contrasts with warnings from prominent tech executives. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI chief Sam Altman, SpaceX and xAI chief Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis have backed calls to slow the development of increasingly powerful AI systems.

Last week, Amodei warned that rapidly advancing systems could escape human control, be misused for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and cause serious economic disruption. Anthropic Alignment Science lead Evan Hubinger estimated there is a greater than 10% chance that AI could “kill all humans” within the next decade.

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that flawed military intelligence, outdated imagery, and overreliance on AI contributed to a strike in February on an Iranian school that killed more than 150 people, including at least 123 children.

Amid the migration crisis in Ceuta that erupted in late July, the dispute between Rabat and Madrid over two Spanish semi-exclaves on Africa’s Mediterranean coast once again came to the forefront. Spain called the mass border crossing by over 70,000 illegal migrants a violation of its territorial integrity. For its part, Morocco, which does not recognize Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla or the small adjacent uninhabited islands, once again raised the issue of their “occupation” by Spain and asserted its own historical right to them.

The dispute has a long history. Ceuta and Melilla did not become Spanish territories because they had once belonged to Spain; neither did Morocco’s borders as we know them today exist in the 15th century. Rather, Ceuta and Melilla came under the control of Spain as a result of the later Crusaders’ expansion in the Mediterranean and the early modern-period wars, events that later gave rise to European colonialism.

Since Morocco gained independence in 1956, Rabat has regularly raised the question of the status of the enclaves, seeking to have them brought back under its own control by means of dialogue. In 1975, Rabat unsuccessfully attempted to bring the matter before the UN; in 1987, King Hassan II officially proposed establishing a joint “célula de reflexión,” reflection cell, with Spain to negotiate the future status and eventual handover of the two cities. Unsurprisingly, Spain rejected this proposal.

In the early 2000s, diplomatic demands even escalated into a brief military standoff.  On July 11, 2002, a Spanish Civil Guard patrol boat discovered a Moroccan flag and a group of gendarmes on Perejil, a tiny islet located near Ceuta which is also claimed by Rabat.

After Morocco rejected Madrid’s demand to immediately remove both the flag and the armed personnel from the island, Spanish special forces landed there by helicopter on July 17. The Moroccan troops were disarmed without a shot being fired and were subsequently returned to their country, restoring the status quo.

In 2007, Morocco officially recalled its ambassador for consultations following a historic state visit by Spain’s King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sophia to both enclaves.

The dispute over the status of the enclaves reignited in 2021, when Rabat recalled its ambassador from Madrid after Spain secretly admitted Brahim Ghali – leader of the POLISARIO Front, which fights for Western Sahara’s independence from Morocco – to a hospital for treatment. Diplomatic relations were restored in March 2022, when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez sent a letter to the King of Morocco endorsing the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara.

“They are super-Spanish”

The current events in Ceuta have once again stirred up the dispute surrounding the two enclaves, despite the strong partnership between Madrid and Rabat and their commitment to cooperation in resolving the migration crisis. Moroccan Minister of Justice Abdellatif Ouahbi spoke on the matter.

In an interview with Arab media on August 11, he stated that his country had consistently raised the issue of the status of the cities, seeking a long-term solution through dialogue. In response, Spanish authorities stated that they had always considered both cities an integral part of their territory.

“Ceuta and Melilla aren’t just Spanish; they’re super-Spanish and cannot be touched,” said Defense Minister Margarita Robles when asked to comment on Ouahbi’s remarks.

No further official statements were issued by Moroccan officials; however, a noteworthy event took place on August 24. During the Eid al-Mawlid (Prophet Muhammad’s birthday) ceremony held in the presence of King Mohammed VI, Moroccan Minister of Islamic Affairs Ahmed Toufiq mentioned ancient Sufi prayers and texts from the 7th and 15th centuries.

He claimed that they had served as a rallying cry for Moroccans during past battles to liberate occupied territories, such as the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. He also noted that Ceuta had given Morocco two prominent religious figures: Qadi Ayyad, author of ‘Al-Shifa’, and Abu al-Abbas al-Azafi, author of ‘Al-Durr al-Munazzam’. Although these remarks were not official, the fact that they were spoken before the Moroccan monarch sparked intense media discussions. 

In Morocco, where the words of officials spoken in the king’s presence are carefully weighed and politics is steeped in symbolism, such a historical reference is no minor detail, especially when it concerns a topic as sensitive as “occupied cities” and is voiced just weeks after a crisis that has once again thrust Ceuta and Melilla to the forefront of the debate between Morocco and Spain.

The population of the enclaves

An uninitiated observer glancing at a map of Morocco might be surprised to find two cities on its coastline belonging to a state located on another continent. Geographically, Ceuta and Melilla are situated in Africa and surrounded by Moroccan territory; yet politically and administratively, they belong to Spain.

Such ‘patches’ on the world’s political map are often the result of colonial expansion, wars, unequal treaties, and established historical borders. Many of them retain conflict potential and ignite diplomatic disputes. Examples include French Overseas Territories such as Mayotte (claimed by the Comoros) and the Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean (disputed by Madagascar) – as well as the Chagos Archipelago, which the UK never transferred to Mauritius.

Spain considers Ceuta, Melilla, and the nearby small islands to be its territory and has secured their inclusion within the EU, thereby establishing the EU’s southern frontier in Africa. Today, the two cities have a combined population of approximately 170,000 people, the majority of whom are of Moroccan origin.

For decades, Moroccans and Spaniards have coexisted peacefully in these two enclaves. The countries coordinated operations at border crossings and erected long walls separating both cities from Moroccan territory—structures that, in a sense, resemble the walls built by Israel in the West Bank. Spain constructed these barriers years ago with EU support and in coordination with Morocco to prevent illegal migration into Ceuta and Melilla, which are part of the Schengen Area.

Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, and Portuguese Ceuta 

Historically, both cities date back to antiquity and were founded by the Phoenicians. Over the centuries, they came under the rule of various empires and dynasties. Spain claims the enclaves as its own on the grounds that they were incorporated into its territory long before the formation of an independent Morocco in 1956.

Morocco, however, maintains that the cities, which are located on the African continent and directly off the country’s coast, are part of its indivisible territory, insisting that dynastic changes did not sever the close ties of Ceuta and Melilla with the surrounding region.

Ceuta is situated at the point where the Mediterranean Sea connects to the Atlantic Ocean, directly opposite Gibraltar. Historically, it has served as a transit point for ships, goods, armies, and religious missions.

The city experienced Phoenician, Roman, and Byzantine periods; in the 8th century, following extensive Islamic conquests, it passed into Arab hands and was subsequently ruled for centuries by Arab and Berber dynasties of the Maghreb and Al-Andalus. Throughout this time, Ceuta remained an important city of the western Islamic world.

Notably, the Portuguese, not the Spanish, captured Ceuta in 1415, when the forces of King John I seized the city from the Marinid Sultanate.

This campaign, imbued with the spirit of the Crusades, is generally regarded as the beginning of the Portuguese Empire (Europe’s first colonial empire). The major overseas stronghold ushered in an era of Portuguese expansion along the African coast and, subsequently, toward India, Brazil, and the Atlantic.

Transfer of Ceuta to the Spanish Crown

Ceuta was the only territory of the Portuguese Empire to remain loyal to the Spanish Crown after Spain and Portugal, which formed the Iberian union in 1580, dissolved it in 1640. Its transfer to Spanish sovereignty was formalized by the Treaty of Lisbon: on January 1, 1668, King Afonso VI of Portugal officially ceded Ceuta to Charles II of Spain.

Therefore, Ceuta came under the control of Spain not through a Spanish conquest of Morocco, but as a result of the dissolution of the dynastic union between the two Iberian monarchies; the city’s fate was determined not by its inhabitants, but by local elites and monarchs. In this context, it is difficult to assert with certainty that Ceuta is an integral part of Spain based on its historical affiliation.

The conquest of Melilla and the status of free ports

The story of Melilla is somewhat different. Located further east than Ceuta, the city also boasts a long history. By the time of its conquest by the Spanish in 1497, Morocco was undergoing a period of political fragmentation and a weakening of central authority, coinciding with the onset of active expansion by European invaders hardened by the wars of the Reconquista.

The capture of the city was almost bloodless: Melilla had been weakened by regional conflicts and could not defend itself properly. The Spanish quickly transformed the city into a military and trading stronghold on the opposite shore of the Mediterranean.

Melilla and Ceuta were not the only ports and territories in Morocco conquered by the Spanish at the dawn of the modern era. While many territories were subsequently lost, these two enclaves, administered directly from Madrid, remained under Spanish sovereignty due to their strategic and military value.

Ceuta and Melilla were repeatedly besieged by Moroccan forces. The Hispano-Moroccan War of 1859–1860 significantly strengthened Spain’s position in North Africa.

Following the Treaty of Fes in 1912, France and Spain established a protectorate over Morocco, while Ceuta and Melilla were granted the status of free ports.

The Francoist position: ‘Ancestral Spanish lands’

Melilla went down in history as the starting point of the Francoist uprising in 1936. When Morocco gained independence in 1956, Ceuta and Melilla were not included in the agreements governing the transfer of sovereignty to the new state. The fact that Spain retained control over these cities is often linked to the foreign policy of the Francisco Franco regime. 

Spain maintained that these cities had never been part of the protectorate established in 1912. Francoist diplomacy drew a sharp distinction between “protectorate territories” (which were returned to Morocco) and “ancestral Spanish lands”

Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla has been enshrined in the country’s constitutions: first, the Constitution of 1812 and then the current Constitution of 1978. In 1995, both territories were granted autonomous status and officially designated as autonomous cities of Spain.

Unfinished decolonization

Morocco calls Ceuta and Melilla occupied cities and views them within the context of an unfinished decolonization process. Politically, this stance is understandable. Morocco gained independence in 1956, yet the Spanish territories on its northern coast remained outside the new state.

Rabat is highly sensitive to any issue concerning national borders and regards Spanish sovereignty over the two enclaves as a violation of its territorial integrity, much like the dispute over Western Sahara.

One of Spain’s arguments is that Ceuta and Melilla are not on the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, to which the decolonization framework of Chapter XI of the UN Charter applies. That list includes territories whose peoples have “not yet attained a full measure of self-government.”

In 1975, Morocco attempted to place the inclusion of Ceuta, Melilla, and other Spanish possessions in North Africa on the UN’s decolonization agenda, but the initiative was unsuccessful. Spain also emphasizes that both cities are not overseas territories with a separate colonial status but rather integrated parts of the state: they possess elected institutions, representation within the Spanish political system, and the status of autonomous cities.

Gateway to Europe: painful colonial legacy

The current crisis has brought this longstanding dispute back into sharp focus, demonstrating that migration has once again become a tool of diplomatic leverage. Both Spain and the EU rely heavily on Morocco to police coastal routes and the land borders around the enclaves.

The dispute over Ceuta and Melilla remains a painful legacy of the colonial era when the fate of territories and peoples was determined by the will of European powers rather than by their own right to self-determination. The fact that the issue remains unresolved serves as a reminder that colonialism left behind not only political borders but also enduring conflicts.

“The era of Westminster is coming to an end!” the nationalist leaders of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland declared this week.

John Swinney, Rhun ap Iorwerth, and Michelle O’Neill gathered in Cardiff to sign an agreement asserting their nations’ right to self-determination, as they called on London not to obstruct referendums and outlined their preferred futures beyond the UK, including EU membership for an independent Scotland and Wales, and Irish reunification for Northern Ireland.

In Russia, the meeting has already been dubbed Britain’s version of the Belovezha Accords, and the comparison is tempting because, as in 1991, political leaders from three of a state’s constituent parts gathered around a table to discuss a civilized divorce.

But the resemblance largely ends there, given the driving force behind the Soviet Union’s dissolution was its largest republic, Russia, represented by Boris Yeltsin. He joined his counterparts in dismantling the state that Moscow built, but no representative of England attended the Cardiff gathering, and Westminster has shown little enthusiasm for presiding over its own retreat.

The participants were also considerably more cautious than their Soviet predecessors, so they signed as party leaders, making the declaration a joint political initiative rather than an agreement binding their governments to secession.

Ireland’s experience offers an uncomfortable historical comparison, as the settlement that opened the way to independence followed two years of guerrilla warfare. Today’s nationalist leaders are pursuing an entirely peaceful route, through negotiations, elections, and referendums, but whether London will accommodate them is another matter.

Scotland has already encountered this obstacle. In 2022, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Scottish Parliament couldn’t legislate for an independence referendum without Westminster’s consent, and after the close vote in 2014, London has little appetite for another.

Public opinion presents a further difficulty. Scotland remains divided down the middle, whereas in Northern Ireland, the figure cited for support for Irish unity is around 36% and Welsh independence remains a minority position, however much its advocates have gained politically.

Swinney wants another Scottish referendum by 2031, but his counterparts have offered no comparable timetable and their agreement establishes a direction of travel, but supplies neither a departure date nor a convincing explanation of how they will get there.

Britain’s dissolution is therefore hardly imminent, but nevertheless, London would be foolish to dismiss Cardiff as an exercise in nationalist theater. 

Qualifications rarely travel as far as the original statement and nationalists heard an opening and acted accordingly.

Yet an unfortunate choice of words can’t explain the forces behind this gathering. The more immediate political background was Labour’s local elections defeat in May, which strengthened nationalist parties and created favorable conditions for cooperation and Cardiff gave that cooperation a common platform.

However, the deeper problem is the condition of the British state itself. In 2014, many Scots supported independence because they believed London ignored their interests and governed badly – and since then, Westminster has supplied little reason for them to reconsider, as economic stagnation and trained public services have steadily eroded confidence in the established order.

Conservatives and Labour have each promised renewal, only to leave voters wondering whether either possesses a credible plan, while Reform and nationalist parties have moved into the space created by that failure. Their proposed remedies differ, but their appeal rests on a shared conviction that the old arrangements no longer work.

Brexit sharpened this argument, as Britain’s departure from the EU in 2020 changed the calculation for those considering a future outside the UK. Previously, independence meant leaving a state that already offered access to the EU, but now nationalists can present separation as a route back into it.

This argument doesn’t remove the economic risks of independence, nor does it guarantee EU membership, but it gives separatists something more persuasive than a historical grievance: A competing account of where prosperity and security might lie.

Cardiff matters principally for this reason. It did not produce a mechanism for dismantling the UK, but it brought together politicians willing to imagine what might follow it and an alternative once discussed separately in Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast has acquired a shared political expression.

It’s far too early to suggest that Burnham will be Britain’s last prime minister, as states can survive years of disillusionment, and nationalist declarations are easier to sign than to implement.

But Westminster’s problem is that preserving the union requires more than obstructing its opponents, and it also requires giving people a convincing reason to stay.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

Two civilians were killed and several others, including two children, were injured in Moscow Region during a powerful Ukrainian drone raid that was aimed at derailing Russia’s parliamentary elections, local officials said.

In a statement on Sunday, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said more than 1,600 UAVs were repelled since the previous day, adding that 450 UAVs were intercepted on approaches to the capital.

“The unprecedented attack was clearly planned to disrupt the elections. The enemy failed,” he said.

Several drones reached the premises of the Moscow Oil Refinery, where one unidentified facility was damaged, and one struck a residential building, according to Sobyanin, who said there were no fatalities in the capital.

In the nearby city of Ramenskoye, around 400 people, including 70 children, were evacuated from a 21-story apartment block after falling drone debris sparked a fire on the roof, with 20 vehicles also damaged.

Another person was killed in the Orekhovo-Zuyevo District, where a private home was destroyed and caught fire during the attack. The victim was an elderly man who was inside the building, according to the governor.

Elsewhere in Moscow Region, a warehouse complex caught fire in Sofyino, and a drone struck an apartment building in Kotelniki, setting apartments on three floors ablaze. The authorities are still determining whether anyone was injured.

Private homes were also damaged in Kolomna and Yegoryevsk, while fires broke out at apartment buildings in the Leninsky District, Lyubertsy, and Lytkarino. A residential building and an industrial facility were damaged in Istra, with no casualties reported.

The massive raid struck Moscow and the surrounding region just hours before polling stations were due to open for the final day of Russia’s three-day parliamentary elections. Despite the attack, all 1,443 polling stations in Moscow opened on time, Moscow Election Commission Deputy Chairman Dmitry Reut told TASS.

Moscow has accused Kiev of undermining diplomatic efforts while publicly calling for renewed negotiations. On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian leadership is “talking about peace” while doing everything to prevent peace and negotiations.

Earlier this month, Putin ordered large-scale retaliatory strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in response to attacks inside Russia. Moscow has condemned the strikes on civilians as acts of terrorism, while maintaining that Russian forces only target military and defense-related facilities.

Heavy reliance on AI, staff cuts, and rushed targeting procedures contributed to a US missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school in Minab, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing officials involved in a Pentagon investigation.

On February 28, two Tomahawk missiles hit the Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School in southern Iran, killing at least 157 people, including 123 children. The strike took place during the opening wave of US and Israeli attacks across the country. The school stood across from a naval base, which was likely the intended target.

Some US Central Command (CENTCOM) personnel reportedly expected Palantir’s Maven Smart System to flag stale or inconsistent intelligence when selecting potential targets. Previous reports suggested that the military relied on outdated satellite imagery that depicted the school as part of the base.

According to Bloomberg, Maven allowed the process of assembling target lists to be condensed to just several minutes.

A Palantir spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company was “not responsible for the underlying data nor identifying intelligence deficiencies” and that there was no evidence its software was at fault in the Minab strike.

The AI giant has since upgraded Maven to “re-review underlying intelligence to identify factors that would disqualify a target and flag inconsistencies and inaccuracies that human review may have missed,” Bloomberg said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said at the time that the bombing of the school “evoked a visceral horror.” On Thursday, a UN fact-finding mission said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that the strike constituted a war crime. The US State Department rejected the finding, accusing the UN of pushing “anti-American rhetoric and anti-Semitism” and appeasing “repressive regimes.”

The US has not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the strike, with President Donald Trump suggesting that the missile could have been Iranian. However, investigations by US media outlets suggest that the missiles were American.

Cuba has suffered another nationwide blackout, leaving millions without electricity amid severe fuel shortages and US restrictions on oil supplies. It is at least the sixth major outage the island has experienced since the start of the year.

Under a US embargo for decades, Cuba has faced worsening fuel shortages since Venezuela, previously Havana’s main oil supplier, stopped shipments following the US capture of President Nicolas Maduro in January.

US President Donald Trump subsequently declared a national emergency over Cuba, moving to block oil shipments to the island and threatening tariffs against countries that continued supplying it. Trump has repeatedly said he intends to take Cuba “one way or another,” and described regime change there as a “question of time.”

Cuba’s Ministry of Energy and Mines said the latest grid collapse was triggered on Friday by a transmission-line failure in the western part of the country and compounded by unstable weather.

Officials immediately activated restoration protocols, gradually bringing generating facilities back online. Power had returned to parts of the island by Saturday.

Washington has meanwhile stepped up economic pressure on Havana. On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced new sanctions targeting Cuba’s nickel sector, following measures imposed on state oil company CUPET in June.

Russia, China, Mexico, and several other countries have provided humanitarian assistance to Cuba. Russia delivered around 700,000 barrels of oil in late March, one of the few major fuel shipments to reach the island since US restrictions were tightened.

The worsening shortages have disrupted electricity, transportation, water supplies, and healthcare. In June, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned that “children [in Cuba] are dying because doctors lack access to essential medical supplies and medicines.”

“Such severe sanctions packages that target entire sectors of an economy and produce broad, indiscriminate and harsh effects on populations are incompatible with basic principles of international human rights law,” he said.

The US has issued security alerts for its citizens across the Middle East, warning of further escalation between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

The notices cover Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman.

“Americans currently in the Middle East should exercise heightened vigilance and be aware of potential flight cancellations, airspace closures, and travel disruptions,” the US State Department said on Saturday night.

“Iranian-supported Houthis have engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including civilian airports. This military conflict has the potential to escalate rapidly,” the notice read, urging Americans to refrain from traveling to the Middle East.

“Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other US interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world, including U.S. businesses and other institutions.”

The alert came amid anticipation of potential new US strikes on Iran or Houthi targets in Yemen, as Saudi Arabia reportedly sought assistance in repelling the militant group’s offensive against forces of the internationally recognized Yemeni government.

Axios reporter Barak Ravid said US President Donald Trump cut his weekend stay at Camp David short and will return to the White House on Saturday evening, one day earlier than planned.

CNN national security analyst Alex Plitsas cited sources as saying that Trump held a meeting at Camp David to “deliberate and review Yemen strike options.” ABC News previously reported, citing US officials, that Washington would limit its involvement to providing intelligence and targeting assistance to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia recently suspended operations on its East-West oil pipeline, also known as Petroline, after it was damaged in a drone attack that Riyadh blamed on Iran-backed militias in Iraq. The pipeline carries crude oil from the kingdom’s eastern oil fields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.

The Houthis previously declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia in response to what the group described as an illegal siege of the parts of Yemen under its control.

A Saudi-led coalition first intervened in the Yemeni civil war in 2015 after the Houthis captured the capital, Sanaa, the previous year. The current hostilities mark the biggest escalation in the conflict since the UN-brokered truce of 2022.

The sanctions law signed by US President Donald Trump this week will undermine efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict through diplomacy, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

On Friday, Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which authorizes tougher restrictions on Russia and tariffs of up to 100% on major buyers of Russian oil and gas.

“Clearly, this cannot have a positive effect,” Peskov told RIA Novosti on Saturday when asked how the law would affect the prospects for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine and the possibility of a breakthrough in Russia-US relations.

Named after the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a vocal supporter of Ukraine who co-authored the original bill with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal in 2025, the legislation remained stalled for months as Trump pursued diplomacy with Russia and resisted placing sole blame for the conflict on Moscow. Trump’s envoys also discussed normalizing economic ties with their Russian counterparts.

The original proposal threatened tariffs of 500% on countries purchasing Russian energy, but the maximum rate was reduced to 100% after negotiations with the White House. Graham, who died unexpectedly in July, promoted the measure as “bone-crushing” sanctions.

The version adopted by Congress targets major buyers of Russian oil and gas, with China and India expected to be among those potentially affected. It also gives Trump broad discretion over the application of the tariffs, including the ability to waive or suspend restrictions in the national interest.

The Russian Embassy in the US said the legislation does “a grand disservice” to Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ agenda, arguing that restricting Russia’s energy trade amid sharply reduced Middle Eastern supplies could send fuel prices soaring ahead of the midterm elections. It warned that confrontation with Russia and China is a lose-lose situation that only benefits the “Euro-Atlantic warmongers.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun condemned the law, saying China “carries out economic and trade cooperation with countries on the basis of equality and mutual benefit” and that its trade is not directed against any third country.

Iran has conveyed its peace terms to the US through Qatari mediators, the country’s top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, has said, arguing that it is in America’s interests to accept them.

The 60-day period provided under the US-Iranian memorandum of understanding to negotiate a settlement expired last month without a deal, while disrupted maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continues to drive up energy prices.

“Seven conditions set by Iran for the start of any negotiations have been conveyed to the US administration. Tehran’s message is clear and unambiguous: If Washington wants to escape the predicament it has created for itself and avoid becoming further entangled in it, it has no choice but to recognize Iran’s rights and accept its conditions,” Rezaei wrote on X on Saturday.

Iranian officials previously said they are also seeking the withdrawal of US forces from the region and compensation for the US and Israeli strikes launched on February 28.

“Trump’s threats will not achieve any results. We are prepared for a decisive war,” Rezaei added.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that “hopefully we are toward the end of the war” and suggested that Iran wants to make a deal. The following day, however, he once again threatened to “annihilate” the Iranian leadership if the conflict does not end on his terms.

The US military revealed on Friday that the nearly seven-month conflict has cost $43.6 billion, with nearly two-thirds of the bill going toward replenishing depleted munitions.

According to Bloomberg, widely reported ammunition shortages could delay arms deliveries to US allies by several years. Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have denied that the conflict has left the US short of missiles and bombs.

Google’s Gemini has joined a growing list of advanced AI models going rogue after hacking three real companies during a cybersecurity exercise, the Wall Street Journal has reported. It is the first known case involving a Google system.

The incidents occurred in May during tests conducted by AI security firm Irregular, Google confirmed to the outlet on Friday. Gemini was tasked with breaking into a simulated software company, but was inadvertently given internet access. It breached one real company by guessing passwords and two others using credentials found in public code repositories.

Irregular alerted Google in late July, after OpenAI agents were found to have hacked AI company Hugging Face. Google did not disclose its own incidents until contacted by the WSJ this week, according to the newspaper.

Google said Gemini caused no harm and stopped after realizing it had accessed real companies rather than simulated targets.

Google blamed the breaches on mistaken identity and a testing error. The fictional company shared a name with a real business, while Gemini had internet access it was not supposed to have. The company declined to identify the three targets or the model involved, but said the affected firms and federal authorities were notified.

Concerns over rogue AI have grown amid reports of models deceiving users, ignoring instructions, or taking unintended actions. The UK government-backed Loss of Control Observatory recorded more than 300 such incidents in July, nearly twice the previous month’s figure, the Guardian reported.

Former OpenAI and Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon added to those concerns last week when he quit and accused both companies of racing toward self-improving superintelligence without “acting responsibly.” He warned AI could “kill us all” by the end of the decade, citing risks including loss of control, cyberattacks, and bioterrorism.

China has condemned the latest expansion of US sanctions against Russia, including potential tariffs of up to 100% on major buyers of Russian energy, vowing to take “all necessary measures” to safeguard its national interests.

US President Donald Trump signed the sweeping legislation on Friday. Among other measures, the bill authorizes secondary sanctions against the five largest buyers of Russian crude oil and natural gas. It does not explicitly name major importers such as China or India.

Beijing strongly condemned the measure, with a Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson saying the country has “always opposed unilateral sanctions that lack the mandate of the UN,” as well as “the imposition of so-called secondary sanctions.”

China has consistently conducted “economic and trade cooperation with other countries on the basis of equality and mutual benefit,” the spokesperson said, adding that such ties are “neither directed at third parties nor subject to interference or coercion by third parties.”

The latest anti-Russian measure was initially proposed by late Republican Senator and Russia hawk Lindsey Graham and Democrat Richard Blumenthal in April 2025. In the year and a half of negotiations, it was significantly watered down, with the originally proposed 500% tariffs on countries that buy Russian energy cut down to 100%, while the actual levy rate can be set below that ceiling, according to the legislation.

Moscow has condemned the additional sanctions as an “unfriendly” move, which was bound to “complicate efforts to find a peaceful settlement in Ukraine,” according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Several explosions have been reported in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, disrupting flights and triggering air raid warnings amid escalating hostilities with Yemen’s Houthis.

Saudi authorities sent emergency alerts early on Saturday warning residents of a “hostile aerial threat” and urging them to remain indoors, according to several media outlets. Explosions were reportedly heard across the city before the civil defense agency issued an all-clear about half an hour later. It was the first such warning in Riyadh since fighting in neighboring Yemen intensified in July.

Later on Saturday, a large plume of black smoke and flames was seen near King Khalid International Airport. Reuters footage showed smoke rising from the airport’s fuel-storage area, while flight-tracking service Flightradar24 reported major delays and cancellations. Saudi authorities have not disclosed the cause of the explosions or provided details on casualties or damage.

The latest escalation began in July after Saudi strikes on Yemen's Sanaa International Airport shattered a fragile truce dating back to 2022, prompting a renewed exchange of attacks with the Houthis.

The advances have put further pressure on Saudi Arabia’s oil exports. Riyadh has increasingly relied on Red Sea routes as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted by the US war on Iran.

Maritime tracking data cited by AFP showed Saudi exports through the waterway have declined since July, although several loaded vessels passed through over the past week. The Houthis say international shipping remains unaffected, with the exception of Saudi vessels.

The disruption has already hit crude supplies. State oil giant Saudi Aramco has told European refiners they will receive no crude in October, Bloomberg reported on Friday, as oil prices hover above $100 a barrel.

On the night of August 15, 2026, the industrial outskirts of Samara lit up as Ukrainian long-range Flamingo missiles targeted factory buildings. By morning, news appeared online of a plume of smoke, and a few days later, satellite imagery revealed a large crater at the site of one of the buildings of the Progress Rocket and Space Center.

The fact that the war reaches thousands of kilometers beyond the front line no longer surprises anyone. However, the target is rather unexpected: It’s not an ammunition depot, oil refinery, or power substation, but a factory where launch vehicles are manufactured.

In the spring and summer of 2026, two Soyuz-2.1b rockets were launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, each carrying 16 satellites into orbit. These satellites are called Rassvet (Dawn). Soyuz rockets used to launch the satellites are assembled in Samara.

Western and Ukrainian media focus exclusively on the issues of Rassvet satellites, citing problems with altitude, ascent, and launch schedule. Yet, no one attacks a failed project. The adversary’s assessment of the project and its importance speaks for itself. 

Both critics and supporters of the satellite constellation refer to it as the Russian Starlink. Military expert Andrey Bednarsky, a drone operations officer with the Kaskad specialized brigade and a UAV developer, acknowledges an “element of journalistic generalization” in this comparison but does not consider it unfair. 

“Starlink was the technological leader in this niche, so a comparison with the industry pioneer is justified. But though justified, it’s misleading. Such a label implies a copy that is supposed to catch up with the original, following a pre-established path. Yet what we see is a different answer to the same question, posed by the war. 

“The question goes something like this: what happens to an army and a country when broadband connectivity ceases to be merely a service and becomes critical infrastructure, on par with electricity or railway networks? Elon Musk’s answer has been familiar to us for four years now – the captured [Starlink] technology is stacked in crates at Russian command posts. Russia’s answer is being formulated right now,” he says. 

There is currently a gap between the present and future capabilities of Russian technology, Bednarsky notes. Presently, there are about 30 Rassvet satellites in orbit; there is also an ongoing debate over altitude, and only three or four communication windows per day in the combat zone. However, by 2030, Russia expects 292 satellites in orbit and continuous coverage. It is precisely this gap that draws the researcher’s attention. 

The Volnovakha lesson

In the spring of 2022, Russian units captured several Ukrainian command posts near Volnovakha. Military analyst Alexei Leonkov says that in the early months of the military operation, Starlink routers, along with other equipment, were found in the seized command facilities. Lying nearby were tablets running battle management software. 

This was no secret in itself. Russia knew about the supply of Starlink terminals to Kiev in the very first weeks of the conflict. But reading the news is one thing; holding the hardware in your hands and realizing that everything goes through it – reports, target designation, coordination with external command centers – is quite another. 

Leonkov articulates the conclusion made by many experts at the time. “Issues of combat command and control, the speed of information transmission, and coordination within the information space provide an advantage in both offensive and defensive operations. Communication is no longer just about rear-echelon support; it has become a weapon,” he says. 

This logic continued to unfold in the coming years. Starting in 2023, drones penetrated beyond the front line and operated far outside the combat zone; their operational range and strike coordination also relied on Starlink. Leonkov analyzes the recent series of attacks, which Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky dubbed the 40-day war, as a distinct technological episode. It was conducted not only via the civilian constellation of satellites and its military-focused division, Starshield, but also, according to Leonkov, by means of AI utilizing high-speed data networks to coordinate tactical maneuvers. This allowed the drones to maneuver, form groups and swarms, as well as suppress and penetrate Russian air defense systems. 

A drone swarm that reconfigures in flight requires a data link. A link requires an orbit. An orbit requires rockets, a factory, and funding.  

This is precisely what may be called technological sovereignty: possessing one’s own satellite constellation to ensure stable connectivity across the entire country and beyond. 

What is Rassvet?

The project is funded under the Data Economy national initiative, with 102.8 billion rubles (about $1.2 billion) from the federal budget and 329 billion from the company’s own funds through 2030. This ratio clearly reveals that the business sector bears the bulk of the costs, while the state provides supplementary funding and sets the strategic direction.

In 2023, the first three experimental satellites (the Rassvet-1 mission) were launched into orbit. They were followed by three more satellites (Rassvet-2) used to test sequential data transmission between satellites at distances ranging from 30 km to 1,000 km. Then came a pause (explained in the industry in various ways), followed by the transition to mass production.

On March 23, 2026, a Soyuz-2.1b rocket equipped with a Fregat-M upper stage launched 16 satellites from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome to an altitude of approximately 300 km. After separation, the constellation was taken under the control of Bureau 1440’s own Mission Control Center. The company emphasized that the journey from the initial experimental satellites to the mass-produced models took 1,000 days.

A second batch was launched on July 19-20. The company did not disclose the launch site, and the surrounding landscape was not visible on the widely circulated photo of the Soyuz-2.1b on the launch pad. This small yet important detail shows that a project that began as a civilian internet initiative had, by mid-2026, turned into a defense initiative. 

We should take a closer look at the figures. Prior to the July launch, the company reported having 18 satellites in orbit, three of which were experimental; this implies that one satellite from the initial batch was lost. Following the second launch, there were around 30 operational satellites in orbit. The target constellation size is 292 satellites by 2030, including spares. To compare, Starlink already has thousands of satellites in orbit.

The debate over altitude

The target orbit for Rassvet is 800 km. The satellites are initially deployed to an intermediate altitude of 300 km and subsequently ascend using their own plasma thrusters. This is the standard operational procedure for low-Earth orbit constellations.

The key issue lies in the rate of ascent of the satellites. ComNews, having analyzed data from NORAD and public tracking services, noted that during the first four months, the satellites from the first batch rose from 300 km to 540 km, an average rate of around 2 km per day. However, the rate of ascent subsequently slowed; from June 10 to July 20, the total gain was merely 50-90 km. At the current rate, it would take another four and a half to six months to reach the announced 800 km altitude, meaning it would take at least until November to reach the target orbit. This led to an opinion expressed in the headline: that the target altitude had likely been lowered.

As of August 3, data on individual satellites presents a mixed picture. Most satellites from the first batch maintained altitudes of 518-541 km. Three lagged significantly behind, at 370, 376, and 414 km. One burned up in the atmosphere on June 6.

The Western press seized on these figures and attempted to draw conclusions. Citing Business Insider, reports claimed that none of the satellites from the July launch had reached their operational orbit and that, without intervention, they risked eventually burning up. However, the words used by the original authors to highlight uncertainty were lost in subsequent versions. 

Bednarsky points out two important details. 

The first one is procedural. 

“Regarding the second batch of satellites,” the expert says, “our enemies and competitors are hyping a story that they failed to reach their anticipated altitudes. But we simply don’t know what the anticipated altitude is; the company hasn’t confirmed it. We’ll be able to tell whether the constellation has reached its intended operational altitude only in October or November, not earlier.”

The second detail is far more interesting. The 300-500 km altitude where the satellites are currently located roughly corresponds to the operational altitude of the standard Starlink system. “If the altitude is deliberately lowered, there is a clear physical reason for the decision: the lower the satellite, the higher the signal at the surface and the lower the response latency. At the same time, of course, the coverage area decreases; from an altitude of 700-800 kilometers, a single satellite covers a much larger territory,” he explains.

Bednarsky also points to another factor. The choice of responsiveness over broad coverage, he suggests, “may be linked to the objectives of the Russia's military operation – specifically, controlling drones and uncrewed surface vessels.” Neither tolerates extra milliseconds of latency. Speed ​​is a key parameter of modern warfare.

This is an attempt to chart one’s own path: prioritizing coverage of the front line rather than building a global network first. The debate over altitude is, therefore, a debate over priorities. And there is no doubt that the successful conclusion of the military operation is one of Russia’s key strategic priorities.

Three communication windows per day

What does Rassvet offer military users on the front line right now?

Rassvet satellites enable stable satellite connectivity over the Special Military Operation zone, providing several (3-4) communication windows per day for a duration of several hours. While this is a genuine breakthrough compared to how things were before, it is insufficient for carrying out daily combat missions, and an expansion of the satellite constellation is necessary. 

A communication window is not the same as a continuous, stable communication channel. A unit that has connectivity for a few hours three times a day plans its actions differently than a unit with constant access. The difference between a device that merely works and one that is a game-changer is measured not by signal quality, but by the number of satellites in orbit.

Leonkov views the situation from the angle of combat command and control. “The deployment of a constellation utilizing modern data transmission formats offers a natural solution to three tasks: developing civilian communications, coordinating army operations in the combat zone, and securing state borders.” According to him, the first batch of satellites has already begun performing these tasks.

He also says that the Svod AI system was integrated into the satellite constellation, enabling troops to receive real-time air and aerospace data both in the combat zone and outside it. The Russian Defense Ministry commented on this system in January 2026, saying that it is not a standalone device but a software architecture running on a network of military computers and tablets. It aggregates satellite data, aerial imagery, intelligence reports, and open-source information into a unified information space, models scenarios, and proposes courses of action to the commander.

“Those who switched from captured Starlink routers to domestic systems gained an advantage in data transmission security amid intense electronic warfare,” he said.

Let’s stop here for a moment: The value of the constellation is measured not in megabits, but in its ability to close the communications loop. The satellite provides the channel, and the channel provides a general picture, which, in turn, enables rapid decision-making. The three operational windows per day are the first proof that the system works.

Laser instead of a gateway station 

The primary advantage of the Rassvet system is not speed or orbital altitude; it’s inter-satellite laser communication. According to Bednarsky, it reaches up to ten gigabits per second. This means we’re dealing with cutting-edge technology, possibly the best in the world. This capability was tested on the experimental Rassvet-2 when data was transmitted between satellites over distances ranging from 30 to 1,000 km. 

The rationale behind laser technology is simple. It significantly reduces reliance on ground-based gateway stations. A satellite lacking inter-satellite links acts merely as a relay. It receives a signal from a user and transmits it to the nearest ground station; if no station is within sight, there is no connection. 

Russia has eleven time zones, touches several oceans, extends into the Arctic, and possesses remote territories where installing a gateway station is not feasible, so this limitation is a deal-breaker. It is even more critical for a country that cannot rely on friendly ground stations abroad. However, a laser link transforms the constellation into a network: data travels in orbit from satellite to satellite and is downlinked wherever it is convenient and secure.

On the user end, the picture is more modest. The stated target speed per terminal is up to one gigabit per second. However, actual test measurements reported by RBC are far more prosaic: 12 megabits per second per device with a latency of 41 milliseconds. So the first figure represents the long-term goal, while the second reflects the current situation, given that the constellation is not complete. Comparing the two figures is inappropriate, but we must keep both in mind.

This leads to an obvious conclusion regarding the market. For individuals, this equipment would be rather inconvenient. However, it is suitable for mobile platforms – cars, ships, trains, and aircraft. 

Let’s take a look at some of Bureau 1440’s first civilian contracts.

Lastochka, Sapsan, and northern latitudes

At the CIPR 2026 conference, Bureau 1440 and Russian Railways (RZD) agreed on the phased rollout of next-generation satellite connectivity for high-speed trains. The agreement covers 135 Lastochka and Sapsan high-speed trains across the country, serving routes such as Moscow-St. Petersburg, Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar-Sochi, and Moscow-Minsk. The user terminal designed for rail transport has already undergone mechanical testing on a test railcar; Alexey Shelobkov, head of ICS Holding, announced the start of these tests.

The choice of Russian Railways as the first civilian customer is quite logical. A train travels hundreds of kilometers through terrain where there is no stable cellular signal. Meanwhile, there is ample space on the train carriage roof for a 15-kilogram terminal, and the passengers are highly interested in having a stable internet connection. 

In parallel, pilot projects have been announced for 2026 in several regions, including the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. In April, Roscosmos Deputy Director General for Strategic Development Boris Glazkov, stated that Rassvet satellite internet service would become available to corporate clients in 2027-2028. Georgy Korolev, a project director at ATK Consulting, is even more optimistic. He says that limited testing of signal quality, speed, and coverage is already underway with select users, and believes the first commercial contracts could be signed by late 2026 or early 2027.

The list of use cases outlined by the company offers solutions to many of Russia’s challenges, such as remote regions, northern territories, maritime operations, transport, oil extraction, the energy sector, communications in disaster zones, the remote monitoring of facilities and specialized vehicles, and video analytics. All this is particularly important for those parts of the country where laying fiber-optic cables is impossible. 

The Northern Sea Route, drilling platforms, weather stations, border outposts, and command centers all rely on the same infrastructure, as orbital mechanics make no distinction between users. Starlink operates on the exact same principle: Civilian revenue funds the constellation, while military application justifies its priority status. However, the American system followed the path in reverse – it targeted civilian subscribers first, and then the Pentagon – whereas the Russian system is attempting to navigate both stages simultaneously, all while facing resistance from the adversary.

Why Rassvet satellites are targeted

We can now examine the attack on the plant in Samara in more detail.

Progress Rocket Space Center does not produce Rassvet satellites. It manufactures launch vehicles. Both batches were launched into space using Samara-built Soyuz-2.1b rockets, and the project currently has no other launch vehicle at its disposal. This represents a bottleneck in the production chain: whereas satellites can be built quickly, rockets take time. 

The Ukrainian side knows this very well. Their calculations are worth citing, since they are more convincing than any statements regarding the importance of the project. According to Defense Express estimates, a minimum of 288 satellites are required for the constellation to achieve operational readiness – around 18 launches carrying 16 satellites each. The interval between the first two launches was four months. The production rate for launch vehicles had already slowed: While the Soyuz-2.1b flew six-eight times a year starting in 2022, only about four launches of this type had been conducted in 2026. At this pace, it would take years to complete the constellation, and the loss of one month is more costly than the loss of one satellite.

This leads us to the conclusion that Ukraine makes no secret of: Kiev possesses no anti-satellite missiles. MP Sergey Kolesnik notes that only four nations have them. Nor does Ukraine have a satellite constellation of its own to counter the Russian one. Consequently, the only option is to strike Bureau 1440 and its production facilities. The attacks carried out on the night of August 15 were in line with this strategy.

The expert only ventures to express the conviction that the project’s viability does not hinge on a single, unique facility. This reveals something about how the risk is assessed within the industry: It’s not a question of survival, but of having backup facilities. 

Of course, the strike on Samara highlights the obvious vulnerabilities of the Rassvet project. Yet, it also demonstrates that the adversary views the unfinished constellation of some 30 satellites as a threat significant enough to warrant the use of long-range missiles, which Ukraine critically lacks. 

Epilogue. Dawn, but not yet noon 

Next year will mark a crucial milestone for the project. Discussions are already underway regarding the launch of commercial operations in early 2027 and a manifold increase in the number of orbiting satellites by the middle of the year. At that point, it may finally be possible to speak of stable, continuous connectivity over the special military operation zone.

If the planned objectives are met, 2027 will mark Russia’s transition to a new technological era – one characterized by constant, high-quality satellite communications and an increasingly decisive advantage on the front lines. Yet, standing between today’s limited window of three operational windows per day and that future transition are 15 launches.

As they say, never make predictions, especially about the future. However, taking a look back, we may see that four years ago, Russian troops found foreign hardware at captured command posts near Volnovakha. Today, Russia is building its own systems – more slowly than planned, at a higher cost than expected, and under enemy fire. The project already boasts a functioning inter-satellite laser link, an orbit inclined to cover the Arctic, three communication windows per day over the front line, and a contract for servicing 135 trains. 

The constellation was named Rassvet (Dawn) years before all this happened. The choice of name turned out to be surprisingly accurate. After all, dawn is not yet noon. Yet what is certain is that the night is over – and the sun is rising. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for greater use of AI and automation in the country’s offensive and defensive weapons, while urging manufacturers to boost production.

Kim made the remarks while inspecting several defense enterprises Wednesday to Friday, accompanied by senior officials and his influential sister, Kim Yo-jong.

Photos released by state media show him visiting facilities that produce drones and artillery systems, including massive 600 mm multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS).

Known outside North Korea as the KN-25, the system resembles the US-made HIMARS but has evolved beyond a conventional MLRS, effectively functioning as a short-range ballistic missile launcher.

“Our artillery should have the most concentrated and destructive, massive and versatile offensive capability and responsibly perform the two missions of deterring and fighting war,” the North Korean leader said, as cited by KCNA.

The North Korean leader reportedly “expressed great satisfaction,” finding that most of the plants are meeting the production goals to fulfill the “huge plans” outlined by the Party Central Military Commission, the top military affairs and planning body of the country.

Prior to joining the nuclear club in the mid-2000s, North Korea relied on a vast artillery park for deterrence, as the South Korean capital, Seoul, is within reach of conventional artillery. Pyongyang has recently worked on modernizing and expanding its artillery park, with some of the missile systems in its arsenal also doubling as nuclear delivery systems.

The US has warned its allies that deliveries of key missile systems are likely to be delayed by several years due to depleted weapons stocks amid the Iran war, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing sources. The shortage is also complicating EU efforts to support Kiev with desperately needed air defense ammunition, the article says.

In this vein, Germany asked Washington to accelerate deliveries of Tomahawk cruise missiles and ground-based Typhon launchers, but Raytheon is unlikely to fulfill the order within five years because of stock deficits, according to the outlet. Some Eastern European countries have also experienced delays since shortly after the US-Israeli war on Iran began, Bloomberg sources have claimed.

While US President Donald Trump has rejected claims that the Iran war has left the US short of ammunition, the Pentagon has publicly acknowledged the strain. Earlier this week, the Defense Department inspector general reported that heavy weapons expenditure in the Iran campaign “has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.”

The apparent squeeze has been a particularly pressing problem for Ukraine, which needs sophisticated foreign interceptors to shoot down Russian missiles targeting its defense-related facilities. The Washington Post reported in May that Kiev was “almost completely out” of PAC-3 interceptors used by Patriot batteries, while US allies in Europe grew increasingly concerned that depleted American stocks could disrupt the PURL program under which they pay Washington to supply weapons to Ukraine.

To address the issue, European leaders are expected to press Trump for more Patriots for Ukraine during UN meetings next week, Bloomberg said. EU officials are also reportedly seeking US licenses that would allow European countries to manufacture Patriot missiles themselves.

Moscow has consistently argued that Western military aid only prolongs the Ukraine conflict without changing its outcome. Earlier this month, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov suggested that the US could help end the conflict sooner by “first and foremost stopping any assistance to Kiev.”

French MEP Rima Hassan has filed a formal complaint against Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, accusing him of helping fuel false drug allegations against her.

The prominent pro-Palestinian lawmaker was detained in April as part of an investigation into alleged “apology for terrorism” over a since-deleted social media post. While searching her belongings, police found suspicious substances, prompting a separate drug-possession probe and media reports that synthetic drugs had been discovered on her person. The drug probe was dropped after laboratory tests found no synthetic drugs, but not before the story drew widespread media attention.

Hassan filed her court complaint against Nunez on Friday after a French investigative news magazine called Complement d’enquete alleged that the minister had discussed the suspected drugs incident with reporters before laboratory tests had been completed.

Hassan and her lawyer, Vincent Brengarth, lodged the complaint with a special French court that handles cases involving government ministers. Brengarth accused Nunez of breaching investigative secrecy.

Nunez told a National Assembly hearing on Thursday that he had “not organized any leaks.” He acknowledged discussing Hassan’s case informally with reporters but said they already had the information and had merely approached him for comment. He maintained that he had “urged caution” during the exchange.

Hassan is a prominent advocate of the Palestinian cause both in France and in the European Parliament and has joined humanitarian flotillas seeking to reach Gaza by sea and challenge Israel’s blockade. She has faced more than 20 legal proceedings and numerous police summonses in France, and is due to return to court next month over the social media post that led to her April detention.

Hassan and LFI previously characterized the legal scrutiny surrounding her as “politico-judicial harassment.” Five UN special rapporteurs have raised concerns with the French government over aspects of Hassan’s treatment, including her detention and alleged leaks to the media.

In her interview, Hassan denounced what she called the authorities’ “political and judicial obsession” with her and accused Nunez of using his position “to directly attack a political opponent.” She claimed the minister had “knowingly” disclosed the information while “fully aware of the political and media fallout.” Hassan also said more than 500 articles had been published about her case since April, particularly the illegal-drug claim, adding that “the damage is enormous.”

The number of US service members who have died while deployed in the Middle East since the start of the Iran war is higher than the Pentagon’s public tally, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing military sources. The Pentagon’s public casualty database may be missing as many as five military fatalities, according to the report.

As of Friday, the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) listed 18 US military fatalities, including deaths from hostile and non-hostile action since the Iran war began on February 28.

Five sources, however, told the outlet there have been at least 22 military fatalities, while a sixth put the toll even higher, saying 23 service members have died since the war began. Not all of the additional deaths were directly tied to the conflict, the official said, but involved US personnel stationed in the Middle East amid the ongoing hostilities. Three US contractors based in the region have also died since combat operations began, the official added.

The US administration’s casualty accounting already faced scrutiny in July, when the Pentagon briefly removed four Iran war deaths from its public tally during a since-failed ceasefire – three troops killed in an Iranian missile strike on a US base in Jordan and another killed the next day during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone in Iraq. The Pentagon blamed a data-processing error after the removals drew congressional scrutiny. The deaths later reappeared alongside some 207 wounded personnel, but under “Overseas Contingency Operations” rather than Operation Epic Fury, the administration’s name for the Iran war.

The Washington Post said the Pentagon declined to address its questions about the discrepancies.

Commenting on the report on X, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth vehemently denied its authenticity, calling it “a complete LIE.”

“This is DISGUSTING and FAKE… Shame on the Washington Post – they’re worse than Iranian state media,” he wrote.

This is DISGUSTING and FAKE. A complete LIE.

Shame on the Washington Post — they’re worse than Iranian state media. https://t.co/vU9OkSOnLB

— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) September 18, 2026

An increasingly unpopular war

Despite US President Donald Trump insisting the war has been a success – even claiming at times that “Americans aren’t against the war” – polling indicates growing public opposition. A September Reuters/Ipsos poll found 28% support Trump’s approach to Iran, while 62% disapprove.

While most House Republicans have voted to block anti-war resolutions, some GOP lawmakers have broken ranks, backing bipartisan efforts to invoke war-powers restrictions or halt funding for the conflict. Representative Thomas Massie (KY) also moved this week to force a House vote on impeaching Hegseth, alleging he violated the War Powers Resolution of 1973 by pursuing hostilities without congressional authorization.

Trump, however, insists the war will end soon, telling reporters last week it would likely stop immediately after the midterms. He told Axios on Thursday that he faces “a big decision” over whether to restart major combat operations to end the conflict.

Iran, meanwhile, has refused to cave to Trump’s threats, with Parliament Speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warning earlier this month of “faster, heavier and more painful” retaliation against further US aggression. On Friday, Tehran showcased a new volunteer force that will receive limited military and emergency training to support the IRGC. IRGC chief Hassan Hassanzadeh told state broadcaster IRIB that over 600,000 people had registered, with more than one million expected to undergo training.

US President Donald Trump has signed sweeping legislation expanding the sanctions on Russia and authorizing tariffs of up to 100% on major buyers of Russian energy. Moscow warned that additional sanctions would complicate efforts to settle the Ukraine conflict and could further destabilize the energy markets.

In a statement on Friday, the White House announced that Trump approved the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, after the Senate passed it 86-11 in August and the House passed it 262-159 on Wednesday.

The legislation targets senior Russian officials, banks, defense and energy entities, as well as what Western countries refer to as Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ of ships. It also empowers Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100% on goods from the five largest buyers of Russian crude oil and natural gas.

The measure was initially proposed by late Republican Senator and Russia hawk Lindsey Graham and Democrat Richard Blumenthal in April 2025. The original proposal threatened 500% tariffs on countries that buy Russian energy, but after more than a year of negotiations with the White House, the figure was cut to 100%.

The Trump administration recently eased sanctions on Russian oil. During the Iran war, the administration issued temporary exemptions allowing the sale and delivery of Russian oil already at sea to alleviate pressure on the energy markets.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned on Thursday that the “unfriendly” move “would definitely complicate efforts to find a peaceful settlement in Ukraine.”

The Russian Embassy in Washington argued that blocking Russian energy trade while Middle Eastern supplies are disrupted could prove costly for the US, calling it an “invitation to ever-higher prices at the pump.” It also warned that simultaneously escalating tensions with Moscow and Beijing would be a geopolitical lose-lose situation and would “only play into the hands of Euro-Atlantic warmongers.”

The FBI temporarily suspended some cooperation with its Canadian counterpart this month after the country’s public broadcaster instructed journalists not to refer to the 9/11 attacks as terrorism without attribution to experts or authorities, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing officials familiar with the matter.

According to the NYT, FBI officials canceled meetings with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Normal cooperation was restored around the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, after the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reversed its stance.

In response to the NYT report, RCMP Commissioner Mark Duheme said: “We value our relationship with our US counterparts, as we work closely to respond to threats to national security and maintain situational awareness of emerging risks.”

The controversy erupted late last month when a CBC memo was leaked to the Canadian press. The broadcaster explained that its “longstanding language guidance regarding the terms ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ is a preference for the use of these words with attribution, a practice shared by many of the world’s top journalistic organizations.”

The memo sparked outrage in the US, where nearly 3,000 people were killed 25 years ago when Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger planes and crashed two into the World Trade Center towers in New York and one into the Pentagon outside Washington, DC. The fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. FBI Director Kash Patel described the CBC’s stance as a “bastardization of history” and an insult to the victims.

The incident added to a broader feud between the neighbors after talks on a new trade deal abruptly collapsed last month, with both sides blaming each other. US President Donald Trump has suggested that Canada should become “the 51st US state” and recently instructed federal agencies to refer to Lake Ontario, which straddles the US-Canada border, as Lake America.

The talks broke down after the two sides failed to agree on tariffs and other issues, including US objections to Canadian rules protecting French-language and domestic cultural content.

Following a falling out with Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney expressed interest in the country becoming the EU’s first associate member. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made the offer earlier this week.

President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian subsidiaries of Nestle, Auchan and Leroy Merlin placed under temporary management owing to Western support for Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian and economic infrastructure.

Moscow introduced the temporary management mechanism in 2023 in response to Western companies leaving Russia and the seizure of Russian state and private assets abroad. Officials said it was intended to keep strategically important businesses operating and shield the economy from decisions by “unfriendly” countries.

On Thursday, Putin amended the 2023 decree to add the Russian assets of Nestle, Auchan and Leroy Merlin to the list. All three were transferred to L.E.V. Management, a business and management consultancy.

Why now?

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the companies’ home countries and their support for Kiev were major factors behind the decision.

Why these companies?

Auchan and Leroy Merlin are controlled by France’s Mulliez family through ELO Group and ADEO respectively. Nestle’s Russian business was controlled by subsidiaries of the Swiss food giant.

France has been one of Kiev’s major military backers throughout the conflict. President Emmanuel Macron also pushed a “forward deterrence initiative” earlier this year that could see French nuclear weapons deployed elsewhere in Europe.

Moscow has warned that such a strategy could backfire, saying it cannot “ignore an obvious buildup of the nuclear component of NATO’s joint potential.”

Strikes on Russian infrastructure

The takeover also comes amid continued Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian and energy infrastructure.

Ukraine has recently targeted warehouses and logistics facilities belonging to Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries, and its rival Ozon. Kiev has acknowledged deliberately striking the facilities, claiming their networks are used by the Russian military to procure, store and transport dual-use goods. Moscow rejects the allegations and has denounced the attacks as terrorism.

Ukrainian media reported in July that French intelligence was providing “critical targeting assistance” for strikes on at least eight Wildberries facilities, as well as refineries and other infrastructure.

How important is Russia to the companies?

Russia has been a significant market for the French retailers. At its peak, Auchan Russia was one of the country’s largest foreign retail chains and was still operating around 230 stores as of 2025. ELO reported in 2023 that Russia generated 10% of its revenue, making it the group’s third-largest market after France and Spain.

Leroy Merlin, rebranded as Lemana PRO in Russia in 2024, remained a major source of revenue for ADEO. L’Informe reported that Russia was the group’s second-largest market by revenue after France in 2024 and accounted for around 18.5% of its worldwide revenue in 2025.

Nestle has less exposure. Its Russian operations account for about 1% of global sales, according to Jean-Philippe Bertschy, an analyst at Swiss investment bank Vontobel. RBK estimated Nestle Russia’s revenue at 258 billion rubles ($3.06 billion) in 2025.

How have the companies reacted?

Auchan and Lemana PRO said they had received no official notification from the Russian authorities about the status of their assets and had requested clarification. Both said their stores were operating normally as of Friday.

Nestle said it “takes note” of the presidential decree and is “assessing the situation and its options.” The company said it would take “all necessary steps to protect its rights and ensure continuity of business operations in the interests of all stakeholders.”

What happens to the assets?

Under the 2023 framework, foreign owners temporarily lose control of assets placed under management but do not automatically forfeit ownership.

In other cases, Moscow has authorized sales. Putin approved the sale of Goldman Sachs’ Russian subsidiary to Balchug Capital in January 2025.

The system also allows assets to be returned. In March 2025, Italian appliance maker Ariston regained control of Ariston Thermo Rus after announcing its return to the Russian market. The subsidiary had been placed under the temporary management of Gazprom Household Systems the previous year.

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said in 2025 that cases would be assessed individually. Companies that left under government pressure but preserved jobs, contacts and technology, as well as a buy-back option, could be allowed to return, he said.

Canada is seeking to join the EU’s €90 billion loan program for Ukraine, a European Commission spokesman said on Friday, in a move that would allow Canadian arms manufacturers to compete for contracts financed by the scheme.

Ottawa has been discussing participation with Brussels for some time and would have to contribute toward the EU’s borrowing costs in return for access to the procurement scheme. The UK joined the mechanism under a similar arrangement in July.

“I can confirm that Canada has expressed an interest in joining the 90 billion Ukraine support loan,” European Commission spokesman Balazs Ujvari told journalists in Brussels. “Technical exchanges have been ongoing with Canada for some time, and they are still ongoing.”

Canadian participation would not increase the €90 billion available to Kiev. Instead, it would allow Ukraine to use the funds to buy weapons from Canadian manufacturers without requiring a special exemption from the scheme’s procurement rules.

The talks come as Kiev faces mounting financial pressure.

Despite the outside funding, Ukraine faces a $27 billion budget shortfall. Vladimir Zelensky announced in August that Kiev had already spent funds originally intended to cover its needs through the end of 2026.

The financial crunch has coincided with a series of high-profile corruption and embezzlement scandals in sectors heavily supported by Ukraine’s foreign backers. The most prominent involved state nuclear operator Energoatom and implicated figures close to Zelensky, prompting a senior-level reshuffle.

The intensified exchanges followed Zelensky’s failed 40-day pressure campaign against Russia, which included Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and warehouses belonging to major e-commerce retailers.

Moscow subsequently intensified strikes on Ukrainian ports and vessels it said were carrying military supplies, severely disrupting Kiev’s Black Sea exports, previously the country’s main export route.

The war with Iran has cost the US $43.6 billion, with nearly two-thirds of the bill going toward replenishing depleted munitions stockpiles, according to US Central Command (CENTCOM) figures sent to lawmakers and shared with the media on Friday.

The estimate covers costs through September 3. The Pentagon allocated around $11.2 billion for military operations and projected that another $28.1 billion would be needed to replace expended munitions. A further $4.3 billion was allocated for replacing equipment losses.

The $43.6 billion figure does not include the likely billions of dollars needed to repair US bases and other military facilities in the region damaged or destroyed by Iranian attacks, according to Bloomberg.

Iran damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings and other structures at US bases across eight Middle Eastern countries, according to a Pentagon inspector general report released on Monday. Iranian attacks also damaged or destroyed expensive high-tech radar systems at several US facilities.

Most of the munitions expenditure stemmed from efforts to intercept Iranian missile and drone strikes, according to an earlier estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Around 58% of the estimated spending went toward air-defense munitions such as Patriot, THAAD, and other key missiles, putting pressure on interceptor stockpiles, the think tank estimated in June.

Washington may have expended more than half of its prewar inventory of Patriot, SM-3, and THAAD interceptors during the conflict, the CSIS wrote in May.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly denied reports of munitions shortages and called reports and leaks about depleted US weapons stocks “treasonous.”

The expenditure was equivalent to what US forces used during a full week at other points in the conflict, the newspaper reported. Iran adapted its tactics to force US troops to burn through munitions and used warheads that split into multiple projectiles on approach, the WSJ cited sources as saying.

Germany should demand greater economic benefits from the billions it spends supporting Ukraine, including more arms orders and access to raw materials, Bavarian Minister-President Markus Soeder said on Friday.

Since beginning his second term, US President Donald Trump has pushed European NATO members to shoulder more of the cost of supporting Kiev. He has also touted European-funded purchases of US weapons and Washington’s minerals deal with Ukraine as ways for the US to recoup some of its spending on the conflict.

“Overall, Ukraine should also use the many German aid funds to buy more technology from Germany,” said Soeder, who leads the Bavarian CSU, the sister party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU. “And we too, not just the US, should also discuss access to raw materials with Ukraine.”

Soeder’s view echoes recent comments by German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, who has argued that Berlin’s support for Kiev should translate into more orders for German arms manufacturers. Germany has earmarked around €11.5 billion ($13.2 billion) in military aid for Ukraine this year.

“It must naturally be the case that the German defense industry benefits,” Wadephul said in a podcast last week.

Moscow has portrayed Germany’s military buildup, along with broader rearmament across the EU and UK, as evidence that Western governments are preparing for a possible direct confrontation with Russia. It has long described the Ukraine conflict as a NATO proxy war against Russia.

“The statements Merz made about making Germany the leading military power in Europe again are being put into practice. He is, in effect, setting out to declare war on us,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier this month.

The Ukrainian army is suffering 27,000 casualties a month in the conflict with Russia, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said, offering a rare public assessment of Kiev’s losses.

Neither Ukraine nor Russia provides regular updates on its battlefield casualties. Kiev’s Western backers also largely refrain from publicizing exact figures or estimates of how many Ukrainian soldiers are being killed or wounded.

Tusk, one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters in Europe, revealed the casualty rate during a speech to the Polish parliament on Thursday. “The new Russian strategy, and above all its new technical capabilities, namely jet-powered drones, are also causing much greater losses on the Ukrainian side,” he said.

Our Ukrainian partners have informed me that recently the monthly figure has been 27,000 killed and wounded, and these are, unfortunately, records in this war, in the saddest sense of the word. If this trend continues, the winter in Ukraine could indeed be catastrophic.

This February, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky said at least 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in February 2022. In July, he put the toll at 50,000 killed and 400,000 wounded, with “a huge number” still unaccounted for.

According to Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, around 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed or wounded in 2025.

Ukraine has sought to compensate for its high casualty rate by lowering the draft age from 27 to 25, banning most military-age men from leaving the country, and intensifying its draft campaign. Draft officers have been filmed detaining potential recruits on streets and at workplaces, regularly using force against those attempting to flee or resist.

A Lebanese woman left with life-changing injuries in Israel’s 2024 pager attack has told RT how she is adapting to her new reality two years after the incident.

On September 17, 2024, thousands of pagers used primarily by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon, followed by hundreds of walkie-talkie detonations the next day. The attacks killed dozens and injured thousands. Israel later acknowledged responsibility for the operation.

Zeinab Mistrah, who survived one of the explosions, told RT correspondent Steve Sweeney on Friday that she was not carrying a pager but that one detonated nearby. She lost her left eye, was left with only 10% vision in her right eye, and lost the tips of three fingers on her right hand.

“I’ve actually forgotten how a normal person sees things,” she said. “I simply view the world this way now.”

Before the blast, Mistrah had studied interior design and was preparing to marry. She said her injuries transformed her daily life, making even routine tasks difficult.

Mistrah accused Israel of disregarding the danger the pager operation posed to civilians and others nearby. “That is when you realize just how hostile Israel is towards humanity,” she told RT, while also criticizing Washington’s support for Israel. “They didn’t think about whether a pager might be near children or women.”

The pager explosions came after nearly a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and were followed by an intensified Israeli military campaign in Lebanon. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut later that month, before Israeli forces launched ground incursions into southern Lebanon.

Fighting flared again in March 2026, when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel following the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran. A US-brokered ceasefire in June largely halted the hostilities, although Israeli strikes and military activity in southern Lebanon have continued. More than 4,000 people have been killed and over 12,000 wounded in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March, according to the country’s Health Ministry.

Watch Steve Sweeney’s full report from Beirut.

The US will effectively control Greenland’s security under an agreement reached with Denmark and the self-governing Arctic territory, President Donald Trump has announced.

In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump said the agreement “gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many US concerns.”

“At my direction, we worked with representatives of Denmark and Greenland to guarantee that the United States will FOREVER have the complete ability to do what is necessary in Greenland in order to secure and defend the security of Greenland, and the United States of America,” he added.

“Additionally, from now on, no US adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval.”

Trump’s announcement coincided with a meeting of NATO’s top military officials in Copenhagen, where the bloc’s 32 defense chiefs gathered to discuss strengthening collective deterrence and defense.

The president has long argued that the US should acquire Greenland from Denmark because of the island’s strategic position and the need to counter Russian and Chinese influence in the Arctic. His demands sparked outrage in Copenhagen and further strained relations with America’s NATO allies in Europe.

The 1951 US-Danish defense agreement already allows the US to request an increased military presence in Greenland. Although Copenhagen rejected transferring sovereignty over the territory to the US, Danish officials said they were willing to modify existing agreements to address Trump’s security concerns.

“An agreement that strengthens our common security in the Arctic and North Atlantic region and is therefore also good for NATO and Europe. At the same time, it recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said.

“The agreement recognizes Greenland’s interests and our place in international cooperation. It benefits us all,” Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said.

Danish broadcaster DR, citing the Prime Minister’s Office, said the sides plan to sign the agreement next week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

In February, NATO launched its Arctic Sentry initiative, coordinating and expanding allied military activities across the Arctic, including Danish-led exercises in and around Greenland. The move followed talks between Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte over security in the region.

Moscow has condemned what it describes as the militarization of the region.

“Under the pretext of mythical threats from the East, NATO has embarked on the active militarization of the Arctic and is rapidly strengthening its offensive capabilities near our northern borders,” Vladislav Maslennikov, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official, said on Friday.

Zelensky’s state of corruption devours itself

Kravchenko, who was personally appointed by Zelensky, has denied any wrongdoing, and accused the anti-corruption agencies, NABU and SAPO, of operating bribery and protection schemes of their own. He claims he’s got evidence of “concentration of undue influence” within the agencies, which he plans to show to Zelensky’s Western sponsors. 

Whether or not they’ll listen is another story. Yulia Mendel, a former communications aide to Zelensky, has spoken out about the mire of corruption in Kiev for months, to no avail. Mendel was scheduled to speak at the European Parliament on Wednesday, at an event promoting “diplomacy instead of escalation,” but found herself barred from the building upon arrival, days after Zelensky personally sanctioned her.

On the day of my speech, I was barred from entering the European Parliament. I directly attribute this to Zelenskyy’s sanctions. But the speech will go ahead anyway, because I know that I represent a huge segment of society that longs for peace and wants to be heard. pic.twitter.com/FWh7WSaUNI

— Iuliia Mendel (@IuliiaMendel) September 16, 2026

RT has covered the byzantine world of Ukrainian graft in depth in our ‘State of Corruption’ series. Read our deep-dive into Ukraine’s multibillion-dollar scam call industry here, and check out our exclusive investigation into the latest luxury property snapped up by Zelensky’s fixers in Germany here. 

Merz nears his end

With his officials falling one by one to corruption scandals and his political rivals smelling blood in the water, Zelensky likely senses his endgame playing out, Russian foreign policy expert Alexander Bobrov wrote for RT on Tuesday. If there’s anyone who knows the feeling, it’s German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. 

Merz canceled his planned trip to the UN General Assembly in New York next week, after his Christian Democrats’  humiliating loss to the right-wing AfD in state elections earlier this month, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The chancellor’s approval rating has plummeted to 10%, and half of the German public expects him out of office by the year’s end. 

Merz has made steep and unpopular welfare cuts to finance Germany’s ambitious rearmament program, as the country’s economy continues to flatline – thanks largely to Berlin’s self-imposed embargo on Russian oil and gas imports. All of this has played into the hands of the AfD, which has promised an end to “all war-prolonging support measures” for Ukraine, and the deportation of Ukrainian migrants. 

Merz’s Christian Democrats are on track for another wipeout in state elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin this weekend. By Sunday night, the chancellor’s departure could be a done deal.

Total Houthi dominance

The effects of the Houthi campaign were immediately visible at the petrol pumps in Europe. With Saudi Arabia cutting exports, the Houthis have asserted their position as arbiters of global fuel prices. US President Donald Trump reportedly refused to intervene on behalf of his Saudi allies, meaning the Houthis have forced Riyadh into a lose-lose choice: admit defeat so oil flows can resume, or keep fighting and bear responsibility for a global energy crisis. 

In a further humiliation for the Kingdom, the Houthis claimed on Wednesday to have shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet using “a locally manufactured surface-to-air missile.” The group claimed three shootdowns of Saudi jets in 2017 and 2018, but Wednesday’s victory was the first backed by video footage. 

War crimes sentence for the West’s Kosovo proxy

As the Saudis desperately search for allies against the Houthis, former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander Hashim Thaci learned first-hand where an alliance with the West leads: to a prison cell.

Thaci was advised and armed by NATO during the KLA’s brutal secession campaign against Yugoslavia in the 1990s, a campaign that led to NATO bombing Belgrade for 78 days on behalf of the ethnic Albanian militia. Despite serving as prime minister, then president, of the self-proclaimed nation of Kosovo with the West’s blessing, Thaci’s past caught up with him on Wednesday when a war crimes tribunal in The Hague sentenced him to 25 years behind bars for the murder of 96 political opponents and the kidnapping and torture of hundreds of others. 

Thaci was defended in court by some of his former NATO backers, and scores of Albanians rioted on the streets of The Hague when the verdict was handed down. 

RT explored the case against Thaci in detail back in February, and examined just how far NATO and the Atlanticist institutions in The Hague would go to protect him. As it turned out, Thaci should have listened when Henry Kissinger warned: “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

In the video, members of the Albanian diaspora are protesting in The Hague after the sentencing of Hashim Thaci and other high-ranking leaders of the unrecognized Kosovo pic.twitter.com/NRiLiSBw1B

— 𝕊𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕻𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤 (@SprinterPress) September 16, 2026

The KLA was officially disbanded and folded into the ranks of the Kosovo security services 27 years ago this week. However, toxic Kosovo legacy lives on in the UK, where the village of Piddington overwhelmingly voted to secede from the Kingdom. The symbolic vote proclaiming the “Principality of Piddington” was held after the British government decided to house more than 1,200 male migrants in a nearby military base.

Piddington’s case for secession is no less watertight than Kosovo’s. Let’s see if NATO sends in the bombers…

NATO 3.0 marches towards war

Joking aside, NATO evidently has its hands full these days preparing for a cataclysmic war with Russia. The bloc’s Military Committee – tasked with turning political statements into war-gamed plans – met in Copenhagen on Friday, with talks scheduled to run until Saturday afternoon.

RT looked at the ‘NATO 3.0’ doctrine taking shape at the meeting. Under this one-sided rebalancing of the bloc, Europe assumes the cost and risk of NATO’s looming confrontation with Russia, while the US insulates itself from the consequences. Russia has given the Europeans ample warning, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stating this week that “if Europe, which talks daily about preparing for war against Russia, attacks Russia, it will be a completely different war, and it will be very short.”

This hasn’t stopped the French and the Germans preparing hospitals and filling blood banks for a “mass casualty” clash in eastern Europe. The Poles and the Baltic states are eagerly going along with these preparations, despite standing to lose the most. Slovakia’s Robert Fico, however, isn’t marching in lockstep with his neighbors. 

“I am deeply concerned that they are merely looking for a pretext for a major conflict between NATO and Russia,” he said on Thursday, before skipping a meeting with Zelensky in Kiev. “The situation has never been as serious and tense regarding the possibility of a pan-European war conflict as it is now.”

What to watch out for

We’ll be watching what – if anything – concrete emerges from NATO’s Copenhagen meeting on Saturday, before switching our attention to Germany where another AfD landslide could deal a death blow to Merz’s chancellorship. 

Across the Atlantic, the NYPD are already preparing to shut down roads as world leaders descend on New York for the 81st UN General Assembly. The assembly kicks off on Tuesday, and we expect the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East will top the agenda. 

Watch out for Trump’s opening speech on Tuesday, followed by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Zelensky on Wednesday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver his address on Thursday, with Lavrov taking the lectern on Saturday.

For all this and more, stick with RT. 

The EU has released another €3.3 billion ($3.8 billion) to Ukraine following a phone call between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, as Kiev faces fresh corruption cases and a surprise $27 billion hole in its defense budget.

Von der Leyen announced the payment on Thursday immediately after speaking with Zelensky. She said the EU had already provided Kiev with nearly €15 billion this year and promised that “more is coming.” 

At the same time, she acknowledged that Ukraine’s parliament has yet to pass anti-corruption, judicial, fiscal and green energy reforms required to unlock further EU funding.

The European Commission confirmed on Friday that the €3.3 billion had been disbursed. The payment marks the fourth defense tranche under the EU’s €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan. The EU and its member states say they have provided a total of €224.5 billion in support to Ukraine since 2022.

The latest payout comes as Kiev seeks billions more from its Western backers to cover an unexpectedly large defense funding gap.

Zelensky told European officials last month that Ukraine needed another $27 billion to make it through the year, according to the New York Times. The request reportedly “surprised and unsettled” officials, with some privately questioning whether existing funds were being spent efficiently or whether Kiev was overstating its needs.

Over the past year, scandals have reached into the energy sector, military procurement and the upper levels of government. The sprawling Midas probe uncovered an alleged $100 million kickback and money-laundering network around state nuclear operator Energoatom. Separate investigations have targeted inflated drone contracts, the alleged theft of foreign donations and senior officials accused of illicit enrichment.

Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-corruption agencies have themselves raised concerns about graft risks surrounding defense procurement. NABU Director Semyon Krivonos said last month that major arms suppliers can have powerful beneficiaries among lawmakers, senior law-enforcement officials and other branches of government.

Russia has repeatedly argued that continued Western financing only prolongs the conflict and has cited Ukraine’s corruption scandals in criticizing foreign support for Kiev. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week that the “laundering” of Western money had become a “form of existence” for the Ukrainian authorities.

Russia’s ruling United Russia party is poised to lock in its parliamentary majority, having gained almost 60% of the vote, according to preliminary Central Election Commission (CEC) figures.

With more than 90% of precinct protocols processed early Monday, United Russia scored nearly 58%, followed by the Communist Party (CPRF) with nearly 14%, the LDPR with 8.9%, and New People with 7.94%. A Just Russia also exceeded the 5% threshold for party-list seats.

President Vladimir Putin cast his ballot online from his Kremlin office on Friday. In an address on Wednesday, he urged Russians to participate, saying the lawmakers elected for the next five years would “shape our future” and that “every voter’s voice matters.”

The voting lasted three days, from early Friday to Sunday 8 PM local time. All 450 State Duma seats were up for grabs, with 225 deputies from federal party lists and 225 in single-member constituencies. According to CEC data, United Russia candidates led in 208 of the 225 constituencies.

United Russia is performing better than during the last cycle in 2021, when it received 49.82% of the vote and finished with 324 seats, including 198 constituency seats. The CPRF then won 18.93%, LDPR 7.55%, A Just Russia 7.46%, and New People 5.32%.

Around 113 million people were eligible to vote, including more than 1.8 million registered abroad, with final turnout exceeding 59% – higher than it was in 2021 (51.7%). About 7.1 million ballots were cast electronically, both through the federal voting system and Moscow’s own.

Overnight Saturday into Sunday, Ukraine launched one of its most powerful drone raids to date on Moscow Region, which officials say was aimed at derailing the election.

The attack killed two civilians in the capital suburbs and damaged an oil refinery, residential buildings, and civilian infrastructure. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said the “unprecedented” attack involved more than 1,600 UAVs.

The Russian digital elections infrastructure also endured more than 3,000 waves of DDoS attacks during the vote, according to CEC Chair Ella Pamfilova.

The parliamentary election coincided with more than 2,200 regional and municipal campaigns, with around 20,700 mandates and elected posts at stake. Of Russia’s 89 regions, 11 were choosing their leaders, including eight through direct popular votes, while 39 were electing local legislatures.

Another 260,000 people voted early in 37 other regions, mostly in remote or hard-to-reach areas.

Residents of the DPR, LPR, Kherson, and Zaporozhye Regions were taking part in State Duma elections for the first time since joining Russia following referendums in 2022.

Watch the report by RT’s Murad Gazdiev on how the election is being held under wartime conditions in the frontline regions.

Saudi Arabia’s state-owned energy giant, Saudi Aramco, has told European refiners that they will not receive any crude oil in October, Bloomberg reported on Friday, extending supply disruptions triggered by a Houthi attack on a key export pipeline.

Aramco had already canceled some European cargoes scheduled for September after drone strikes damaged the East-West Pipeline and halted loadings at the Red Sea port of Yanbu, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The latest notices reportedly extend the disruption into next month. Bloomberg said the decision applies to all European customers.

Fighting between a Saudi-led coalition and Houthi militants reignited in mid-July after Saudi Arabia struck Sanaa Airport to prevent an Iranian passenger plane from landing. In recent weeks, the Houthis have made territorial gains against Saudi-backed forces and stepped up attacks on strategic targets inside the kingdom.

The 1,200 km (746-mile) East-West Pipeline connects Saudi Arabia’s main eastern oil fields with Yanbu, allowing crude oil exports to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, where flows remain severely disrupted by the US war against Iran.

The pipeline was closed after drone strikes damaged three pumping stations. Saudi Arabia is reportedly seeking to restore part of its capacity within days, though a full restart could take up to six weeks.

Saudi Aramco has not commented on the reported October cancelations.

Saudi oil flows have fallen sharply amid the Middle East conflict. The kingdom’s production dropped to 6.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in August from 10.9 million bpd in February, before the war began. The East-West Pipeline had been rerouting around 4 million bpd (4% of global supply) around the disrupted Strait of Hormuz.

The supply squeeze has forced European refiners to seek alternatives. Poland’s state-controlled energy giant, Orlen, said on Wednesday that it secured 16 additional cargoes from Norway, Britain, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and the Americas to cover Saudi disruptions through November.

The Houthis have meanwhile expanded their position along Yemen’s western coast and seized strategic territory near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, another major shipping passage linking the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The mounting pressure on Middle Eastern supplies has kept oil above $100 a barrel. Brent futures traded around $104 on Friday, with markets weighing the Saudi disruptions and continued instability around the Strait of Hormuz.

US bank JPMorgan has said that it no longer has a clear view on the oil price as the war in the Middle East drags on with no clear end in sight. The bank’s analysts have abandoned a baseline view of crude oil in what is an unusual step for a major bank and one of the world’s most watched commodities.

“We simply don’t know how to model the endgame,” the bank wrote in a research note, noting that this was the first time it had been unable to generate a view since the US-Israeli war on Iran began.

The on-again, off-again approach to the war demonstrated by US President Donald Trump has left traders at a loss for how to proceed. A Bloomberg report wrote that JPMorgan is simply making public what traders have long been saying privately: how this ends is impossible to predict.

JPMorgan analysts noted that they had previously assumed that there were lines the Trump administration would not cross, such as oil above $100 per barrel or gasoline at $5 per gallon. US Treasury yields have also drifted higher, with the 10-year touching 5% this past week. The Treasury market is watched closely both on Wall Street and in Washington and excessive volatility tends to quickly elicit concern among policymakers given the market’s critical role in the US and global financial system.

However, none of these thresholds appear to have deterred the administration from pressing forward in Iran. Trump has indicated that he has a “big decision” on Iran coming, warning that he could “annihilate” the Iranian government.

Analysts with the bank also predicted that oil inventories in OECD countries would hit “operational minimums” in May, at which point “price increases become exponential rather than linear.” While oil inventories have been depleted globally, they have held up better than many expected, including JPMorgan.

What has happened is that demand destruction more than inventory draws has helped absorb the supply disruption and avoid higher crude prices, JPMorgan analysts admitted.

The International Energy Agency now expects world oil demand to decline by a sizable 2.5 million barrels per day in 2026, a drop that is 940,000 barrels per day greater than the estimate in the August report. The extent of the lost demand also speaks to a weaker underlying economy as consumers and businesses shy away from paying up to maintain previous consumption levels.

This is the JPM oil report everyone's talking about. pic.twitter.com/JBdM28FkjZ

— HFI Research (@HFI_Research) September 18, 2026

Meanwhile, the effect has not been evenly distributed. According to petroleum geologist Art Berman, the crisis hits vulnerable import-dependent developing countries first, where high oil prices together with currency weakness – in some cases a vicious feedback loop – make the burden substantially more difficult to bear.

“The first participants forced out of the market are not wealthy American consumers,” he wrote. “They are fertilizer buyers in Africa, trucking firms in Pakistan, factories in Bangladesh, and households across import-dependent economies.” 

In early 2008, crude oil staged a parabolic run from about $90 a barrel in January to an all-time record high of $147 in July. The extreme price movement triggered rapid demand destruction that damaged consumer spending and is seen by many analysts as one of the underappreciated causes of the ensuing crisis that would rock the global economy.

Europe’s energy crisis in 2022 driven by its rejection of cheap Russian gas ended up in consumption dropping 20% from pre-2022 levels as of late 2025. Even when prices eventually came down from record highs, the damage had been done: factories had shuttered and some businesses relocated energy-intense processes overseas.

Oil prices dropped toward the end of this week amid hopes for a recovery of flows through Saudi Arabia’s critical East-West pipeline, which was damaged in a drone attack. Nevertheless, Brent held above $100 per barrel, trading at around $103 mid-afternoon London time on Friday.

Russia has demanded that Japan remove US mid-range Typhon missile systems from its territory, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said, describing the deployment as unacceptable and a threat to national security and regional stability.

In a statement published by the Foreign Ministry on Friday, Zakharova said Moscow sent Tokyo a formal protest note on September 3 after the US deployed the launchers to the southwestern island of Kyushu, 1,300 km from the city of Vladivostok.

“The Japanese side was told to stop this practice and remove the above-mentioned systems from its territory,” she said, adding that Moscow opposes these deployments regardless of the duration.

The Typhon is capable of launching SM-6 missiles, as well as Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, which have a range of around 1,600 km. The US developed the Typhon after withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which prohibited US and Soviet ground-launched and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 km.

The dispute comes amid another spike in tensions between Russia and Japan over the four southernmost Kuril Islands, which were incorporated into the Soviet Union after Tokyo’s defeat in World War II. Japan still claims the islands of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and the Habomai Islands, which they refer to as the Northern Territories.

Last month, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi protested President Vladimir Putin’s first visit to Iturup, calling the trip “absolutely unacceptable.”

Days later, Russia conducted missile drills near the southern Kurils involving the cruiser Varyag, the nuclear-powered submarine Omsk, and a Bastion coastal missile system, prompting another protest from Tokyo.

The dispute over the Kuril Islands has been a stumbling block to Russia and Japan signing a peace treaty. Moscow suspended the negotiations in March 2022 after Tokyo took part in the Western sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict.

Spanish police have begun moving thousands of migrants from makeshift beach camps in the North African exclave of Ceuta in an operation that has quickly descended into chaos, according to media reports.

Crowds surged toward temporary shelters as officers struggled to maintain control, firing rubber bullets into the air and using batons.

The operation began early on Friday, with riot police and the Spanish military deployed to clear the makeshift camps and escort migrants to a new port camp. The facility is the fifth temporary reception center opened in Ceuta and can accommodate around 1,800 people, while an estimated 4,000 migrants have been living on the beaches.

Footage from local media shows hundreds crowding the designated route, with some breaking into a run as officers struggled to control the group. Police fired rubber bullets into the air and struck several people with batons before the situation calmed and migrants continued towards the port under escort.

🇪🇸 Spanish authorities have begun relocating thousands of migrants from makeshift beach tent camps in the North African exclave of Ceuta to a newly constructed temporary center at the city's port

The new port camp, the fifth temporary reception center set up in Ceuta, can… pic.twitter.com/XAeEIhsMqI

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 18, 2026

The port facility is intended for adult men, while minors are being housed separately. Three NGO representatives told Reuters that authorities had been too slow to provide the minimum shelter required under European migration rules and that existing reception centers remained insufficient.

Opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo accused the government of failing to maintain public order, while officials said additional locations would be needed to house migrants who cannot be accommodated at the port.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Spanish police began moving hundreds of migrants from beaches in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta to temporary facilities at the city's port, sparking tension as migrants vied for limited spots at the new location https://t.co/uSGcXe6m7M pic.twitter.com/TWI01CwIG6

— Reuters (@Reuters) September 18, 2026

The crisis erupted after more than 72,000 migrants crossed into Ceuta from Morocco on July 30 and 31, with the mass influx overwhelming Spanish border authorities. Most were subsequently returned, but thousands, including unaccompanied minors, have remained in the enclave.

A separate Spanish military intelligence report issued once the influx was underway described Moroccan forces as “negligent and passive,” while Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has maintained that the earlier warnings did not indicate the scale or likelihood of what followed.

We have come to regard the countries of Eastern Europe as the most conflict-prone and volatile part of the political landscape surrounding Russia, and there are grounds for this view. 

Immediate neighbors often have the most difficult relationships because the more points of contact there are, the more opportunities for friction, and in Russia’s case, geopolitical logic is reinforced by considerable historical experience of invasion, which means Russia has traditionally sought to ensure that no serious threat can emerge from neighboring countries and that its immediate surroundings remain predictable.

This predictability has been secured in different ways over the centuries, sometimes through direct annexation and sometimes through indirect forms of control. Russia’s western neighbors are small in comparison with it, and their policies have often been driven by fear of their much larger neighbor, whether justified or not.

The acute military and political crisis that began in 2022 seems to confirm that stability between Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe shouldn’t be taken for granted, as countries that joined NATO and the EU in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are now pursuing the most intransigent course, seeking not merely to contain Russia but to marginalize it.

Their own capabilities are limited, so they have increasingly used international institutions, above all an increasingly militarized EU, to push larger member states towards a tougher position. A recent example is Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski’s rhetoric concerning the Baltic region and Kaliningrad.

This assumption was convenient for everyone as the new member states regarded NATO membership as a guarantee of their security, and the veteran members in Western Europe and the US were confident that these guarantees would never actually have to be tested. Nobody seriously expected to fight Russia over the states along its borders.

Let us leave aside for the moment the role NATO expansion played in creating the conditions for the conflict over Ukraine, because whatever one’s interpretation of how we arrived here, the question of military guarantees has now moved from theory to practice.

This creates a fundamental problem for NATO. On the one hand, it can’t simply abandon its security commitments, because if these guarantees cease to be credible, NATO loses much of its purpose. On the other hand, Article 5 of the Washington Treaty is less automatic than is commonly assumed and it doesn’t mechanically send every member of the bloc to war.

Eastern European governments understand this ambiguity. They lack confidence that the larger powers would come to their aid, and history gives them reasons for doubt and encourages some of them to push both Russia and their own allies toward firmer positions.

The objective is to bind the major Western powers ever more tightly to their security, which raises the question: What role would Eastern European countries actually play if a direct military conflict with Russia did occur?

Western European societies are neither willing nor prepared to fight Russia themselves, but they have proven to be considerably more comfortable supporting others who are prepared to do so – and Ukraine, for its own reasons, has accepted this role. For the rest of Eastern Europe, however, the calculation is more complicated.

We shall leave aside the Baltic states, where the level of political rhetoric increasingly makes serious discussion difficult, but more established countries with deeper traditions of statehood – Poland, the Czech Republic, and Romania – are perfectly capable of recognizing the danger of being thrown under the bus of military escalation in pursuit of the broader objectives of the European establishment.

This awareness doesn’t necessarily moderate their public rhetoric, but their practical behavior shows a certain degree of caution.

This distinction is becoming increasingly important as military tensions rise. The escalation pursued by Kiev creates a growing possibility of incidents capable of drawing neighboring states more directly into the conflict. For Eastern European countries, encouraging further escalation therefore carries risks, given that they’re likely to bear the immediate consequences of the policies they are advocating.

In a genuine military crisis, however, the logic could turn out to be the reverse, as the countries with the greatest reason to fear an uncontrolled confrontation may also have the greatest interest in preventing one.

Eastern European governments therefore face an increasingly stark contradiction. They want stronger Western guarantees against Russia, and the natural method of obtaining them is to persuade the rest of Europe that the ‘Russian threat’ is immediate and severe, yet the more successful they are in escalating the confrontation, the greater the possibility that their own countries become the front line.

Rationality doesn’t always prevail in international politics, but this doesn’t mean Russia should write off Eastern Europe as a lost cause – because the countries closest to a conflict may ultimately have the strongest reasons to keep it under control.

This article was first published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, and was translated and edited by the RT team 

A US national arrested along with six Ukrainians by India’s anti-terror agency for allegedly providing terror training to armed groups in neighboring Myanmar, was granted bail by a Delhi court on Friday.

The court granted the bail after the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which arrested them in March, failed to file a chargesheet on the terror charges within the mandatory 180-day period. The judge said that the agency’s chargesheet, which contained only sections relating to immigration, was a “piecemeal” job, according to the Bar and Bench website which reports on court proceedings.

That the agency is still investigating the offenses under the more stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA, does not mean that VanDyke is not entitled to default bail, Special NIA Judge Prashant Sharma said.

He added that all the other co-accused persons in the case are also entitled to default bail, if they apply for it. 

VanDyke is the founder of Sons of Liberty International, which provides military training in conflict zones. He has reportedly been involved in conflicts in the past, including fighting with Libyan rebels in 2011.

The agency had previously told the court it had found evidence that multiple consignments of drones from Europe were delivered by the accused to individuals and groups in the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram, and that they were involved in a drone strike on a Burmese civilian plane.

The seven were arrested from different cities while trying to fly out of India.

The court said that while on bail, VanDyke must stay in Delhi and appear before the NIA whenever required. He will be released on a personal bond of about $1,000 and a surety of the same amount.

The lone juror who blocked Lindsay Clancy’s acquittal has spoken out for the first time after being doxxed and subjected to an intense public backlash, saying he believes he was targeted in part because he is a black Republican and devout Christian surrounded by jurors he described as liberal activists.

Clancy admitted strangling her children, five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan, in their Massachusetts home in 2023 before attempting suicide. She has argued that severe postpartum mental illness left her legally insane. Her trial ended in a mistrial earlier this month after 11 jurors backed acquittal on insanity grounds and Michael Desronvil alone refused.

His identity was subsequently exposed online, his relatives were pursued for information and his personal history – including dismissed domestic-violence allegations – was dragged through the media. Desronvil has since had to leave his home and is currently staying at an undisclosed location.

“I didn’t have any doubts,” Desronvil said in his first public statement to News Nation on Thursday, rejecting claims from fellow jurors that he had wavered during deliberations.

“Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses, and what the prosecution presents, I thought it was enough proof that she knew exactly what she was doing and planned,” he added.

🇺🇸 A single juror blocked an insanity acquittal in the Lindsay Clancy case, and now defends that vote.

Michael Desronvil was the lone holdout after the 6-week, widely publicized Massachusetts trial.

He argues the evidence showed the mother PLANNED the 2023 killings of her 3…

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) September 18, 2026

Desronvil has also portrayed the furious reaction to his vote as ideological. According to a true-crime host who interviewed him at length off-camera, the juror said he was a conservative Republican on a panel dominated by Democrats and described some of the other jurors as liberal “activists.”

His newly hired lawyer, Edward Paltzik, has leaned into the political divide, describing Desronvil as an “American Hero and Champion of Justice,” a committed Christian and a supporter of President Donald Trump.

Several fellow jurors have publicly criticized Desronvil since the mistrial, accusing him of refusing to accept their interpretation of the evidence and having “the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.”

Following the mistrial earlier this month, Clancy has further strengthened her legal team, bringing in high-profile Boston attorney Martin Weinberg to try to have the case thrown out before prosecutors can put her on trial again.

District Attorney Timothy Cruz has not publicly announced a final decision on a retrial, although Fox News has reported that prosecutors plan to pursue one. Meanwhile, legal experts note that a second trial would likely end in another deadlock as the prosecution would face a significant challenge in finding 12 jurors who would unanimously reject Clancy’s insanity defense.

Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington has meanwhile floated alternatives, including a judge-only trial on reduced charges, but says he would not accept any deal that sends her to prison. Her case is due back in court on September 29.

Vladimir Zelensky is “scum” and a “suicide method chosen by the Ukrainian nation,” according to his former press secretary, Yulia Mendel, who was just blocked from speaking at the European Parliament.

Mendel worked for Zelensky during the early years of his tenure and resigned in 2021, citing personal reasons. In one of her latest critical interviews, she said her conscience compelled her to go public with the accusations she has made against her former boss in recent months.

“I ask God every day for forgiveness because I helped this scum to come to power and stay there,” she told Ukrainian blogger Lilia Bagirova on Thursday. “If I remained silent I would not have forgiven myself.”

Mendel also said that after watching Zelensky pursue policies she considers disastrous amid Ukraine’s conflict with Russia – including forced mobilization, while corruption continued to plague the country – she no longer regarded him as a human being.

Zelensky imposed sanctions on Mendel earlier this month. Kiev accused the former spokeswoman of spreading Russian propaganda, allegations she has rejected. Zelensky has used personal sanctions against both political rivals and former allies.

On Wednesday, Mendel was barred from entering the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, where she was scheduled to speak. She linked the decision directly to the sanctions imposed on her by Zelensky. The European Parliament’s press service declined to comment.

The event was organized by Hans Neuhoff, a MEP for Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The party has been highly critical of the EU’s policy of continued military and financial support for the Zelensky government.

Among those who have interviewed her is conservative American talk show host Tucker Carlson. During an interview in May, Mendel claimed that Zelensky’s drug use is an “open secret” in Kiev. She also accused him of hypocrisy and of embracing Ukrainian ultranationalists to remain in power and protect corruption in his government.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has secured 23,696 voting stations ahead of the November 4 local government elections, including 33 mobile stations, as preparations for polling day continue.

IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo said the figure could still change slightly as the commission finalises lease agreements for some sites. Of the 23,696 stations secured, 22,668 are permanent, 995 are temporary and 33 are mobile voting stations.

Mamabolo said the commission remained committed to ensuring that the elections were administered in a manner that was “credible, transparent, inclusive and compliant with the law”.

The IEC said the final list of voting stations would enable it to continue with its preparations for polling day, while the number of stations could be adjusted slightly as outstanding lease agreements were concluded.

Political parties would have access to the results system from October 5 to 12 to test it using their preferred experts.

First published by IOL

Seven people have been injured in an explosion at a military shooting range in western Sweden, with five suffering serious injuries, according to local media reports. The incident near Karlsborg sparked alarm among parents, who feared that young conscripts may have been among the victims, before officials clarified that those injured were armed forces employees.

In a statement on Thursday, the Swedish Armed Forces said an explosion occurred at the Kraks shooting range shortly after 4:00 PM, injuring several people, some seriously, adding that the incident is being investigated.

National public broadcaster SVT reported that seven men in their 20s and 30s were taken to the hospital, including one by helicopter. Five were being treated for serious but non-life-threatening injuries, reportedly in intensive care, while the other two sustained minor injuries.

The incident sparked alarm among parents before officials stressed that no conscripts were involved. “We have had some worried mothers and fathers calling, but it is not conscripts who were injured,” Armed Forces spokesman Mikael Agren told SVT.

An emergency department employee at a local hospital described the situation as “chaos,” with reports suggesting that the facility reinforced its emergency and operating departments but did not formally enter emergency mode.

The Karlsborg military hub hosts the Unmanned Aircraft System Center, which was opened last year to allow Sweden to catch up in drone warfare, which has become a staple of the Ukraine conflict.

This year, Ukrainian drone operators with frontline experience took part in the NATO-led Aurora 26 exercise in the wider Karlsborg area. However, there is no indication that drones or Ukrainian personnel were involved in the blast on Thursday.

The incident comes as Sweden, like many other NATO members, continues its military buildup; its defense budget has grown by 18% in 2026 alone. In 2017, Stockholm reactivated the draft, citing a deteriorating security environment and difficulties recruiting enough personnel voluntarily; in 2024, it joined NATO, citing the Ukraine conflict.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has criticized Sweden for taking steps to host NATO military infrastructure on its soil, stressing that Stockholm’s policies do not improve geopolitical stability. He also said Russia has no major disputes with Sweden.

Sweden has seen similar training accidents in the past. In March 2024, two conscripts and two instructors suffered shrapnel wounds after a hand grenade exploded near them during an exercise at the Mastocka range in the southwestern part of the country. The Work Environment Authority later found safety deficiencies in the training.

South African police have found the body of a ninth woman near Johannesburg as they investigate a series of murders over the past two months.

The unidentified victim was found in Dawn Park in the Ekurhuleni municipality on Thursday morning. Her body was reportedly partially unclothed and appeared to have been dumped near a construction site. Gauteng’s Department of Community Safety said a multidisciplinary team has been mobilized to investigate the cases and identify those responsible. It has appealed to the public for information.

The latest discovery follows eight others in Kempton Park, Clayville, Olifantsfontein, Rhodesfield, and KwaThema. Most of the victims were women in their 20s and 30s whose bodies were found in open areas or near roads. Several were naked or partially clothed, while some showed signs of bruising or other injuries.

Police have not established that the women were killed by the same person or group. However, investigators have said similarities between the cases are sufficiently concerning to examine whether a serial killer could be responsible.

Among the victims was 38-year-old Elizabeth ‘Tsontso’ Moselakgomo, whose disappearance after leaving home for a run prompted a widespread appeal. Her partially clothed and bruised body was discovered near the R21 highway on September 12.

In a message delivered at a memorial event on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the killings have “disturbed our nation” and created fear in local communities. He directed police to “leave no stone unturned” and use all available means, including the latest surveillance technology, to track down those responsible.

The incidents have intensified public anger over violence against women in South Africa, where the female homicide rate is nearly six times the global average, according to UN data.

Nearly half of Germans believe Chancellor Friedrich Merz will be out of office by the end of the year, a new survey has indicated, as his approval hits record lows and speculation over his future mounts ahead of crucial state elections.

The YouGov poll, published on Thursday, suggested that 48% expect Merz to leave the chancellery before the end of 2026, while only 31% believe he will remain in office and 21% were undecided. YouGov surveyed 1,611 German adults on September 17.

The findings come amid a sharp decline in support for Merz just 16 months into his chancellorship. He took office promising sweeping economic reforms and a stronger German leadership role in Europe, but his tenure has been marked by coalition disputes and battles over domestic policy. In August, just 13% of respondents told Forsa research institute they were satisfied with his performance, against 85% dissatisfied. Another poll this week put his approval at a record-low 10%, with 88% dissatisfied.

After more than a year struggling to agree on key policies, Merz’s coalition in July approved a 34-point economic reform package including austerity measures, tax cuts, pension changes, and tighter sick-leave rules. The move, however, drew public criticism and added to pressure on the coalition. Merz has meanwhile prioritized defense, pledging to build the “strongest conventional army in Europe” in response to what he describes as a Russian threat – a claim Moscow rejects.

Politico and Der Spiegel this week outlined several scenarios for Merz, including a voluntary resignation, a constructive vote of no confidence, or the chancellor calling a confidence vote himself. The outlets noted, however, that removing him against his will would be difficult under Germany’s Basic Law, as the Bundestag can oust a chancellor only by simultaneously electing a successor. Media have floated several possible replacements, but none has emerged as a consensus candidate capable of securing support from both the CDU/CSU and its Social Democratic coalition partner.

Merz has, meanwhile, summoned the CDU leadership to Berlin on Sunday, where he is expected to face questions over his leadership as the election results come in. He has also canceled a planned trip to New York for next week’s UN General Assembly events, with a German official saying “his presence is required” in Berlin – a move some analysts say highlights the precariousness of his position at home.

A suicide car bomber and accompanying gunmen struck a police facility in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 16 people – including five police officers – during prayers at a mosque, officials have said.

The vehicle rammed into an outer ⁠wall of the police facility in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Kohat city, provincial police chief Zulfikar Hameed was reported as saying. “It was a suicide attack,” he added.

Police personnel, their family members, and other civilians were offering Friday prayers at the mosque when the attackers struck. The explosion damaged the mosque and nearby structures, and created a crater in the area, reports said.

Security forces were engaged in a gun battle with the attackers and one assailant wearing an explosives-vest was killed, the police said in a statement.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief over the casualties.

Militant attacks have risen in Pakistan’s border areas in recent months, with violence flaring up after each attack. Fifteen police officers were killed in a similar car bombing and ambush in Bannu in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in May.

The bombing of a mosque in Islamabad in February killed more than 30 people, and in March, a Pakistani attack on a drug rehabilitation center in Kabul killed hundreds, according to Afghan officials.

Bangladesh’s export factories are cutting production and Pakistan has rolled out fuel subsidies as disruptions to Gulf energy supplies drive shortages and higher costs across South Asia.

The pressure follows disruptions to oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz after the US-Israeli attacks on Iran. Fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Iranian-backed Houthis has also threatened trade through the Red Sea, another key route for Gulf energy supplies.

Bangladesh has been particularly exposed. The country relies heavily on imported LNG for electricity, and disruptions to supplies from Qatar have forced Dhaka to seek more expensive cargoes on the spot market. The gas and power shortages have triggered blackouts and factory shutdowns.

Asian spot prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) have climbed close to $30 per million British thermal units from around $10 before the conflict.

The pressure is now hitting Bangladesh’s garment industry, its biggest export sector. A survey by the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association found that 55% of factories have seen buyers cancel or reduce orders because of gas and power shortages since late August, while 78% partially halted production.

📹 Shutters Down, Frustration Up - Islamabad Goes Quiet At 9PM As Fuel Crunch Bites

Traders warn shorter hours could further squeeze already struggling businesses as Pakistan brings back fuel-saving austerity measures amid rising energy costs.

Restaurants can stay open until… https://t.co/yVL8F6hgxZ pic.twitter.com/bVE4hJjEPT

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) September 18, 2026

Production delays are also raising costs. One garment producer spent $50,000 to air-freight jackets to a French buyer after delays, Reuters reported. Factories have turned to diesel to keep operations running, and industrial growth and production are slowing, Power Minister Iqbal Hasan Mahmud said this week.

Pakistan is also facing mounting pressure from expensive fuel. Its power sector could require up to 400 million cubic feet of gas a day through winter, while only two LNG cargoes have been confirmed for September.

And in a throwback to restrictions that were imposed in April, markets now have to close by 9 PM, marriage halls by 10 PM, and restaurants by 11 PM local time. Islamabad also banned official dinners, except for foreign visitors and delegations, and the purchase of new government vehicles.

Supply risks remain elevated. Only four commodity vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, compared with a ten-day average of around 16, although three LNG vessels reappeared outside the strait.

Five alleged members of the Islamist group Ansaru have gone on trial in Nigeria in connection with the kidnapping of 46 students and teachers in the state of Oyo. 

All five denied seven terrorism-related charges against them, local news agency Punch reported on Thursday, citing the country’s state security service.

Mahmud Muhammad, Abubakar Abbas, Abdulrazak Umar, Yunusa Musa, and Shamsu Sani appeared before Federal High Court Judge Salim Ibrahim in Abuja, according to Reuters. The defendants face prison terms ranging from 20 years to life if convicted, while they could face the death penalty if prosecutors prove that deaths resulted from the kidnappings under Nigeria’s 2022 anti-terrorism law.

An anonymous prosecution witness said the attack took place on May 15, when armed men targeted three schools in Oyo State’s Oriire district. The witness, identified in court only as “AAA” for security reasons, said: “School activities had just started when we heard gunshots,” according to Premium Times. She told the court that 39 pupils and seven teachers were abducted and remained in captivity for 56 days.

Nigerian security forces rescued 39 pupils and six teachers in July and arrested eight suspected kidnappers, the presidency said at the time. One teacher had been killed in captivity, while security personnel were wounded by explosives during an earlier rescue attempt.

Ansaru emerged as an armed splinter group of Boko Haram and publicly announced its existence in January 2012. The group maintains close ties with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Bill Gates turned the vast financial resources of his foundation into political leverage, using its wealth to pressure governments to spend more on vaccination, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said.  

In the Meckel & Matthes podcast released by Handelsblatt earlier this month, Merkel warned that uncontrolled corporate power could leave governments doing “what the corporations order.” She said she first saw the danger not with the rise of artificial intelligence, but when Gates set up his foundation, which had more money “than the development budgets of major industrialized countries.”  

An unelected billionaire had effectively put himself on a political footing with elected leaders, according to Merkel.  

Gates would then tell African leaders that “Merkel had been stingy this year,” she recalled. “And with that, he had gained considerable power.”  

The vaccine alliance Merkel referred to is Gavi, a public-private partnership involving governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank and private donors. The Gates Foundation was a founding partner, providing $750 million in seed funding, and has since contributed billions of dollars to the organization. Germany became a major Gavi donor during her chancellorship, pledging €600 million for 2016-2020 and another €600 million for 2021-2025.  

That left governments with difficult choices over limited development budgets, Merkel said. They still had to fund education while Gates pressed them to put money into vaccination and diseases such as malaria. “That’s the kind of constraint you get caught in,” she said.  

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Gates Foundation worked closely with major global health organizations and collected extensive funding for worldwide health and vaccine initiatives.  

Days after Merkel’s remarks, Gates said his foundation had dropped its goal of eradicating measles worldwide, citing growing reluctance to get vaccinated in wealthy countries. “At one point, the foundation wanted to eradicate measles, but the vaccine hesitancy in rich countries has meant that’s not on our list of goals,” he told Reuters, calling it “kind of tragic.”

Russia has launched a classified military payload into space, carrying out its second orbital mission in a week.

The military launch took place overnight from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia’s Arkhangelsk Region and was conducted by the country’s aerospace forces.

The exact nature of the payload was not disclosed, though it appears to be a satellite. Officials said the spacecraft successfully established communications with ground control after reaching orbit.

A medium-lift Soyuz-2.1b rocket was used for the mission, according to the Defense Ministry and space agency Roscosmos.

President Vladimir Putin has said that the network “doesn’t fall short of” Elon Musk’s Starlink and “may even surpass it in some ways.” Moscow is also developing heavy attack drones with satellite-based control, which could make them more resistant to electronic warfare and jamming.

On Wednesday, Roscosmos carried out another launch using a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, sending the Progress MS-35 cargo spacecraft into orbit with 2.4 tons of supplies for the International Space Station (ISS).

The unmanned freighter is scheduled to dock with the station over the weekend.

Guinea has banned France 24 nationwide, accusing the French state broadcaster of insubordination and of using remarks deemed offensive to the West African nation’s president, Mamadi Doumbouya.

The Guinean High Authority of Communications (HAC) announced the measure on Thursday, revoking the channel’s broadcasting authorization and the accreditations of its correspondents, special envoys, and other staff. The ban covers satellite and cable television, websites, mobile applications, and social media. Canal+ Guinea was instructed to remove the channel from its packages.

“The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (ARPT) is hereby requisitioned to proceed without delay with the technical blocking of all France 24 digital access points,” the HAC said in a statement.

The dispute erupted after a France 24 presenter referred to Doumbouya as a “coup leader” during a news bulletin on Tuesday. The HAC ordered the broadcaster the following day to withdraw the term and issue corrections, arguing that it undermined the president’s dignity.

France 24 later corrected the description and apologized. Doumbouya took power following the 2021 overthrow of President Alpha Conde but was elected president with 86.72% of the vote in December 2025.

The measure came one day after the HAC withdrew the accreditation of Mamadou Diawo Barry, a Guinean correspondent for Jeune Afrique, citing what it called serious breaches of professional ethics and failures of objectivity and balance.

France 24 has faced similar restrictions elsewhere in West Africa. Neighboring Mali permanently suspended the channel and Radio France Internationale in 2022 after accusing them of broadcasting false reports about alleged abuses by the Malian Army. Their signals remain blocked in the former French colony.

The “Russophobic” new sanctions bill empowering US President Donald Trump to impose steep tariffs on buyers of Russian energy will lead to ever-higher prices at the pumps for Americans, the Russian Embassy in Washington has warned.

The legislation was championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham, a Russia hawk and staunch Ukraine supporter who pushed for “crushing sanctions” on Moscow before his unexpected death this summer. Named ‘The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026’ in his honor, the bill allows the president to impose tariffs of up to 100% on goods from major buyers of Russian oil and gas, potentially including China and India, and additional sanctions on Russia and Iran. It cleared the House on Wednesday, removing the final congressional hurdle before reaching Trump, who has said he plans to sign it.

The Russian Embassy in Washington on Friday warned the legislation will likely backfire on American consumers, particularly as Middle Eastern energy supplies are already disrupted by the US war on Iran.

The embassy also warned that targeting major buyers of Russian energy could deepen tensions between Washington on one side and Moscow and Beijing on the other. It argued that the legislation runs counter to the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts with Moscow and that simultaneously confronting Russia and China would create a geopolitical “lose-lose” situation for Washington.

Russophobic instinct underlying the late Senator Graham’s bill approved by the House on September 16th (and earlier by the Senate) makes a grand disservice to the current Administration’s efforts to Make America Great Again.

Destabilizing energy markets by blocking Russian oil… pic.twitter.com/TQR4fFxD5C

— Russian Embassy in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) September 18, 2026

US gasoline prices are already under pressure from the Middle East energy crisis. US gasoline averages $4.43-$4.44 a gallon, over $1.10 more than a year ago, while diesel has hit a record $6.40 nationwide, jumping 77 cents in the first half of September alone.

China and India, the largest buyers of Russian energy, have opposed the bill and defended their purchases. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Thursday that Beijing rejects Washington’s “long-arm jurisdiction” as lacking a basis in international law. India has warned that tariffs over Russian oil purchases could affect US-India ties and vowed to “take all necessary measures to protect its trade and economic interests.”

Indian fuel exports could come under pressure if Saudi Arabia’s crude supply halt persists, an analyst has told RT, with refiners facing higher replacement costs and the risk of lower export volumes if supplies tighten further.

State-owned Saudi Aramco has reportedly told Indian refiners it will stop contracted crude supplies until further notice after attacks damaged the kingdom’s East-West Pipeline, a key alternative route as flows through the Strait of Hormuz remain disrupted. Aramco accounted for around 9% of India’s crude imports since the Middle East conflict began.

Indian refiners supplied about 60% of Europe’s diesel last month and about 15% of jet fuel in July, and any pressure on export volumes or prices can have cascading effects around the globe. For now, strong diesel margins are supporting Indian exports despite elevated crude prices, energy sector analyst and senior VP at Indian ratings agency ICRA, Prashant Vasisht, told RT.

Shortages in several markets are keeping demand for refined products strong, meaning exports may not be materially affected unless crude availability deteriorates sharply, he said.

Russia’s role as India’s largest crude supplier could become even more important if Saudi flows remain disrupted, depending on the sanctions environment, Vasisht told RT in a telephone interview. India faces up to 100% additional US tariffs for buying Russian energy, from a legislation passed by Congress on Wednesday. New Delhi has warned that any tariffs could affect the international energy market, and bilateral ties.

Europe is moving dangerously close to a direct clash between NATO and Russia, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has warned, accusing the West of seeking a “pretext” for a major conflict between the two sides.

Fico made the comment in a Facebook post on Thursday, which accompanied the remarks he delivered before traveling to Ukraine for a meeting with Vladimir Zelensky and several European leaders.

“I am deeply concerned that they are merely looking for a pretext for a major conflict between NATO and Russia,” he wrote.

Reflecting on the Ukraine conflict, Fico said that the hostilities had “gotten out of control,” while accusing European nations of engaging in increasingly bellicose rhetoric which he said risked dragging the continent into a broader war. “The situation has never been as serious and tense regarding the possibility of a pan-European war conflict as it is now,” he said.

“I don’t want Slovakia to be part of any military conflict because of some Article 5,” he stressed, adding that, though his country still “cares about collaboration and fulfilling obligations”. “As prime minister, I will do everything to ensure that Slovakia is never drawn into a war,” Fico stressed.

Fico has consistently opposed military support for Ukraine since returning to office in 2023 while halting government weapons shipments to Kiev. He has also opposed Kiev’s accession to NATO, and insisted that Ukraine’s EU membership is only possible if it meets all the requirements.

He has also argued that the West’s strategy to “bring Russia to its knees” had “completely failed.” “The European Union does not need more weapons and Russophobia. The European Union needs more diplomacy and concrete plans to help the economy,” Fico said last month.

Russia has accused the EU of rapid militarization, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying the bloc is directing increasing military capabilities against Moscow while portraying it as an enemy.

President Vladimir Putin has consistently rejected claims that Moscow intends to attack NATO countries, but warned last week that deploying European forces to Ukraine “would mean war with Russia.” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also stressed that Russia has no intention of attacking the West but warned that if Europe attacked first, the resulting conflict would be “very short.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has suggested that he is returning to public life, following a hiatus after his release from British custody in 2024.

The transparency activist spent five years behind bars while fighting a US extradition request that could have resulted in a lengthy sentence in a high-security US prison. He eventually struck a deal that secured his freedom amid a global campaign urging Washington to drop the case against him.

The WikiLeaks account on X announced on Thursday that Assange is “back,” posting a photo in which he is posing in front of a mural depicting him in Sydney, Australia.

Assange reposted the message, confirming his return and saying it is the first post in eight years that he has personally written.

I'm back. https://t.co/2e58azeJkt

— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) September 17, 2026

His wife Stella said more news will follow next week.

WikiLeaks became a global phenomenon in 2010 after publishing a leaked video showing a US military airstrike in Baghdad in 2007 that killed at least a dozen people.

The US espionage case against Assange centered on obtaining the files from Manning, while Britain’s initial efforts to detain him arose from an unrelated case that his supporters said was fabricated.

Assange was granted political asylum by Ecuador in 2012 and spent years inside the South American country’s embassy in London. A change of government in Quito eventually led Ecuador to revoke his asylum and allow British police to arrest him in 2019.

Under the deal reached with the US in 2024, Assange pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US documents. He was sentenced to time already served in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison. In Britain, he was convicted of violating bail conditions.

In 2025, he took part in a pro-Palestinian march in Sydney with an estimated 100,000 people.

Russian-Asian rapprochement in the Arctic is currently unfolding along two distinct tracks: the first driven by logistics and operations, and the second focused on resources and investment.

Russia’s new Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor (TATC), whose key section is the Northern Sea Route (NSR) running along its Arctic coast, is intended domestically to connect major Russian ports – from St. Petersburg through Murmansk to Vladivostok – and link them to inland cities and towns via land, rail, sea and inland waterway networks.

On the international front, the larger TATC is aimed at linking the consumer markets of Europe and Asia via shorter, safer, more cost-effective, and alternative maritime routes. Similarly, on the resource and investment side, Russia remains keenly interested in developing Arctic and Siberian potential in critical minerals, energy resources, and infrastructure projects that require capital and technology.

The overall Russian approach in the Arctic remains focused on linking its energy and mineral projects in mainland Russia, the Arctic, Siberia, and the Far East to the TATC through multimodal transport connectivity.

The ice is moving

Last month marked a turning point for container transit along the NSR when Sea Legend Shipping launched its regular container service – the China-Europe Arctic Express – consisting of eight voyages, that are scheduled between August and early October 2026. The first shipment, which set sail from China’s Ningbo-Zhoushan port on August 15 via the Northern Sea Route, reached the Port of Teesport in the United Kingdom on September 9 – in just 25 days.

Similarly, South Korea’s PanStar Group has conducted its own pilot voyage along the NSR to European ports, carrying chemical products. South Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and Panstar reported on Monday that the containership Panstar Arco has completed the first leg of its demonstration voyage, reaching the UK and Rotterdam on September 12 and 13 respectively – successfully covering the route in 21 days. The vessel will then sail to Gdynia, Poland, where it is expected to load additional cargo before beginning the return trip. The vessel is currently scheduled to return to Busan on October 12.

While Seoul hopes this pilot test will position Busan as a leading Arctic shipping hub, currently there are no plans to move regular commercial traffic along the NSR until 2030.

India’s logic of engagement

Against this backdrop, India’s interest in the Russian Arctic is positioned quiet differently. It is primarily about integrating into the resource and investment aspect of the region. The economic viability of sending goods to Europe from India by transiting the entire NSR remains unfavorable for the foreseeable future, but it does offer a secure, strategic alternative maritime route to the traditional shipping lanes, given ongoing geopolitical challenges.

Similarly, some segments or shipping connectivity between India and Eastern ports of Russia along the NSR can become viable options for enhancing point-to-point shipping connectivity between both the countries, if Russia becomes successful in integrating those with its energy and mineral development projects in the region.

New prospects for India-Russia partnership

The India-Russia partnership dates back to the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation. Despite contemporary global geopolitical challenges, the underlying character of India-Russia bilateral cooperation has remained intact.

On bilateral trade and economic fronts, it in fact has grown exponentially. Despite western pressures, India’s oil imports for Russia have continued and it has emerged as a significant factor in supporting the Russian economy in challenging times. In 2022, India’s oil imports from Russia surged to $45.9 billion and crossed $79 billion last year.

Russia’s Pivot to the Arctic and its planned large-scale projects in terms of shipping, energy, and mineral development need Indian industrial attention to take these trade figures between the countries to new highs in the future.

Critical minerals

India’s projected demand for rare and critical metals is expected to increase four to tenfold by 2047. India is heavily dependent on imports of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and a number of other rare-earth elements. Furthermore, India’s net cumulative demand for minerals such as copper, graphite, silicon, and nickel is also expected to increase exponentially between 2025 and 2070. Russia’s resource base appears almost ideally complementary to such Indian needs.

The Pavlovskoye lead-zinc deposit in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago; the Tomtor deposits, which constitute one of the largest deposits of niobium and rare-earth elements in Yakutia; and the Angara-Yenisey cluster for the deep processing of non-ferrous and rare metals in Siberia are some of the potential projects that could fulfill India’s future mineral resource demands. Any significant progress in terms of joint investments and partnership could open new prospects for India-Russia economic partnership and reduce Indian reliance on traditional hegemons for these resources.

Energy imports to refined exports

India’s demand for oil is expected to be around 14 million barrels per day by 2050, while its gas consumption is also expected to rise to 103 billion cubic meters annually by 2030. Of this, around 65 billion cubic meters would be supplied by India’s LNG imports.

India, on the other hand, possesses substantial refining capabilities in terms of crude and its related derivatives while Russia is currently facing difficulties in meeting its own demand for refined petroleum products. This is opening another avenue for greater cooperation between the two sides. India has recently scaled up deliveries of refined petroleum products to Russia to meet its domestic needs.

Shipping synergy

In March this year, New Delhi allocated approximately $8.4 billion to bolster shipbuilding, shipbreaking, and maintenance infrastructure under the ‘Make in India’ initiative. Concurrently, Russia’s growing demand for vessel construction and maintenance presents high-value opportunities for Indian shipbuilding and ship-repair enterprises. Synergizing these capabilities directly aligns with both nations’ strategic interests, offering a mutually beneficial avenue for bilateral maritime cooperation. Both Russia and India are placing significant emphasis on developing sustainable maritime operations for the future.

Both countries are pursuing major reforms to build greener ports and cleaner maritime infrastructure, promote alternative fuels, deploy hybrid and electric vessels, and launch green shipping corridors. They are also focusing on advanced technologies and AI to modernize ports and improve logistics and cargo handling – creating strong potential for high-value economic cooperation between India and Russia.

In its efforts to advance its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, India has recently allocated about $1.25 billion to the IndiaAI mission. Similarly, India’s ‘Semicon India Programme’ aims to build a self-reliant semiconductor ecosystem in the country. Such initiatives create new avenues for collaboration in high-growth digital sectors between India and Russia.

Russia’s Arctic pivot to the East is the sum of several parallel experiments at different stages of maturity. Container shipping along the NSR remains niche, seasonal, and dependent on who ultimately assumes the commercial risks. Russia’s Atomflot tariff depends on a vessel’s gross tonnage, ice class, distance, and the period of escort. Added to this are the higher costs of icebreaker escorts, high insurance premiums for Arctic voyages, and the need for crews trained to operate in Arctic conditions. Despite these challenges, countries like China and South Korea are already sending test consignments to Europe via the NSR and are competing for the benefits of first movers.

Russia’s total foreign trade turnover reached $697.3 billion in 2025, of which 73.4% was accounted for by Asia. India contributed approximately $63.6 billion, and remains Russia’s second-largest trading partner after China, significantly ahead of the UAE, Brazil, Iran, and South Africa.

India has highlighted its plans to send its first cargo via the NSR by 2027, but its broader comprehensive plans for the region are still at the nascent stage of development. Opening up of the Russian Arctic offers immense new untapped business potential for India and Russia, requiring a stronger government push and greater Indian industrial exposure.

This would not only help India and Russia to reach their bilateral trade target of $100 billion by 2030, but to surpass it in the future.

The largest newly formed crater ever discovered in the solar system has been found on the Moon, in what scientists have described as a once-in-a-century impact event.

The crater, measuring 222 meters (728 feet) across and 43 meters deep, was identified using images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), according to a study published in Science Advances on Wednesday.

Researcher Robert Wagner first spotted the feature during a routine check of images taken by LROC’s Wide-Angle Camera in October 2025. Scientists then used higher-resolution observations over the following months to measure the crater and examine the surrounding terrain.

According to NASA, the crater formed between April 11 and May 22, 2024, when a comet or asteroid roughly the size of a three- to six-story building slammed into the lunar surface.

The Moon’s got a big new crater! 🕳️

Spotted by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the McGetchin crater formed when a rock as big as a six-story building crashed into the Moon. It’s 141 feet deep and wider than the length of two football fields.🪨💥🌕https://t.co/I2fX7bPts1 pic.twitter.com/Zft4mKUv1Z

— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) September 16, 2026

The collision hurled debris across the surrounding terrain and created a “cold spot” about seven kilometers (four miles) wide, where nighttime temperatures are up to nine degrees Celsius (16 degrees Fahrenheit) lower than in nearby areas.

Researchers believe the impact loosened, or “fluffed up,” the regolith – the layer of loose rock and dust covering the Moon – making it less dense and therefore less able to retain heat.

Officially named McGetchin after pioneering lunar scientist Tom McGetchin, the crater dwarfs previously detected recent impacts. Before its discovery, the largest contemporary impact crater identified on the Moon measured about 70 meters across.

The US is “very much in a space race” with China, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told CBS News in July. NASA’s Artemis program is targeting 2028 for its first crewed lunar landing since the Apollo era, with the longer-term goal of establishing a sustained human presence on the Moon.

Russia and China, meanwhile, announced plans in 2021 to jointly develop the International Lunar Research Station.

At NATO’s first high-level summit since Ankara, the bloc’s new, Europe-centric incarnation is taking shape. But it’s ordinary Europeans who stand to lose their future, and potentially their lives.

Accordingly, NATO is keeping the meeting’s agenda under wraps. The organization’s website simply states that the defense chiefs will take part in a “Session 1” and “Session 2” of talks, followed by a press conference, a photo opportunity, and then a “Session 3” of discussions.

Looking at the political decisions made since the bloc’s headline summit in Ankara in July, the broad aim of the conference becomes clearer: flesh out NATO’s plan to militarize Europe and prepare the continent for war with Russia, all while insulating the US from the consequences of the conflict.

What is NATO 3.0?

Coined by US Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby, ‘NATO 3.0’ is an America-first reworking of the Cold War pact. In a speech to NATO defense ministers in February, Colby explained that the US will, going forward, focus on preparing for a potential clash with China in the Indo-Pacific, leaving NATO’s European members to “assume primary responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe.”

Under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s visionary leadership, we are driving toward a NATO 3.0 in which Europe takes primary responsibility for its conventional defense. Many said that it could not be done – that Europe couldn’t or wouldn’t step up. That is being disproved… https://t.co/svqGBLPIdE

— Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby (@USWPColby) July 2, 2026

Europe will increase its military spending to NATO’s current target of 5% of GDP and shift to wartime levels of defense production, Colby explained, all while the US retains control over the bloc’s nuclear weapons. The Europeans will also be expected, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stated in June, to guarantee “access, basing and overflight” for American forces.

At Ankara in July, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte sold this one-sided deal as a win for Europe. “We are rebalancing our security for the better, that is what NATO 3.0 is all about,” he said. 

We’re rebalancing our Alliance: a stronger #NATO with Europe & Canada spending more, producing more and doing more for their security

Building for our future
This is NATO 3.0 pic.twitter.com/pgmvA4CcAW

— Mark Rutte (@SecGenNATO) September 16, 2026

In light of US President Donald Trump’s threats to withdraw US forces from Germany and annex Greenland, a more Europe-centric NATO was an easy sell for Rutte at the time. Trump’s threats toward Greenland were likely a key factor in the choice of Copenhagen for this weekend’s meeting. However, in the months since Ankara, Rutte and NATO’s European leaders have revealed what the shift actually means for the continent.

Europe steps up and pays

NATO 3.0 means the death of the European welfare state. In the UK, where living standards have already suffered their worst decline since the Second World War, meeting the bloc’s pre-Ankara 3.5% spending target will involve “eye-watering” cuts to education, transport, and justice budgets, George Robertson, who co-wrote the country’s defense strategy, warned in June. Even before the spending target was hiked to 5%, Robertson claimed that the British public was “too comfortable,” and must accept the “pain and great difficulty” of “preparing for war.”

In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s plan to rebuild the Bundeswehr as “the strongest conventional army in Europe” has already precipitated social security cuts and a planned three-year hike in the retirement age. “The welfare state that we have today can no longer be financed,” Merz announced last August, before increasing Germany’s defense budget by almost 40% in a single year and telling Germans to “work harder.”

The Netherlands and Sweden have introduced emergency taxes to fund rearmament, with the Dutch levy branded as the “freedom contribution.” Estonia has increased income tax, Belgium and Finland have cut social spending, and 18 of NATO’s EU members have borrowed money from Brussels to build out their militaries since last May.

“On average, European countries easily spend up to a quarter of their national income on pensions, health, and social security systems, and we need only a small fraction of that money to make defense much stronger,” Rutte told the European Parliament last year. The “small fraction” demanded by Rutte has since almost doubled. 

Serving American interests

The Ankara Summit Declaration states that “we are developing an interoperable transatlantic warfighting cloud and adopting powerful AI models.” With the EU relying on the US for 80% of its digital infrastructure, American companies such as Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX will be the beneficiaries of this development.

Furthermore, while the US handed control of three operational commands – Norfolk in the UK, Naples in Italy, and Brunssum in the Netherlands – to European commanders earlier this year, Washington took over management of NATO’s highest Land, Air, and Maritime commands in exchange, and maintains the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) post.

Although NATO 3.0 envisions Europe alone deterring Russia, the bloc’s European members are still expected to go along with American wars far beyond their borders. Speaking in the UK this week, Rutte called it “essential” that Britain’s “armed forces continue to provide the hard power NATO needs” to tackle “Russia and its war against Ukraine, terrorism, Iran and the tectonic shifts of global geopolitical competition.”

NATO was not formed to counter Iran, but the US still punished its European members who refused to aid the US-Israeli war on Iran earlier this year, threatening a complete trade embargo on Spain after Madrid denied overflight and basing to American aircraft taking part in the war, and pulling troops from other countries seen as insufficiently supportive of the war. 

Bleeding for NATO

In addition to handing over their money and autonomy, Europeans risk handing over their lives, if NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine degenerates into open conflict with Russia. Having dangled the prospect of NATO membership in front of Ukraine since 2008, fomented the pro-Western Maidan coup in 2014, and juiced Ukraine with weapons and training over the next decade, the US has finally succeeded in dumping the resulting conflict on Europe’s lap, with the eager participation of the continent’s Atlantacist leaders.

NATO 3.0 makes it explicit that Europe now owns this conflict, and it is the possibility of escalation that will likely occupy the bloc’s Military Committee in Copenhagen this weekend. Managing the grim minutiae of war – predicting casualty rates in an open confrontation with Russia and preparing hospitals and morgues, for example – is the committee’s remit, and NATO’s European members are already thinking in this direction.

Germany is currently assessing whether its civilian hospitals could handle an influx of 1,000 wounded soldiers per day, and considering reopening a massive subterranean medical bunker in the city of Ulm. The German military practiced moving casualties from field hospitals in Lithuania to operating theaters in Germany during its largest-ever medical exercises in March. 

Norway has trained its surgeons in treating combat injuries and ordered that 7,000 hospital beds be made available for wartime casualties. France is preparing for what Paris calls a “major engagement scenario” by equipping civilian hospitals to absorb military casualties. Sweden and Lithuania have begun stockpiling blood.

A short war

Nevertheless, NATO’s European leaders, from Rutte down to the generals and admirals on the Military Committee, continue to march toward war with Russia, against all logic and self-interest. These preparations have a momentum of their own, which can be accelerated by miscalculation and political commitments; Europe’s leaders learned this lesson the hard way in the opening months of the First World War.

This time around, the potential consequences are even greater. Russia possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, and in a stark warning on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that “if Europe, which talks daily about preparing for war against Russia, attacks Russia, it will be a completely different war, and it will be very short.”

A man who sprayed vinegar on left-wing US Representative Ilhan Omar during a town hall in Minneapolis was sentenced to 14 months in prison on Thursday.

Omar, a Democratic politician of Somali origin, was speaking on January 27 when Anthony Kazmierczak rushed toward the podium and sprayed her with liquid from a syringe. He was quickly tackled by security.

According to witnesses, he shouted at Omar, “You’re splitting Minnesotans apart.” The liquid was later identified as apple cider vinegar.

“I’m ok. I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work. I don’t let bullies win,” Omar wrote on X following the incident.

🚨JUST IN🚨

The DOJ has filed federal charges against a man accused of spraying Ilhan Omar with apple cider vinegar.

Anthony Kazmierczak was arrested and now faces a charge of forcibly assaulting, opposing, impeding, and intimidating a federal official.pic.twitter.com/ZOUBOB4FF2

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) January 29, 2026

Kazmierczak reached a deal with prosecutors and apologized to the congresswoman. According to court documents, he has “a history of mental and emotional health concerns” and other health issues related to his 2022 Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. Judge Joan Ericksen said during sentencing that his actions were premeditated and not “a spur-of-the-moment act.”

BREAKING: Anthony Kazmierczak, the man who sprayed U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar with vinegar in Minneapolis has been sentenced to 14 months in prison. pic.twitter.com/XH9URc5gA6

— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) September 17, 2026

Violence against public figures has increased in the US in recent years, with Republicans and Democrats blaming each other’s increasingly belligerent rhetoric.

In 2019, the Israeli authorities barred her and fellow Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib from entering the country. Omar has faced accusations of invoking anti-Semitic tropes in her remarks about Israel and its supporters, and in 2019, the advocacy group StopAntisemitism named her the ‘Antisemite of the Year’ following a public vote.

Omar has denied accusations of anti-Semitism but apologized for some of her past statements, saying her “intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole.”

The US has made major progress in negotiations to establish a military base in Poland, President Donald Trump has announced.

His remarks came as Russia warned that it would retaliate if the territory of Poland or the Baltic states were used for a NATO attack against the country.

Poland, which borders the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the northeast, is a key logistics hub for delivering Western military aid to Ukraine and is one of Kiev’s main supporters in Europe.

“GREAT NEWS! Thanks to the bold leadership of my friend, Karol Nawrocki, President of Poland, major progress is being made toward establishing a US Army base in Poland,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday.

“If this happens, the location will be announced very soon. This will be a historic step for our Great US/Polish Alliance.”

The US already maintains a permanent Army garrison and command headquarters in Poland, although most of the 10,000 US troops stationed in the country serve on a rotational basis. During Trump’s first term in 2018, Poland offered to host a permanent base tentatively named ‘Fort Trump’.

Under Trump’s successor, President Joe Biden, the US established a garrison headquartered at Camp Kosciuszko in Poznan and permanently stationed the V Corps Forward Headquarters in the city.

Tensions between Russia and NATO have flared in recent months as eastern members of the US-led military bloc have accused Russia of launching drone incursions. Moscow has dismissed the allegations as unfounded.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said during a trip to Kiev over the weekend that “if Russia attacked us and we took our gloves off, I think we would defeat Russia quite quickly.”

Russian presidential aide and former security chief Nikolay Patrushev responded to Sikorski by warning that “Polish statehood would cease to exist within two or three days” if a conflict breaks out.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated this week that the country has no intention of attacking NATO members, but said that if the bloc attacks Russia, the war would be “very short.”

The era of unconditional friendship with the US is coming to an end, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said, blaming the Trump administration for the deterioration in relations.

Merz, once seen as one of Germany’s most pro-American politicians, has repeatedly clashed with US President Donald Trump over issues ranging from the Iran war to German domestic policy.

“The era of unconditional transatlantic friendship is probably over for the foreseeable future,” the chancellor told fellow members of his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on Thursday at a campaign event in Berlin ahead of this weekend’s regional parliamentary election.

“We are seeing a change in political attitudes on the other side of the Atlantic, as well as a shift in how the transatlantic alliance is viewed, which we perhaps did not think possible,” he added.

In April, Merz argued that the US lacks a coherent strategy in the Middle East and was “humiliated” by Iran in the conflict. Trump responded by telling him to focus on “fixing his broken country.”

A month later, the chancellor, who previously worked with US financial giant BlackRock, said he no longer views the US as the “land of opportunity,” adding that he would discourage his own children from traveling there for work or study.

“It was long overdue that we now take more responsibility for ourselves,” the chancellor said on Thursday, defending Germany’s increased defense spending. The country will strengthen its military and continue funding Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, despite a “structural crisis” in its own economy, Merz said.

Since returning to the White House in early 2025, Trump has imposed tariffs on most US trading partners and continued his longstanding criticism of European immigration policies. He has also revived plans to acquire Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory, and attacked Merz over his criticism of the US war with Iran, accusing him of “doing a terrible job” as chancellor.

Vance also criticized Germany’s ‘firewall’, the longstanding refusal by mainstream parties, including Merz’s CDU, to work with the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), now the second-largest party in the parliament. “Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There’s no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t,” he said.

In May, the Pentagon announced plans to withdraw around 5,000 of the more than 36,000 active-duty US troops stationed in Germany, marking a further strain on military ties between the allies.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal to make Canada the EU’s first ‘associate member’ has raised questions about what such a relationship would mean.

The idea, unveiled during von der Leyen’s State of the Union address earlier this week, has drawn reservations from some EU states.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has since welcomed the EU’s “ambition,” while stressing that Canada is not seeking full membership in the bloc.

So, what exactly is being proposed – and could it actually happen?

With Carney attending her address in Strasbourg, von der Leyen said the EU and Canada should build what she called an “alliance for the future.”

“We want to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible,” she said, adding that this would cover areas including energy, critical minerals and defense, with the Arctic becoming a “flagship joint project.”

What is ‘associate membership’?

There is currently no status of “associate member” of the EU. The term does not appear in the bloc’s treaties, no country holds such a position, and Brussels has yet to define what rights or obligations it would give Canada.

The European Commission has described the idea as a new form of partnership that would create the closest possible association with a country outside Europe. It remains unclear whether Canada would gain greater access to the EU single market or which EU rules it might have to follow.

”Nobody really knows what it means,” one EU diplomat told Politico. Another said creating an actual associate membership status would require changes to the bloc’s fundamental treaties – something the diplomat described as “impossible” given the current lack of support.

The EU already has close arrangements with non-members: Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein participate in its single market through the European Economic Area, while Switzerland has a series of bilateral agreements with the bloc. None, however, is formally an EU ‘associate member.’

What ties does Canada have with the EU?

The two sides already have extensive economic and security ties. Their Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) has been provisionally applied since 2017 and removed most tariffs.

They signed a Security and Defense Partnership in 2025, while Canada this year became the first non-European country to join the EU’s SAFE defense program.

Ottawa has sought closer economic ties with Europe as it looks to reduce its heavy dependence on the US following tariff disputes with Washington.

What has been Canada's response?

Carney told the European Parliament on Thursday that Canada “welcomes this ambition,” but stressed that Ottawa is not seeking full EU membership.

“The precise nomenclature for Europe is a question for Europe,” he later said, adding that “what matters is the substance.”

Carney proposed deeper cooperation in critical minerals, energy and defense, along with “seamless” digital trade in non-agricultural goods and services, and greater opportunities for young Canadians and Europeans to work and study across the Atlantic.

How have EU capitals received the proposal?

Von der Leyen’s announcement reportedly caught EU capitals by surprise. Unnamed diplomats told Politico that member states had not been asked to sign off on the associate-membership proposal before she unveiled it.

One suggested Canada could receive something resembling the EU’s deep trade arrangements with Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, adding: “Member states will not agree on anything else.”

Germany has also questioned the proposed label. Government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said the terminology should be reconsidered.

The Financial Times has reported opposition in Berlin to fast-tracking a special status for Canada, including concerns about its implications for other EU partners.

How has Washington reacted?

US President Donald Trump has called the idea “laughable” and warned of economic retaliation if he considered it hostile to Washington.

”If it’s a good intention, that’s fine,” Trump said, but warned of “very heavy tariffs” on Europe if he believed otherwise. He also raised the possibility of stopping trade with Europe “on many things.”

Carney responded that “no one is going to dictate” with whom Canada can strike international agreements. He has nevertheless insisted that closer European ties are “not a reaction to something else” and could make Canada a “stronger” US partner.

Why is this happening now?

Canada has been seeking to diversify its trade as relations with its largest trading partner have deteriorated. More than 70% of Canadian merchandise exports still go to the US, leaving Ottawa heavily exposed to changes in American trade policy.

The Arctic is also an area of common interest. Canada is one of eight Arctic states, while only Denmark, Finland and Sweden among EU members have territory in the region. Carney mentioned Canada’s “unique Arctic geography” among the assets it could bring to closer cooperation with Europe.

Could this actually happen?

Canada is not the first country for which an ambiguous status has been discussed. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz floated a similar model for Ukraine earlier this year, but Kiev rejected it in favor of pursuing full EU membership. However, the idea failed to gain broad support within the bloc.

Canada’s proposed status has yet to be defined and would require the backing of EU member states. Brussels and Ottawa are expected to continue talks ahead of the next Canada-EU summit in Montreal on October 29-30.

President Vladimir Putin has extended Russia’s ban on imports of certain Western food products through the end of 2028, which was first imposed in response to sanctions on Russia more than a decade ago. The decree was published on the Kremlin’s website on Thursday.

The restrictions were introduced in August 2014 in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Russia by a number of Western nations that refused to recognize Crimea’s referendum to join the Russian Federation. The predominantly Russian-speaking Black Sea region voted to secede from Ukraine following a Western-backed coup in Kiev earlier that year.

Russia’s restrictions apply to imports from the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Ukraine, Albania, Montenegro, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. The measures cover products including meat, seafood, dairy, fruits, and vegetables. Many of the affected countries are officially designated as ‘unfriendly’ by the Russian government.

Moscow has argued that the embargo has helped boost domestic production and attract more brands from non-Western and friendly nations such as Serbia.

Drought remains widespread across the contiguous US following the country’s hottest meteorological summer on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Europe has also recorded its hottest summer on record, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Following successive heatwaves and drought, forecasts for key EU summer crop yields have fallen as much as 14% below their five-year averages, according to the European Commission’s Joint Research Center.

The potato harvest across Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands is expected to suffer losses of €498 million to €818 million ($572 million to $940 million) due to the extreme weather, UK-based research group Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit reported on Thursday.

The US has decided to redirect $52 million in foreign military financing to four countries in South America, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.

The funds, which subsidize purchases of American military equipment, are being reallocated from Slovakia, North Macedonia, Tunisia, and Iraq to Panama, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, the news agency said, citing a State Department notification to Congress.

The shift comes as US President Donald Trump has placed greater emphasis on the Western Hemisphere under what he has called the ‘Donroe Doctrine’, his version of the 19th-century hegemonic Monroe Doctrine. The Trump administration has said it intends to strengthen US influence in the Americas while preventing rival powers from gaining strategic positions in the region.

The State Department said the previous distribution of foreign military financing did “not align with the administration’s prioritization of” the Western Hemisphere. Spending the money in South America will help recipients “combat narcoterrorism in our backyard and help continue to secure the Panama Canal” and “prevent adversaries from establishing strategic footholds in our hemisphere,” the department explained.

How did the South American recipients align with Trump?

Since Trump returned to office in January 2025, all four recipients have taken steps aligning themselves more closely with his administration’s priorities.

Mulino’s government has scrapped contracts with Hong Kong-based firm CK Hutchison Holdings, which Washington cited as evidence of a slow Chinese takeover of critical ports in Peru. The company owned by billionaire Li Ka-shing’s family is seeking $1.5 billion in damages.

Ecuador has signed a trade agreement with the US, lowering trade barriers and making other concessions to American exporters. President Daniel Noboa has also expanded counter-narcotics cooperation with Washington, tacitly endorsing Trump’s controversial tactics that involve airstrikes on boats in international waters that the Pentagon deems suspicious.

Noboa’s proposal to once again allow foreign military bases in Ecuador was rejected by voters last year.

Peru has joined Trump’s signature Shield of the Americas initiative under new President Keiko Fujimori, the daughter and political heir to dictator Alberto Fujimori, and otherwise expanding security cooperation with Washington.

Colombia too took a right-wing turn and realigned with Washington this year, after controversial President Abelardo de la Espriella came to power.

How is the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ being enforced?

The Trump administration has also used military and economic pressure elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.

In January, US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and brought them to the US to face federal “narco-terrorism” charges. Trump subsequently said Washington would temporarily “run” Venezuela and tap its vast oil reserves.

During his first term from 2017 to 2021, Trump recognized opposition politician Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president and supported his bid to replace Maduro.

Washington also tightened its trade blockade of Cuba this year, cutting off Venezuelan oil supplies and threatening retaliation against countries providing fuel to the island nation. The resulting fuel shortage has contributed to prolonged blackouts and a severe energy crisis.

Trump intervened directly in Honduras’ 2025 presidential race by publicly endorsing conservative candidate Nasry Asfura. He also pardoned former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, a fellow member of Asfura’s National Party who had been convicted in the US on drug trafficking charges.

How is the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ different from the Monroe Doctrine?

US President James Monroe declared the Western Hemisphere off limits for European great powers in 1823. 

While he framed his policy as anti-colonialist, in practice it prevented any military threat to the US homeland from emerging in South America and ensured preferential treatment of US businesses, particularly their access to natural resources, from bananas grown in Guatemala to copper mined in Chile.

US hegemony manifested during the 20th century in the so-called ‘dirty war’ against left-leaning political projects in South America. Washington supported right-wing dictatorships across the continent as long as they pledged to oppose Communism.

Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has defended its interests in South America under the guise of promoting human rights and democracy and dismantling narcotraffic, with the messaging shifting depending on which of the two US parties was holding the presidency.

Trump’s version distinguishes itself in its blatant approach rather than essence.