Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Kazakhstan carried significance well beyond the immediate agenda of bilateral talks. As his second state visit to the country in just two years – an unusual frequency for the highest level of diplomatic engagement – it reflected the depth of relations between Moscow and Astana and the durability of a strategic partnership that has remained a defining feature of the regional landscape.

The visit took place at a moment when Central Asia is attracting growing attention from external powers and Kazakhstan continues to expand its diplomatic engagement with China, Türkiye, the European Union, and the United States. Within this increasingly competitive environment, the meeting served as a reminder that Russia retains a central place in Kazakhstan’s foreign policy calculations and that political dialogue between the two capitals remains steady, direct, and highly institutionalized.

The symbolism surrounding the visit reinforced that message. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev personally welcomed Putin upon arrival, Kazakh Air Force jets escorted the Russian leader’s aircraft, and the two presidents later met again outside the Palace of Independence. Taken together, these gestures conveyed a level of political attention rarely reserved for routine diplomatic exchanges and publicly underscored the special status Russia continues to enjoy in Kazakhstan’s external relations.

If relations between Moscow and Astana are increasingly being anchored in infrastructure, energy, technology, and long-term investment, what does this tell us about the emerging architecture of Eurasia?

Turning political trust into institutions

Kazakhstan occupies a pivotal position in Central Asia, combining vast territory, abundant natural resources, significant transit potential, and a strategic location at the intersection of major Eurasian transport routes. Relations between Russia and Kazakhstan rest on a unique foundation shaped by shared history, deep economic linkages, extensive humanitarian contacts, and the world’s longest continuous land border, stretching 7,599 km. Geography continues to exert a powerful influence on the relationship, embedding cooperation between the two countries within broader questions of national security, economic resilience, energy connectivity, and regional stability. Cross-border trade, transport corridors, industrial supply chains, migration flows, and critical infrastructure create a dense network of interdependence that gives the partnership a long-term structural character.

The visit produced a substantial political agenda. Following their talks, Putin and Tokayev signed the Joint Statement on the Seven Pillars of Friendship and Good-Neighborliness, alongside a broader package of bilateral agreements. The statement carries particular significance because it codifies the core principles underpinning the long-term Russia-Kazakhstan partnership, including political trust, security cooperation, economic collaboration, humanitarian ties, and a shared historical legacy.

Its adoption reflects a broader effort by both countries to provide greater institutional depth to their relationship at a time when trade routes are being reconfigured, sanctions pressure continues to reshape economic flows, and regional organizations are assuming a more prominent role in Eurasian affairs. By formalizing a common vision of cooperation, Moscow and Astana signaled their intention to anchor bilateral relations within a stable framework extending beyond short-term political and economic considerations.

The economics behind the partnership

The economic dimension of Russia-Kazakhstan relations provides one of the clearest indicators of the partnership’s depth and durability. Russian investment in Kazakhstan has approached $30 billion, reflecting a long-term commitment that extends across multiple sectors of the economy. The scale of this engagement is also evident in the corporate sphere, where companies established with Russian participation account for more than 40% of all Kazakh legal entities involving foreign capital.

Investment activity spans well beyond natural resources. Around 70 major projects involving Russian investors are currently being implemented in sectors such as automotive manufacturing, heavy engineering, and chemicals, generating more than 60,000 jobs and contributing to Kazakhstan’s broader industrial development. These projects have fostered production networks, technological cooperation, and supply chains that reinforce economic connectivity between the two countries.

Trade remains another central pillar of the relationship. Bilateral trade reached approximately $27.4 billion in 2025 and continued to expand in early 2026, demonstrating the resilience of commercial ties despite a rapidly changing international economic environment. An equally important trend is the growing use of national currencies in mutual settlements, which has strengthened the autonomy of bilateral trade and aligned with broader efforts to develop alternative financial mechanisms across Eurasia.

Why energy remains central

Energy continues to occupy a central place in Russia-Kazakhstan relations, reflecting the broader infrastructure links that connect the two economies. More than 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports reach international markets through Russian territory via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, making transport infrastructure a critical component of Kazakhstan’s export strategy and a key element of bilateral economic connectivity.

Cooperation extends into the gas sector, where plans to modernize and expand Kazakhstan’s gas transportation network with Gazprom’s participation underscore the long-term nature of the partnership. These initiatives carry significance for regional development, energy security, and the expansion of domestic gas infrastructure across Kazakhstan.

Taken together, these projects illustrate the extent to which energy cooperation has become embedded within the broader economic relationship. Oil transit, gas infrastructure, and cross-border energy networks have created enduring linkages that continue to shape the strategic calculations of both countries.

Kazakhstan’s nuclear choice

Among the most consequential outcomes associated with Putin’s visit was the advancement of plans for Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant, a project that carries significance extending well beyond the energy sector. After considering proposals from several international contenders, including France and South Korea, Astana selected Rosatom for the leading role in the project, placing Russia at the center of one of the country’s most important infrastructure initiatives.

Nuclear energy projects create long-term technological, financial, and institutional linkages between supplier and recipient states. The construction and operation of a nuclear power plant require sustained cooperation in areas ranging from fuel supply and maintenance to personnel training, regulatory oversight, and technological support. Kazakhstan’s decision therefore reflects a high degree of confidence in Russia’s capabilities and reliability as a strategic partner.

The choice is equally revealing in geopolitical terms. While Kazakhstan continues to pursue a multi-vector foreign policy and maintain active relations with a broad range of international partners, the country’s first nuclear power plant was entrusted to Russia. In doing so, Astana signaled that cooperation with Moscow retains a particularly important place in sectors involving critical infrastructure, advanced technologies, and long-term national development priorities.

The Eurasian dimension

Putin’s participation in the Eurasian Economic Forum and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) summit highlighted a broader dimension of the visit extending beyond bilateral relations. Kazakhstan occupies a central position within the Eurasian integration project, while its economic weight, geographic location, and transit potential make it one of the Union’s most influential members. The decision to combine a state visit with key EAEU events underscored the importance both Moscow and Astana continue to attach to regional integration as a framework for economic cooperation and connectivity.

The significance of the EAEU has grown alongside the transformation of the international economic environment. Shifting supply chains, expanding sanctions regimes, and rising protectionism have increased the importance of regional mechanisms capable of facilitating trade, investment, industrial cooperation, and transport connectivity. For both Russia and Kazakhstan, the EAEU provides an institutional platform through which these objectives can be pursued while supporting broader efforts to strengthen economic resilience across Eurasia.

Against this backdrop, the Eurasian agenda formed an integral part of Putin’s visit to Astana. The discussions reinforced the view that Russia-Kazakhstan cooperation continues to develop simultaneously through bilateral channels and multilateral institutions, linking the future of their partnership to the wider trajectory of Eurasian integration.

Beyond energy and trade

Cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan increasingly extends into high-technology sectors. The planned launch of the Soyuz-5/Sunkar rocket from the Bayterek launch complex reflects continued collaboration in space exploration and advanced industrial projects. The Baikonur Cosmodrome remains an important platform for technological cooperation, providing both countries with opportunities to maintain and expand joint capabilities in strategically significant fields.

The persistence of such projects highlights the breadth of the bilateral relationship, which encompasses not only trade, investment, energy, and transport connectivity, but also areas requiring long-term technological coordination and specialized expertise.

A strategic axis in Eurasia

Taken together, these political, economic, energy, technological, and institutional ties illustrate the exceptional depth of the Russia-Kazakhstan partnership. All the connections mentioned above have produced a dense framework of interdependence linking capital, infrastructure, logistics, manufacturing, and technological development across Eurasia.

Putin’s visit demonstrated that Moscow’s influence in Central Asia continues to rest on a broad foundation encompassing investment, industrial cooperation, transport corridors, energy infrastructure, technological projects, and multilateral institutions. For Kazakhstan, engagement with Russia remains closely tied to national economic priorities, infrastructure development, regional connectivity, and participation in Eurasian integration processes.

At a time when the geopolitical landscape of Eurasia is undergoing profound transformation, the visit reaffirmed the enduring significance of the Russia-Kazakhstan relationship. Rooted in geography, reinforced by economic interdependence, and sustained through institutional cooperation, the partnership occupies a central place in the evolving regional order. The broader question is whether this increasingly interconnected relationship will emerge as one of the key pillars shaping Eurasia’s future political and economic architecture.

The leader of South Africa’s opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, Julius Malema, has labelled ongoing marches against illegal immigration as “Afrophobia,” saying migrants from the continent are not responsible for the country’s unemployment crisis and service delivery problems.

“Poor Africans from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia, or elsewhere on the continent are not responsible for unemployment, inequality, or collapsing public services,” Malema said.

He was speaking at the South African Communist Party’s (SACP) Conference of the Left in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni, on Friday.

The three-day conference aims to strengthen coordination, unity in action, political education, and organised struggle among leftist and working-class formations, according to the SACP. Although the ANC confirmed it had been invited to the conference, the party rejected the gathering, saying there was “nothing leftist” about it.

Malema said the conference convened at a decisive historical moment characterised by economic instability, political uncertainty and what he described as the visible collapse of the global capitalist order.

According to him, global capitalism no longer attempts to justify itself morally or philosophically. Malema argued that societies organised around commodification reduce people to “mere cogs” in the pursuit of profit, leading to ecological destruction, racism, misogyny, militarisation, xenophobia and authoritarianism.

He said millions of workers remained trapped in debt despite being employed, while young people obtained education only to face unemployment.

Turning to South Africa, Malema argued that while political apartheid had ended, “economic apartheid” remained intact through unequal land ownership, financial concentration and white control of strategic sectors of the economy.

“The majority acquired political rights without corresponding economic power,” he said, adding that the economy remained structured around exclusion, citing unemployment levels as evidence. “Official unemployment exceeds 32%, while expanded unemployment exceeds 43%, meaning millions of people exist outside meaningful economic participation altogether,” he said.

Malema said crime, gender-based violence, drug abuse, gangsterism and social decay could not be separated from unemployment and economic insecurity. He criticised what he described as superficial analysis that blamed migrants for South Africa’s problems.

His remarks comes amid ongoing protests targeting undocumented immigrants. “The growing phenomenon of Afrophobia within South Africa must be confronted with absolute political clarity because it represents one of the most dangerous expressions of false consciousness within the working class,” he said.

He added that the future of African liberation depended on continental solidarity, regional industrialisation and coordinated resistance against global systems of extraction and dependency. Malema also addressed tensions between the ANC and the SACP following the formation of the Government of National Unity after the 2024 general election.

Relations between the alliance partners have deteriorated sharply since the SACP criticised President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC leadership for including the DA and FF Plus in the GNU.

The SACP has also announced plans to contest the upcoming local government elections independently, while maintaining it is not leaving the tripartite alliance.

Among those attending the conference were representatives of the MK Party, Pan Africanist Congress, AZAPO, United Africans Transformation, NUMSA and SANCO.

First published by IOL

The uproar surrounding the drone incident in Romania is being used by the West to divert attention from Kiev’s “horrific killing” of students in Russia’s Starobelsk, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has told RT. 

The Ukrainian drone attack, carried out in three waves, on Starobelsk Professional College in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic on May 22 killed 21 students, most of them young women studying to become teachers. Another 65 people were injured in what local officials described as a double-tap strike that also targeted first responders. 

Commenting on reports of a drone striking an apartment block in Romania on Friday, Zakharova said allegations of Russian involvement were unsupported by evidence and were being used to shift attention away from the Starobelsk tragedy. 

“It’s obvious why this story is being blown out of proportion. The West needs to make sure that nobody pays attention to Zelensky’s crime – the bloody, horrific terrorist attack” on Starobelsk, Zakharova said, adding that it had been carried out “with money provided by EU countries and with their direct support.” 

Following the drone incident on Friday, the EU country announced the closure of Russia’s consulate general in the Romanian city of Constanta and declared the Russian consul general persona non grata. Zakharova described the move as part of an “anti-Russian, Russophobic information campaign,” and added that Russia’s response “will not be long in coming.”  

Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said the EU states are direct participants in the Ukraine conflict through their military and financial aid to Kiev.  

“European drones, drone parts, other weapons — not to mention intelligence data — are used in attacks on our country every single day. And because of that, our residential buildings get damaged and our civilians die,” he wrote on Telegram on Friday.

Mandatory military conscription of women in Estonia is only a matter of time due to an inevitable shortage of men in the future, the head of the country’s Defense Resources Agency (KRA) has said.

NATO’s European members have pursued a major military buildup since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, citing what they describe as a Russian threat – dismissed by Moscow as baseless. Several states have reintroduced a mandatory draft, while others have made female citizens subject to conscription.

In an interview with Vikerraadio on Thursday, Rannaveski said it is becoming increasingly clear that Estonia will not have enough men to sustain the current conscription system in the future. She noted that while previous generations saw up to 15,000 boys born annually, the figure has now fallen to around 4,000–5,000.

“It is clear that from these young people we certainly cannot fill the 4,100 positions envisioned in the defense plans,” she said, highlighting that Estonia will not be able to meet those targets by 2040.

Several NATO members have already moved toward gender-neutral conscription in recent years. Norway became the first alliance member to introduce mandatory military service for women in 2015, followed by Sweden in 2017, while the Netherlands expanded its conscription rules to women in 2018, although the draft remains suspended there in peacetime.

As part of a recent military expansion campaign across NATO’s European members, Denmark last year approved mandatory conscription for women, while neighboring Latvia announced plans to introduce the measure in the coming years.

In recent years, multiple European nations, including the Baltic states, Germany, Croatia, Sweden, Finland, Poland, and the UK, have either reintroduced compulsory military service, expanded military intake, or raised age limits for service members and reservists.

Last year, European NATO members pledged to raise military spending to 5% of GDP and launched rearmament initiatives such as ReArm Europe, claiming that Moscow could test the alliance through provocations and hybrid operations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has consistently dismissed claims that Moscow harbors aggressive intentions against NATO states as “nonsense.” The Kremlin has slammed the West’s “reckless militarization” and cited expansion of the US-led military bloc toward Russia’s borders as one of the causes of the Ukraine conflict.

Lebanon is again facing deadly Israeli airstrikes despite an officially declared ceasefire, RT correspondent Ali Rida Sbeity has reported from the south of the country.

The strikes on Thursday came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated plans to expand military operations in southern Lebanon and enlarge what Israel describes as a “security zone” along the border. Netanyahu said earlier this week that the IDF was “seizing dominant terrain” and would continue operations aimed at pushing Hezbollah farther from northern Israel.

Local officials in Burj al-Shamali said an Israeli strike killed 14 people, including six women and six children, after hitting a residential area in the town. Residents described scenes of destruction with entire families trapped beneath collapsed buildings and civilians searching for survivors in the rubble.

In a report released on Friday, RT’s correspondent traveled through the Tyre district of southern Lebanon documenting the aftermath of strikes. Witnesses described heavy damage to residential homes while drones and additional explosions were reportedly heard across nearby villages.

“I only heard the sound of the impact. I screamed,” one survivor said, while recalling the strike in Burj al-Shamali. Another resident said relatives including teenage girls and elderly family members were killed when their home collapsed. Local officials described the attack as a “massacre” and linked it to previous Israeli military operations in the area dating back decades.

In Maraki, residents told RT that rescuers pulled a young girl alive from the debris after an Israeli strike hit her family home. Witnesses said several members of the same family were killed or wounded. One resident said the surviving child was “in a state of shock” and “wasn’t even crying.” 

Israel maintains that its operations in Lebanon are aimed at Hezbollah targets. However, clashes have persisted despite ceasefire arrangements, with humanitarian groups warning of a mounting civilian toll.

According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, more than 3,269 people have been killed and over 9,800 injured since the conflict escalated on March 2. The Israeli campaign against Hezbollah began days after the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Watch RT’s full report below:

Kenya’s High Court halted a US-backed plan to build an Ebola quarantine facility at the country’s Laikipia Air Base intended for Americans potentially exposed to the virus.

The court order on Thursday came shortly after Washington announced a new initiative, as the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) continues to spread. According to the US Department of State, Washington plans to commit $13.5 million to support Kenya’s Ebola preparedness. 

The petition filed by Kenya’s Katiba Institute argues that the project could create a public health risk in a country that has not reported any Ebola cases. The court certified the application as urgent after the petitioner alleged an “imminent threat to life” if interim orders were not granted, according to the court decision.

The ruling restrains Kenyan authorities from “establishing, operationalising, facilitating, approving or permitting ... any Ebola exposure, quarantine, isolation or treatment facility” in the country, under an arrangement with the US or any other foreign government.

The US has taken other measures to limit the risk of Ebola spread. Washington recently imposed emergency entry restrictions on foreign nationals who had visited DR Congo, Uganda or South Sudan, while US citizens returning from those countries could only enter through Washington Dulles International Airport.

The legal dispute comes as health authorities respond to a growing Ebola outbreak in DR Congo. On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Director General Jean Kaseya said that a total of 1,077 suspected cases and 246 probable deaths have been recorded since May 15, when the country declared its 17th Ebola outbreak.

The outbreak involves the Bundibugyo strain of the virus and has raised concerns across the region because there are currently no approved vaccines or targeted treatments available.

However, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday reported the first confirmed recovery of the outbreak. The agency’s technical officer Anais Legand said that a patient who tested positive for Ebola recovered and was discharged from hospital on May 27 after receiving two negative test results.

Vladimir Zelenksy’s decision to name a commando unit after Ukrainian Nazi collaborators is evidence that his country is “not ready to become part of the European family,” Polish President Karol Nawrocki has said.

Under a decree signed on Tuesday, Zelensky granted the title ‘Heroes of the UPA’ – the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the armed wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) – to the Special Operations Center North, saying the move is aimed at reviving the “historic traditions of the national army.”

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Nawrocki condemned the move as an attempt to rehabilitate figures responsible for wartime atrocities, saying Warsaw cannot remain indifferent to the glorification of the UPA. He also called for Zelensky to be stripped of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state decoration.

“Zelensky has shown that Ukraine, through its glorification of bandits and murderers from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, is not ready to become part of the European family,” he said.

The move has drawn widespread criticism. Former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller called Zelensky’s decision “a spit in the face of Poles.”

Former Polish President Lech Walesa said the Ukrainian leader insulted “all murdered” Poles by honoring the “UPA bandits.” Walesa withdrew his support for Zelensky following the state reburial of OUN leader Andrey Melnik in Kiev on Sunday, saying: “In response, I have publicly removed the Ukrainian flag from my chest.”

Ukrainian nationalists killed an estimated 100,000 Polish civilians in what is now western Ukraine from 1943-44. The massacres remain a major source of tension between Warsaw and Kiev.

The OUN sought to establish an ethnically homogeneous Ukrainian state and collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II. Melnik, who co-founded the movement in 1929 and led it from 1938, oversaw espionage and sabotage operations for Nazi Germany’s military intelligence service.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry condemned the decision to honor Melnik, saying there is “no place for ignoring historical truth and the memory of the victims murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.”

Slovak MEP Lubos Blaha called Zelensky’s move “an open admission of fascism.” Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused Zelensky of kneeling before “Nazi scum,” and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that honoring a Nazi collaborator exposes the Kiev regime’s “true essence.”

Last year, in an extensive piece on the Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the XXI Century, published by Russia in Global Affairs, I argued that external interference in the affairs of Eurasian countries has consistently prevented their successful and independent development. I traced this pattern from the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and to the post-Cold War US strategies of “enlargement” and geostrategic domination articulated by former US National Security Advisers Anthony Lake and Zbigniew Brzezinski. 

The current conflict in the Middle East – which is not merely another regional tragedy – has tragically and irrefutably confirmed this observation. This conflict is the latest violent proof that external actors cannot manage Eurasian security. Once again, we have witnessed the familiar pattern: unilateral intervention in violation of international law, disregard for local realities, attempts to pit neighbors against each other, and the pursuit of strategic interests that have nothing to do with the wellbeing of the nations caught in the crossfire. The result, as always, is more death, more displacement, and a deeper erosion of any hope for regional stability.

Regrettably, the architects of these policies have not learned the lessons of the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Ukraine. They continue to believe that military force, unilateral sanctions, and political manipulation can reshape Eurasia according to their own blueprints. And every time they fail, but only after causing immense suffering to the people on our continent.

For Eurasian countries, the message could not be clearer. We cannot rely on external guardians to provide our security. We cannot wait for a “benign international liberal order” to return, because such an order never truly existed in practice – it was never liberal, it was hegemonic. And we certainly cannot afford to remain passive while others attempt to determine the future of our continent. What we need – urgently – is our own solution, forged by us and for us. We need Eurasian solutions to Eurasian problems.

The Eurasian Charter: An indigenous solution based on indivisible security

The core lesson of the current Middle East conflict, as well as of every other failed external intervention in Eurasia over the past three decades, is this: only an indigenous, inclusive, and consensus-based security architecture can work. The CSCE succeeded during the Cold War precisely because it was a genuine forum for dialogue between the two camps that respected each other’s existence. The OSCE failed when it became an instrument for one group of participating states to impose its will on others. 

What Eurasia needs instead is a new approach, grounded in the principle that has been invoked since the 1975 Helsinki Final Act but never truly implemented: the indivisibility of security. No country in Eurasia should seek its own security at the expense of others. No external power should be allowed to play one Eurasian state against another. And no regional conflict should be treated as an opportunity for geopolitical gain.

This is precisely what the Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the XXI Century is supposed to offer.

As I argued in my piece from 2025, the Charter would not be directed against any country or groups of states. It is envisaged as a constructive, indigenous, collective, inclusive, and comprehensive effort. It will seek to establish a pan-Eurasian security architecture based on the norms and principles of the United Nations Charter. It will cover not only security, but also economic cooperation, humanitarian exchanges, and civilizational dialogue. It will welcome all Eurasian states, from Lisbon to Manila in principle. 

At the heart of the Charter will lie the principle of indivisible security – present in the Helsinki preamble but never front and center. This time, it must be. But we must go beyond invocation. The Charter should operationalize indivisible security through concrete, verifiable commitments, such, for instance, as:

1. No state may join a military alliance whose membership criteria systematically exclude other Eurasian states without multilateral consultation.
2. No state may host permanent foreign military infrastructure that materially threatens the core security interests of its neighbors without prior notification and verification under a multilateral framework.
3. All disputes between participating states should be subject to mandatory consultation through the Charter’s institutions.
4. Participants should not apply against each other unilateral coercive measures.

These should be the points for negotiation. They should translate the principle of indivisible security from a noble slogan into an operational framework. 

As a result, no Eurasian country should feel threatened by another’s legitimate security arrangements. No conflict in Eurasia should be resolved by force or by external diktat. And no country should be forced to choose between competing blocs.

The Charter will not be a vague declaration. It is intended to be a practical framework for action – a geostrategy for our supercontinent, covering security, economics, technology, culture, and more. To that end, we envision the Charter establishing certain specific institutions that do not overlap with numerous existing Eurasian structures. Such new institutions may include, among others, a conference on security and cooperation in Eurasia, a small secretariat based in a neutral venue, a dispute resolution mechanism, regular confidence building exercises involving military-to-military dialogue. These ideas should be negotiated. The Charter should be a declaration with teeth.

From discussion to action

For nearly three years, the idea of the Eurasian Charter has been discussed in international forums, bilateral consultations and academic publications. The concept has attracted growing interest, and many Eurasian states have expressed support in principle. But discussion, however valuable, is not enough.

The Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation, as cosponsors of the initiative, have prepared a concrete roadmap to move from discussion to formal negotiation. That roadmap is set out in a non-paper that has been shared with our Eurasian partners. Specifically, we propose to launch the negotiation process in September 2026, during the high-level week of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, with the assumption that it would lead to the adoption of the Charter’s final text at a Summit of Eurasian leaders, tentatively scheduled to be held before the end of 2027.

We understand that some may view the Charter with skepticism. Some may fear that it is directed against them. They may believe that their existing alliances and partnerships are sufficient. Others may simply be waiting to see how the process unfolds. 

To these hesitations, I would like to offer three observations.

First, the Charter is not directed against anyone. It is open to all. Your participation is not a betrayal of any existing commitment – it is an investment in a more stable and predictable Eurasian order. The European Union, NATO members, and other Western-aligned states are welcome to come to the table in good faith – as equal participants, not instructors. 

Second, the external conditions that have supported European prosperity and security are rapidly changing. The United States is deprioritizing Europe as is affirmed in its 2025 National Security Strategy. The era of unlimited free trade and cheap resources is over. Europe’s demographic, economic, and migratory challenges are mounting. No external power will save Europe from these trends. But cooperative action within Eurasia surely will.

Third, and most importantly, the cost of nonparticipation is growing by the day. Non-participation carries a different cost: the loss of a voice in shaping the rules that will govern this continent for decades. Every state that sits at the table helps write the final text. Every state that stays away accepts rules written by others. We say this as a fact of diplomatic life. If you choose to stand outside the emerging Eurasian order, you will not be able to stop it. You will simply forfeit your seat at the table while others shape the future of the continent where you live.

We have seen what indigenous cooperation can achieve. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s quiet containment of border tensions in Central Asia, ASEAN’s resilience despite great-power competition, the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s rapid consultations during the 2022 crisis in Kazakhstan – these are not perfect models. But they are ours. The Charter seeks to scale these lessons continent-wide, learning from both the successes and the failures of every Eurasian security experiment.

The time for discussion has passed. The time for hesitation has passed. The events of 2026 have sounded an alarm that no responsible country can ignore.

Eurasia needs a new security architecture – one based on indivisible security, mutual respect, and genuine partnership. The Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the XXI Century is the means to build that architecture. And September 2026 in New York is the moment to begin.

I call upon all Eurasian states to join us in launching this historic process. Let us prove that we can shape our own destiny.

UNESCO has presented its Global Education Monitoring Report 2026, which makes it possible to see how far the international community has advanced in achieving one of the key Sustainable Development Goals: the universal inclusion of school-age children in primary and secondary education systems.

It turns out that in the 1990s and 2000s, most countries of the world recorded high rates of growth in school participation, but after 2015 these gains slowed almost everywhere.

In the four most populous regions of the world – Europe and North America, East and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa – the growth of children’s participation in school education has stopped over the past ten years. Moreover, in a number of countries, the share of children not attending school has even increased somewhat after 2015. Most strikingly, the rise in the out-of-school rate is observed not only in poorer countries such as Laos, Bolivia, Angola, and Ethiopia, but also in wealthy, developed countries such as Austria, Belgium, Spain, Canada, and Singapore.

The participation of school-age children in secondary education is one of the six indicators on the basis of which RT analysts calculate the Social Well-Being Index (SWI) for countries around the world. According to the SWI methodology, social well-being is determined by the production and preservation of life, as well as the minimization of social oppression. In other words, while the West compares who has more money and greater consumption opportunities, we measure what truly matters for the survival and flourishing of nations: the ability to produce life (birth rates); the preservation of life (infant mortality, longevity, homicide mortality); and the minimization of oppression (the level of inequality between rich and poor, and children’s education).

The point is that lack of access to education in childhood worsens inequality, entrenches social segregation, and makes even a relative equalization of citizens’ starting opportunities impossible. Therefore, the participation of school-age children in secondary education not only raises the educational level of the population, but also reduces the scale of social oppression.

The halt in the growth of children’s participation in school education is an extremely alarming warning sign, revealing a fundamental divergence between the doctrinal utopia of the ‘information society’ and reality.

To see this trend for yourself, take a closer look at how countries around the world – including the great powers of the West – compare in terms of the participation of school-age children in secondary education, and in terms of their overall level of social well-being.

Germany’s implementation of EU sanctions against a pro-Palestinian journalist whom Brussels has accused of fueling discord on Russia’s behalf has descended into “totalitarian madness,” German opposition politician Sahra Wagenknecht has said.

Wagenknecht has called for financial restrictions imposed on Huseyin Dogru and his Berlin-based family to be lifted. On Tuesday, Dogru said Comdirect bank had frozen the assets of his elderly mother, citing what it described as a “control relationship over the funds by [her] son.” His wife’s bank account was targeted in March, while his father is reportedly under investigation by the authorities.

“This is how dictatorships treat opposition figures,” the left-wing BSW party founder told Berliner Zeitung on Thursday.

“The EU’s scandalous overreach against a German journalist and the German government’s complicity in breaking the law and collective punishment must finally stop,” she added. “If the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution were doing its job, this totalitarian government extremism would actually be a case for them.”

EU portrays pro-Palestinian advocacy as serving Russia

Dogru is a Turkish-German journalist who previously worked with the media outlet Redfish, which received funding from Ruptly, a video agency Western governments have labeled as being part of Russia’s “propaganda” infrastructure.

The EU imposed personal sanctions on Dogru in May 2025, accusing him of “systematically spreading false information about politically controversial topics, with the intention of sowing ethnic, political and religious discord” in Germany and claiming that his work aligned with Russian objectives.

Dogru says Brussels and Berlin are targeting him over his pro-Palestinian activism. Even Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Michael O’Flaherty criticized Germany over the issue, warning in April that “freedom of expression has been restricted disproportionately, regarding debates on Palestinian rights or legitimate criticism of the Israeli government.”

‘Civil death’ without charges

The German financial restrictions severely limit what Dogru, a father of three young children, can legally do to support his family. He is barred from carrying out donation-funded journalism or accepting solidarity aid, as the government considers such payments an attempt to circumvent sanctions. His assets have been frozen, with only around €500 ($590) per month permitted for expenses. His travel has also been restricted.

Dogru’s supporters say he has effectively been subjected to a “civil death” despite no formal charges being filed against him. A campaign urging the EU to lift the sanctions was launched last week on the anniversary of their introduction.

Ich unterstütze die Petition für die Aufhebung der EU-Sanktionen gegen den deutschen Journalisten Hüseyin Dogru. Journalismus ist kein Verbrechen!https://t.co/KJQ5b6Dgnw

— Sahra Wagenknecht (@SWagenknecht) May 21, 2026

Wagenknecht is among the signatories of the petition, which argues that Dogru is facing state censorship in violation of the German constitution and EU laws.

After Western governments made combating what they call “Russian disinformation” a major policy priority, Moscow argued that the campaign reflected an attempt to preserve narrative control amid the rise of alternative online media.

Ukrainian rhythmic gymnasts were caught on video covering their ears and eyes during the Russian and Belarusian national anthems at the European Championship in Varna, Bulgaria.

The tournament marks the first time athletes from the two countries have been allowed to compete under their national flags in nearly five years, after World Gymnastics and European Gymnastics lifted their restrictions earlier this month.

One of the incidents took place during the medal ceremony for the junior ribbon event in Varna on Thursday, in which Russia’s Yana Zaikina won gold, Ukraine’s Sofia Krainska took silver, and Germany’s Melissa Diete took bronze.

Krainska was seen standing on the podium wearing headphones and covering her eyes and face as the Russian national anthem played. Zaikina’s victory was Russia’s first gold at the tournament.

A similar episode occurred when Ukrainian gymnast Varvara Chubarova covered her ears and eyes as the Belarusian national anthem played following Kira Babkevich’s victory in the junior ball event.

Russian and Belarusian athletes were barred from most international competitions after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. The two countries condemned the bans, calling them politically motivated. Some restrictions were later eased, allowing selected athletes to compete under neutral status.

Recently, major international sports organizations have started to lift their bans entirely.

The World Gymnastics Executive Committee announced earlier this month that Russian and Belarusian athletes can return to international competitions under their national symbols across all five disciplines represented by the Russian Gymnastics Federation. European Gymnastics followed with a similar decision last week.

Despite the lifting of the restrictions, the Russian team nearly missed the Varna championship after the Bulgarian authorities refused to approve its charter flight. The delegation eventually arrived via Istanbul one day before the competition began.

President Vladimir Putin has denounced what he described as selective sanctions against Russian competitors, accusing international sports bodies of political bias and corruption. Athletes should have access to competitions based solely on merit, as “politics has no place in sports,” the president said earlier this year.

Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval has been given a guided tour of Russia’s National Space Center while on a visit to Moscow for the International Security Forum.

Doval and Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov visited the Roscosmos Joint Industry Information Center – established to monitor and analyze the massive data related to the rocket and space industry.

The center will also manage the proposed Russian Space Station (ROS). Ahead of the tour, Doval and Manturov were given a briefing on space technology.

The highlight of the visit was a live call the two senior officials held with the Russian crew of the International Space Station – Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Andrey Fedyaev, and Sergey Mikaev. The cosmonauts told the officials about their spacewalk on May 27.

India and Russia have partnered in the space sector since the early 1960s. In 1984, Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to travel to space aboard a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. Russia is also working with India on its upcoming human spaceflight mission – Gaganyaan.

The two countries have also integrated their satellite navigation systems – NavIC and GLONASS.

The senior officials were also shown the world’s most powerful four-chamber liquid rocket engine, the ROS base module, and other exhibits at the center.
Russia and India plan to boost space cooperation significantly, Dmitry Bakanov, the head of the Russian space agency (Roscosmos), said ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s trip to India in December 2025.

Last month, Russia celebrated the 65th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first human flight in space.

At the inauguration of the Russian Space Forum, government officials, scientists, and investors from over 40 countries, including Russia, China and India, took part.

Hungary will not supply weapons or military equipment to Ukraine, the country’s newly elected prime minister, Peter Magyar, said on Thursday shortly after meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Brussels.

Magyar’s center-right Tisza party defeated Viktor Orban’s Fidesz last month, securing a two-thirds parliamentary majority. EU officials, who had previously criticized Orban as a Kremlin-friendly politician, voiced support for Magyar ahead of the election and were widely seen as expecting him to roll back many of the previous government’s policies.

Magyar, however, is far closer to Orban politically than the former prime minister opponents would like to admit. “I informed the Secretary General that Hungary is not supplying weapons or military equipment to Ukraine,” Magyar said in a post on X.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orban, a member of Magyar’s Tisza party, had previously said Hungary “stands for peace” and rejects sending either troops or weapons to Ukraine.

Magyar’s latest comment was seen positively in Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that “if any side says it sees no need to add fuel to the fire, that can only be welcomed.”

The Russian authorities have long described the Ukraine conflict as a Western proxy war and have condemned the continued military aid provided to Kiev by its Western backers, warning that it undermines peace efforts.

Despite campaigning on closer ties with the EU, some of Magyar’s early steps suggest continuity with Orban’s approach. He has opposed fast-tracking Ukraine’s EU membership and kept Hungary out of the bloc’s latest Ukraine funding initiative.

Earlier this month, Hungary restored a ban on Ukrainian agricultural imports after the new government “accidentally” allowed the restrictions to lapse. Brussels has argued that such bans are illegal because trade policy falls under EU authority. Last year, the European Commission reportedly considered legal action against member states over similar measures, though none has followed.

At least 16 schoolgirls have been killed and dozens injured after a fire tore through a dormitory at a boarding school in Kenya, the authorities have said.

The blaze broke out shortly after midnight on Thursday at Utumishi Girls’ Academy Senior School in the town of Gilgil, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen confirmed.

The fire started at around 12:45 AM in a second-floor dormitory housing students at the school, which has an enrollment of more than 800 girls. Seventy-nine students were injured in the incident and taken to hospital. Most have since been discharged, while seven remain hospitalized in stable condition, Murkomen said.

Emergency crews, including county security teams and firefighters, managed to bring the blaze under control by about 3:00 AM.

Eight students have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the fire. In a statement on Friday, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said, “preliminary investigations have identified eight students as persons of interest in connection with the planning and execution of the suspected arson attack.”

The identification of the victims is ongoing with the involvement of health officials and investigators from the DCI.

Kenyan President William Ruto expressed condolences to the victims’ families, saying the country is mourning the loss of young lives.

“Our hearts and prayers are with the families who have lost their beloved daughters,” Ruto wrote on X. He added that the government’s priority is assisting survivors and supporting affected families while investigators work to determine the cause of the fire.

The tragedy is the latest in a series of deadly school fires in Kenya that have repeatedly raised concerns over safety standards in boarding schools. In September 2024, at least 21 boys were killed after a dormitory caught fire at Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri County. The victims, aged between ten and 14, were asleep when the blaze broke out.

One of the country’s worst school disasters occurred in 2001, when a fire at Kyanguli Secondary School in Machakos County killed 67 students. Investigators later concluded that the blaze had been deliberately started by two students.

The US is deliberately causing hunger in Cuba as part of its economic strangulation of the island, City University of New York professor Danny Shaw has said in an interview with RT’s Rick Sanchez.

Speaking on the Sanchez Effect show, Shaw, an ethnography scholar, discussed his recent visit to Cuba and argued that the US is the main cause of the instability.

“US foreign policy for 67 years now has done everything to disrupt the Cuban economy, any sense of social and economic harmony,” Shaw said.

“The State Department, all these different agencies, the CIA, they know exactly how many calories Cubans have access to, and every day it’s less,” he added. “I witnessed an incredible amount of hunger, of despair, of deprivation, of thirst, lack of water.”

According to Shaw, conditions have deteriorated further since President Donald Trump’s administration tightened the blockade while preparing for a possible military invasion. He claimed that in some respects the shortages in Cuba have become worse than those in Haiti, another Caribbean country marked by prolonged instability and economic hardship.

Sanchez, who was born in Cuba and raised in Miami, said the issue was personal to him. He also rejected claims by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Cuba’s worsening economic crisis is primarily the fault of its own government, arguing instead that “the United States has destroyed Cuba, not incompetent communists.”

Watch the full interview.

US President Donald Trump is set to escalate Washington’s economic pressure campaign on Cuba in an attempt to force regime change, Axios reported on Friday, citing sources. The island is already enduring near-total fuel starvation and daily blackouts stretching up to 20 hours.

The US has thus far opted for a phased campaign designed to choke Havana, but which avoids a direct military invasion, several unnamed officials told the outlet.

“The best way to describe it is ‘accelerationism,’” one senior official said, referring to the philosophy of hastening societal collapse. “But we don’t want to kill off the regime just yet. There’s a method to this. It’s in stages.”

According to Axios, the strategy is partly designed to buy time while Trump remains absorbed in peace negotiations with Iran.
“Trump wants to exhaust all the levers that he can. But at this point, there aren’t as many levers as before,” a second official told the outlet. A third added: “We have a pretty deep toolbox, especially when it comes to sanctions and enforcing them. More is on the way.”

Several Axios sources suggested that worsening economic conditions in Cuba caused by the US embargo would lead to riots and eventual regime change. “It’s going to be hot,” one source told Axios. “People won’t have electricity. Food spoils without refrigeration. People get angry. They can take to the streets.” 

Another official noted that even if Trump wanted to launch an invasion, he would prefer it to be over in less than 48 hours. Otherwise, “it’s a quagmire in the making. This could get messy,” he explained.

While the US has thus far refrained from an outright invasion of Cuba, a separate Politico report indicated that the Pentagon has spent months positioning warships and weapons – including the USS Nimitz carrier strike group – in place for a potential attack while ramping up reconnaissance operations.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla warned this week that any military attack would trigger a “bloodbath” and the death of thousands of Cubans and Americans alike.

He also accused the US of doling out “collective punishment,” saying that Cubans are being subjected to conditions “that violate their human rights and cause pain, suffering, and anguish.”
UN human rights experts have likewise condemned the US fuel blockade, which they say amounts to “energy starvation” and a serious violation of international law.

Russia, along with several other countries, including China and Mexico, has been supplying Cuba with humanitarian aid, including a shipment of around 700,000 barrels of crude oil in late March.

The “barbaric” Ukrainian drone strike on a Russian college dormitory in Starobelsk cannot be justified, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council on Thursday, comparing Kiev’s actions to the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany.

A total of 21 students, most of them young women, were killed in the attack on May 22, while 44 others were injured. 

Speaking at a Security Council meeting in New York, Ukrainian representative Andrey Melnik dismissed the “so-called incident” in Starobelsk as “a fake story,” accusing Russia of spreading “yet another propaganda narrative.” US deputy envoy Tammy Bruce condemned what Russia described as retaliatory strikes on Kiev as “obscene and unacceptable.”

Nebenzia accused the West of turning a blind eye to the “cynical act of terrorism” in Starobelsk.

“What is particularly striking is the hypocrisy and cynicism of the European delegations. They usually rush to make accusations against Russia whenever it is politically convenient, yet in this case they have chosen to essentially ignore the tragedy and pin the blame on Moscow,” Nebenzia said.

The Russian diplomat said 51 civilians have been killed by Ukrainian forces over the past week, and 199 others were injured, including 20 children. He added that, over the same period, Ukraine launched more than 4,300 drones at civilian targets, including residential neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals.

Nebenzia stressed that the Russian strikes on Kiev on May 24 targeted “military-industrial sites,” including facilities involved in drone production.

“Let us reiterate what we have said many times before: Our armed forces do not target civilians or civilian infrastructure,” he said.

In response to the attack on Starobelsk, Russia announced that it would carry out “systematic” strikes on military sites and command centers in Ukraine.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded during a preflight static fire test on a launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Thursday.

Jeff Bezos’ company said “an anomaly” occurred and that all personnel were safe.

Footage from a live stream shows the rocket erupting into a massive fireball.

The aerospace company was preparing for the fourth launch of its heavy-lift rocket, which features a reusable first-stage booster.

According to CBS News, the mission, tentatively scheduled for next month, was intended to launch 48 satellites for Amazon’s Leo internet service. The satellites were not aboard the rocket at the time of the incident.

Newly obtained audio tapes allegedly captured the main suspect in the decades-old murder of rapper Tupac Shakur bragging about his role in the killing, the New York Post reported on Thursday.

On September 7, 1996, Tupac was shot four times while stopped at a red light on the Las Vegas Strip and later succumbed to his wounds in hospital. Prosecutors have charged Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis with orchestrating the drive-by shooting. Investigators and legal authorities identify his nephew, Orlando ‘Baby Lane’ Anderson, who was himself shot dead in 1998, as the man who fired the fatal shots.

Tupac murder suspect Keefe D allegedly brags about killing in shocking audio https://t.co/nqFXwSSLPO pic.twitter.com/qI0gOPa1Z7

— New York Post (@nypost) May 28, 2026

The Las Vegas District Attorney’s Office believes Davis admitted to his involvement in the murder during a recorded prison phone conversation, the NYP wrote, citing a legal source. He had also discussed his role in the crime and shared “intricate details” while pursuing potential film and television deals, the outlet’s source said.

Investigators have pointed to Davis’ public statements for years. In his memoir, interviews, and recorded conversations before his 2023 arrest, Davis repeatedly spoke about his involvement in the killing. He has pleaded not guilty and now claims his previous admissions were made solely for financial gain.

Prosecutors have described Tupac’s killing, long regarded as one of hip-hop’s most notorious unsolved cases, as the result of a violent feud between East Coast and West Coast rap circles, as well as rival gangs, the Bloods and Crips. They allege that Davis served as a senior “shot caller” within the Crips.

At the time of his death, Tupac was embroiled in a bitter feud with New York rapper the Notorious B.I.G., who was killed in a separate shooting in Los Angeles in March 1997. The two artists were seen as leading figures in the infamous East Coast-West Coast hip-hop rivalry of the 1990s.

A drone crashed into an apartment block in eastern Romania near the Ukrainian border on Friday, injuring two people, emergency services said.

According to the regional emergency services department, a drone carrying explosives struck the 10th floor of the building, sparking a fire. Around 70 residents were evacuated.

Catalin Sion, a spokesman for the Galati emergency services, said two people were hospitalized with minor injuries, while two others were treated for panic attacks.

Firefighters, police officers, and a bomb squad are working at the scene.

A video posted on social media purports to show the moment of the strike.

Reports of several people injured, some seriously, following the impact of a Russian one-way attack drone tonight on a residential building in Galați, Eastern Romania. pic.twitter.com/2dQO0Qxfgd

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) May 28, 2026

The Romanian Defense Ministry later released a statement claiming that the drone originated from Russia and was involved in strikes in Ukraine. Moscow has not yet commented on the matter.

Romania has repeatedly accused Russia of violating its airspace with drones. During the most recent incident in April, Romanian officials said a UAV damaged a house and an electrical pole near Galati. Moscow denied the allegations, arguing that there is no definitive proof that the drones were Russian.

Several suspected Ukrainian drones have veered into the airspace of the Baltic states in recent months. On May 7, a UAV damaged four empty oil storage tanks in eastern Latvia near the Russian border. Moscow has accused the Baltic states of allowing Ukraine to use their airspace to conduct strikes deep inside Russia, which the NATO members have denied.

Russia has warned that deploying additional US troops near its borders would be unacceptable, after Washington pledged to send more soldiers to Poland.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing on Thursday that reducing the number of US personnel stationed in Europe would be a “rational, justified, and long-overdue” step toward stabilizing what she described as an “imbalanced” security situation created by NATO policies.

Deploying more US troops in the region, on the other hand, would place them within striking distance, Zakharova added.

She said the move would only increase tensions in Europe and compel Russia to respond with “military-technical measures.” Zakharova accused NATO of pushing the continent toward a “suicidal” conflict.

Around 10,000 American service members are currently stationed in Poland, most of them on a rotational basis, while around 80,000 are deployed across Europe. Poland shares a border with Russia’s Kaliningrad Region, an exclave on the Baltic Sea.

Last week, US President Donald Trump unveiled plans to send 5,000 additional troops to Poland, one of the most vocal supporters of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. The announcement came after the Pentagon said it would delay the rotation of 4,000 troops, which Vice President J.D. Vance later downplayed as a “standard delay.”

Trump has frequently accused NATO members of failing to spend enough on defense and recently announced the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany amid a dispute with Berlin over the war with Iran.

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia has no intention of attacking NATO members unless it is attacked first. Russian officials have accused the West of “reckless militarization” and cited NATO’s eastward expansion as one of the causes of the Ukraine conflict.

On Thursday, Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, said NATO is “de facto preparing for a large-scale military conflict in the east.”

The FBI has seized gold bars worth tens of millions of dollars from the home of a former senior CIA official, according to court documents and a joint statement from the two agencies.

The warrant at David Rush’s residence in Virginia was carried out last Monday, but details of the case only surfaced ahead of a hearing scheduled for Friday in federal court in Alexandria.

Rush has been charged with defrauding the US government, according to court records. In an affidavit, the FBI alleged that he misled his employer, identified only as a government agency, about his academic background, his length of service in the US Navy, and his status as a trained military pilot – all of which were factors in determining his compensation. The agent who submitted the affidavit noted that the limited information was being provided to establish probable cause for a separate search warrant.

The filing also said that, beginning last November, Rush requested and received “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.” When investigators inspected storage space at his office, they found only a fraction of the valuables there.

The subsequent raid on his home uncovered “approximately 303 gold bars, each of which weighed approximately one kilogram,” with an estimated value of $40 million, as well as $2 million in cash and 35 luxury watches. Many of the watches were Rolexes, according to the FBI.

Few details disclosed about CIA gold operation

According to the affidavit, Rush applied to the agency twice in 2006 and was hired after a third application in 2009. He made the false claim he was a naval pilot instructor in 2018, as he was being considered for a promotion.

The testimony does not explain whether the CIA failed to double-check his background on multiple occasions or knowingly paid him more than he could claim based on his actual record.

Ex-CIA official David Rush is putting former convicted Senator Bob "Gold Bars" Menendez to shame.

I was able to find his booking photo on @ABC

We're going to need a lot more information on what he was doing with $40M in gold bars and how he got those security clearances. https://t.co/TpfidziqNv pic.twitter.com/b9t1Vvid5d

— Kristi L. Talmadge (@KristiTalmadge) May 28, 2026

It also remains unclear what CIA assignment would have required over 300 kilograms of gold, what investigators believe Rush intended to do with the assets, or when his employment ended.

In a joint statement, the CIA and FBI said the intelligence agency identified “potential violations” during an internal review and then alerted federal investigators, who have the mandate to operate on US soil. No charges related to the gold trove have been filed so far.

Rush’s attorney and members of his family have declined media requests for comment.

Gold as criminal loot

Gold bars are a familiar symbol of hidden wealth in fiction, but they are relatively uncommon in modern criminal cases, except in investigations involving large criminal networks with the connections needed to move and store bullion.

A notable exception was the case of former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, who resigned in 2024 after the FBI accused him of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, including gold. He was sentenced the following year to 11 years in prison.

Gold bars and other valuable items have also frequently appeared in corruption investigations involving current and former Ukrainian officials, according to law enforcement agencies.

India has a “crazy love” for Israel and shares a “unique relationship” with the Jewish state, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the Jordan Valley Conference on Thursday, describing New Delhi as one of West Jerusalem’s strongest supporters.

Israel is currently facing “problems with delegitimization in the world, but not in India,” the prime minister said, praising ties with what he called a “huge power.”

Israel has faced international condemnation in recent years over its military campaign in Gaza. Critics of West Jerusalem have argued that Israeli operations in the Palestinian enclave, launched in response to the 2023 Hamas attack, amounted to genocide.

India and Israel formally established diplomatic relations in 1992, although New Delhi recognized the Jewish state in 1950, just a few years after its creation. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said relations between the two nations date back thousands of years, noting that “Jewish merchants traveled across sea routes that connected the Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean” to reach India.

India is currently Israel’s second-largest trading partner in Asia. Bilateral trade, excluding defense contracts, peaked between 2022 and 2023 at $10.77 billion, according to data from the Indian Embassy in Israel.

During his visit to Israel in February, Modi praised what he called a “strong defense partnership” between the two countries and said New Delhi and West Jerusalem were also working on an “ambitious Free Trade Agreement.” India has reportedly signed arms deals with Israel worth $8.6 billion this year alone.

Netanyahu thanked New Delhi for standing “by Israel’s side” in the wake of the 2023 Hamas attack and described India as an “Asian ally” of the Jewish state.

After the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran earlier this year, New Delhi expressed concern. Speaking with Netanyahu in March, Modi called for an early cessation of hostilities and said the safety of civilians should remain the top priority.

Former US First Lady Jill Biden has said she thought her husband was having a stroke during his disastrous 2024 debate with Donald Trump. The remarks have revived scrutiny of Joe Biden’s decline and the efforts by his inner circle to defend his fitness for office.

Speaking to CBS on Wednesday, Jill Biden said she was “frightened” as the then-81-year-old president stumbled through the televised debate in June 2024, appearing to lose his train of thought and struggling to respond coherently.

“I’d never seen Joe like that before,” she said, adding that she thought at the time: “Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke. And it scared me to death.”

The debate triggered panic among Democrats and renewed allegations of mental decline, which were long denied by the Biden administration. It also prompted Democratic Party leaders to pressure Biden to step down as their presidential candidate in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump was also reportedly taken aback, with one adviser telling the Washington Post that “no one was more shocked at Biden’s performance than Donald Trump.”

Jill Biden’s comments also cast new light on her own reaction immediately after the debate when she praised her husband, saying: “Joe, you did such a great job answering every question! You knew all the facts.”

The moment was widely mocked in the media, with some accusing her of treating the president like a “toddler.”

Critics also alleged that Jill was unwilling to acknowledge the scale of her husband’s deterioration and that she maintained a tightly controlled environment around him.

Several explanations have since been offered for Biden’s performance. His son Hunter Biden blamed sleeping pills, while others pointed to exhaustion, over-preparation, illness, or broader concerns over age-related impairment.

Conservative media seized on Jill Biden’s new account. Breitbart mocked the contrast between her recent comments and praise in 2024, calling the interview acknowledgment that critics of Biden’s fitness were right all along.

The conservative New York Post called her remarks “a scandal of historic proportions,” arguing that they reinforced accusations that the White House covered up Biden’s decline.

Left-leaning coverage has been more sympathetic, with The Guardian presenting the statement as a traumatic personal moment during a brutal campaign collapse rather than proof of deliberate deception.

NATO requires confrontation to justify its existence, which is why it designated Russia as its principal enemy in Europe, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko has said.

The remarks come as an increasing number of Ukrainian drone raids are sent deep inside Russia, while the debris of several drones have recently fallen in NATO member states bordering Russia. Moscow has accused the Baltic states of allowing Ukraine to use their territory for attacks, claims that Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania deny.

Speaking in an exclusive interview to RT on Thursday, Grushko argued that NATO and the EU radically shifted their approach toward Russia around 2010–2012, as the US-led military bloc wound down its costly Afghanistan mission and refocused on its original Cold War-era purpose of collective defense against an adversary in Europe.

“They needed a big enemy. And since there was none, Russia was appointed to this ‘honorable’ role,” Grushko said, adding that “NATO cannot exist in peaceful conditions – it is like a fish out of water.”

The diplomat argued that Russia had sought constructive relations with the West, but that the 2014 Ukraine crisis and the 2022 escalation ultimately gave NATO and the EU the rationale needed to consolidate long-term confrontation with Moscow.

European leaders and intelligence officials have increasingly claimed that Russia could attack NATO or EU member states in the coming years, something Moscow has repeatedly dismissed as “nonsense.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte claimed in December that “we are Russia’s next target.”

Since 2022, NATO has expanded battlegroups across Eastern Europe, intensified air and maritime patrols in the Baltics, and increased military exercises near Russia’s borders. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have also accelerated border fortification projects, including anti-tank defenses and bunker networks.

Grushko, however, argued the Baltics had historically been one of Europe’s calmest regions before NATO expansion transformed it into “an arena of confrontation.”

Watch the full interview with the Russian deputy foreign minister below.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to deepen international cooperation on artificial intelligence, unveiling a new global initiative aimed at developing AI systems and shared computing infrastructure.

Speaking on Thursday at the Eurasian Economic Forum in Astana, Kazakhstan, Putin said Russia has helped establish an AI alliance bringing together scientific, academic and business communities from multiple countries. He also proposed holding a high-level international meeting on artificial intelligence in Russia next year.

According to Putin, the gathering will focus on cooperation in developing sovereign AI models, creating interconnected computing and energy infrastructure, and adapting AI technologies to local needs.

AI has emerged as a crucial factor in “ensuring global competitiveness, economic growth, progress,” and countries and transnational corporations are already competing for primacy in the field, he said.

Putin argued that Russia possessed several advantages in the field, including scientific expertise, a strong education system, and abundant energy resources needed to support large-scale computing systems and data centers.

“The development of artificial intelligence requires enormous energy consumption,” Putin said, pointing to Russia’s nuclear generation capabilities, hydroelectric power and traditional energy sources.

He also stressed the importance of maintaining sovereign technological platforms, saying Russia was among the few countries capable of independently developing its own AI systems and financing large-scale projects in the sector.

At the same time, Putin called for closer international cooperation, arguing that pooling resources and expertise could deliver significant economic and technological benefits.

The Russian leader warned that AI would fundamentally reshape labor markets, with millions of people potentially forced to change professions as automation increasingly replaces human workers. 

“Such processes are irreversible and inevitable,” he said.

Several major Russian companies are already developing domestic AI models, including tech giant Yandex and the country’s largest bank, Sberbank.

According to TASS, Yandex’s B2B Tech division recently unveiled Alice AI LLM Flash, a large language model optimized for high-speed dialogue and data analysis. Citing a company source, the outlet reported on Thursday that the model outperformed OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 mini in 56% of business-related benchmark tasks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has blasted EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas' latest attempts to force maximalist demands, regarded by all parties to the Ukraine talks as unworkable, onto the agenda.

Kallas has repeatedly insisted that Russia should scale back its armed forces as a precondition for EU involvement in negotiations, despite the bloc being seen in Moscow as an active participant in the conflict and never having been formally invited to talks.

The bloc’s fear of missing out has reportedly fueled discussions in Brussels over who could eventually represent the union in possible talks with Moscow.

Kallas, however, denied the EU faces time on the negotiation sidelines, insisting on Thursday that the bloc is too important to ignore. “It is not the question of being invited to the table,” she told reporters on at an informal EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Cyprus. Brussels alone could decide whether sanctions on Russia should be lifted – something she claimed Moscow is “interested in.”

The EU’s conditions for any such move included Russia “mirroring” any troop limits imposed on Ukraine, as well as withdrawing forces from Transnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, where Russian troops have long served as peacekeepers.

“Look, I’m not discussing idiotic statements,” Lavrov responded on Thursday when asked about Kallas’ remarks.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also mocked the EU diplomat, saying Kallas sounded as though she was “talking to herself.”

It is not the first time the EU foreign policy chief has issued such demands. Back in February, Kallas called for limits on the Russian military and argued that “everyone” should understand that Ukraine peace talks were not going to go anywhere without EU approval.

Those remarks showed that “Eurobureaucrats are hellbent on disrupting the conflict settlement at any cost,” Zakharova said at the time.

“Any reasonable person should support peace under any circumstances,” she added.

Moscow has repeatedly accused the EU of engaging in “megaphone diplomacy” – issuing public ultimatums instead of pursuing substantive negotiations.

In November 2025, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen demanded on X that the EU be given a “central” role in resolving the conflict, at a time when Moscow and Washington were discussing a US-drafted peace plan. She also outlined a list of conditions the Kremlin dismissed as “unconstructive” and unacceptable.

Israel has intensified its attacks on Lebanon, striking Beirut for the first time since a ceasefire took effect last month. RT journalist Ali Rida Sbeity has reported from the scene that residents of the crowded southern suburb received “no warning” before the attack. 

Israeli fighter jets struck an apartment building in Choueifat, a densely populated district near Beirut’s international airport, on Thursday afternoon. The IDF described the raid as “targeted” but provided no further details, while Israeli media claimed the attack was aimed at a senior Hezbollah figure. 

Sbeity described the attack as “very precise,” adding that residents who had returned to the area after weeks of relative calm were caught off guard because it came “without any warning.” 

He also reported heavy drone activity over Beirut following the strikes, with several UAVs flying at low altitude above the capital and its southern suburbs. “People here know that if they [Israel] have a target, or what they call an assassination operation, it will happen without any warning,” he said. 

The strike came as Israel widened its military campaign in southern Lebanon. On Wednesday, the IDF issued mass evacuation orders across parts of southern Lebanon and declared the area near the border “a combat zone.” 

At least 16 people were reportedly killed and dozens more wounded in Israeli strikes overnight. The overall death toll since the war with Israel escalated on March 2 has surpassed 3,269, with more than 9,800 injured, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.   

The lDF launched a military operation against Hezbollah just days after the US-Israeli attack on Iran. Lebanese and Israeli military officials are set to hold security talks in the US on Friday. Hezbollah has dismissed the talks, while Tehran has made an end to the war in Lebanon a condition for its own Pakistan-mediated negotiations with Washington.  

Both the IDF and Hezbollah have repeatedly accused each other of violating the ceasefire that took effect April 17, although Beirut had largely been spared from strikes.

The United Nations has added Israel to its list of parties accused of sexual violence in conflict zones, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said on Thursday, denouncing the move as a political attack and accusing the organization of spreading “blood libels.”

While the designation has not yet been formally announced by the organization, Israel’s official UN account said on X that the chief of staff to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had informed Danon of the decision “to place Israel and its security services on the UN’s blacklist regarding sexual violence in conflict zones – the same list as Hamas’s October 7 terrorists.”

Danon said on X that Israel had submitted evidence, documents, and detailed responses to every claim, and had invited UN representatives to examine the allegations on the ground, but that they “chose not to do so.”

In a video address, he described the decision to include Israel in the Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) report as “outrageous,” accusing Guterres and his team of spreading “lies against Israel.”

“To put us and Hamas terrorists on the same list, that’s unacceptable,” he said, adding that Israel is “done with this Secretary General” and will be suspending relations with Guterres’ office.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has also decried the “shameful and absurd UN decision,” accusing the organization of “long-standing, institutionalized hostility toward Israel.” The ministry confirmed that West Jerusalem will sever all ties with Guterres’ office and will “wait until a new UN Secretary-General is appointed.”

The blacklist designation follows a series of sexual assault allegations against Israeli forces and prison authorities. The New York Times recently published a report detailing allegations of sexual violence by Israeli soldiers, settlers, interrogators, and prison guards against Palestinians.

Earlier this week, Australian activists detained during Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla also accused Israeli forces of rape, sexual assault, beatings, humiliation, and torture.

On Tuesday, the Canadian government demanded an independent investigation into Israel’s “appalling” treatment of the activists and said it had provided West Jerusalem with evidence of abuse against detainees, expecting “those responsible to be held accountable.”

Israel has denied the accusations, insisting it treats detainees appropriately.

India and Russia are collaborating to develop technologies for making rare-earth magnets, which are key for industries ranging from electric vehicles to renewable energy.

Last week, JSC Giredmet, a unit of Rosatom’s scientific division, signed a memorandum of understanding with India’s Nexon Geochem Pvt Ltd, for research and development of technologies for processing raw materials of rare-earth magnets.

JSC Giredmet also signed a letter of intent with Technology Innovation in Exploration & Mining Foundation (TEXMiN) for research and development of technologies for producing permanent magnets.

Rare-earth magnets are described as the unseen foundation of the green economy, being key components in computer hard drives, wind turbines, electric motors, biomedical devices, and other industrial applications.

Global interest in rare-earth minerals has been rising amid growing trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. China, the world’s largest producer of rare earths, has restricted exports in response to US tariffs, sparking supply disruptions for the automotive and other high-tech industries.

India’s consumption of rare-earth permanent magnets is expected to double by 2030. New Delhi imports most of what it needs.

New Delhi has been looking to expand its rare-earth supply chains. During US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s India visit earlier this week, New Delhi and Washington formalized a framework for the supply, mining, processing, recycling, and investment in critical minerals and rare earths.

In February, India said it aims to start producing rare-earth permanent magnets by the end of the year in partnership with the private sector. It allocated $802 million for a program to manufacture rare-earth permanent magnets last November.

The South Asian nation is home to the world’s third-largest reserves of rare earths, at 6.9 million tons, though it mines only a tiny part of it.

Russia holds an estimated 658 million tons of rare metals, including 28.5 million tons of 15 rare-earth types, according to the Natural Resources Ministry. In November of last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the authorities to develop a rare-earth metals strategy.

This week, as UK Labour’s destructive leadership contest intensified, former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair staged a remarkable intervention in which he single-handedly sought to save the party from political oblivion.

Blair’s dramatic intrusion into Labour politics took the form of a 5,600-word essay – in which he denounced Keir Starmer, criticized leadership contenders Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting, and, more importantly, set out a radical political manifesto that he believes the Labour Party must adopt if it wishes to remain a viable force in UK politics.

The fact that Blair felt the need to act in this unprecedented manner – since resigning as prime minister in 2007 he has rarely intervened in UK politics – is, in itself, indicative of the severity of the existential crisis that has recently engulfed the Labour Party.

In his essay, Blair accuses the party of having lacked a credible policy program for decades – and he is especially critical of the Labour left, referring pointedly to “the infinite capacity of the Labour Party for self-delusion.”

Blair rightly claims that Starmer has “no coherent plan for the country” and describes Burnham as a good junior minister when he served in Blair’s own cabinet – faint praise indeed – but is brutally dismissive of his Corbynite economic agenda. Blair is also critical of Streeting for lacking policy coherence and for wanting to re-join the European Union. These criticisms are perfectly valid, and Blair is correct to refuse to endorse any of the talentless contenders for the Labour leadership.

But Blair has a more fundamental and telling criticism to make of Labour – namely that, unless the party moves beyond political squabbling about changing leaders, and adopts a radically new coherent policy agenda, the party is doomed to extinction. According to Blair “if you can’t agree on your policy direction, then there is no point in changing your leader.” This criticism is also valid.

Blair, who has never suffered from false modesty, then proceeds to set out his personal agenda for Labour’s political salvation – which he grandiosely terms his “ten-point plan.”

It appears that Blair, who believes that God has guided his political maneuverings in the past, has this week cast himself in the role of Labour’s savior – with his ten-point plan apparently being a secular version the ten commandments, that will lead Labour into the promised land where electoral success awaits it.

Blair’s plan is a remarkable political manifesto for a former Labour prime minister to have drafted – although it is fully in keeping with Blair’s own globalist prejudices and elitist worldview.

Blair describes his plan as a “radical centrist” political agenda, and he urges Labour to:

• completely embrace AI and facilitate its implementation by doing all it can to assist Big Tech corporations;
• promote cheaper energy by abandoning net zero and the green energy agenda, and fully exploit Britain’s coal and gas reserves;
• engage in a fundamental restructure of the welfare system by cutting pensions and incapacity and mental health benefits;
• reduce corporate taxes;
• reduce the minimum wage, wind back workers’ rights legislation, and National Insurance contributions by employers;
• spend less money on the NHS;
• take drastic action – “whatever it takes” – to put an end to illegal migration;
• abandon plans to re-join the European Union – on the grounds that Britain would do so from a position of weakness, and, more to the point, that the EU is opposed to advancing the interests of AI and Big Tech; and
• commit to fully supporting America’s foreign policy agenda.

Blair’s program, in essence, seeks to re-establish Britain as a sovereign nation state, with a revived economy based upon the free market and radical technological innovation – free from the constraints of the welfare state, net zero ideology, as well as EU and international agreements and obligations – and cravenly committed to support America’s foreign wars.

This, of course, is a deeply conservative agenda – not a centrist one – as the ultra-right-wing former Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has gleefully pointed out this week. He has described Blair’s ten-point plan as a “manifesto for the right,” urged Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch to adopt it immediately, and praised Blair for revealing himself to be nothing less than “an authoritarian Tory.”

Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting have, with some justification, responded to Blair’s dramatic plan to ideologically transform Labour by accusing him of “overlooking how inequality is shaping modern politics”; “misunderstanding the root causes of populism’; and advocating a delusional, elitist agenda based upon mere “technological optimism.”

Interestingly, neither Burnham nor Streeting responded to Blair’s conservative policy program by enunciating a coherent counter program of their own.

There is, of course, no possibility of Labour adopting Blair’s ten-point plan – or, indeed, any viable political agenda that may result in them staying in power for long. The current Labour leadership is so inept and divided that it is incapable of formulating or agreeing upon any coherent, let alone credible agenda – hence both Burnham and Streeting’s wishy-washy and vague recent policy pronouncements.

In any event, Blair’s plan would only result in electoral disaster for Labour – because it would drive working class Labour voters in the northern “red wall” seats into the waiting arms of Reform, and cause more progressive Labour voters in the south-east to flee to the Greens and the Liberal Democrats in droves.

That Blair should have put forward a conservative elitist political manifesto should come as no surprise. Rees-Mogg, like Blair a politician of religious conviction, sees Blair as “the one sinner who has repented.” That, however, is to misunderstand Blair – who has not repented of anything.

It must be remembered that Blair – unlike Gordon Brown – never had any genuine connection with the Labour Party of the 1980s, or, more importantly, the trade union movement.

Blair created the modern Labour Party in the 1990s – together with Peter Mandelson, now sadly of blessed, if fading memory – and he was always a determined opponent of the left wing of the party.

Indeed, one motive for his intervention this week may have been to destroy Burnham’s chances of becoming prime minister. Burnham once sat in Blair’s cabinet – at that time wearing Armani suits – and it is difficult for even a political Pope to forgive an apostate, especially one who, decades later, adopts the heresy of Corbynism.

Blair was always an avid supporter of globalization – embracing all of its elitist irrational ideologies, including catastrophic climate change – and throughout his ten years as prime minister he advanced the economic interests of the then emerging global elites.

Blair has always been something of a pragmatist, and his recent about-face on net zero simply reflects the fact that the green energy titans have recently been displaced in the West by the Tech Giants as the rulers of the new technologically based global economy.

Politically, the tech titans are all authoritarians – witness the totalitarian screeds of Peter Thiel, the mentor of J.D. Vance, and Elon Musk’s support initially for Reform, and more lately (Nigel Farage does not appreciate being dictated to) for the even more right-wing Restore Party. This probably explains, at least in part, Blair’s recent shift to the political right.

It may also be relevant that Blair’s think tank, the modestly named Tony Blair Institute, receives substantial funding from the powerful Big Tech corporations.

On one issue, however, Blair has remained absolutely consistent – his unwavering support for America’s wars of foreign aggression. From Kosovo to Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Gaza, Blair has always been an enthusiastic warmonger, and ultra loyal supporter of whoever happens to reside in the White House at any given time, no matter what political party has elected that esteemed personage to that high office.

In this week’s essay, Blair took time out to pointedly condemn Starmer for failing to provide support for Trump and Netanyahu’s ill-advised and failed war with Iran – incidentally, one of the very few principled decisions ever taken by that now unfortunate lame-duck prime minister.

What then has been the effect of Blair’s extraordinary political intervention this week? I suspect not much – other than to intensify the existing divisions and chaos within the terminally moribund Labour Party.

Prior to this week the Labour Party had thrown up one unimpressive “savior” – Andy Burnham – and now it apparently has two rescuers determined to save it from political oblivion. 

But any credible political party with a viable future has no need of even one “savior” – and only a party in its political death throes could create two such misguided and politically redundant redeemers as Burnham and Tony Blair.

Vale the UK Labour Party.

Russian cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, on his first spacewalk of 2026 on the International Space Station (ISS), sent a message to his mother.

Current ISS commander Kud-Sverchkov and his fellow cosmonaut Sergey Mikayev were performing scheduled installation and removal of scientific experiment hardware on the outer hull of the space station on Wednesday.

A stream of the spacewalk, broadcast by Russian space corporation Roscosmos, shows Kud-Sverchkov holding up a laminated piece of paper with the words “Mom, I’m wearing my hat” printed in Russian.

Over the course of more than six hours, the cosmonauts installed new hardware to observe the Sun in the previously unexplored terahertz range of the electromagnetic spectrum, and retrieved a slide from an experiment attempting to grow ultra-pure semiconductors in space.

They also uninstalled a container used to test whether bacteria, fungi, and plant seeds could survive five years exposed to vacuum, cosmic radiation, and temperature fluctuations.

Kud-Sverchkov and Mikayev were launched to the ISS alongside NASA astronaut Chris Williams aboard the Russian Soyuz MS-28 in last November. Kud-Sverchkov then took over command of the ISS Expedition 74 from NASA astronaut Mike Fincke.

The Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, has approved legislation authorizing the central bank and major financial institutions to deploy armed personnel to counter Ukrainian drone attacks against civilians and infrastructure.

Ukrainian drone raids against Russia have intensified over the past year, with hundreds of UAVs targeting residential areas, critical infrastructure, and industrial facilities. Russian officials have called the strikes terrorist attacks.

Last week, Ukrainian kamikaze drones struck Starobelsk Professional College in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic in three waves, hitting the main building and student dormitories. Twenty-one people were killed, most of them teenage girls training to become teachers; another 65 were injured in what officials described as a double-tap strike on first responders.

The week prior, Russian air defenses repelled a massive Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow and the surrounding region. More than 12 people were reported injured in the capital; three people were killed and another six wounded in Moscow Region.

In response to the deadly school attack, Russia launched a massive strike on military targets in Ukraine, using Oreshnik, Iskander, Kinzhal, and Zircon missiles, along with cruise missiles and attack drones. The Russian Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted Ukrainian military command facilities, air bases, and defense industry enterprises, adding that no attacks were conducted against civilian infrastructure.

Under the new law, armored transport and cash collection crews from the Bank of Russia and Sberbank would be granted authority to neutralize unmanned aerial, naval, and ground vehicles, as well as other automated drone systems.

The measures can be used to repel attacks and prevent threats against protected facilities, employees, and civilians on site. The law would authorize personnel to jam or alter drone control signals, disrupt operator communications, and disable or destroy unmanned vehicles if necessary.

The bill still requires approval from the Federation Council and President Vladimir Putin.

The heads of two leading artificial intelligence companies have offered sharply different forecasts on whether the technology will trigger mass job losses. The split comes as as Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and other tech giants continue large-scale layoffs tied to AI restructuring.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Tuesday that AI is unlikely to trigger a global “jobs apocalypse,” admitting that he had been wrong about how quickly the technology would eliminate white-collar jobs.

“I’m delighted to ⁠be wrong about this, I thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-collar jobs being eliminated by now than ​has actually happened,” Altman told Commonwealth Bank of Australia CEO Matt Comyn.

Altman said OpenAI had been “roughly right” about the technological development of AI since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, but “pretty wrong” about its social and economic effects, arguing that many jobs still include an irreplaceable “human part.”

Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, on the other hand, has warned that there is “a real possibility that AI will displace human labor at very large scale.”

Speaking at the Vatican during the presentation of Pope Leo XIV’s AI encyclical on Monday, Olah said supporting those displaced by AI would become “a moral imperative of historic proportions.” He also warned that AI development is concentrated in a handful of wealthy nations, with no mechanism to ensure the gains are shared globally.

Pope Leo has also repeatedly warned that AI poses risks to “human dignity, justice, and labor,” while calling for strict controls on the technology, particularly in warfare.

The split comes as major US tech firms continue cutting jobs while pouring vast sums into AI infrastructure. The Financial Times reported last month that Meta and Microsoft could cut up to 16,000 employees as both companies face rising AI-related costs. Earlier, Amazon announced roughly 30,000 layoffs across two rounds linked to restructuring and its AI push. Oracle has also reportedly laid off around 30,000 people worldwide.

Meanwhile, US polling published in March showed that Americans increasingly view artificial intelligence as a threat to their livelihoods and that nearly 80% of respondents fear the government has no plan to protect workers from AI-related job losses.

Last year, US Senator Bernie Sanders predicted that AI could wipe out nearly 100 million white- and blue-collar jobs in the US over the next decade.

Russia is setting a “trap” for the EU by encouraging member states to decide who should represent the bloc in direct talks with Moscow, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has claimed.

EU officials have for months complained that US-Russian negotiations on the Ukraine conflict have left Europeans sidelined. However, the 27-member bloc has still failed to agree on who could speak for its interests in possible direct negotiations with Moscow, which were cut off after the escalation of the conflict in 2022.

“I find that it is a trap that Russia wants us to walk into, that we discuss who talks to them, and they are already picking who is suitable and who is not,” Kallas told reporters on Thursday ahead of an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Cyprus.

EU leaders previously rebuked Russian President Vladimir Putin for saying he would personally find talks with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder pleasing. Putin’s remark was interpreted in the West as an attempt by Moscow to dictate the EU’s diplomatic choices. In the same comments, however, Putin stressed that Russia would be willing to speak with whomever Brussels appoints, provided that person does not have a record of openly anti-Russian rhetoric.

Kallas, who has built a reputation as a Russia hawk and has publicly opposed any negotiations with Putin, declined to say whether she wants the role herself, noting only that her “job description [is] in the treaties.” The European External Action Service, which she leads, has often been overshadowed by the office of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on several key foreign-policy issues.

The EU’s approach to Russia should be “a team effort,” Kallas said. Successful negotiations require that “you have good cops, you have bad cops, you have strategy on how you go to the table,” she added.

Kallas also vowed to keep pushing for restrictions on the Russian military to be included in any Ukraine peace deal. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov refused to address the demand, saying he does not “comment on idiotic statements.”

European Council President Antonio Costa argued as early as February 2025 that the EU should talk to Russia after US President Donald Trump abandoned the policy of isolating Moscow. The debate over who should serve as the bloc’s single negotiator has remained deadlocked, with media reports naming potential candidates including former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and others.

Commenting on Kallas’ remarks, Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov said Moscow could do nothing to help the EU overcome its indecision.

South Africa recorded 989,329 international tourist arrivals in April, marking the country’s strongest monthly year-on-year tourism growth so far this year despite ongoing global aviation disruptions linked to the conflict in the Middle East.

Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille on Wednesday welcomed the sharp increase in visitor numbers, with the latest Statistics South Africa International Tourism Report showing arrivals surged by 19.5% compared to April 2025.

The April figures pushed total international arrivals for the first four months of 2026 to 3 899 358, an increase of 14.1% compared to the same period last year. This translates to an additional 482 935 international arrivals between January and April.

“This is our highest monthly year-on-year increase since the start of the year,” said De Lille.

”This means that despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which has led to global flight disruptions and ticket fare price increases, South Africa has not only defended its markets but has also grown in some regions.”

The minister pointed to strong growth from several international markets, particularly Singapore and Brazil. Arrivals from Singapore increased by 70.5% to 938 visitors in April, while Brazil recorded a 37.5% rise with 5 953 arrivals.

The tourism sector is also expected to receive a boost from new international air routes scheduled to launch in the coming months.

Brazilian carrier LATAM Airlines is set to introduce three weekly direct flights between São Paulo and Cape Town in July, after bringing forward its original September launch date because of increased demand.

Meanwhile, Spanish airline Air Europa will launch its inaugural direct route between Madrid and Johannesburg on June 24, 2026.

The latest tourism data shows consistent monthly growth throughout the year so far. South Africa recorded 1 133 533 international arrivals in January, followed by 864 534 in February and 911 962 in March.

The Tourism Ministry said the continued growth reflects the resilience of South Africa’s tourism industry despite mounting pressure on global aviation networks and rising travel costs internationally.

First published by IOL

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is treating the US as a “piggy bank” and is feeding Washington with “propaganda” to get more US-made air defense systems, Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna has said.

On Wednesday, Zelensky received Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal and Democratic Congressman Jim Himes in Kiev, saying that Ukraine is grateful to the US and President Donald Trump for what he called “strong bipartisan support.”

During the talks, Zelensky said Kiev had a “significant need” for air defense missiles, adding that he had sent a letter to the White House and Congress with a wish list. Earlier, Axios reported that Zelensky had asked for an “urgent supply of Patriot interceptors,” with the Ukrainian leader himself saying last month that the missiles are “in such a deficit, it could not be any worse.”

In response, Luna accused Zelensky of lying. “This is literally propaganda and not even true. There is no broad support for an endless war and we are not your piggy bank,” she wrote on X.

Luna also recalled that Trump has been pushing for a negotiated settlement to the conflict, but Zelensky is “the ONLY person holding out on the deal.” “The war CANNOT continue,” Luna added.

Under the Trump administration, Ukraine has been procuring US-made weapons mainly through the PURL initiative, a NATO-backed mechanism under which Kiev’s backers fund shipments for Ukraine. Zelensky has praised the scheme, but said it does not fully cover shortages.

Luna has been an outspoken critic of Zelensky, slamming the Ukrainian leader over the crackdown on the Orthodox Church and advocating a halt in US aid to Kiev. She has also criticized Zelensky over his refusal to hold a presidential election. The Ukrainian leader’s term expired in 2024, with Russia declaring him “illegitimate” and suggesting that his dubious status is an obstacle to signing a binding peace deal.

In March, Zelensky claimed that the US was pressing Ukraine to withdraw from Russia’s Donbass as a precondition for any post-conflict American security guarantees. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, dismissed the claim as “lies.”

Russia has historically maintained close ties with Africa, head of the African Union’s Counterterrorism Research Center, Idriss Mounir Lallali, has told RT. 

African countries and Moscow share common principles, including sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of states, values that resonate strongly across the continent, Lallali stated.

“Russia has historically been very close to Africa, whether it is through the liberation movements, whether it is through capacity building training, military doctrine, exchanges with African member states,” he said.

Uganda’s ambassador to Russia, Moses Kizige, told RT that Moscow supports Kampala in areas ranging from security to immigration systems and personnel training.

Speaking to RT, Ghana’s presidential advisor on national security, Prosper Bani, suggested that African nations have realized the need for sovereign security, however, they cannot address security challenges in isolation and must work together with partners from different regions. 

Oita Etyang, head of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), argued that African countries must increasingly rely on their own capacities and resources, while remaining open to support from international partners.

“It is important now that we start looking at ourselves inwardly, mobilize our own resources, and then we can get support, additional support from Russia and other partners,” he noted.

The comments were made on the sidelines of the International Security Forum held from May 26 to 29 in Moscow, where more than 180 delegations from foreign states and international organizations were represented.

The theme of “African solutions to African problems” has also been repeatedly emphasized by Russian officials. In December, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking at the plenary session of the 2nd Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum in Cairo, said: “We fully uphold the fundamental African principle of ‘African solutions to African problems.’”

An albino buffalo in Bangladesh nicknamed “Donald Trump” because of its blond tuft and resemblance to the US president has been spared from sacrifice during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha after a last-minute government intervention.

The nearly 700-kg animal had already been sold for ritual slaughter and was being prepared for the Muslim festival when authorities stepped in after viral videos and selfie-seeking crowds turned it into an unlikely celebrity.

The rescue was reported on Wednesday by multiple outlets. Bangladeshi Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed ordered officials to stop the sacrifice, refund the buyer, and relocate the animal.

The pale-skinned buffalo from Narayanganj near Dhaka became a social media sensation after videos highlighted its cream-colored forelock, which many Bangladeshis said looked like Trump’s trademark hairstyle.

“My younger brother named the buffalo Donald Trump because the hair on the front of its head resembles Donald Trump,” owner Ziauddin Mridha said. “Despite its striking appearance it is very calm by nature.”

Crowds traveled daily to the farm to pose for photos as clips of the animal spread widely online.

Residents gathered in the Jijira area on Wednesday hoping to catch a glimpse of the buffalo before Eid festivities, only to find authorities had already removed it. Footage published by local media showed the animal being led away with ropes and loaded onto a pickup truck as early visitors looked on. Some reports said the buffalo was taken to the national zoo in Dhaka while others said it might be returned temporarily to the farm where it was raised.

“We have been told that the price of the buffalo will be paid or an animal of the same value will be given for sacrifice,” said Moniruzzaman, who according to local reports bought the buffalo for the Eid sacrifice. Several disappointed visitors told reporters they had traveled with their children after seeing the buffalo online but arrived too late to see the now-famous animal.

Albino buffaloes are extremely rare in Bangladesh because of a genetic condition that reduces pigmentation leaving them with pale skin and light hair.

There should be no double standards in tackling threats to international security, Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval has said at the first International Security Forum in Moscow on Thursday.

Terrorism remains one of the most serious threats to international security, Doval said, citing the April 2025 Pahalgam terrorist attacks in Kashmir, India that killed 26 civilians.

“Responsible nations must evaluate their choice and decide whether they support sponsors of terrorism or counter them,” he said.

In response to the attacks, India launched a series of strikes against suspected terrorist-linked sites in Pakistan, in a three-day military operation dubbed Operation Sindoor.

❗️🇮🇳 NSA Doval Praises ‘Multifaceted’ India-Russia Partnership, Highlights ‘Further Broader Cooperation’ in Bilateral Meet with 🇷🇺 Security Council Secretary Shoigu pic.twitter.com/X4dOV8tna6

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) May 28, 2026

The national security adviser also used his address to the forum, which is held under the auspices of the Russian Security Council, to draw attention to security and economic issues that face the global community as it transitions to a multipolar world.

“Power is no longer concentrated in a few hands, although a few may think it to be,” he said.

The current geopolitical and economic instability – in part due to the ongoing tensions in the Middle East – has posed challenges to trade and technology, Doval said. “Risks to maritime traffic and disruption to energy infrastructure show how fragile the... situation is.”

Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, through which around a fifth of the global energy supplies once passed, has remained largely blocked following the US-Israeli strikes against Iran. This has sent oil prices soaring, forcing energy companies in India to raise prices for the fourth time in two weeks.

“India stands ready to continue to constructively support all efforts to reduce tensions and help restore stability,” Doval added.

He also drew attention to the need for equitable access to critical minerals, rare earths, and energy supplies for the Global South, as supply chains and “access to tech are being weaponized.”

Doval went on to say that the UN has become incapable of addressing global security challenges. “There is an urgent need for reform in the UN,” he said, adding that the voice of the majority of the world’s population must be factored into global decision-making.

All BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states are taking part in the forum, in which key global security challenges are being discussed.

Germany is drawing up a law that would force former soldiers to attend regular military exercises, as Berlin pushes ahead with its militarization campaign, Der Spiegel reported on Wednesday. Moscow has denounced the EU’s military buildup as being aimed against Russia and a ploy to distract the public from deepening domestic crises.

According to the draft Reserve Strengthening Act seen by the German outlet, all men and women who have performed less than one year of voluntary military service and are under 45 will be required to take part in military exercises either two weeks a year or every two years.

Those who served for more than a year, or who enlisted as career or temporary soldiers, could be compelled to participate until the age of 65, the paper says.

The explanatory memorandum to the bill states that mandatory drills are urgently needed to ensure the “reliable availability of reserves” to safeguard national security.

The proposed bill is the latest move in Germany’s sweeping military buildup, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowing last year to turn the Bundeswehr into “the strongest conventional army in Europe.” 

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has set a goal of 265,000 active troops and 200,000 reservists by the mid-2030s, while Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on Friday that the government will spend more than 4% of the country’s GDP on defense this year. Germany’s total military spending in 2026 will stand at around €108 billion ($125 billion), up from €86 billion in 2025.

Germany has justified the costly militarization campaign by citing Russia and claiming that Moscow will remain “the greatest security threat for Europe” for the foreseeable future. Germany and other EU countries have also speculated that Russia could attack NATO in Europe within several years – a claim dismissed by Moscow as “nonsense.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said the EU’s militarization drive will only destabilize the continent, stressing that Moscow views it as “aggressive” posturing. Russia has also accused European governments of using propaganda to turn it into a “model external enemy” to justify the continent’s internal problems.

Germany is concerned about a potential flood of Ukrainian immigrants from Poland after Warsaw sharply reduced social benefits, Bild reported on Wednesday, citing a confidential report by the German security authorities.

Germany and Poland have accepted the largest numbers of Ukrainian refugees in the EU since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, according to Eurostat data.

Germany was hosting around 1.3 million people under temporary protection as of March 2026, accounting for more than 29% of the EU total. The number in Poland was around a million, or more than 22% of all Ukrainians granted protection across the bloc.

“The content of the new regulations [in Poland] is primarily aimed at placing Ukrainian nationals on the same footing as third-country nationals,” the report seen by Bild stated. “In addition to free access to healthcare and social services, the right to free accommodation is also being abolished,” it added.

Earlier this year, Warsaw approved legislation gradually phasing out the Special Act on Assistance to Ukrainian Citizens, introduced in March 2022 as an emergency response to the escalated conflict. The act created a unique legal regime granting Ukrainians rights nearly equal to those of Polish citizens and access to extensive financial and social benefits.

Other European countries, including the UK, Norway, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and Hungary, have recently taken steps to curb social programs or reduce the number of arrivals. Officials have cited the prolonged conflict and pressures on national budgets and housing markets as a major reason for the move.

Germany has also taken steps to tighten support rules for Ukrainians, including plans to reduce welfare payments for new arrivals.

German officials have increasingly emphasized labor market integration and faster employment for refugees. In November, Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that the employment rate among Ukrainian refugees living in Germany is unacceptably low.

Russian Parliament Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said in 2024 that the issue of Ukrainian refugees was becoming an increasing challenge for Europe and could develop into a new migrant crisis.

The US is ramping up efforts to prevent Ebola from reaching the country, as concerns grow over an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), where the disease has caused a suspected 220 deaths.

Speaking at President Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration is determined to stop the virus from entering the country.

“We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States,” Rubio said, describing the outbreak response as “the number one priority of our foreign policy.”

Rubio said the US has “surged assistance” to contain the outbreak overseas, and that several federal agencies are coordinating efforts to track potential carriers before they reach the border.

According to Reuters, US officials are in talks with Kenya about opening a facility to isolate Americans exposed to the virus in the region.

Kenyan officials affirmed discussions with Washington on what Health Minister Aden Duale called “preparedness and response mechanisms for Ebola,” but did not confirm plans for a quarantine center for Americans.

“Any arrangements regarding international health cooperation will be guided by Kenya’s national laws, public health regulations, biosafety and biosecurity standards, and the government’s responsibility to safeguard the health and welfare of Kenyans,” Duale said in a statement.

The discussions come as Washington introduces emergency restrictions targeting foreign nationals who recently visited DR Congo, Uganda, or South Sudan. US citizens returning from these countries are only allowed to enter through Washington Dulles International Airport. This follows reports that an American doctor who tested positive for Ebola while working with a medical group in DR Congo is being treated at a hospital in Germany.

The epidemic, which was officially declared on May 15, is DR Congo’s 17th recorded Ebola outbreak and is linked to the Bundibugyo strain of the virus. Health officials say the outbreak has raised additional concerns because there are currently no approved vaccines or targeted treatments available for this strain.

The choice between war and peace is often presented as stark and simple, but in today’s circumstances it’s a false dilemma.

If by war we mean only armed conflict, then the current fighting with Ukraine will probably end in the foreseeable future because an indefinite war of attrition isn’t in Russia’s interests. What is needed is victory, and such a victory is possible, provided the necessary decisions are taken both at home and on the battlefield.

But full peace will not follow and even after the guns fall silent, confrontation with the West will continue in many fields and in many forms. This struggle will be long and it will require something Russia has lacked for too long: long-term goal-setting and a serious strategy for achieving national objectives.

The central task is the construction of Russia as a state-civilization. This idea has been proclaimed but not yet properly defined, and it must involve the creation of a society based on solidarity among citizens and on values broadly shared by them, such as faith, freedom, family, and justice. Such a project inevitably raises the question of deep renewal in the country’s economic and political systems.

This can’t be a project of the elite alone. Of course, the elite themselves require renewal, and not merely in generational terms; they also need new mechanisms of self-renewal and a different relationship with the wider society. Meritocracy is necessary, but it’s not sufficient and while competence and professionalism matter, so do values and a sense of service.

Only under these conditions can a national project cease to be an intellectual exercise and become an idea capable, to use a familiar phrase, of capturing the masses and only such an idea can transform Russia.

Then it may be possible to say that the Great Patriotic War (World War Two), with all its trials, sacrifices, and losses, wasn’t only a turning point in national history, but also the prologue to Russia and its people acquiring a new quality.

The internal character of the state and society will shape Russia’s place in the world and a renewed Russia will be able to act as a stronger pole, in the literal magnetic sense of the word. But the most important task is to avoid being forced into alignment with either of the major geo-economic and geopolitical blocs: the Euro-Atlantic bloc or China.

The stakes in the confrontation with the West are exceptionally high. Despite all the talk about a possible resumption of dialogue between the European Union and Russia, no one in Western Europe is genuinely ready to negotiate with Moscow. The goal of our adversary, the globalist elites of the West, as President Vladimir Putin has defined them, isn’t compromise but rather the crushing of Russia.

This must be understood clearly because the aim is not simply regime change, but rather the destruction of Russia as a major independent power in world affairs.

In this struggle, Russia must rely first and foremost on itself. Belarus is part of our common homeland, as President Alexander Lukashenko has put it and our brotherhood in arms with North Korea has been sealed in blood. We deeply value the strategic partnership with China, which continues to expand and deepen, but we must also understand that Beijing always acts first of all in its own national interests. The same is true of our other partners in the CSTO, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, and the wider Global Majority.

For three generations after the Great Patriotic War, Russians were raised in conditions of external security. At first, this security rested on strategic stability and mutual nuclear deterrence with the United States and later, it was sustained by partnership and cooperation in a world where major war came to be seen as an anachronism.

That world is gone. The old security paradigm has become obsolete and we now face a new and uncomfortable reality: war in peacetime, or peace in wartime.

Russia must accept this reality, endure a long and difficult struggle, and emerge from it transformed and victorious. That is the path ahead and there’s no road back. The only alternative is decline.

The refusal by British state broadcaster the BBC to report from the site where a Ukrainian drone attack killed 21 students is an act of “hypocrisy,” Russia’s ambassador to the UK, Andrey Kelin, has said. He accused British media outlets of “diligently pursuing a political agenda” to discredit Moscow.

Last week, Ukrainian kamikaze drones struck the Starobelsk Professional College in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) in three waves, hitting both the main building and student dormitories.

Most of the 21 people killed in the attack were teenage girls training to become teachers. Another 65 were injured in what Russian officials described as a ‘double-tap’ strike on first responders.

Some 50 foreign journalists from 19 countries reported from the scene on Sunday after accepting an invitation from the Russian authorities. The BBC, as well as US network CNN, refused to visit the site of the atrocity.

Speaking to the Zvezda TV channel on Wednesday, Kelin lashed out at what he described as the “twisted logic” of Western journalism. While London and other Western capitals frequently speak about freedom of speech, the reality is the opposite, he said.

“The overwhelming majority of the British media are diligently pursuing a political agenda aimed at discrediting our country,” Kelin stated. He added that the actions of the Russian military are often portrayed as targeted attacks on civilians, while “the bloody crimes committed by the Kiev regime against civilians are completely ignored.”

According to Kelin, while the BBC refused to visit Starobelsk, reporters from Reuters were “less cynical” and participated in the trip. However, he described their coverage as “ostentatiously detached, if not biased,” noting that the agency labeled the strike “alleged” and claimed an inability to verify the attack independently.

In a Telegram post on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested CNN may have been filming preparations for the Starobelsk attack rather than covering its aftermath.

She noted that after the network declined the invitation to visit Starobelsk, four days later it aired a segment praising the effectiveness of Ukrainian drones, filmed by correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, who is wanted in Russia over his alleged involvement in the Kursk incursion of 2024.

Zakharova pointed to a detail in the CNN report about a drone strike on Stavropol, suggesting Walsh could have been embedded with a Ukrainian unit “at the very moment they were coordinating a planned attack on the college in Starobelsk.”

US President Donald Trump has given Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan his “complete and total” endorsement ahead of parliamentary elections early next month. The US and Armenia recently announced a major partnership agreement, with Russia warning that Yerevan could lose major economic benefits if it distances itself from Moscow.

In a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump praised Pashinyan as “a great friend and Leader” who is “making his Country strong, wealthy, and very secure.” 

He added that the Armenian leader “completely shares my vision of PEACE and PROSPERITY for Armenia and the entire South Caucasus region,” concluding the post with: “Make (Armenia) Great Again – MAGA!” Pashinyan thanked Trump, calling the message a mark of “high appreciation and friendly words.”

The endorsement arrived two days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Yerevan, where the sides announced a bilateral framework agreement on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).

The project would carve a 43-km road-and-rail corridor through southern Armenia, linking Azerbaijan to the exclave of Nakhchivan, while opening a transit gateway for American energy companies reaching into Central Asia. Under the framework, the US holds a 74% stake in the TRIPP Development Company for an initial 49-year term, with Armenia retaining full sovereignty over all project areas.

Moscow has warned that if Armenia turns away from economic cooperation with Russia – from which it imports around 82% of its gas – it could lose access to “very attractive” preferential prices.

Officials in Moscow maintain that Armenia – which hosts a Russian military base – remains “a fraternal country,” but have expressed concerns over Pashinyan’s push to forge closer ties with the EU.
Earlier this month, Armenia hosted a summit of the European Political Community. The event was attended by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, who urged European leaders to increase military and financial pressure on Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would “expect some explanations” from Yerevan, criticizing Pashinyan for what he called a failure to “balance” Zelensky’s rhetoric.

“That is abnormal and does not fit with the spirit of our relations with Yerevan,” Peskov said, adding that Moscow does not understand “why anti-Russian statements are coming from [Armenia].”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also warned Pashinyan that simultaneous membership in the Eurasian Economic Union – which comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan – and the EU is impossible. Russia has also said that Armenia’s EEAU membership “is yielding concrete dividends,” but that its current political course could lead to a decline in living standards.

Pashinyan heads into the election amid declining poll numbers. His approval rating – which soared to 82% when he swept to power on a wave of protests in 2018 – has since cratered, with a survey in May by the CAEAC Focus sociological center showing approval at around 11%.

His numbers have been reeling due to Armenia’s defeat in a proxy war with neighboring Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the crackdown on the Armenian Apostolic Church, which has backed the opposition.

Pashinyan has also sparred with Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian-Armenian billionaire and leader of the opposition Strong Armenia bloc. Karapetyan was arrested last year on charges of inciting a coup – which the billionaire has denied – after he condemned Pashinyan over the crackdown on the clergy.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it targeted a US airbase in the region on Thursday in response to new strikes, marking the second armed clash between the rivals this week.

The latest confrontation began with reports of explosions shortly after midnight in Iran’s southern port city of Bandar Abbas, which is home to a naval base.

In a statement to the media, a US official said American forces shot down four Iranian kamikaze drones that “posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz” and had also struck a ground control station in Bandar Abbas that “was about to launch a fifth drone.”

The official described the actions as “measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire.”

Hours later, several missiles and drones were intercepted over Kuwait, the kingdom’s Defense Ministry said. Open-source analysts suggested online that the projectiles may have been heading toward Ali Al Salem Air Base near the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border.

The IRGC later released a statement saying it targeted a US base involved in the earlier strike on a site near Bandar Abbas Airport. “The aggressor bears full responsibility for the consequences,” the statement said.

The hostilities followed US “self-defense” strikes on Iranian naval vessels and sites in the southern Hormozgan province on Monday. Tehran denounced the attacks as a gross violation of the ceasefire reached on April 8.

Although US officials indicated this week that the sides are close to reaching a preliminary peace agreement, there are no signs that either Washington or Tehran is willing to compromise. Both countries have accused each other of setting unacceptable terms.

Australia could host American nuclear weapons at some point, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu has warned. Washington is also eyeing Japan and South Korea as deployment options, he told a Russia-ASEAN meeting on Wednesday.

The US military could deploy Typhon missile systems in southwestern Japan for the Valiant Shield and Orient Shield joint exercises as early as next month. The systems are specifically designed to fire nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles. The Japanese embassy in Moscow has stated that the Typhon system would be “stored” at a US base in Japan after the drills, claiming that this does not amount to “permanent deployment.”

“Japan and the Republic of Korea are preparing to host American nuclear weapons on their territory,” Shoigu told the Russia-ASEAN security meeting. “Such weapons could also end up on the territory of Australia because of its participation in the AUKUS partnership.”

Canberra joined the AUKUS security pact with the US and UK in 2021. Under the deal, the US agreed to provide the Australian Navy with the nuclear technology needed to produce and operate Virginia-class submarines. The Australian Submarine Agency maintains that its acquisition of nuclear-powered undersea vessels does not breach the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The move could be part of America’s military buildup strategy in the Asia-Pacific, the Russian security council secretary stated. Washington is preparing to employ “tried and true methods for extracting money from its vassals for American adventures” in Asia, Shoigu warned, adding that the US and Japan are already discussing the formation of an Indo-Pacific Treaty Organization mirroring NATO.

A bill was introduced in the US Congress last month that would oblige President Donald Trump to create a task force to explore potential avenues for creating a NATO-like structure in the Asia-Pacific and assess their feasibility. Tokyo called for such a bloc as early as in 2024.

Both Moscow and Beijing have previously expressed concern about potential NATO expansion into Asia. In October, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused NATO of seeking to turn the entire Eurasian continent into a “fiefdom” aimed at “containing China, isolating Russia,” and confronting North Korea.

The US is making unacceptable demands during negotiations with Iran after failing to defeat the country militarily, Ali Bagheri, the deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has told RT.

Bagheri, who served as foreign minister from 2021 to 2024, spoke to RT in Moscow, where he attended a security conference and met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Borisenko.

He argued that the “excessive demands” made by the US demonstrate that officials in Washington are “detached from reality.”

Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to ships from “hostile countries” in response to US and Israeli airstrikes and has since insisted on its right to regulate traffic and collect tolls. Bagheri said the conflict shows that the status of the strait is vital to Iran’s security.

“Iran, like other independent countries, believes in peace through dialogue and negotiations. The US does not believe in peace through diplomacy. It believes in peace through force, aggression, and barbarism,” he said.

Bagheri said there is “no problem” in relations between Iran and the Gulf states, blaming the US for regional tensions. He argued that the military presence of the US and Israel is an obstacle to peace in the region.

Iran fired drones and missiles at Gulf states hosting US bases during the conflict, arguing that the strikes were carried out in self-defense.

Although US officials indicated this week that the sides are close to reaching a preliminary agreement, there are no signs that either Washington or Tehran is willing to compromise. Both countries have accused each other of setting unacceptable terms.

Former US President Bill Clinton should not have been impeached for his affair with Monica Lewinsky, but for lying in an earlier sexual harassment case, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has said.

Gingrich led the 1998 impeachment of Clinton, in which ‘Slick Willy’ was charged with – and acquitted of – lying under oath and obstruction of justice. The charges centered on Clinton claiming that he “did not have sexual relations with” White House intern Monica Lewinsky, which he did.

Speaking to New York Post columnist Miranda Devine on Tuesday, Gingrich said he now considers the decision to impeach Clinton over the Lewinsky affair to be “a mistake.”

“I think it was a mistake because the real problem wasn’t Lewinsky,” he said. “The real problem was he had committed perjury in a case involving sexual harassment while he was governor. In fact, he was stripped of his law license in Arkansas after he left the presidency, and for five years couldn’t practice because he clearly committed a felony.”

In 1999, a federal judge found that Clinton committed perjury in a civil case brought by Paula Jones, an Arkansas government employee who accused Clinton of exposing himself to her while he was governor of the state in 1991. Clinton was not criminally convicted of perjury, but he was held in contempt of court and stripped of his law license.

The focus of the impeachment on Clinton’s sex life, rather than his “felonies… trivialized” the process, Gingrich told Devine.

Ultimately, Clinton saw out the end of his second term, and Gingrich was forced to resign after the Republican Party lost seats in the 1998 midterm elections. Gingrich later admitted that he was having an affair with a Congressional staffer during the impeachment saga.

Earlier this month, the New York Times interviewed dozens of lawmakers and staffers, concluding that sexual harassment “is still rampant among Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill and often goes unaddressed.” Two prominent lawmakers – Representatives Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzalez – have resigned this year over inappropriate relationships with staffers.

President Donald Trump has suggested that the US would attack its ally Oman if it attempts to seize control of the Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively been closed since the US and Israel launched attacks against Iran in February.

According to Reuters, Trump made the remarks after Iranian state TV reported that it obtained an unofficial draft agreement that would reopen the vital waterway, with Iran and Oman jointly managing maritime traffic.

“No, the strait is going to be open to everybody,” Trump told journalists during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “We’ll watch over it, but nobody’s going to control it. That’s part of the negotiation that we have.”

“It’s international waters. And Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow them up. They understand that. They’ll be fine,” Trump said.

Oman, a key US ally, mediated talks on Iran’s nuclear program until they were suspended by the conflict.

Iran and Oman lie on opposite sides of the narrowest part of the Strait of Hormuz, which normally handles around 25% of global seaborne oil trade and 20% of liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments.

Iran closed the route to ships from “hostile nations” following the US-Israeli airstrikes, while the US declared its own blockade of Iranian ports in April. Tehran has since insisted on its “sovereign right” to manage traffic through the strait and collect tolls.

Iran’s peace terms reportedly include demands for reparations, the withdrawal of US troops from the region, and an end to Israel’s wars in Lebanon and Gaza. The US has demanded that Iran completely dismantle its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is entirely peaceful.

Dan Greaney, the Simpsons writer who foresaw Donald Trump winning the White House decades in advance, has announced his own 2028 bid for presidency.

The Simpsons’ longtime writer and producer wrote the ‘Bart to the Future’ episode, broadcast in March of 2000, in which an adult Lisa Simpson appears as “America’s first straight female president,” who inherits a “budget crunch from President Trump.”

In a video on social media on Tuesday, Greaney, dressed as a prophet in a loose robe and large fake beard, accuses Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and “billionaires, careerists and cowards in both parties” of turning their backs on America’s founding principle “that all men are created equal.”

“The government is supposed to work for everyone. Democracy for all, accountability for all, prosperity for all. We must restore this,” he says.

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A post shared by Dan Greaney (@dangreaneyusa)

“I’d love to help, but I’m not a lawyer, I’m just a self-proclaimed prophet who went to law school, graduated, passed the bar,” Greaney says in the video, and – as if in sudden realization – tears off the robe and beard to reveal a suit underneath.

“Wait, I am a lawyer,” he says, announcing that he would run for president of the United States on the platform “America for All.”

According to his campaign website, the self-styled “progressive Republican” supports fighting influence-buying, improving transparency in US politics, making housing more readily available, and expanding universal health care.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has renamed an elite commando unit, adding a dedication to World War II-era nationalist paramilitaries responsible for the massacres of Poles and Jews.

According to a decree signed on Tuesday, the Special Operations Center North will bear the honorary title ‘Heroes of the UPA’, referring to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the military wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). The change reflects “the revival of the historic traditions of the national army,” the document said.

The OUN sought to establish an ethnically and religiously homogeneous Ukrainian state and collaborated with Nazi Germany during the early stages of the invasion of the Soviet Union. The UPA was formed in 1942 following a split between much of the OUN leadership and the Germans. Its leaders included Roman Shukhevich, a former deputy commander of the Nazi-led Nachtigall Battalion.

Ukrainian nationalists played a major role in the 1941 Lviv pogrom, and from 1943-44, killed around 100,000 Polish civilians in what is now western Ukraine. The massacres remain a point of contention between modern-day Poland and Ukraine, and have fueled diplomatic tensions, as Ukrainian officials and activists have at times downplayed or justified the atrocities committed by the UPA.

Nationalists and UPA veterans, including Shukhevich and OUN leader Stepan Bandera, are officially celebrated in Ukraine as freedom fighters. Streets have been named after them, and commemorative events are held in their honor, including torchlit marches on January 1, Bandera’s birthday.

In February 2026, the head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, Aleksandr Alferov, who previously served as a spokesman for the neo-Nazi Azov unit, dismissed the massacres of Poles as a “myth,” prompting outrage in Warsaw.

Earlier this week, the Ukrainian authorities reburied the remains of one of the OUN leaders, Andrey Melnik, after repatriating them from Luxembourg. Zelensky attended the ceremony.

Russia has long accused Ukraine of glorifying Nazi collaborators. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the practice “very dangerous for Europe.”

Students are being taught that black people cannot be racist towards white people as part of an educational initiative aimed at, yes, countering racism.

According to teaching materials adopted by a group of Sheffield schools and introduced by Notre Dame High School, teenagers are explicitly taught: “Black people can be racially prejudiced towards a white person which is wrong and totally unacceptable. However, this is not racism. Racism is racial prejudice plus power. In the UK, white people hold the cultural power.”

In a lesson plan on “being anti-racist in our actions” for children aged seven to 11, a portion of the curriculum is devoted to “empathy building” including “privilege”.

It says: “In Britain, white people are likely to be privileged by the colour of their skin. This privilege arises because they are much less likely to be affected by racist behaviour, including bias, discrimination and verbal and physical abuse.

“Privileged people have a responsibility to reduce racism by: being aware of it; improving their own language and behaviour; challenging their friends’ language and behaviour; reporting incidents of racism; providing support to those who have been harmed by discrimination.”

The initiative pushes the idea that all white people enjoy “white privilege,” despite the fact that this is glaringly untrue. There are large segments of the white population that are impoverished and discriminated against on a daily basis. At the same time, many white people are the target of violence largely due to the color of their skin. In short, the term is highly divisive and unjustly generalizes and alienates disadvantaged white communities.

Another part of the teaching focuses on white-on-black racism. Students are asked: if racism against blacks is overblown, then how can it be explained that black people are 10 times more likely to be pulled over in their car than white people? Or why is it that black people are being flagged as possible shoplifters every time they walk into a store? Why are the majority of people behind bars in many British towns and cities black when black people are in the minority?

In a question-and-answer section that seems to accept that all of this is the consequence of racism, students are asked: “What is happening? Why is this an example of racism? If race isn’t real, how do you explain this? Has the concept of race led some people to believe that some groups of people are different to others?

“Are certain racial groups being treated differently? Are there other possible explanations for this?”

But is this treatment of black people simply the result of racism and skin color? Or is it more due to the realities on the ground which show that, per capita, black people are more prone to commit crimes than white people? Could it be that it is the black crime rate that largely causes racism against black people? This is not to suggest that racism doesn’t exist, or that there are no police officers who unfairly target black citizens, but crime statistics don’t lie.

In order to resolve the problem, society needs to get to the root causes of black crime, which include economic inequality that black people disproportionately suffer from. Until we reach that day, reckless school lessons like the ones being introduced in the UK risk inciting violence against white people, and thankfully there are British politicians who are able to see the inherent dangers of teaching materials like these.

Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott has called on the government to intervene and make sure no school uses these materials.

She said: “It is deeply alarming that children as young as seven are being exposed to divisive identity politics in schools under the banner of ‘anti-racism education.’

“These materials teach children that black prejudice against white people cannot be described as racism, present contested concepts like ‘white privilege’ as unquestionable fact and encourage pupils to see themselves primarily through the lens of race.

“It is hugely damaging and exactly the kind of Left-wing ideological nonsense that should be nowhere near our classrooms.

“Labelling children by race and teaching them to focus on what divides them will only foster resentment and deepen division.”

Parents in the United Kingdom are beginning to push back against an educational system that seems more interested in indoctrinating students with critical race theory than providing a solid education. Children should not be spending their childhood thinking about their peers’ skin color or whether racism against white people exits. In reality, when left to their own devices, children do not place any importance on other children’s skin color and play happily together. It is only when meddling ideologues intervene that children begin to believe there is a problem.

Israel carried out heavy strikes across southern Lebanon after declaring the entire area a “combat zone.” RT witnessed the evacuations ahead of the bombardment.

Wednesday’s escalation came after Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued evacuation orders for several areas ahead of what it described as strikes on Hezbollah targets. Maps published by the IDF earlier in the day marked large sections of the Lebanese Tyre region for evacuation, and military spokesman Avichay Adraee warned that all areas south of the Zahrani River were considered a “combat zone.”

Reporting from Lebanon’s Tyre District, RT journalist Ali Rida Sbeity said residents had begun fleeing the city, noting that many had “stayed throughout the war, even at its peak and after the ceasefire, but now they are taking this road toward Saida and Beirut, seeking safer areas.”

In a statement posted hours later on X, the IDF claimed that it had struck military buildings, command centers, and launch sites allegedly used by Hezbollah in the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. The military claimed that around 550 Hezbollah-linked targets had been hit since the beginning of the week, adding that operations around Tyre were ongoing.

צה"ל תקף מבנים צבאיים, מפקדות ואתרי שיגור בבקעא: מתחילת השבוע הותקפו כ-550 מטרות של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בלבנון

לאורך היום, צה"ל תקף בבקעא ובמספר מרחבים בדרום לבנון מבנים צבאיים, מפקדות ואתרי שיגור בשימוש ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה.

תקיפת המפקדות בצור נמשכות גם ברגעים אלו pic.twitter.com/E0qkGQ3Knt

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) May 27, 2026

Lebanese media reported strikes on several southern towns, including Deir Amas, Braiqaa, Srifa, and Toura. The Lebanese army said one of its soldiers had been killed near a military position in the Bekaa region.

Hezbollah says its fighters are continuing to conduct retaliatory operations against Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. The group has repeatedly said it is acting in response to Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement.

The intensified bombing comes amid indirect talks between the US and Iran, with Tehran asserting that Israel must bring a halt to its military operations against Hezbollah if the ceasefire with Washington is to be extended. US President Donald Trump has previously said that Israel should only engage in “surgical” military strikes in Lebanon.

According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, at least 3,213 people have been killed and 9,737 wounded since Israel launched its military operation against Hezbollah following the US-Israeli attack on Iran in late February.

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Kazakhstan on Wednesday for a three-day state visit, with his plane escorted into Astana by the republic’s fighter jets.

Putin was personally welcomed at the airport by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Military and youth orchestras took part in the arrival ceremony, while an honor guard representing all branches of Kazakhstan’s armed forces lined the tarmac.

Tokayev’s press service later confirmed that Russia’s presidential aircraft had been escorted from the moment it crossed the country’s border until its landing in Astana.

The visit at Tokayev’s invitation, which runs from May 27 to 29, coincides with a summit of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Putin is also expected to take part in meetings of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council.

Talks in Astana are expected to focus on trade, energy, regional integration, and broader bilateral cooperation. The Kremlin has described relations between Moscow and Astana as being at an “exceptionally high level.”

The trip is Putin’s second state visit to Kazakhstan during his current presidential term – a relatively rare diplomatic format that Moscow says reflects the close ties between the two countries.

The main events are scheduled for Thursday, when the two leaders are expected to hold talks before overseeing the signing of a package of bilateral agreements.

Russian officials said the sides have prepared 16 documents for signing, including a joint statement on the foundations of friendship and good-neighborliness between the peoples of Russia and Kazakhstan. Agreements linked to energy cooperation, as well as plans for the construction of Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant, are also expected to be discussed.

Putin last visited Kazakhstan in November of 2024, while Tokayev traveled to Moscow on a state visit last year.

Senior figures within Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) are allegedly discussing the possible ousting of Chancellor Friedrich Merz due to his record-low approval ratings, according to German media reports.

According to Bild, talks about potentially “swapping” Merz for another chancellor are reportedly taking place within the party’s top ranks, including among regional leaders such as Hendrik Wust of North Rhine-Westphalia, Boris Rhein of Hesse, and Michael Kretschmer of Saxony.

Wust, who leads Germany’s most populous state, has also been floated by Bild, Focus, and Die Welt as a potential replacement for Merz. Several outlets have described him as Germany’s third most popular politician and the highest-rated CDU figure, while Merz was recently named the world’s most unpopular political leader in a public opinion survey.

Eckart Lohse, head of the parliamentary editorial office at FAZ, wrote on Wednesday that even CDU members who don’t openly oppose Merz now “consider the chancellor weak” and speak of “a palpable feeling of unease.”

“Faith in the strength of the federal government and its leader appears to have eroded so much, even within its own ranks, that the dwindling confidence is no longer being concealed,” Lohse wrote.

Other outlets, including Bild and Focus, have described the reported talks about removing the chancellor as “rumors,” stressing that no concrete plans have emerged so far.

Since taking office in May of 2025, Merz has stepped up support for Ukraine and accelerated Germany’s rearmament drive. He has pledged to make the Bundeswehr Europe’s “strongest” conventional army, citing what he describes as a growing Russian threat.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly dismissed claims that Moscow plans to attack NATO countries as “nonsense,” accusing European leaders of using the narrative to distract their citizens from domestic problems.

Merz has also urged Germans to work more, describing the country’s welfare model as outdated and unsustainable. By mid-April, his disapproval rating had climbed to 76%, with just 19% of Germans satisfied with his performance.

“Significant fractions” of Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical on the dangers of artificial intelligence were actually written by artificial intelligence, analyst Linch Zhang claims.

In the 42,000-word ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ (Magnificent Humanity), the pontiff warned of the growing, state-like power of Silicon Valley, the immorality of autonomous weapons, and the dangers of allowing AI to “construct a new Tower of Babel” and reduce human beings to “a resource to be used and exploited.”

Despite its appeal for AI to be regulated and “disarmed,” large portions of ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ show some telltale signs of being written by AI, Zhang claimed in a blog post on Tuesday.

“Phrases and punctuation much more commonly used by AI are much more present in this papal encyclical than past encyclicals,” Zhang wrote, pointing to the document’s use of em-dashes (127 instances, compared to 26 across four encyclicals by Pope Francis) and “tricolons: a series of three parallel words, phrases, or clauses used for rhetorical effect.”

Running the text through AI detector Pangram, Zhang found that some paragraphs were “essentially 0% AI,” but others were between 40% and 100% AI-written. All four of Francis’ encyclicals registered as entirely human-written, as did writings by Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II. Pangram also flagged the Italian version of the encyclical for AI, suggesting that artificial intelligence was not just used to translate the document.

When Zhang’s experiment was repeated by The Verge, roughly 46% of the encyclical was determined to be written by AI.

The specific LLM (large language model) used to craft the text was likely Anthropic’s Claude, Zhang claimed, citing his own familiarity with Claude and its overuse of certain words such as “genuinely.”

The fact that certain paragraphs appear completely free of AI suggests that “some senior Vatican officials heavily used AI assistance for this encyclical and many (probably including Pope Leo himself) didn’t,” Zhang wrote.

“My tentative hypothesis is that Pope Leo does not approve of the AI usage in encyclicals, and plausibly was not even aware of significant AI usage in his own encyclical,” Zhang concluded.

The Vatican has not commented on Zhang’s claims. Nor has Anthropic, whose co-founder, Christopher Olah, delivered an address alongside the Pope on Monday.

India is planning a major upgrade of its Sukhoi 30MKI fleet, The Times of India has reported.

The program aims to give the fighter jets, the backbone of the Indian Air Force, an improved ability to survive in a modern electronic warfare environment, according to the outlet.

The Indian Defense Ministry has issued a request for proposal to equip the fighters with state-of-the-art anti-jamming and anti-spoofing global positioning system (GPS) antennas, the report said.

Jamming and spoofing are vital elements of electronic warfare, which aim to disrupt the radio and GPS signals that allow pilots to navigate and fire munitions accurately. Jamming stops the signals, while spoofing sends false signals to the enemy’s navigation system.

The Indian Air Force currently operates about 258 Su-30MKI fighter aircraft. The proposed upgrade is part of the IAF’s Super Sukhoi modernization program. The Defense Ministry aims to acquire 300 antenna systems.

The move comes amid plans to procure a fifth-generation stealth fighter. In February, The New Indian Express reported that Russia’s Sukhoi Su-57 has emerged as the top contender.

A top-level delegation from Russia had visited a Hindustan Aeronautics Limited facility, which manufactures Sukhoi aircraft under license from Moscow. The Su-30MKI is the India-specific variant of the Russian Su-30, which was inducted into the IAF in 2002.

Talks between Russia and India on manufacturing Sukhoi Su-57 aircraft in India are at an advanced stage, Vadim Badekha, CEO of Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), said in January.

Moscow had announced an offer of full licensed production of the Su-57 in India at the Dubai Airshow in November, 2025.

New Delhi has initiated a Make in India program to boost domestic production capabilities. Nearly 60% of the defense hardware of the Indian Armed Forces is of Soviet/Russian origin, while the Sukhoi SU-30MKI air superiority fighter currently accounts for 45% of the IAF’s fighter fleet.

The EU could temporarily deny future member states’ veto rights in order to prevent them from interfering with the bloc’s foreign policy, the Guardian reported on Tuesday, citing EU sources.

The idea is reportedly being discussed as Brussels seeks to bring new members in before the end of the decade, while avoiding the kind of internal roadblocks that the likes of Hungary and Slovakia have put up to impede EU military and financial support for Ukraine.

According to the newspaper, the European Commission is now considering a plan under which new entrants would not automatically receive the power to block foreign policy decisions or other matters requiring unanimity, such as taxation. The measure could apply for several years after accession, four EU sources told the outlet.

The proposal to restrict veto rights was reportedly brought up during treaty negotiations with Montenegro, which has been negotiating accession for 14 years and is hoping to become the EU’s 28th member by 2028. It is currently considered the frontrunner among the bloc’s nine official candidate countries.

If the ban is ultimately included, Montenegro’s treaty could later serve as a template for other candidates, the Guardian claimed, noting that the measure is “legally borderline” and would have to be time-limited to avoid creating second-class EU members.

The proposal comes as Brussels has repeatedly struggled to push through major foreign policy decisions, such as a gargantuan €90 billion loan for Kiev, due to the bloc’s built-in unanimity rules, as well as pushback from member states opposed to funding Ukraine’s war effort.

A number of EU officials have since called for abandoning the bloc’s unanimity principles, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul stressing that an EU with over 33 members could not continue operating under rules designed for a smaller bloc.

Former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has similarly argued that unanimity has made the bloc irrelevant in international politics, calling for a smaller core group of members to be established that would make decisions on EU policy.

However, critics of this push have accused Brussels of using the Ukraine conflict and enlargement debate to centralize power at the expense of national sovereignty. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has warned that abolishing veto rights on fundamental EU issues would be “the beginning of the end” for the bloc.

Spanish police have searched the headquarters of the country’s ruling Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) in a graft probe involving alleged influence-peddling and irregular party financing.

According to local media, investigators from the Civil Guard’s elite Central Operative Unit (UCO) entered the party’s Madrid offices on Wednesday to obtain evidence of suspected illegal financing. 

The case is reportedly centered on former PSOE member Leire Diez; several former party officials and businessmen are also said to be under scrutiny. Diez is accused of attempting to influence graft investigations and discredit members of Spain’s anti-corruption police unit, allegations she denies.

PSOE, which is led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, said it would cooperate fully with investigators and hand over any requested information but has denied any attempt to conceal evidence.

Sanchez, who is in Rome for talks with Pope Leo XIV, told reporters there had been “a lot of fake news” and insisted the party “will act decisively, as we always have.” He also warned against politicizing judicial investigations and rejected opposition calls for snap elections, saying he could not call a vote for “partisan interests” but only “for the general interest of the citizens.”

Wednesday’s raid comes amid several ongoing probes involving figures close to Sanchez, including separate inquiries linked to his wife and brother. Earlier this month, the National Court placed former Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero – a longtime Socialist leader and key Sanchez ally – under investigation in a separate case linked to the 2021 state bailout of airline Plus Ultra. Zapatero denies wrongdoing, while Sanchez has publicly backed the former prime minister.

Sanchez, who has led Spain since 2018, has emerged as one of the EU’s most vocal critics of Israel’s war in Gaza and the US-Israeli military escalation with Iran. He has pushed for limits on arms sales to Israel and refused to allow American forces to use Spanish bases for operations linked to strikes on Iran, saying Madrid would not be “complicit” in the conflict – moves that have heightened tensions with Washington and West Jerusalem.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the destruction of Gaza, warning that Muslims may soon teach him a “lesson.”

Erdogan made the remarks during Eid al-Adha celebrations in his hometown of Rize, where he called for Muslim unity and putting pressure on Israel.

“What is happening in Palestine, in Gaza, gives us a special stance, a special vigil this Eid. God willing, this tyrant Netanyahu will soon learn the lesson he deserves from the Muslims of the world,” he said, according to Anadolu news agency.

The comments came days after Israel detained hundreds of activists from a Gaza-bound flotilla, which had departed from Türkiye carrying humanitarian aid and pro-Palestinian campaigners seeking to challenge Israel’s blockade of the enclave.

Erdogan branded the interception “piracy and banditry.”

Ankara has sought to support Palestinians with humanitarian aid, diplomatic lobbying, ceasefire initiatives, and legal efforts related to Gaza.

Erdogan has been among the most vocal critics of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since it began in 2023, accusing Israel of “genocide” and “state terrorism” against Palestinians, while comparing the Israeli government to Nazis at times.

In July of 2024, ten months into the conflict, Erdogan said Türkiye could act against Israel “just like” it did in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, which was widely interpreted by Israeli media and officials as a threat of military intervention.

Israeli officials have increasingly portrayed Türkiye as a regional threat. Following Erdogan’s 2024 remarks, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz compared the Turkish leader to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, warning him to “remember what happened there and how it ended.”

Earlier this year, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Turkey could become Israel’s leading regional adversary, making it the “next Iran.”

Turkish political analyst Kerim Has described the escalating rhetoric between Turkish and Israeli leaders as “a theatrical performance” aimed at distracting domestic audiences from internal problems.

Has also pointed to the economic links between the two countries, noting that Türkiye provides transit for Azerbaijani oil to Israel, which reportedly meets up 60% of the Jewish state’s crude oil needs.

The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is seeing steady growth and shifting its economic ties toward greater integration among member states and closer cooperation with the Global South, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Pankin said in an interview with RT.

The deputy foreign minister said intra-EAEU trade reached $95 billion last year, nearly double what it was in 2014, before the union was established. He also pointed to strong growth in trade with external partners, saying turnover in 2025 had grown about 90% with Vietnam, 170% with Iran, and more than doubled with China.

“The union plays a defining role in its member states’ economic growth as part of its international dimension,” he said stressing that its real GDP grew 1.7% last year, “which is not bad at all given the circumstances.”

Pankin said Western sanctions had served as a “stress test” for the EAEU, pushing the bloc to diversify trade, develop new logistics routes and boost technological and economic self-sufficiency. He said the measures had made the union more resilient and less dependent on external partners.

The official believes the bloc was shifting its economic ties toward the Global South as the share of Western countries in its trade declined. He pointed to Asia, Africa and Latin America as key areas of focus, highlighting closer cooperation with China, ongoing talks with India, and expanding ties with Iran, Vietnam, the UAE and Indonesia.

Pankin said the EAEU was becoming “an important economic center in a multipolar world,” with ties extending beyond trade to cooperation with organizations including the United Nations, SCO and ASEAN. He added that the bloc has signed more than 80 memorandums with international partners, mainly from the Global South.

See the full interview below

North Korea has tested newly-developed missile launch and tactical cruise missile systems equipped with precision AI guidance, KCNA state news agency reported on Wednesday.

The drills, carried out on Tuesday, assessed the power of a tactical ballistic missile’s specialized warhead and the reliability of an AI-guided 240mm artillery rocket, as well as the accuracy of a new AI-guided tactical cruise missile, the agency said.

The new North Korean cruise missile’s “tactical cruising shell” has a combination of autonomous navigation and TERCOM (terrain contour matching) navigation systems, as well as “an AI terminal guidance function” that could allow Pyongyang to precisely hit targets at a distance of up to 100 km, KCNA said. With systems like these, artificial intelligence steers the munition towards its target in the final stages of flight.

The firing control and automation systems on the three tested launch vehicles have been updated for the “conditions of modern warfare,” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said at the test, according to KCNA.

The main task of Pyongyang’s armed forces and defense science sector is to defend North Korea’s sovereignty and guarantee its economic and political development “with powerful war deterrence,” he said.

Various countries, including the US and Russia, have been increasingly focused on integrating AI into their military systems.

US tech firm Shield AI has been shipping “AI pilots for one-way attack drones into Ukraine” for months, while training its autonomous guidance systems, company president Brandon Tseng told US outlet the War Zone last week.

AI is also being integrated into Russia’s administrative and defense sectors, Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month. Putin instructed the government to develop a national plan to deploy its own “fully sovereign” AI solutions in all areas, including security and national defense.

After February 28, 2026, relations between the United Arab Emirates and Iran entered a new phase of escalation, one in which the old formula of cautious pragmatism effectively stopped working.

Formally, Abu Dhabi declared its neutrality in the war which the US and Israel launched against Iran, and emphasized that it was not providing its territory, airspace, or its waters for strikes against Iran. However, the course of the war quickly showed that Tehran no longer believed such statements. The UAE remains a key US partner in the Persian Gulf, a participant in the Abraham Accords with Israel, and an important financial and logistical hub within the Western infrastructure in the region. For that reason, in Iran’s perception, the Emirates increasingly look like a participant in an anti-Iranian coalition.

The central symbol of the dispute remains the issue of Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb, the three islands located near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. Iran established control over them in 1971, shortly before the creation of the UAE. The Emirates have since regarded the islands as occupied territory and have demanded that the dispute be resolved through negotiations or international arbitration. For Iran, the matter is closed, since Tehran considers the islands part of its own territory. For the UAE, it is an unhealed wound from the birth of the federation and a constant reminder of its strategic vulnerability before a larger neighbor. Today’s discussions about a possible military scenario around the islands are perceived as a direct return to the most painful issue in Emirati-Iranian relations.

A veneer of neutrality

Before the current war, Abu Dhabi tried to be on good terms with everyone. It needed to preserve trade with Iran, ensure security through the US, develop technological and defense cooperation with Israel, and, in its public rhetoric, avoid direct involvement in the conflict. But after the US and Israel attacked Iran, that balance began to collapse. Media reports appeared about secret contacts between Israeli officials and the UAE leadership at the height of the war. CBS News reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made a secret visit to the UAE and met with the country’s president, Mohammed bin Zayed.

According to the channel, the meeting took place in late March, after the current military escalation had already begun. The Israeli side treated the visit as a fact, while the UAE publicly denied the reports. That discrepancy itself became an important political episode, damaging the image of Emirati neutrality and giving Iran another argument for accusing Abu Dhabi of hidden coordination with West Jerusalem.

Even more revealing were reports about visits by Mossad chief David Barnea to the UAE. According to The Wall Street Journal, later cited by Israeli and regional media, Barnea visited the Emirates at least twice during the war in order to coordinate action on the Iranian front. The Jerusalem Post wrote that these visits took place during the operation against Iran and also reported a visit by Shin Bet chief David Zini. These reports, like all wartime back-channel diplomacy, require cautious treatment, since they are based on sources and do not reveal the full picture of the talks. Yet their political significance is clear. If, against the backdrop of declared neutrality, not only Israeli politicians but also Israeli intelligence chiefs are traveling to the UAE, then for Iran, this becomes yet another argument that Abu Dhabi is effectively integrated into a system of Israeli-American coordination against Tehran. For the Emirates themselves, such contacts may look like an element of defensive coordination and intelligence-sharing, but in wartime that distinction almost ceases to function. In Iran’s eyes, a visit by the head of Mossad cannot be a neutral episode, especially when it takes place alongside strikes on Iranian territory, deliveries of air-defense systems, and intensified US pressure on the Gulf states.

Israeli military assistance

Axios, citing Israeli and American officials, reported that Israel had sent the UAE an Iron Dome air defense system and military personnel to operate it – later confirmed by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. For the UAE, this cooperation can be explained as a defensive necessity, since the country found itself under the threat of missile and drone strikes. For Iran, however, the logic looks different. Tehran perceives this as the integration of the UAE into Israel’s military infrastructure in the Gulf.

Officially, Abu Dhabi can argue that the matter concerns only the protection of civilian infrastructure. But war erases the boundary between defense and participation. Every air-defense system, every group of foreign military specialists, every exchange of intelligence, and every closed meeting with Israeli leaders can be seen as part of a single front. It shows that UAE-Israel ties after the Abraham Accords are no longer limited to diplomacy, trade, and technology. Under wartime conditions, those ties acquire direct military-strategic significance.

American presence

Iranian representatives claimed that the CIA and US military structures were operating from UAE territory or using Emirati infrastructure in operations against Iran. It’s difficult to verify the truth of these statements, but in wartime the statements themselves become part of the conflict. Tehran uses them to justify pressure on the UAE and to portray it as a platform for US and Israeli activity. Abu Dhabi, for its part, has found itself in a difficult position. If it openly acknowledges deep coordination with Washington and West Jerusalem, it becomes a direct target for Iranian retaliation. If it denies everything while remaining part of the US security system and receiving defense assistance from Israel, its neutrality looks increasingly unconvincing.

The financial factor

For decades, Dubai has remained one of the most important external hubs for Iranian business, including trading companies, exchange houses, intermediary structures, and payment channels through which Tehran partially circumvented sanctions. Amid the war, unconfirmed reports appeared that the UAE, either shortly before the current escalation or already during the conflict, had restricted Iranian financial channels, frozen Iran-linked assets, or participated in closed arrangements involving the movement of billions of dollars. The most reliable open-source evidence points to a broader pattern of intensified pressure. The US imposed new sanctions on the Iranian exchange house Amin Exchange and a network of related entities, including companies in the UAE, Turkey, China, and Hong Kong, which Washington said helped Iranian banks conduct transactions in ways that circumvented restrictions.

For Iran, this is yet another front in the war. Even if the UAE explains tighter financial controls as a requirement of the sanctions regime and as a way to protect its own banking system, the political timing turns such steps into part of the pressure on Tehran. In peacetime, Abu Dhabi could play the role of an intermediary between the reality of sanctions and the realities of living next to Iran. In wartime, that gray zone quickly becomes a field of accusations. If the Emirates close financial channels, Iran sees it as participation in economic warfare. If they leave the channels open, the US increases pressure on Abu Dhabi and demands greater discipline in sanctions enforcement.

Push to action

The situation was further complicated by allegations that US officials were encouraging the Emirates to become more actively involved in the campaign and to consider the possibility of seizing one of the Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf. True or not, the very fact that such reports appeared shows that the island dispute may once again be used not only as a historical Emirati grievance, but also as an instrument in the US and Israeli military strategy against Iran.

This is where the UAE may find itself under pressure from both sides. On the one hand, the US and Israel badly need regional actors to join their campaign against Iran. Without the participation of Gulf states, the war remains an external operation by Washington and West Jerusalem that causes discomfort even among Arab states that fear Iran. If regional actors take part in the pressure on Tehran, however, it creates the appearance of a broader coalition and reduces the political cost for the US and Israel. The UAE specifically has a modern military, ports, intelligence infrastructure, financial leverage, ties with Israel, and its own territorial dispute with Iran, making it especially important for this strategy.

On the other hand, Iran views any deepening of Emirati involvement as grounds for retaliation. Strikes on infrastructure, threats to shipping, accusations that Emirati territory is being used, drone attacks, and pressure through allied networks in the region show that Tehran is prepared to transfer the cost of war onto its neighbors if it considers them part of a hostile framework. The UAE said drones had struck near the Barakah nuclear power plant and pointed to their origin from Iraqi territory, immediately linking the incident to the wider network of pro-Iranian forces in the region. For the Emirates, this is an extremely dangerous situation. Their cities, ports, airports, energy infrastructure, financial system, and reputation as a safe haven all depend on stability. Even limited involvement in the war could strike at the very foundation of the Emirati development model.

A slippery slope

As a result, UAE neutrality is becoming an increasingly unstable construct. Abu Dhabi does not want to enter the war openly, yet it also cannot fully distance itself from the US and Israel, because those ties provide missile defense, military support, and strategic insurance against Iran. This duality makes the UAE from a potential arbiter of the crisis into one of its most vulnerable participants.

The main danger for Abu Dhabi is that it could be dragged into the conflict not by one abrupt decision, but through a series of gradual steps. Financial discipline against Iranian networks, then deeper US-Israeli defense coordination, then visits and closed consultations with Israeli officials, then participation in securing the Strait of Hormuz, then discussion of the disputed islands as a possible lever of pressure against Iran. Each individual step can be presented as defensive, technical, or forced. But taken together, they may lead to a situation in which the UAE is no longer merely near the war, but inside it.

Muslims across Russia have held mass prayers to mark Kurban Bayram, also known as Eid al-Adha, one of the religion’s biggest holidays. Islam is the second-most widely practiced religion in the country after Orthodox Christianity.

According to Islamic tradition, Kurban Bayram commemorates the Prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son in obedience to God. The holiday, which coincides with the end of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, emphasizes charity, mercy, and communal solidarity.

Muslims traditionally mark the occasion with special prayers and the ritual sacrifice of livestock, with meat distributed among relatives, neighbors, and those in need.

An estimated 20 million Muslims live in Russia, in addition to migrants from former Soviet republics in Central Asia who reside in the country and are harder to count.

Some 350,000 people took part in celebrations in Moscow at the Cathedral Mosque and other designated prayer sites on Wednesday.

Mass prayers were also held in Russia’s second-largest city of St. Petersburg, where some 300,000 believers were in attendance, as well as in predominantly Muslim Republics of Tatarstan and Chechnya.

Some 25,000 Russian pilgrims are currently in Mecca performing the Hajj pilgrimage, according to Rushan Abbyasov, mufti of the Moscow Region.

President Vladimir Putin offered Russia’s Muslim community his best wishes on the occasion, praising its organizations for their role in strengthening family values, charitable work, and supporting Russian servicemen and their families.

German regulators plan to force social media platforms such as X to boost government-approved “reliable” media outlets in their algorithms, according to leaked documents. The US government has vowed to respond over what it sees as pressure on American tech firms.

In a draft ‘Digital Media State Treaty’ seen by Apollo News, the heads of Germany’s 14 state media regulators have outlined plans to boost the visibility of “public value media” on social media platforms such as X and TikTok.

In order to combat “disinformative, polarizing, or merely attention-grabbing content,” the regulation would force platforms to alter their algorithms to prioritize content from mainstream news sources, such as Germany’s ARD and ZDF broadcasters. Content will be ranked by its “timeliness, relevance to the public’s interest in information, and journalistic context,” and will appear accordingly in users’ feeds, the draft states.

The concepts of “disinformation” and “public value” will be decided by media regulators appointed by the parliaments of their respective states. As such, the enforcement of the treaty will be inherently politicized.

If adopted, the regulation will likely apply to all major social media platforms. However, Elon Musk’s X has been singled out by Thorsten Schmiege, who chairs the Conference of Directors of the State Media Authorities. Speaking to the Frankfurter Rundschau earlier this month, Schmiege criticized Musk for stripping away much of the X’s speech restrictions when he purchased the platform in 2022.

“Content moderation was very responsible back then,” he said, adding that he aims to make it “economically necessary” for X to reintroduce its prior censorship policies.

X is an American platform, and any algorithmic changes would influence what kind of content Americans are exposed to. “A key force at play here is foreign governments’ desire to control who commands credibility, even on American platforms,” US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers wrote on X on Wednesday. Asked whether the State Department would push back against the draft treaty, Rogers responded “stay tuned.”

Europe claims that its lawsuit against X over bluechecks is about consumer deception: that if the ☑️ merely means “user paid,” the platform should not suggest some other imprimatur. But a key force at play, here, is foreign governments’ desire to control who commands… https://t.co/d86sGOUV2j

— Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers (@UnderSecPD) May 27, 2026

The EU fined X €120 million ($139 million) in December for violating its Digital Services Act (DSA), a sweeping censorship bill adopted in 2024. Brussels argues that X’s blue checkmark system for paid subscribers constitutes “deceptive” advertising, claiming that accounts with the checkmarks have not been “meaningfully verified.”

Musk and some senior members of President Donald Trump’s administration have accused the EU of unfairly singling out X for punishment over its refusal to censor political speech.

“The European Commission’s $140 million fine isn’t just an attack on X, it’s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the time. Rubio sanctioned former European Commissioner Thierry Breton and four pro-censorship activists in response.

Around 300,000 traditional health practitioners in South Africa remain effectively unregulated due to years of delays in implementing key provisions of the law, creating a prolonged regulatory failure in the sector, the South African Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Health said on Tuesday.

The committee said the failure to operationalise the Interim Traditional Health Practitioners Council of South Africa has left a legal and regulatory vacuum nearly two decades after the Traditional Health Practitioners Act of 2007 was passed.

Committee chairperson Faith Muthambi said the situation was no longer acceptable.

”It cannot be acceptable that Parliament passed legislation in 2007, established a statutory council in 2014, and 12 years later the core provisions of that law remain unimplemented,” Muthambi said.

MPs warned that the absence of regulations and a functional national register means there is no effective system to verify or monitor practitioners, leaving communities exposed to unregulated and potentially harmful practices.

The committee noted that, despite being mandated to oversee an estimated 300,000 traditional health practitioners, the council continues to operate with limited funding of about R6.7 million in 2024, projected to remain below R10 million in the outer years.

Lawmakers said the funding model, which assumes financial sustainability through registration fees, is unrealistic given that many practitioners operate in economically vulnerable and rural communities.

The committee further raised concerns over what it described as the council’s inability to demonstrate measurable progress in regulating the sector or protecting indigenous knowledge systems.

It also flagged the lack of integration of traditional medicine into broader health reforms, including the National Health Insurance framework, and the absence of dedicated budgets for research, intellectual property protection and product development.

Public safety concerns were also highlighted, including continued reports of fraudulent medical certificates and the inability to take action against unregistered practitioners.

”The non-existence of a practitioner register renders the council unable to fulfil its core mandate of protecting the public,” the committee said.

MPs also criticised the council’s continued interim status since 2014, saying it has weakened accountability and delayed institutional development.

”When individuals are appointed to an institution, they inherit its history and its failures. Accountability does not reset with new appointments,” Muthambi said.

The Department of Health and the council told MPs that delays stemmed from regulatory backlogs, procurement challenges and capacity constraints, and confirmed that an amendment bill is being processed to formalise the council and extend its mandate.

However, the committee rejected the explanations as insufficient and has demanded detailed written submissions, including financial statements, regulatory timelines and a clear implementation plan to establish a fully functional authority.

First published by IOL

The newly elected Scottish Parliament has supported a formal request to London for permission to hold a new referendum on independence.

Scottish voters rejected the previous attempt to leave the United Kingdom during a 2014 referendum, which unionist politicians described as a “once in a generation” opportunity.

The latest push has been strengthened by recent elections in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK, boosting regional pro-independence movements and delivering a major setback to the Labour Party.

How strong is Scotland’s push to quit the UK?

The independence movement was only modestly weakened by the result of the 2014 vote and gained renewed energy after Brexit, which most Scottish voters opposed in 2016.

In the parliamentary election held earlier this month, the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scottish Greens won a combined 73 seats in the 129-member chamber, creating the largest-ever bloc at Holyrood in favor of breaking up Britain.

MSPs voted on Monday to back First Minister John Swinney’s demand that Downing Street “make a Section 30 order under the Scotland Act 1998,” allowing a new independence referendum –  commonly referred to as “indyref2.”

What is a Section 30 order?

Although the Scottish Parliament was granted lawmaking powers in 2016, those powers remain restricted. Section 30 allows the British parliament to temporarily or permanently transfer additional authority to Holyrood, including over constitutional matters.

The mechanism has been used more than a dozen times since the Scottish parliament was established in 1999. In 2015, for instance, it was used to give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in local and Scottish elections.

The 2014 independence referendum was authorized in 2012 through the same procedure. The Edinburgh Agreement also allowed younger Scots to take part in that vote.

Will London approve Scotland’s request?

Not if the Labour government’s public statements are any indication.

Last year, after Swinney declined to explain how he would pursue another independence referendum following the election, Prime Minister Keir Starmer accused him of “insulting the intelligence of the Scottish people” with a ‘secret’ plan.

After this week’s vote, Downing Street urged the Scottish government to focus “on the issues that really matter – economic growth, the cost of living, and public services.” It argued that, unlike before the 2014 referendum, there is currently no public consensus in favor of indyref2.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has accused Swinney of being driven by an “obsession” with independence, while Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay echoed that criticism. Liberal Democrat Alex Cole-Hamilton dismissed the vote as “performative,” and Reform UK’s Malcolm Offord sought to distance his party from the issue, describing the Holyrood debate as “groundhog day.”

Could Starmer be pressured to change course?

Swinney has challenged Westminster to show that “this is a voluntary Union” by allowing Scots to decide once more whether they want to remain in the post-Brexit UK.

The Labour Party suffered a damaging defeat in local elections held on the same day that Scottish voters chose their lawmakers. Pro-independence parties also performed strongly in parliamentary elections in Wales this month, leaving Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland all governed by first ministers who support the breakup of the UK.

There has been speculation that Starmer could step down as Labour leader, but his political vulnerability does not necessarily advance Scotland’s independence ambitions, judging by the conduct of previous prime ministers.

Conservative leader Boris Johnson rejected then-Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s request for a Section 30 order in 2022, even as his own cabinet was nearing collapse. His predecessor, Theresa May, also refused to authorize indyref2 in 2017.

Russia-Kazakhstan ties are built on “unbreakable principles of mutual trust” and are crucial to stability across Eurasia, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said ahead of a three-day visit to Astana starting on Wednesday.

The trip coincides with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) summit and marks Putin’s second state visit to Kazakhstan during his current presidential term. Talks in Astana are expected to focus on trade, energy, and regional integration, according to the Kremlin.

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov described relations between Moscow and Astana as being at an “exceptionally high level.” “As a rule, one state visit takes place during one presidential term,” he noted, stressing the unusual frequency of top-level contact between the two countries.

Putin’s visit runs from May 27 to 29 at the invitation of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Ushakov said the Russian delegation includes more than 30 senior officials and business figures, among them Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and central bank chief Elvira Nabiullina.

Ahead of the visit, Putin published an article in Kazakh state newspaper Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, titled “Russia and Kazakhstan Alliance in the Heart of Eurasia.” He described the two countries as key strategic and economic partners and said Moscow is committed to deepening “multifaceted allied relations” with Astana.

Putin said Russian investment in Kazakhstan has reached nearly $30 billion, with around 70 major joint projects currently underway in sectors ranging from heavy industry to chemicals and car manufacturing. According to the Russian president, the projects have already created more than 60,000 jobs.

Energy remains central to the partnership. Putin noted that the Caspian Pipeline Consortium handles more than 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports through Russian territory. Russian energy giant Gazprom is also involved in plans to modernize Kazakhstan’s gas transport infrastructure. Separately, Russian nuclear energy major Rosatom is expected to take part in the construction of Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant.

Putin also mentioned work on the North-South and Europe-Western China transport corridors as well as preparations for the Soyuz-5 launch project at the Baiterek space complex – a joint Russian-Kazakh launch facility at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Putin last visited Kazakhstan in November 2024, while Tokayev traveled to Moscow on a state visit in 2025. During that trip the two countries signed a declaration elevating ties to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership and alliance – a status Russia has officially granted only to China, Iran, and North Korea.

Another airport has opened in Ethiopia as the government continues its drive to expand regional air links.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Wednesday officially inaugurated the new Negele Borena Geda Airport in the south of the country, marking Ethiopian Airlines’ 24th domestic destination, according to his statement on X.

The new airport is designed to handle larger and more advanced aircraft, including the Boeing 737 Max. Ethiopian Airlines is expected to begin operations immediately, with three weekly flights.

Abiy said the project is aimed at improving access to the southern region.

“Every new runway we build bridges a gap, unlocks regional economic potential, and brings our people closer together,” the prime minister stressed.

He also praised Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest carrier, as the company marks its 80th anniversary this year, calling it “the pride of Africa” and “the New Spirit of Africa.”

The inaugurated airport is one of four new domestic airports Ethiopian Airlines announced earlier this year as part of a broader expansion drive aimed at improving connectivity across the country.

In March, local media reported that the carrier planned to launch new hubs in Negele Borena, Gore Mettu, Mizan Aman, and Debre Markos. Ethiopian Airlines CEO Mesfin Tasew said the projects would expand the airline’s domestic network from 23 to 27 destinations.

The expansion comes as Ethiopia advances plans for Bishoftu International Airport, which is expected to become Africa’s largest aviation hub. Construction began in January after the mega-project was unveiled in 2025 to ease growing pressure on Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.

In April, local media, citing data from US aircraft manufacturer Boeing, reported that Ethiopian Airlines had converted options for six Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners into a firm order. The carrier now flies to more than 145 international passenger and cargo destinations and maintains a fleet of over 170 aircraft — including Airbus models — with an average aircraft age of about seven years.

India has formed a high-level committee to study the demographic changes driven by illegal immigration and to suggest measures to address the challenges it poses, fulfilling a pledge made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year.

Modi had, in his Independence Day speech last year, said a “high-powered demography mission” would be set up as he warned of a “premeditated conspiracy” that was altering India’s demography and threatening national security.

Announcing the constitution of the panel on Tuesday, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah called “unnatural demographic change” a “very big challenge.” The 5-member High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes (HLCDC) will be headed by a former judge of India’s Supreme Court.

No reliable figures exist on the number of illegal immigrants to India, but cross-border immigration and resultant demographic changes have increased socio-political tensions in much of eastern and north-eastern India.

‘Beyond the Census’: Think Tank 'ORF' Development Studies Head @DrNilanjanG on Why Authorities Say Border Action ‘Can’t Wait’

Officials argue urgency stems from impacts on 'sovereignty, welfare delivery, electoral integrity, local social balance, and national security,’ he tells… pic.twitter.com/rEa6nkc7To

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) May 27, 2026

Most such illegal immigrants are from Bangladesh, seeking jobs to escape the grinding poverty in their home country. Political instability in Myanmar has also increased immigration across the border to India.

Tensions between India and Bangladesh has risen recently following a crackdown on illegal immigration by the government of the West Bengal state in eastern India. Prime Minister Modi’s BJP came to power in West Bengal following the recent elections, and the state government has vowed to deport thousands of illegal immigrants back to Bangladesh.

Shah said the committee will analyze the “abnormal population changes at the level of religious and social communities” and offer a time-bound solution to the issue within a year.

Shah had said last year that the decadal growth of the Muslim population in Assam state, which shares a border with Bangladesh, was 29%, reported The Hindu.

The HLCDC is also tasked with suggesting a clear and permanent system for identifying, detaining, and deporting illegal immigrants. Strengthening border control, population monitoring, and policy formation to improve coordination between the federal and state governments on illegal immigration and demographic imbalance are also in its purview.

The International University Sports Federation (FISU) has allowed Russian athletes to compete in its events in all disciplines via a neutral status. In sports where a relevant federation has already lifted restrictions on Russia, they will be able to participate with their national flag and anthem, it added.

Athletes from Russia and Belarus were banned from international competitions, including the Olympics, following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Some curbs were later eased, with several sporting federations allowing certain representatives from the two countries to return as neutral competitors.

Moscow has decried the restrictions as illegal, with Russian President Vladimir Putin insisting that athletes should be granted equal access to competition based solely on merit and stressing that “politics has no place in sport.”

The student sports governing body said in a statement on Tuesday that the “outright exclusion of Russian student athletes on grounds of nationality alone is considered disproportionate and inconsistent with FISU’s educational mission.”

Russian participants will be making a comeback following a recommendation made by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) earlier this month, the statement read.

“The IOC has not lifted its senior restrictions for Russian athletes, but recommends that youth athletes should not be held accountable for the actions of their governments,” it explained.

In the same statement, FISU announced that Belarusian athletes have been fully reinstated effective immediately after the Olympic officials suggested that all restrictions on the country should be removed.

Russia’s Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev said that Moscow welcomes “the gradual softening of conditions for Russian students by FISU.” He also congratulated Belarusian student athletes on their ability to compete under their flag again.

The deputy head of the Russian parliament’s Committee for Sport and Tourism, Dmitry Svischev, told Tass that “FISU has followed the path adequately as the goal of sport is to unite people.” Its decision “sends the right signal” to other international sports organizations, he said.

Only 41 Russian representatives participated using a neutral status in the FISU World University Games in Germany last summer, winning six gold, six silver and four bronze medals.

Earlier this month, World Gymnastics joined United World Wrestling and the international federations for judo, taekwondo and aquatic sports in allowing the Russians to compete under their national flag.

The US has declined to condemn Russia over its warning about upcoming strikes on military-linked sites in Kiev in retaliation for Ukraine’s deadly attack on a college dormitory.

On Friday, Ukrainian drones struck an education facility in the Russian town of Starobelsk, killing 21 people, mostly young women, and injuring more than 60 others. Moscow has denounced the attack as a war crime and a deliberate terrorist act. Kiev has dismissed the accusation as “pure propaganda,” with its Western backers refusing to hold Ukraine accountable despite ample evidence of its involvement.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to warn of “systematic and consistent strikes” on Kiev’s military facilities and “decision-making centers” while urging foreign nationals to leave the capital.

On Tuesday, Andrey Melnik, Ukraine’s envoy to the UN, shared a joint statement – signed by more than 50 nations, including Germany and other EU members, as well as the UK, Canada, and Japan – which condemned Moscow over what it described as “escalating attacks” and “threats by Russia to diplomatic institutions.” Moscow has never mentioned any plans to target either embassies or any other civilian installations.

The statement, however, conspicuously did not mention the US.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Rubio likewise refrained from leveling any accusations, saying only that Kiev had “been a very dangerous place now for a number of years.” 

“This is what happens with these wars – they just continue to escalate,” he added. “There’s a big strike coming one way, a bigger strike coming back – and that’s how these things unravel and keep going. It’s why the war needs to come to an end.”

Under the Trump administration, the US has acted as a key intermediary in Russia-Ukraine talks, although the process froze up amid the Iran war. In March, Vladimir Zelensky claimed that Washington was pressing Ukraine to withdraw from Donbass as a condition for providing post-conflict security guarantees – something Kiev has categorically been opposed to.

Rubio, however, dismissed the Ukrainian leader’s comments as “a lie,” insisting that the US was not “advocating” for Moscow but rather only relaying its stance.

A Palestinian man has told RT that Israeli forces locked him in a coffin-like box for over two weeks after he refused to become an informant, amid mounting allegations of abuse in Israeli detention facilities.

Iman Nabhan said he was held in “an iron container with a wooden box inside it,” where his hands and feet were tied. He claimed that during his detention, Israeli personnel fed him through a hole and let him out for just one minute whenever he needed to use the toilet.

“It seemed they wanted to make me feel like I was dead so they could get whatever information they wanted,” Nabhan said. “I stayed inside that coffin for 15 days. I felt like I was alive in a dead body.”

The former prisoner said Israeli forces tried to pressure him into collaboration by offering money, foreign travel, and medical treatment opportunities for his mother, all of which he refused.

The testimony comes as Israel faces growing accusations over the treatment of Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists in its custody. Earlier this week, Australian members of the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla accused Israeli forces of rape, sexual assault, beatings, humiliation, and torture after they were detained and deported.

Previously, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir personally posted footage of the detained flotilla activists kneeling with their hands tied after Israel intercepted the aid convoy. In one video, he was seen waving an Israeli flag and taunting the detainees, telling them: “Welcome to Israel, we are the landlords.”

Ben-Gvir, who oversees Israel’s prison system, has repeatedly taken a hard line on Palestinians, championing legislation mandating hanging for those accused of terrorism, and claiming that detainees should receive “the minimum of the minimum” in food.

The Israeli minister has also dismissed Palestinian nationhood outright. In November, he claimed that “there is no such thing as ‘Palestinian people’.”

British rock legend Ozzy Osbourne, the charismatic Black Sabbath frontman who helped define heavy metal for generations of fans, is set to make an AI-powered digital comeback, as his family has unveiled plans to create an interactive hologram of the late singer.

The self-styled ‘Prince of Darkness’ died in July of 2025 at the age of 76 after a years-long battle with Parkinson’s disease and other health problems. His death came just weeks after a farewell reunion concert in his hometown of Birmingham that raised millions for charity.

The project was announced by Osbourne’s wife Sharon and son Jack during a panel at Licensing Expo in Las Vegas. The endeavor will move forward in partnership with tech companies Hyperreal and Proto Hologram, which specialize in AI-generated digital replicas and immersive entertainment experiences.

The announcement quickly triggered backlash online, with critics questioning the growing use of AI to recreate dead celebrities, while urging the family to “let the man rest.”

Responding to the criticism during a YouTube Q&A on Tuesday, Jack Osbourne said the avatar was going to be “tasteful,” asserting that his father “would be into this.” The rock icons son also noted that the technology involved was far more advanced than simply “hooking up an image of my dad to ChatGPT.”

According to the family, the life-sized digital Ozzy will be capable of interacting with fans in real time using AI trained on the singer’s voice, appearance, and archive footage. The technology could eventually be used in films, advertisement, and other media projects.

”We’re going to take it all around the world. People can talk to him, and he will talk back,” Sharon Osbourne said.

Osbourne joins a growing list of late entertainers digitally recreated through AI and hologram technology, including Elvis Presley and Tupac Shakur. Debate over such technology has increasingly drawn comparisons to dystopian scenarios explored in the British sci-fi series ‘Black Mirror’, which explored AI-generated recreations of human personalities.

This isn’t the first controversy surrounding AI tributes that has emerged since Osbourne’s death. Last year, a Rod Stewart concert featuring an AI-generated video of the singer alongside other late music stars drew criticism online, with some viewers calling it “creepy” and “tasteless.”

Interest in Osbourne’s legacy has remained strong. Sony Pictures is developing a biopic for release in 2028, while an exhibition dedicated to his life and career is running in Birmingham through September.

No cases of the deadly Ebola virus have been confirmed so far in India, the Health Ministry has said. India is continuing to conduct screening, surveillance, and precautionary measures, while monitoring the disease’s rapid spread in Central Africa, the government-backed-DD News said in a Facebook post.

A Ugandan national who was quarantined in the southern city of Bengaluru on suspicion of having contracted the disease has tested negative, the authorities said on Wednesday.

The 28-year-old woman, with a recent history of travel in the East African nation, had developed mild symptoms of Ebola and was moved from a hotel to the state-backed Epidemic Diseases Hospital on May 26.

“The National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, has communicated orally that the woman’s blood report has come back negative,” said a top health official in the southern state of Karnataka, the Hindu reported.

India is implementing public health protocols in line with WHO guidelines for the outbreak. The WHO on May 17 declared the Ebola outbreak in Africa a “global public health emergency.”

The woman will be tested again in 48 hours, in line with the protocols. “The individual is otherwise in a healthy condition now,” officials said.

Also on Wednesday, a 47-year-old man who returned from Uganda was placed under home isolation in Nagpur, western India. The individual has not shown any symptoms of Ebola so far and has said that he did not come into contact with any Ebola patient in Uganda.

On May 23, New Delhi issued a travel advisory for citizens, saying all non-essential travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda, and South Sudan should be avoided.

The WHO website says the average fatality rate for Ebola disease is around 50%. The US Center for Disease Prevention and Control has said more than 100 deaths have been reported so far.

The Bundibugyo virus is a relatively rare strain of Ebola first identified in Uganda in 2007. Unlike the more common Zaire strain, there is currently no approved vaccine available against Bundibugyo Ebola. The virus spreads through close contact with infected bodily fluids.

Health authorities across Africa are struggling to contain an Ebola outbreak, centered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo).

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 900 suspected Ebola cases have now been registered across the DR Congo, including 101 laboratory-confirmed infections. In neighboring Uganda, health authorities have confirmed five cases and one death linked to the virus.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said response efforts are being hampered by delays in identifying cases, warning that health authorities are effectively being forced to “play catch-up” as the outbreak expands. Suspected deaths linked to the virus have already surpassed 220.

Although the WHO continues to assess the international threat level as low, it has raised the risk assessment inside the DR Congo from “high” to “very high.”

The outbreak has revived international concern not only because of Ebola’s deadly reputation, but also because it involves the rare Bundibugyo strain.

Is Ebola spreading in the DR Congo?

The latest outbreak has primarily affected eastern regions of the DR Congo, where healthcare systems already face pressure from armed violence, mass displacement, and limited infrastructure.

The WHO has classified the outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern, reviving memories of past Ebola epidemics that overwhelmed fragile healthcare systems and triggered international alarm.

The current epidemic, officially declared on May 15, is the DR Congo’s 17th recorded Ebola outbreak since the virus was first identified in 1976. The virus was first detected during two simultaneous outbreaks – one near the Ebola River in what was then Zaire, now the DR Congo, and another in Nzara, in present-day South Sudan.

The deadliest Ebola epidemic on record occurred in West Africa between 2014 and 2016 and was caused by the Zaire ebolavirus strain. More than 28,600 people were infected across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, and over 11,300 people died.

How dangerous is the Ebola virus? 

During outbreaks involving the Zaire strain, fatality rates have historically reached between 70% and 90%.

The second-largest Ebola epidemic in history occurred in the DR Congo between 2018 and 2020. The outbreak was also caused by the same Ebola virus strain. According to final WHO reports, 3,481 cases were recorded in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, while 2,299 people died during the epidemic.

What is the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola?

The Bundibugyo virus is among the rarest known forms of Ebola, first identified in Uganda in 2007. However, according to the WHO, fatality rates in previous Bundibugyo outbreaks ranged between 30% and 50%, which is lower than for the Zaire strain.

What makes the current outbreak concerning is the absence of an approved vaccine and therapeutics targeting this strain. As of 2026, two WHO-approved Ebola vaccine regimens –  Ervebo and Zabdeno/Mvabea –  are available globally, both developed specifically against the Zaire strain.

Several countries have also developed national Ebola vaccines and vector-based analogues, including Russia’s GamEvac-Combi vaccine, officially presented in January 2016 as a combined vector-based preparation for the prevention of Ebola hemorrhagic fever caused by the Zaire strain of the virus.

The virus is carried by fruit bats and spreads through direct contact with infected animals or bodily fluids from infected individuals. Symptoms of Bundibugyo virus disease include fever, severe headaches, muscle and body pain, weakness, fatigue, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, and loss of appetite. In severe cases, patients may also experience unexplained bleeding or bruising.

What is being done to stop the spread of Ebola?

Governments across Africa and beyond have introduced measures aimed at preventing the virus from spreading across borders. 

Rwanda has temporarily closed its border with the DR Congo, while Burundi, Zambia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Burkina Faso tightened health screening and sanitary monitoring procedures. Uganda also suspended flights to neighboring DR Congo following the outbreak.

Several countries outside Africa have imposed travel restrictions or expanded medical controls. Bahrain, the Bahamas and Jordan suspended entry for travelers arriving from affected states, while Thailand introduced temperature screening and 21-day health monitoring for passengers arriving from the DR Congo and Uganda. Vietnam and Indonesia have also stepped up health screening measures.

Canada announced plans to suspend immigration documents for residents of the DR Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan for 90 days, including previously approved visas and electronic travel authorizations.

The US introduced emergency restrictions targeting foreign nationals who recently visited the DR Congo, Uganda, or South Sudan. American citizens returning from those countries are permitted to enter only through Washington Dulles International Airport, where additional health checks have been implemented.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has also expanded its Ebola response operations in eastern DR Congo and neighboring countries, deploying 200 volunteers. They are going door-to-door in communities to explain how the virus spreads, counter misinformation, and encourage early treatment.

The UN has allocated $60 million from its emergency response fund to help contain the outbreak.

The WHO has reported the delivery of 11 tonnes of emergency medical supplies to support Ebola response operations in the DR Congo. The agency has already allocated $3.9 million from its Contingency Fund for Emergencies.

How are African governments responding?

African officials have increasingly emphasized the need for continent-led coordination rather than relying solely on outside intervention.

Uganda has backed a proposal by the Africa CDC to establish a continental Ebola response coordination hub in Kampala. During talks on Friday with the organization’s director general, Jean Kaseya, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni endorsed plans for an Incident Management Support Team designed to coordinate surveillance and outbreak response efforts across the continent.

“Ebola only becomes deadly when there is lack of attention. Otherwise, it is very manageable,” Museveni said.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has also warned that the outbreaks in the DR Congo and Uganda pose a serious regional threat, calling for stronger cross-border coordination. “Ebola does not respect borders,” he noted.

Which countries are most at risk from Ebola?

Kaseya said ten African countries are currently considered at high risk because of their geographic proximity and regional mobility links with the affected states. They include Kenya, South Sudan, Rwanda, Zambia, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Angola, and Burundi.

According to Africa CDC, nearly $500 million has been committed or pledged during a high-level virtual ministerial briefing on Monday convened by the organization together with the African Union to coordinate Ebola response efforts in the DR Congo and Uganda.

Officials endorsed a continental preparedness and response plan requiring at least $319 million between June and November 2026 to strengthen outbreak control.

Ramaphosa announced that Pretoria had doubled its contribution to Africa CDC’s Ebola response to $5 million, while the Gates Foundation pledged an additional $5 million to Africa CDC and $10 million to the WHO.

How is Russia assisting the response?

Russia has pledged logistical and epidemiological assistance to African countries affected by the outbreak. Russia’s public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, announced that Russian specialists would travel to Uganda to conduct an epidemiological investigation and support the country’s Health Ministry.

The current assistance builds on earlier Russian-backed health initiatives in East Africa. In 2024, Russia transferred a mobile anti-epidemic laboratory to Ugandan authorities, enabling rapid diagnostics of dangerous infectious diseases. The laboratory was already used in 2025 during efforts to contain a previous Ebola outbreak.

Russian medical experts have also trained more than 80 Ugandan specialists in infectious disease surveillance, laboratory diagnostics, disinfection procedures, and biological safety standards.

In 2025, Rospotrebnadzor and Ethiopia’s Health Ministry conducted simulation exercises aimed at improving Africa’s readiness for epidemiological emergencies, including rapid-response coordination and the use of Russian-supplied mobile laboratories.

Russia has also supplied Burkina Faso with a mobile laboratory capable of processing hundreds of tests daily for more than 20 infectious diseases. Moscow additionally provided technical and epidemiological assistance to Rwanda, the DR Congo, Guinea, and Ethiopia during mpox outbreaks that affected parts of Africa in 2024.

A distinguished Russian psychiatrist has classified transgender identity as a mental illness during a major medical congress in Russia.

Speaking at the 18th Congress of Psychiatrists of Russia last week, Olga Bukhanovskaya, chief physician of the Phoenix Medical and Rehabilitation Scientific Center in Rostov-on-Don, introduced the concept of a “transgender spectrum disorder.”

“If people now use the nice-sounding phrase ‘autism spectrum disorder’ then we can say ‘transgender spectrum disorder’ and all of these mental illnesses fall under it,” Bukhanovskaya said.

The proposed category includes five distinct conditions: “homosexuality,” “fetishistic transvestism,” a term describing cross-dressing linked to sexual arousal, “personality disorders,” “schizotypal disorder,” and “schizophrenia with periodic effeminacy,” which refers to intermittent feminine behavior or traits in men.

Bukhanovskaya, daughter of the late psychiatrist Aleksander Bukhanovsky, who created the psychological profile of the infamous Ukrainian serial killer Andrey Chikatilo, also described Russia as facing a “transgender epidemic” fueled by propaganda and foreign funding.

She accused what she called a “fifth column of medicine” of promoting transgender rights, saying “trans-LGBT-friendly doctors,” psychologists and lecturers were indoctrinating patients and the wider medical community.

The World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1990. Under the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), the global diagnostic manual used by doctors and health systems worldwide, transsexualism was also removed from the category of mental illnesses when updated standards took effect in 2022.

Moscow suspended its planned transition to ICD-11 in 2024, saying some provisions conflicted with the country’s traditional values.

In 2023, after Russia adopted a law banning “medical interventions aimed at sex change,” the Russian Society of Psychiatrists drafted clinical guidelines on “gender identity disorders.” The document acknowledged that transgender people could not be “cured” and recommended psychotherapy support instead.

In recent years, Russia has taken steps to promote traditional values and banned “LGBT propaganda,” designating the international movement as “extremist.” Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, have argued that Western-promoted LGBTQ agendas seek to “erode, erase, and subjugate” the values and identities of other countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that non-traditional relationships between adults remain a private matter, though he has stressed that their promotion, especially among minors, is prohibited.

A Moscow arbitration court has granted the Bank of Russia’s request for the immediate enforcement of a ruling ordering Euroclear to pay around €200 billion ($233 billion), RBK reported on Tuesday, citing lawyers for the Belgian clearing house.

Ukraine’s Western backers froze about $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets after the escalation of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in 2022, most of it held at the Brussels-based depository.

While the EU has so far stopped short of seizing the assets outright, Brussels has transferred some €6.6 billion in profits generated from frozen Russian central bank assets to a fund for Ukraine since 2024.

Moscow has said any use of its frozen assets would amount to theft, also warning it could retaliate by seizing about €200 billion in Western assets held in Russia, though it has so far stopped short of doing so.

Commenting on the latest ruling, lawyers for Euroclear, Sergey Savelyev and Maksim Kulkov, claimed to RBK that its right to a fair trial had been violated but declined further comment due to the closed nature of the proceedings.

The Bank of Russia described the ruling as fair, noting that it takes into account not only the ongoing nature of the violation, but also the risk that any delay in enforcement would prolong the restoration of the violated rights.

The initial ruling ordering Euroclear to pay €200 billion was issued by the arbitration court last week. Commenting at the time, Euroclear called it unfounded, adding that such claims are not recognized under EU law. It also pledged to appeal the verdict.

Shortly after filing a lawsuit against Euroclear in December, the Bank of Russia said it could expand its legal action over frozen assets beyond the Belgian-based depository to include other European banks that also hold its funds.

The recently appointed commander of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Odeh, has been killed in an airstrike in Gaza, the Israeli authorities have claimed.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continue to carry out attacks on specific targets in Gaza despite a US-brokered ceasefire being in place in the Palestinian enclave since October 2025.

The announcement of Odeh’s assassination comes 11 days after the killing of his predecessor, Izz al-Din al-Haddad.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Wednesday that Odeh “was responsible for the murder, abduction, and wounding of many Israeli citizens and IDF soldiers.”

According to the statement, the slain Hamas commander was in charge of the armed group’s intelligence staff during its incursion into Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in around 1,200 people being killed and 250 others taken hostage. Since then, 85 captives have died, with the rest being returned to Israel.

The IDF’s military campaign in Gaza, launched in response to the attack by Hamas, has left more than 72,000 people dead and over 172,000 wounded, according to the Palestinian health authorities. Around 900 of those deaths came during the ceasefire.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that Odeh was “sent to meet his partners in the depths of hell.”

“We pledged to eliminate everyone who led the October 7 massacre... They are all marked for death, everywhere,” Katz wrote on X.

Hamas hasn’t yet confirmed the death of its military chief, but Palestinian media reported that he was killed together with his wife and sons.

Gaza’s civil defense agency said at least seven people were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday, including five in a single attack near the Maghazi refugee camp in the central part of the enclave.

Israel’s Channel 12 reported last month that, according to an assessment by the IDF, Hamas was able to “significantly” rebuild itself during the ceasefire. According to a document seen by the broadcaster, the group largely regained its military capabilities and recruited more operatives, while also taking charge of the destitution of goods arriving in the enclave.

The US Department of Energy has selected a number of private companies as potential recipients of weapons-grade plutonium, including one where Energy Secretary Chris Wright served on the board before joining the administration of President Donald Trump.

The US government holds roughly 50 metric tons of fissile material recovered from dismantled nuclear weapons at highly secure sites. The Trump administration said last year that it intended to expand the Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program by allowing private companies to manufacture energy-dense fuel for advanced small reactors, with 20 tons of plutonium earmarked for transfer.

On Tuesday, the Department of Energy named five firms chosen for “advanced negotiations” under the plan, among them Oklo Inc., a California-based small-reactor developer that Wright helped run before his confirmation as energy secretary in February 2025.

Oklo said it would use US plutonium in partnership with the European company newcleo. CEO Jacob DeWitte said the initiative “creates a pathway to use existing surplus material as bridge fuel for advanced reactors to bring more reactors online sooner.”

The other companies named by the government are Exodys Energy, SHINE Technologies, Standard Nuclear, and Flibe Energy. The Department of Energy said access to plutonium supplies would help private partners attract investment.

Plutonium transfers will make Trump’s ‘rich buddies happy’

The plan to place weapons-grade plutonium – a dangerous material requiring strict handling and security controls – in private hands has drawn opposition from some US lawmakers, who have warned of safety and proliferation risks.

“Trump wants to take enough plutonium for 2,000 atomic bombs and hand it over to private industry just to make his rich buddies happy,” Senator Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said. “He might as well sell nuclear weapons at Costco. If this material shows up in Iran, we know who’s to blame.”

Critics also argue that the program encourages other countries to view plutonium in spent nuclear fuel as a valuable resource rather than hazardous waste, creating incentives to extract and stockpile it.

Since 2025, the US has attacked Iran twice over the claim that Tehran cannot be trusted to run a civilian nuclear industry and not try to weaponize it. The crisis remains unresolved, while the global economic fallout from disrupted maritime traffic in the Persian Gulf continues to mount.

US hooked on foreign nuclear fuel

The peaceful reuse of Cold War-era fissile material was once a central element of US-Russian cooperation. Under the HEU-LEU program, Russian weapons-grade uranium sufficient for around 20,000 warheads was converted into reactor fuel before the agreement expired in 2013.

A similar plutonium arrangement was signed in 2000, but was suspended in 2016 after being roughly 70% completed, as bilateral ties deteriorated following the US-backed armed coup in Ukraine.

In 2024, the US banned imports of Russian low-enriched uranium, presenting the move as part of its sanctions policy and an effort to revive America’s domestic enrichment sector, which had weakened during decades of abundant imported fuel, including under the HEU-LEU program. However, waivers are available until 2028.

In January, the Department of Energy announced plans to invest $2.7 billion over ten years in enrichment services.

Ukrainian draft officers have been caught adding dead people and convicts to the mobilization database amid military manpower shortages and growing public anger over forced conscription, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko has said.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Kiev lost around 500,000 troops in 2025 alone. Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov previously acknowledged that around 200,000 troops had deserted, while also saying that at least 2 million men had been placed on a wanted list for avoiding mobilization.

Three high-ranking officers at recruitment centers have been detained after engaging in “paper mobilization,” Kravchenko said in a statement on Tuesday.

They entered false information into the official database in order to report the successful implementation of enlistment targets, he explained.

“To improve statistics, the list of those ‘mobilized’ included deceased and convicted persons, those with deferral... citizens who are already serving or studying at military universities, as well as those who are no longer subject to mobilization due to age,” the statement read.

In the town of Mukachevo in Transcarpathia Region, the head of the local recruitment center and his deputy used the scheme to fictitiously mobilize 270 people between January and March, Kravchenko said.

A similar episode occurred in the town of Zolochev in Lviv Region last year, with the interim head of the local enlistment office adding six people who were already serving in the military to the database, he added.

According to the prosecutor general, recruitment centers in other parts of the country are currently being checked for similar schemes.

The police said in a separate statement that those detained are suspected of forgery and making unauthorized changes to an official registry.

“As a result of their actions, the high military command could have received inaccurate information on the actual state of manning of military units,” it stressed.

Earlier this month, an officer in charge of recruitment in Zhitomir Region was arrested for demanding a bribe from a local businessman in exchange for exempting his employees from mobilization.

There have also been reports of draft officers accepting payments for smuggling military-aged men across the border.

At the same time, the mobilization drive in Ukraine has become increasingly violent, with hundreds of videos surfacing on social media of men being snatched off the streets by press gangs.

Ukraine’s deadly drone strike on a college dormitory in Starobelsk was Vladimir Zelensky’s “revenge” against residents of the Lugansk People’s Republic who chose to join Russia, Moscow’s UN envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, has said.

The diplomat made the remarks during a press conference on Tuesday, which was dedicated to Kiev’s strike on the college last week that killed 21 people – mostly young women – with another 63 wounded. Moscow has denounced the attack, which it said was deliberate and involved three drone waves, as a war crime and “terrorist act.” Despite ample evidence, Kiev has dismissed the accusations as “pure propaganda.”

Nebenzia lashed out at Ukraine, saying there is only one explanation for such “brutality.” “It is Kiev’s revenge against the people of the Lugansk People’s Republic who chose Russia [in a referendum in 2022]. Zelensky is actually killing his own former compatriots… he is exterminating his former fellow citizens for refusing to live under his neo-Nazi rule,” the diplomat said.

Commenting on Kiev’s Western backers, who have refused to acknowledge Ukraine’s responsibility, Nebenzia said that if the suffering of a child can be used against Russia, it immediately becomes an international scandal, but if children die because of Kiev, “the tragedy disappears behind caveats, doubts, and references to ‘context’.”

“This is not merely double standards. It is a moral failure and complete disgrace,” the envoy told the briefing.

According to Nebenzia, the West and the UN’s failure to hold Ukraine accountable would only encourage further tragedy.
“The Kiev regime does not exist in a vacuum. Its numerous atrocities are fueled by the certainty that, after every crime, its Western sponsors will either remain silent, cast doubt on the obvious, or simply blame Russia instead. This approach effectively encourages further attacks on civilians,” he said.

Following the Starobelsk strike, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov notified US Secretary of State Marco Rubio of upcoming “systematic strikes” on Kiev’s military-industrial facilities and command centers, while urging foreign nationals to leave the Ukrainian capital.

On Sunday, Russia conducted a powerful strike on Kiev’s defense industry using the hypersonic Oreshnik system, Iskander ballistic missiles, and Kinzhal and Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles. Moscow maintains that it never targets civilians.

Former US President Joe Biden is suing the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in an effort to block the release of interviews he gave to his ghostwriter, which later became part of a special counsel investigation into the mishandling of classified documents.

According to the Daily Intelligencer, the records include 70 hours of audio recordings and transcripts of conversations between Biden and ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, recorded while Zwonitzer was working on Biden’s 2017 memoir.

The recordings were obtained by special counsel Robert Hur, who was appointed to investigate whether Biden had unlawfully retained classified documents at his home after serving as vice president under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017.

In May, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking access to the files. Biden’s lawyers argue that releasing them would violate his privacy.

“Every American, including a sitting or former vice president, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” the lawsuit said, according to the Washington Post.

In his final report released in 2024, Hur concluded that Biden had “willfully retained and disclosed” classified materials, including documents related to military policy in Afghanistan, but declined to recommend criminal charges.

Hur wrote that Biden’s memory appeared “significantly limited” during both the 2017 interviews with the ghostwriter and later interviews with the special counsel. He further argued that, if the case went to trial, Biden would likely present himself to a jury as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Concerns about Biden’s declining health played a major role in the 2024 presidential campaign. He withdrew from the race following a disastrous televised debate with Donald Trump, who ultimately defeated Biden’s Democratic replacement, former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX pressured the Pentagon into paying higher rates for Starlink satellite connectivity used by US kamikaze drones during the Iran war, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The dispute reportedly centered on the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS), a cheap loitering munition used by the US military. According to Reuters, SpaceX argued that the military had been paying about $5,000 for connection per terminal while effectively using a higher-tier service priced at $25,000 per month.

In March, Musk tweeted that the use of Starlink in weapon systems violated the company’s terms of service, adding that military operators should instead use Starshield, a separate network designed for government use.

It is a violation of commercial Starlink terms of service to use the terminal for weapon systems. This applies to all users and is shut down when discovered.

There is a separate network called Starshield, which is operated by the US government. This is not under SpaceX control.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2026

In practice, however, the systems remain closely intertwined, with Starshield relying on the broader Starlink network of roughly 10,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites, according to Reuters.

While the Pentagon denied breaching its agreement with SpaceX, Reuters reported that company executives later pressed officials to pay higher rates for the service. The Pentagon ultimately agreed, nearly doubling the original $30,000 price tag for each LUCAS drone.

A Pentagon official told the outlet that the military is now looking for alternative suppliers. However, no rival can reportedly offer anything close to SpaceX in scale or capabilities. Competitors such as OneWeb and Amazon’s Project Kuiper remain far smaller or are still being rolled out.

SpaceX “certainly has the US government over the barrel,” Clayton Swope, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Reuters.

Some Pentagon officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, have become increasingly uneasy about the leverage SpaceX presently holds over military operations, according to the outlet. Yet the Pentagon is reportedly considering purchasing more than 3,500 additional Starshield subscriptions in a deal that could generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually for SpaceX ahead of its planned IPO next month.

The dependence has become especially sensitive amid the soaring cost of the Iran war. Analysts have estimated that the conflict was costing Washington hundreds of millions of dollars per day, with the first six days alone consuming roughly $12.7 billion, pushing the Pentagon towards cheaper, mass-produced weapons developed by newer defense firms.

Calls for separation in Canada’s oil-rich province of Alberta have invited comparisons with Brexit from Prime Minister Mark Carney, who warned against the move and described it as a “dangerous bluff.”

The western province is set to hold a public vote in October on whether to remain part of Canada or move toward a formal referendum on independence. The vote, announced by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith last week, follows a petition drive by the pro-independence group Stay Free Alberta, which submitted more than 300,000 signatures calling for a referendum on separation.

Commenting on the developments, Carney told reporters on Monday that Canada was “absolutely stronger together.” Referring to Smith’s plan, he described the move as a “very dangerous bluff,” drawing parallels with Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the EU.

“I saw first-hand what happened in the United Kingdom when the view was, vote for this, it’ll be soft, and then we’ll negotiate,” said Carney, who served as governor of the Bank of England during the Brexit campaign. “They’re still 10 years later trying to undo what people didn’t think they were voting for but what they ended up having,” he added.

While Smith has said she supports a “united Canada,” she has defended the vote as a way for Albertans to express their views on the province’s future.

Alberta is one of Canada’s most important energy-producing regions and has long been at odds with the federal government over environmental regulations, taxation, and pipeline access. Separatist sentiment has been fueled by claims that Ottawa has held back the province’s resource economy, though polling suggests full independence remains a minority position. 

Carney has sought to improve relations with Alberta by backing new energy infrastructure projects, including an agreement signed with Smith’s government earlier this month that could pave the way for a new oil pipeline linking the province to Canada’s Pacific coast.

The agreement has drawn criticism from officials in the neighboring province of British Columbia, as well as indigenous groups and environmental activists, who have accused Carney of abandoning his climate commitments.

The Alberta debate also comes as Canada remains locked in a trade dispute with the US following Donald Trump’s return to office in January. Canada has faced sweeping US tariffs on its goods, while Trump has repeatedly referred to the country as “the 51st state.” Carney has previously warned Washington against interfering in Canada’s affairs, including discussions around Alberta’s future.

Iran has accused the US of violating the ceasefire after American fighter jets struck targets in Hormozgan province in the south of the country.

On Monday, US Central Command said American forces had carried out “self-defense strikes” on missile sites and naval vessels which Washington alleges were attempting to mine the Strait of Hormuz. According to Iranian media, several Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval speedboats were targeted, and at least three sailors were killed in what was the largest military clash with the US since the May 7 strikes in southern Iran.

Seyyed Majid Mousavi, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, said the attack constituted a breach of the fragile truce reached on April 8.

“The ceasefire violation during the negotiations was once again committed by the treacherous enemy,” Mousavi wrote on X on Tuesday.

“The IRGC Aerospace Force is ready to deliver a decisive and rapid response and carry out the orders of the respected commander-in-chief,” he added.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry released a statement condemning the “gross violation” of the ceasefire and saying that Iran would hold the US “responsible for all the consequences resulting from these aggressive and unjustified actions.”

The strikes came after US officials hinted that the two sides were close to a breakthrough in negotiations, which had stalled over disagreements regarding Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions, and the future status of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, returned from talks with Qatari mediators in Doha on Tuesday.

Tehran had earlier said the US must regain the trust of the Iranian people after Washington and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28 during Omani-mediated talks.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that finalizing an agreement could take “a few more days.” The outcome of the talks, however, remains unclear, as US President Donald Trump reiterated on Monday his demand that Iran relinquish its enriched uranium stockpile – a condition Tehran has previously rejected.

The prosecution of Evgenia Gutsul, the governor of Moldova’s autonomous Gagauzia Region, is a prime example of politically motivated “lawfare,” her lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, has told RT. Gutsul is currently appealing her seven-year sentence for campaign finance violations.

In 2025, the politician was convicted of channeling funds from Russia to candidates linked to the banned opposition Sor party, which the government of pro-EU President Maia Sandu has described as a Russian-backed criminal organization. The party’s leader, businessman Ilan Sor, received lengthy prison sentences in 2017 and 2023 for money laundering and defrauding several banks. Sor fled the country and has since lived in Israel and Russia.

In 2024, Moldova held a referendum on joining the EU, with the proposal passing by a very narrow margin. More than 90% of voters in Gagauzia, however, rejected the government’s plan to enshrine the country’s EU aspirations in the constitution.

Boye, a legal adviser to the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, spoke to RT ahead of a verdict expected at the Chisinau Court of Appeal later this week. Gutsul could be formally removed from office if the court upholds her conviction.

“I think the expectation can only be bad,” he said, adding that the trial had not been “proper.” Boye argued that one of the judges was improperly replaced during the proceedings, while he himself faced threats and was unfairly found in contempt of court.

Boye also said Gutsul had been denied the right to consult privately with her lawyers. “I think this is a crystal clear case of lawfare… in a country that is a candidate to join the European Union,” he said.

Both Gutsul and Sor have denied wrongdoing. The self-exiled businessman described Gutsul’s arrest last year as “political terrorism.”

Russia has denied accusations that it was trying to interfere in Moldova’s politics. The Russian Foreign Ministry nevertheless condemned the prosecution of Gutsul as “shameful.”

Watch the full interview here:

Ten of the 19 migrants slated to be placed in foster homes or children’s care in Kent, England turned out to be adults, The Sun reported on Monday.

Kent is the primary arrival point for migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats. Illegal crossings remain a hot-button issue, fueling anti-immigrant sentiment alongside a string of high-profile criminal cases linked to migrants. Nearly 1,000 undocumented migrants crossed into the UK in small boats over the past five days alone, according to government data.

A group of migrants in Kent County Council care was reassessed last year after staff raised concerns about their age, The Sun reported, citing government data released under freedom of information laws.

“This puts children already in foster or children’s homes in danger,” UK Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said. “We have seen absurd cases where illegal immigrants, including a Sudanese man with a receding hairline and facial hair, pretended to be children when they were clearly adults.”

The situation will “get worse now Labour’s Borders Act has passed, which no longer allows illegal immigrants to be treated as over-18 if they refuse to take an age-assessment test,” Philp added.

The Labour Party has lost significant ground to the Euroskeptic and anti-immigration Reform UK party in recent local and parliamentary elections. The government has tried several methods to tackle migration, including a plan championed by the Conservatives to relocate illegal migrants and asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was scrapped after Labour came to power in 2024.

The number of adult migrants posing as children has quadrupled over the past decade, reaching more than 1,000 last year, the Daily Mail reported, citing Home Office data.

In 2022, the government pledged to improve methods for assessing the age of asylum seekers, including X-rays, CT scans, and MRI imaging. Last year, the BBC reported that authorities were planning to use AI technology to verify migrants’ ages.

The US has “no responsibility” to intervene in the management of the Strait of Hormuz, located nearly 11,000 km (6,835 miles) from its borders, University of Tehran political communication professor Foad Izadi has told RT.

The strategic waterway has become a major sticking point in US-Iran peace talks, with Washington maintaining a blockade on Iranian ports and Tehran establishing control over naval traffic and charging for passage through the strait.

“The US has no responsibility in this part of the world. The US is a coastal state to the Gulf of Mexico… almost 11,000 kilometers away,” Izadi told RT in an interview on Tuesday, insisting that only Iran has the responsibility to “provide security” in the Strait of Hormuz.

There are no international waters in the key freight corridor, as it is divided between Iranian and Omani territorial waters under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), he said.

There are legal precedents for nations charging fees from vessels traversing their territorial waters, Izadi said.

“Australia, Canada, Denmark, Turkey, they all collect fees for countries that are members of the UNCLOS… They call it pilotage fees,” he said, adding that some charges are imposed for “environmental reasons.” Countries like Türkiye, which isn’t a signatory to the convention, “just call it passage fee,” he said.

Izadi stressed that there is “no legal prohibition” on Tehran from doing the same.

“Since Iran wants to be friendly, they are going to do what Australia and Canada and Denmark are doing already,” he said.

Watch the full interview below:

The Russian military will begin targeting bunkers used by Ukrainian military commanders and leadership in response to Kiev’s continued terrorist attacks on civilians, senior MP Andrey Kartapolov says. Ukraine’s parliament – the Verkhovnaya Rada – and Vladimir Zelensky’s office are not on the target list, he told Parliamentskaya Gazeta on Tuesday.

In the wake of the deadly Ukrainian drone attack on a college in the Lugansk People’s Republic, Moscow announced a new strategy, pledging to systematically hit assorted targets across the Ukrainian capital in retaliation. The strike killed at least 21 people, mostly teenage girls sleeping in a dormitory, in what the Russian Foreign Ministry characterized as the manifestation of “the Nazi and terrorist nature of the Kiev regime.”

Russia’s “patience has run out,” Kartapolov said, commenting on the tragedy. Kiev’s tactics have spiraled into “blatant terrorism against our civilians,” the head of the State Duma Defense Committee stated, adding that Moscow would now abandon its self-imposed commitment not to target Ukraine’s capital.

When asked about potential targets, the lawmaker stated that neither the Verkhovnaya Rada building nor Zelensky’s office counts as a “decision-making center.” Ukrainian MPs do not control the troops, and Zelensky himself does not even visit his office any longer, the MP stated.

“Decision-making centers [are] underground fortified [military] command and control centers,” as well as bunkers used by the Ukrainian security services and leadership, said Kartapolov, himself a retired colonel general and former deputy defense minister.

Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry urged foreigners to leave the Ukrainian capital and warned locals to stay away from military, industrial, and government sites. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the issue with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as well.

The EU has openly dismissed the warnings, accusing Moscow of “unacceptable escalation.” The bloc’s foreign policy spokeswoman, Anitta Hipper, said on X on Tuesday that Brussels summoned the Russian Charge d’Affairs over the ministry’s call and stated that “the EU delegation stays in Kiev.”

The Russian military maintains that it never targets purely civilian sites in Ukraine and focuses on military or dual-use installations.

On May 25, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a strong statement regarding Ukraine. Condemning the recent strike by Ukrainian forces on a college building and dormitory in Starobelsk which resulted in the deaths of 21 students and many injuries, the ministry warned that the incident was the last straw for Russia and that its “cup of patience has overflowed.”

According to the Foreign Ministry, the Russian military will now systematically target defense industry facilities in Kiev. Moscow urged foreigners, including diplomats and representatives of international organizations, to leave the Ukrainian capital “as soon as possible” and advised civilians to stay away from defense industry facilities.

Following the statement, the newspaper Kommersant asked Russian experts to assess the Foreign Ministry’s message.

Andrey Ilnitsky, military expert, member of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (CFDP):

The Foreign Ministry’s statement regarding the targeted strike on an educational institution in Starobelsk, which resulted in the death of students, highlighted that the ‘cup of patience’ had overflowed. This means that the amount of suffering and anger that society and the state can put up with has reached a certain breaking point. In such a situation, transitioning to a strategy of ‘managed escalation’ seems like a rational necessity. 

It is essential to understand that the spiritual essence of ‘managed escalation’ lies not in revenge but in a moral cause-and-effect relationship: justice acts as an objective spiritual law, a form of retribution that cannot be avoided. In military terms, this strategy involves gradually increasing the costs for the Ukrainian nationalists and their Western partners. 

The adversary must realize that every step we take up the escalation ladder sends a clear message about our serious intentions, the inevitable expansion of strikes and the means of attack, demonstrating that the previous limits of restraint have been exhausted, and the next blow will be even more painful and will cause greater damage.

Vasiliy Kashin, director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, CFDP member

I believe that the intensification of the strikes on Kiev is an inevitable response to the recent escalation of Ukrainian attacks deep into Russian territory. If Russia increases its strikes on Ukraine’s largest city without worrying about collateral damage, it will have more opportunities to destroy Ukrainian drone production facilities and stockpiles. At the same time, this will ramp up pressure on the Ukrainian authorities to initiate negotiations. Additionally, within Russia, there are those who advocate for decisive retaliatory strikes.

Sergey Poletaev, analyst, CFDP member, co-founder and editor of the Vatfor Project:  

There’s a difference between statements and military feasibility. Kiev is the most fortified city in Ukraine (and possibly in Europe, with the exception of Russia) in terms of air defense. 

The winter attacks on Kiev’s energy infrastructure and the ongoing bombings of military facilities and command centers have repeatedly highlighted the complexity and costliness of breaching Kiev’s air defense system. However, yesterday’s events have revealed that the air defense capabilities around Kiev have been sufficiently depleted for a mass attack to be effective. 

I believe this has been the main reason behind the shift in our airstrike paradigm. We’ll see how the Foreign Ministry’s statements translate into action.

Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, CFDP member:

The transition to systematic strikes on defense industry facilities and decision-making centers in Kiev was long overdue. Given the intensification of terrorist activities by the Kiev regime, this has become absolutely necessary. Moreover, in light of the depletion of missiles for Western air defense systems supplied to Kiev, this is now technically achievable.

The barbaric strike by the Ukrainian armed forces on Starobelsk marked a peak in their escalating terrorist activities against Russia, which have been intensifying for months. These actions included increasingly widespread long-range attacks targeting civilian infrastructure deep within Russian territory.

Europe plays a direct role in these assaults, as the production of drones for Ukraine is based on its territory. European countries also allow these drones to pass through their territory and provide Kiev with crucial intelligence information used for the strikes. The goal of these attacks, including the inhumane strike on the college in Starobelsk, is to derail negotiations that were set to resume in the coming weeks under US mediation. These talks were based on the so-called Anchorage agreements (which stipulated that Ukrainian forces must withdraw from the territories they occupy in the Donetsk People’s Republic as a primary condition for a ceasefire). European elites are eager to prolong the conflict, believing it will ultimately lead to Russia’s critical exhaustion and give them time to bolster their own military resources. At the same time, Europe and Kiev aim to force Russia into making concessions that would render any notion of its victory impossible.

Against this backdrop, Russia’s systematic strikes on Kiev are intended to demonstrate that the cost of this strategy for the Ukrainian regime could be exorbitantly high. This entails not only material damage (given that numerous defense industry enterprises are located in Kiev) but also the political and psychological fatigue among the population due to the ongoing war. Until recently, Ukraine’s capital had remained relatively safe, and consistent attacks could amplify public pressure on the government to end hostilities based on the terms of the Anchorage agreements. 

Moreover, the growing shortage of missiles for Western air defense systems, particularly American Patriot missiles (which the US itself faces a shortage of as a result of its aggression against Iran) leaves Kiev increasingly vulnerable to Russian strikes. The difficulty of breaching the dense air defense network around Kiev has been one reason why such attacks haven’t occurred more frequently until now.

Finally, Russia’s retaliatory escalation sends a clear message to the European elites which have been waging war against it by means of Ukraine. Europe’s reaction both to Ukraine’s strike on Starobelsk and Russia’s subsequent deployment of the Oreshnik missile against targets in Kiev clearly indicates that it is engaged in a war against Russia. Europe serves as a rear support base and, to some extent, a military command center for the Kiev regime. Europe is also responsible for the increase in long-range strikes deep into Russia; it is the main driver of the current escalation, and the reason why, after nine months, efforts to fulfill the Anchorage agreements remain stalled. 

Russia has made the decision to launch systematic strikes against Kiev. The next step on the escalation ladder will likely involve direct strikes against targets within the EU and NATO countries.

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

Know what I’m getting really sick of as a Canadian? Harmful deferentiality towards the US that persists despite all the “elbows up” rhetoric.

In the latest example, an Air France fight took off from Paris, heading for Detroit. Do you see anything Canadian in that at all? Canada does!

The airline had royally messed up and let a passenger board from the Congo, the current global headquarters of Ebola. American authorities refused to let the plane land in their territory since they had recently banned all passengers from the Congo, specifically due to the viral outbreak. So, Canadian authorities let the plane land in Montreal. Then they let everyone off and put the passenger in question on the next flight back to Paris.

Why couldn’t they have done all that in Detroit? Is a plane considered to be inside a country the moment it decides it has feelings about the flight? No passenger is technically inside any country until they go through customs anyway. Why did they have to dump it all on Canada? I’ll tell you why. Because they had a choice, and Canada is far too nice.

The answer should have just been “no.” Not “no, but let us convene an interagency working group to explore the emotional implications of saying no.” Just “no.” No getting into the intricacies of Ebola infection risk or whose fault it all is, either. Or whether the guy is actually infected or not. Forget dedicating any bandwidth to any of that.

Perhaps Canada figured that it was doing its buddy, France, a favor, saving it from its own vetting screwup. Again, not Canada’s problem. Let them fight it out with the US. Tell France to threaten to just land the plane on Lake Erie and wish them luck.

It would have actually been the perfect time for Canada to propose, “Hey guys, you know that Gordie Howe International Bridge that Canada paid to build, running from Windsor to Detroit, that Trump insists on blocking? How about we get that sorted out in time to land this plane? Then maybe Canada will be compelled to lift a finger to help out. Otherwise, looks like this is a ‘you’ problem.”

Canada needs to stop doing any and all favors for America that aren’t a net benefit.

It wasn’t that long ago that American authorities told Canada to arrest and hold the daughter of Huawei’s founder, Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of the Chinese company herself at the time, on a US extradition request as she transited through Vancouver airport. Canada complied – and was rewarded with a massive diplomatic headache lasting years, having inserted itself in a tug-of-war between Washington and Beijing. The kind that comes with the satisfaction of having ‘helped’ and the administrative burden of proving that you didn’t cause the problem in the first place. The allegations that made the mess Canada’s problem related to violations of American anti-Iranian sanctions by the Chinese multinational, despite Canada not even having any of its own sanctions against her or Huawei.

Anyone in France knows that Washington routinely uses criminal charges as a weapon of economic warfare to target foreign executives of companies they want to buy or pressure for criminal charges. It’s the blueprint that enabled General Electric to get its hands on the French nuclear know-how of Alstom, for example.

And what thanks did Canada get for any of these accommodations? Tariffs. Insults about being useless – except as a 51st state. And constantly being told by Trump that it’s freeloading if it doesn’t blow its defense budget on-demand in the US.

Worse, the US has just been outed as meddling directly in Canadian politics. Why else would a Michigan-based electioneering app, 10xVotes, promoted by the US Ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, of the Michigan GOP himself, end up with the data of registered Alberta voters on its hardware? Turns out it was passed the info by a pro-separatist Canadian group that had been working directly with the American app, linked to shady pro-Trump Republican business and political interests and peddled by the likes of Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, and Tucker Carlson – all of whom also happen to be egging on the Canadian separatists that they couldn’t have cared less about until recently, and against all legal and political reality.

And if that hasn’t stunk up the country enough, the US also recently said that it planned to open more federal drug enforcement offices in Canada. “From a DEA perspective, we’re keeping our eye on Canada,” DEA chief Terrance Cole said at a recent US Senate hearing. “We’re going to open two more offices in Canada, proposed for ‘27.” Lemme guess. There’s a huge fentanyl problem in Alberta. Near an oil pipeline. Am I close? Because there sure as heck isn’t one that directly affects the US from Canadian territory. What do you think this is? A flop house?

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has proven that Canadians have passive aggression in abundance. Telling Trump off in various ways that are intellectual enough to not get picked up by the American president’s finely tuned insult-sensitive radar as they sail over his head. Arguably the most obvious example being Carney’s speech in Davos a few months ago, basically saying that the era of US-led hegemony is over and everyone knew that the notion of it being a net benefit to citizens of the countries that kowtowed to it was a lie that leaders have all long known about but insisted on sticking with anyway.

Canada is no longer a footnote in someone else’s policy agenda. It is drafting its own, at long last. What remains unfinished is the transition from having an agenda to behaving like it is allowed to use it without prior permission. The doormat has only really been pulled halfway out. Go ahead and give it a good yank once and for all, guys. It will hurt a lot less than the alternative.

China is restricting overseas travel for leading AI specialists from companies including Alibaba and DeepSeek, as Beijing pushes for greater self-reliance in artificial intelligence, robotics, and semiconductors, Bloomberg has reported.

Citing anonymous sources, the outlet claimed on Tuesday that Chinese authorities have begun requiring advanced AI researchers, executives, startup founders, and engineers to obtain approval before traveling abroad.

The measures – which Beijing has neither confirmed nor denied – reportedly reflect growing concerns over protecting strategically important technologies. According to Bloomberg’s sources, the government now views top AI talent as a national-security asset, placing them under restrictions previously reserved for nuclear scientists and senior executives at state-owned firms.

Last month, Chinese regulators blocked Meta’s planned $2 billion acquisition of Manus, a Chinese AI startup that relocated to Singapore in 2025. Two Manus executives were reportedly barred from leaving China during a probe into the deal, as Beijing simultaneously tightened restrictions on US investment in the country’s tech sector.

Bloomberg’s sources said that the latest travel restrictions are not connected to the Manus showdown, but are part of a broader policy to stem the flow of critical technology to the West.

For Beijing, placing export controls on talent is a logical next step after slowing the export of other elements in the AI supply chain. In two rounds of restrictions last year, China blocked the export of 14 rare earth minerals critical in the manufacture of high-tech military equipment. It also banned exports of the semiconductors that power AI supercomputers and data centers, as well as the tools used to refine them.

China extracts at least 60% of the world’s rare earth metals and processes around 90%. By restricting their export, Beijing is attempting to even the playing field with the US and its partners, which have sought to exclude China from the supply chain, while gaining valuable leverage against Washington in trade negotiations.

China’s current five-year-plan, which lays out the country’s development objectives through 2030, calls for taking “extraordinary measures” to develop self-sufficiency in semiconductors, AI, and advanced manufacturing.

Russia and India are in talks concerning the sale of an additional batch of S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, authorities said in Moscow.

India has expressed interest in these advanced missile systems, the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC) told Interfax.

“Russia is ready for this. Negotiations are underway,” the FSMTC stated on the sidelines of the International Security Forum, which began in Moscow on Tuesday.

The FSMTC noted that the S-400 had “proven itself” during India-Pakistan military conflict in May last year.

Dmitry Shugaev, head of the FSMTC, said last week that the current contract for supplying India with S-400 systems is being fulfilled on schedule.

He had said earlier that Russia is not ruling out new deliveries of S-400 systems to India.

There had been reports earlier that India might be in the market for the even more advanced S-500 systems, which are capable of taking out targets in low-earth orbit.

In March, India’s Defense Acquisition Council (DAC) approved proposals to buy defense equipment worth $25 billion, including S-400 air defense missile systems, various types of aircraft, and artillery systems, as part of a rapid military modernization drive.

A statement from India’s Defense Ministry said those approvals cover five S-400 units in addition to the five it ordered in 2017. New Delhi went ahead with the earlier purchase despite heavy pressure from the United States.

Three of the missile systems contracted in 2017 have already been delivered to India. A fourth is expected to reach India before the end of this month, and the last before the end of this year.

The procurement of transport aircraft to replace the country’s Soviet-era An-32 and Il-76 planes, as well as various artillery systems, was also approved by the DAC.

New Delhi is the world’s fifth largest military spender and the second largest arms importer after Ukraine, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Over 60% of Indian weaponry is of Soviet or Russian origin. New Delhi has recently been positioning itself as a defense manufacturer under its Make in India program.

Iranian Armed Forces operational command Spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari has recently announced that Iran intends to charge fees for the use of undersea cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz. While this news didn’t come as a surprise, it certainly heightened tensions surrounding the digital infrastructure of the Persian Gulf.

Since May 18, the Persian Gulf Strait Authority has controlled the situation in the Strait of Hormuz. This new body was established by the Supreme National Security Council of Iran and is responsible for monitoring compliance with the maritime rules set by Tehran. It was created in response to the US-initiated naval blockade that began in April.

The entire Strait of Hormuz, including its underwater infrastructure, is now viewed by Tehran as part of its jurisdiction and an area of its strategic control. 

Even before the current escalation, however, discussions about undersea internet cables in the Strait of Hormuz had surfaced in Iranian media. The topic first emerged in July 2019 during a broadcast on the state-controlled IRIB television and radio network. At that time, an expert claimed that a disruption of cables in the Strait of Hormuz could potentially affect up to 70% of the world’s internet traffic.

While this figure seems exaggerated – since the global web has backup routes and much of the transit between Europe and Asia relies on other pathways like the Red Sea, Egypt, and the Mediterranean – the statement itself is quite significant.

Even if global internet service isn’t paralyzed in the event of major damage to the cables, countries in the Arabian Peninsula would face severe communication disruptions, reduced bandwidth, increased latency, and failures of digital services.

Back in 2019, the Arab nations dismissed these warnings as fanciful Persian tales. But they may have been wrong. 

The expert opinion expressed in 2019 was not an official statement by the Iranian government about an intention to cut the cables. It only pointed to the potential vulnerabilities of the cables in the Strait of Hormuz and the international ramifications in case of a significant regional escalation. Thus, already at that time, Iran viewed the undersea digital infrastructure in the Strait of Hormuz as a potential tool for strategic leverage.

The question of whether Iran is indeed prepared to cut internet cables in the Strait of Hormuz should be viewed not as an isolated technical issue, but as part of Tehran’s broader strategy to exert pressure around this vital waterway.

For Iran, subsea digital infrastructure now serves as a new lever alongside oil, tanker traffic, ports, and energy logistics. However, there is a fundamental difference between pointing out vulnerabilities and physically destroying the cables.

In 2026, Iran returned to the topic of undersea internet cables, raising the issue to a new level. On April 22, Tasnim news agency, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), published a report mapping the cable and cloud infrastructure of the Persian Gulf. Essentially, this served as a warning that Tehran may view the Gulf states’ digital infrastructure as part of the conflict zone. The report emphasized that the Gulf monarchies rely on maritime internet routes much more heavily than Iran itself does. 

In May 2026, this idea evolved into a more developed political and economic concept. Iranian state media started pushing the narrative that Iran could charge foreign tech companies for utilizing the undersea cables that run through the Strait of Hormuz. This was not merely a question of fees; it also entailed regulatory oversight, requiring operators and major technology firms to adhere to Iranian regulations, as well as efforts to monopolize cable maintenance and repair services. 

From a military perspective, Iran has the capability to threaten cable infrastructure: the Strait of Hormuz is quite shallow, maritime traffic is dense, and the cables are physically vulnerable to damage. Most damage to subsea cables occurs not from sabotage but from anchors, fishing gear, and navigational errors. Thus, there is a real possibility that these cables may become damaged. When it comes to physical interference rather than a precise cyberattack, the vulnerabilities of such infrastructure are evident.  

Economically, Iran can assert its right to charge for the use of subsea cables within its maritime jurisdiction. According to international maritime law, coastal states have the authority to regulate the installation and maintenance of such infrastructure near their shores. This is why Tehran views the cables not just as  part of an international communication network but as an object under its control.

The political ramifications of such actions or the deliberate severing of cables would be substantial for Iran. Such a move would likely be perceived by the US, the Gulf nations, and major tech companies not as a ‘symmetrical response’ but as an attack on critical international infrastructure.

Moreover, executing such an operation discreetly would be exceedingly difficult for Iran, as the area is under constant military surveillance, and any blatant act of sabotage would give Tehran’s adversaries ample reason for a severe retaliatory response. For this reason, attempting to physically cut cables in the Strait of Hormuz would be an extremely risky maneuver for Iran, and would effectively escalate the conflict to a new level.

Seven primary communication systems run along the seabed of the Strait of Hormuz; however, they branch out into about 17 distinct cable lines. Some serve mainly regional purposes: the FALCON system connects India with Oman, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and extends to Egypt, while the Ooredoo Gulf Pathway manages a significant portion of digital traffic within the Persian Gulf. Other cable systems are strategically vital, including the SEA-ME-WE 5, linking Southeast Asia with the Middle East and Europe, and TGN-Gulf, connecting Gulf nations’ infrastructure with India and global networks, including the US.

The security of these cables cannot be ensured without military force. The cable infrastructure is extensive, runs along the seabed, and is physically exposed. However, as recent months have shown, neither side is eager to place their military vessels at risk. 

Repairing damaged cables presents its own set of challenges. Restoring a severed cable necessitates the deployment of specialized ships to the area and that their safe operation is ensured. In the context of military tensions, this quickly transforms from an engineering issue into a political and military one.

Without Tehran’s direct or at least tacit consent, repair efforts in the strait may prove impossible. This situation turns the threat of damage to the cables into a tool for leveraging power, since in addition to the disruption of traffic, the repair process may be complicated. 

Damage to undersea cables in the Strait of Hormuz could impact not only internet speed but also the region’s connectivity with major global IT platforms. A significant portion of the digital infrastructure, including cloud services, data centers, corporate platforms, and financial systems, relies on international data transmission routes.

Disruptions in communication with Southern Europe – home to major data centers for AWS, Microsoft, and other cloud service providers – could be particularly sensitive. If data traffic from the Gulf countries needs to be urgently redirected through alternative routes, the process would put additional strain on other parts of the network. Consequently, users might experience delays, reduced speeds, unstable service quality, and interruptions in access to cloud platforms.

Predicting which specific services will suffer the most is nearly impossible in advance. Information about land-based communication lines, backup routes, and actual traffic redistribution schemes is typically not publicly available. Therefore, the repercussions will depend not only on how many cables are affected but also on how swiftly operators can reroute the traffic.

Generally, one damaged cable doesn’t trigger widespread internet collapse; traffic can be redistributed through backup routes. However, if multiple cables fail simultaneously, it would cause a drop in internet service quality. In the Gulf countries, this could impact banking operations, digital government services, cloud platforms, corporate communications, messaging apps, and logistics systems.

On a global scale, services like Telegram are unlikely to cease functioning entirely. However, in certain Gulf nations, this would cause problems: messages may be delayed, the connection could become unstable, and in the event of serious damage to several cables, access to specific services might be temporarily disrupted. 

It is most likely that instead of actually damaging the cables, Iran will use the threat of such a possibility as a lever of influence. It suffices for Tehran to mention the possibility that these cables could become targets. This already alters market behavior: operators factor in added risks, repair ships proceed more cautiously in the conflict zone, Gulf countries reevaluate backup routes, and investors assess the region’s vulnerabilities not just in terms of oil but also digital infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the consequences of physical damage to the cables would differ based on the region. This wouldn’t cause a global internet blackout; there are alternative routes in place, and transit between Europe and Asia relies on various paths. However, for the Gulf states, the impact would be far more severe, affecting banking operations, cloud services, data centers, logistics, and digital government platforms. The greatest danger lies not in a single incident, but rather in a prolonged disruption and a situation in which repair ships would not be able to operate safely in the conflict zone. 

Undersea cables remain primarily a means of strategic coercion for Iran – a way to demonstrate that responses to blockades or military pressure could extend beyond the oil market to digital infrastructure as well. Physically cutting the cables would be a last resort, possible only done in the event of significant escalation – however, in the logic of its current pressure strategy, it wouldn’t be the most rational move for Iran. 

Nine countries have withdrawn from a Czech initiative aimed at jointly procuring artillery ammunition for Ukraine, according to Czech President Petr Pavel. The scheme has been plagued by underinvestment since its inception.

Some 18 countries, including Canada, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, signed up to partake in the initiative when it was announced by Pavel in 2024. At the time, Western manufacturers were unable to meet Kiev’s appetite for ammunition, producing 1.3 million shells in a year, while Russia was able to make 4.5 million at a quarter of the cost.

“The initiative is still working, but the new difficulty is that only about nine member states are contributing financially,” Pavel told the Financial Times on Tuesday. “This initiative has been delivering up to 50% of all large caliber ammunition to the Ukrainians, so in this sense it cannot be replaced easily by anything else.”

Although the initiative has managed to source around four million pieces of artillery ammunition for Kiev, it has fallen dramatically short of its targets. As of February, it has raised €1.4 billion ($1.62 billion) to purchase ammo, less than a third of the €5 billion Pavel had hoped to raise, NATO officials told Reuters.

Pavel refused to say which countries had pulled out of the initiative, although an unnamed Western military official told the Financial Times that Germany and some Nordic nations were among those still participating.

Ukraine has faced a shortage of artillery shells since early 2022, with Russian gun crews carrying out as many as five times more fire missions than their Ukrainian counterparts, and Ukraine’s then-Defense Minister Rustem Umerov pleading for supplies to alleviate the “shell hunger” in early 2024. The Czech initiative failed to even the score, and by the end of 2025, Ukrainian forces had replaced artillery with one-way attack drones in most battlefield situations, Russian military sources told RIA Novosti in November.

As the primacy of artillery declined on the battlefield, support for Ukraine declined in Prague. Since his election last year, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has audited the ammo initiative, and cut all use of Czech funds for the program, which he said lacked transparency and funneled billions of dollars to unknown beneficiaries.

While Babis has kept the scheme running with Prague playing the role of non-contributing intermediary, “some countries now feel that it is strange to pay for something that is not even properly supported by the ruling politicians of the lead country,” a Western official told the Financial Times.

Nearly 90 drones fell into Sydney’s Darling Harbour on Monday evening after a technical malfunction disrupted a coordinated aerial display, according to several media outlets.

The incident occurred during Vivid Sydney, an annual three-week festival known for large-scale light installations and public art events.

Spectators were watching a synchronized formation of hundreds of illuminated drones when part of the formation suddenly broke away and plunged into the water.

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Публикация от Arkangel (@arkangel_sydney)

The evening performance was immediately cancelled, and all upcoming drone shows scheduled for the following days suspended pending a full technical review.

SkyMagic, the company responsible for the display, said the failure was caused by an “unforeseen technical difficulties” shortly after takeoff. The disruption reportedly affected positioning accuracy, triggering parts of the fleet to enter automatic emergency landing mode.

Operators said safety systems functioned as intended. Once the malfunction was detected, the show was halted and a return-to-home protocol was activated to ensure the remaining drones could land safely without further incident.

A spokesperson for Vivid Sydney apologized for the disruption and any disappointment caused to attendees, stressing that no injuries were reported.

The drones at @VividSydney were dive bombing into Darling Harbour, tonight.

No, it wasn’t on purpose. pic.twitter.com/VSqSMgSzQX

— Taraustralis (@Taraustralis) May 25, 2026

Authorities and technical specialists are now investigating the cause of the failure, with a comprehensive review of equipment and flight systems underway before any future performances are approved.

Kiev is openly glorifying Nazi collaborators at the state level, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, condemning Ukraine’s recent reburial of Andrey Melnik, the former leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

Melnik’s remains were repatriated from Luxembourg and buried in Kiev with state honors on Sunday. Vladimir Zelensky and senior Ukrainian officials attended the ceremony, with the Ukrainian leader describing Melnik as a “hero.”

“The regime is demonstrating its true essence,” Peskov told reporters on Tuesday responding to the ceremony. He described the repatriation of a known Nazi collaborator as a clear “manifestation of neo-Nazism,” adding that it was “very dangerous for Europe.”

“The official, state-level glorification of Nazi criminals and collaborators is taking place in the center of Europe. I don’t know if anyone in the European capitals likes this, but we don’t like it at all,” Peskov said, adding that this latest episode “once again underscores the justification and the correctness of launching the special military operation.”

Previously, the Israeli Foreign Ministry had also condemned Kiev’s decision to bury Melnik with state honors, saying there was “no place for ignoring historical truth and the memory of the victims murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.”

Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center has also decried the ceremony, stating that honoring the leader of a movement that aided Nazi Germany in the persecution and murder of Jews “undermines the moral integrity essential to Holocaust remembrance.”

Melnik co-founded the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1929 and led the organization from 1938 onwards, conducting espionage and sabotage operations for Nazi Germany’s military intelligence agency, the Abwehr. The OUN later split into two factions, one loyal to Stepan Bandera, another Nazi collaborator revered by Kiev. Both factions aided in the persecution and killing of Jews and Poles during World War II.

Melnik had petitioned Adolf Hitler to create a Ukrainian Waffen SS division, but eventually fell out of favor with the Fuhrer, and was imprisoned in a concentration camp in 1944. As the war ended, Melnik fled to the West and settled in Luxembourg, where he remained politically active until his death in 1964.