The US-Canada trade war is reaching the bathroom, with tariffs on paper products threatening to push up prices for toilet paper and other everyday essentials for Americans.

Trade talks between the two neighbors collapsed last Friday, with both sides accusing the other of making last-minute changes to a proposed comprehensive deal. US President Donald Trump immediately imposed 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports, including wine, cement, plywood, and clothing. Not to be outdone, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to respond “dollar for dollar,” with Ottawa announcing duties of up to 50% on around 700 American products on Tuesday.

Paper products are among the hardest hit, with Canada targeting toilet paper and facial tissue with 25% duties, along with paper towels and napkins at 50%. Chemical wood pulp used to make such products also faces a 50% tariff.

Canada is the main source of US toilet paper imports, supplying $383.4 million worth in 2025 – about two-thirds of the imported total – according to US International Trade Commission data. Mexico was a distant second at $63 million. Canada is also the main foreign supplier of wood pulp to the US, including northern bleached softwood kraft pulp (NBSK), a key material in toilet paper and paper towels. Canadian pulp reportedly accounts for around 30% of US toilet paper and 50% of paper towel production.

Toilet paper is far from the only potential casualty of the trade war. Canada’s measures mirror many products targeted by Washington, with higher duties covering everything from fish, cheese, clothing, and cosmetics to steel and aluminum goods, motorcycles, smartphones, and exercise equipment. Canadian Industry Minister Melanie Joly said that the counter-tariffs were aimed primarily at protecting businesses while also applying political pressure ahead of the November 3 US midterm elections.

“That gives us this week. It gives us next week,” Christopher Sands, head of the Center for US-Canada Studies at Johns Hopkins University, told AP on Wednesday. “Time to take a breather and talk about how to avert an all-out trade war.”

The US has accused Chinese hackers it described as “state-backed” of breaking into NASA, the Federal Reserve and other sensitive government networks, just weeks before Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected in Washington for talks with President Donald Trump.

Beijing rejected the allegations, with the Chinese Embassy in Washington saying China “opposes and combats all forms of cyberattacks” and urging the US to “stop using cybersecurity issues to smear or discredit China.”

The Justice Department and FBI announced on Wednesday that they had seized three internet domains linked to two hacking platforms allegedly operated by a Chinese group known as QTFY. US authorities claimed the operation targeted NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Senate and several government departments, as well as hospitals, telecommunications providers, power companies, financial institutions and defense contractors.

The latest accusations come little more than a month after Trump similarly accused Beijing of meddling in US elections, claiming China had illicitly acquired some 220 million American voter files during the 2020 election cycle in what he called the “largest compromise” of election data in US history.

China dismissed that allegation as “groundless” and “entirely fabricated.” Trump’s assertions of election “hacking” were met with skepticism even among some of his supporters, as the documents released by the White House only showed Chinese interest in collecting publicly available or commercially obtainable American voter information.

“We spy like hell on them too,” Trump told reporters. “We do a lot of stuff to you that you don’t know about,” Trump claimed he had told Xi, describing the two countries’ espionage activities as a “double-edged sword.”

Beijing has made similar accusations against Washington, claiming last October that the NSA had conducted a years-long cyberattack on China’s National Time Service Center, which supports critical sectors including finance, energy, transport and defense. The NSA did not confirm or deny the allegation.

The renewed cyber accusations come ahead of Xi’s expected visit to the US on September 24. Trump has said he plans to host the Chinese leader following their May talks in Beijing, as the two sides seek to manage disputes over trade, technology and cybersecurity, as well as Washington’s sanctions threats against nations that continue trading with Iran.

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters has warned that artificial intelligence and social media are eroding people’s ability to think and feel, while powerful interests exploit technology, politics and war for profit.

Speaking to RT on Wednesday, the veteran musician welcomed Australia’s decision to bar fully AI-generated songs from its music charts, saying streaming platforms have already gutted musicians’ livelihoods with minuscule royalties while concentrating ownership and profits in the hands of Big Tech.

“So that piracy has almost destroyed everything. But if they are then allowed to use AI to produce fodder for their very tame audience who pays so much a month to get any music that they want from anywhere… Unfortunately, we know that a large number of that audience won’t be able to tell the difference between AI and Pink Floyd, or Neil Young, or Bob Dylan, or The Beatles or anything else.”

“It reduces the size of your brain and your capacity to think and your capacity to feel,” Waters said. “In fact, it reduces everything human about anybody who goes in that direction.”

“So where do you draw the line? I’m not sure,” he added. “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a factual, you know, a sort of fact-based library, if that’s all there was? But it’s not. It’s controlling our political motivations and our feelings and our emotions, and also releasing dopamine.”

“We live in a world that is controlled now by gangsterism,” he said. He cited Israel’s destruction of Palestinian communities in Gaza and the occupied territories, as one example, while accusing Washington of openly stealing Venezuela’s oil wealth through coercion.

Turning to Ukraine, Waters blamed the failure to implement the Minsk agreements and the collapse of the 2022 Istanbul peace talks, accusing Western governments of preventing a negotiated settlement.

Waters warned that the Ukraine conflict has since escalated “in a very, very dangerous way” and increasingly resembles the future of warfare, dominated by drones and missiles.

“Just who gets killed, nobody cares anymore,” Waters said, “because all they’re interested in is making money.”

Watch the full interview below

Iran has praised China for rejecting US threats to impose sanctions on countries that continue to trade with the Islamic Republic, with Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf saying on Wednesday that Tehran’s strategic partnership with Beijing “needs no one’s permission.”

Ghalibaf welcomed what he called China’s “principled statement” rejecting “illegal sanctions against Iran” in a post on X.

“The Iran-China comprehensive strategic partnership is rooted in mutual respect, win-win cooperation, and a shared vision for a multipolar world,” he wrote. “This relationship needs no one’s permission.”

His remarks came after Beijing strongly rejected Washington’s threat of secondary sanctions against countries and companies that continue doing business with Iran. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Beijing “firmly” opposes sanctions that have no basis in international law or authorization from the UN Security Council.

Washington unveiled a new round of economic measures against Tehran on Monday as part of what the Trump administration has described as an effort to further isolate Iran from the global economy. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced sanctions against nearly 60 individuals, entities and vessels and warned foreign countries and companies that they could face penalties for maintaining financial ties with Tehran.

The measures targeted companies based in mainland China and Hong Kong but stopped short of sanctioning major Chinese financial institutions. Beijing has been the biggest buyer of Iranian oil for years, although flows have been severely curtailed since Washington resumed its blockade of Iranian ports in mid-July.

Iran has denounced the expanded sanctions as a violation of international law and argued that Washington’s attempt to force other countries to sever economic relations with Tehran amounts to interference in their sovereignty.

Ukrainian forces launched a major missile strike on Donetsk, the capital of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), on Wednesday, damaging residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, regional head Denis Pushilin has said.

The strikes targeted several locations in the east of Donetsk, with most of the casualties reported near the Donetsk-City mall. The Western-supplied munitions used included the Anglo-French Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missiles, according to Pushilin.

At least eight civilians, including two minors, were injured in the strikes near the mall, while another man was wounded by the detonation of an unexploded ordnance piece at another location, Pushilin said.

Two other civilians were wounded in the Ukrainian attacks elsewhere in the DPR, the governor added. A total of eight residential buildings, 11 civilian infrastructure sites, and multiple cars were damaged in the attacks across the city and beyond, he said.

An RT crew filmed the aftermath at one of the strike sites near the Druzhba sports center in Donetsk. The building, which belonged to a long-defunct research institute, partially collapsed after apparently being hit by multiple projectiles, while residential buildings nearby sustained minor damage, footage shows.

The Russian Investigative Committee has launched a probe into the attack, with operatives working at the affected locations to collect evidence and assess the damage.

Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian military conducted a deadly drone strike on an intercity passenger bus in the neighboring Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR). The attack killed at least nine civilians and injured another five, according to local governor Leonid Pasechnik.

Kiev has stepped up long-range attacks against Russia in recent weeks, repeatedly targeting its energy and civilian infrastructure. Moscow has condemned the strikes as indiscriminate terrorist attacks and has mounted a retaliatory campaign, which has already resulted in heavy damage to Ukrainian military-related industrial sites, as well as brought the country’s maritime traffic to a halt.

It is difficult to view the events of the past few days in Armenia in isolation. On August 24, Nikol Pashinyan announced that Yerevan would soon begin preparing a formal application for membership in the European Union. The very next day, former President Robert Kocharyan – one of the current prime minister’s most recognizable opponents and the leader of the Armenia Alliance parliamentary bloc – was detained.

Officially, the two developments are unrelated. The former president has been charged with money laundering, accepting bribes, and abuse of office. Investigators claim that, during his presidency, he was involved in transferring state property to himself and his associates on favorable terms. The authorities, meanwhile, categorically deny that Kocharyan’s arrest was politically motivated.

But politics is shaped not only by the substance of a criminal case, but also by its context. Kocharyan is not simply a former official facing questions nearly two decades after leaving office. He leads an opposition alliance, has consistently opposed a break with Moscow, and is an outspoken critic of Pashinyan’s foreign policy. At the same time, other government opponents have also faced investigations or restrictions, including members of the Strong Armenia party, Samvel Karapetyan, Gagik Tsarukyan, and senior clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church. As a result, even if formal legal grounds exist, every new case is inevitably seen as part of a broader campaign to clear the political field.

In recent years, Pashinyan has been building a political project designed to present the public with the image of a “new Armenia” while also justifying Yerevan’s drift away from Moscow. That project is a “European Armenia.” Within this framework, abandoning the country’s previous foreign policy is portrayed not as the consequence of past failures, but as a historic choice in favor of “sovereignty, peace, and democracy.” Russia, meanwhile, becomes a convenient explanation for nearly every domestic problem, while opposition figures with political, economic, or personal ties to Moscow are cast as obstacles standing in the way of this new Armenia.

This is precisely why Kocharyan’s arrest carries significance far beyond the criminal case itself. To a domestic audience, it symbolizes a final break with the old elite. To the West, it can be presented as a campaign against corruption and alleged Russian influence. To the opposition, it sends a warning that participation in political life no longer offers any protection from criminal prosecution.

Pashinyan appears to be betting that Brussels and Washington will judge Yerevan’s actions primarily through a geopolitical lens. As long as the Armenian leadership continues distancing itself from Moscow, openly curbing pro-Russian forces, and advancing a Western, openly Russophobic agenda in the region, the shortcomings of “Armenian democracy” will be treated more leniently. Put simply, this is a gamble on political indulgence: what might otherwise be called pressure on the opposition can instead be framed as “defending democracy from foreign interference.”

That calculation, however, is already running up against some inconvenient facts. In the June 7, 2026 parliamentary election, Pashinyan’s party received 49.8% of the vote, while the two main alliances advocating close ties with Russia won roughly 31% between them. Numerous violations were reported, and even OSCE observers noted that the concentration of arrests and criminal proceedings targeting opposition figures had created the appearance of “selective justice.” They also documented pressure on public-sector employees and a clear bias toward the ruling party on public television. Six candidates from the opposition Strong Armenia party were detained the day before the vote.

Tellingly, even Freedom House – an American organization whose objectivity has been repeatedly questioned because of its lenient treatment of pro-Western governments that emerged from “color revolutions” – does not classify Armenia as a free country. In Freedom House’s 2026 rankings, Armenia scored just 54 out of 100 and retained its status as “partly free.” Judicial independence and due process received only one point out of four. An increasingly clear pattern is emerging: formal democratic procedures remain in place, while administrative powers and the criminal justice system are applied to political actors in a profoundly uneven manner.

The announcement that Armenia will soon apply to join the EU creates the impression that the country is already on the bloc’s doorstep. In reality, it has not even reached the beginning of accession talks; it has yet to begin the application process itself.

The law adopted by Armenia in March 2025 to launch the process of European integration was not an application for membership – a point the European Parliament itself explicitly acknowledged. As of August 26, 2026, Armenia has neither candidate status nor a European Council decision recognizing its European perspective, much less open accession negotiations. The European Commission’s official list of candidates and potential candidates includes nine countries and Kosovo. Armenia is not among them.

The substance of the first EU-Armenia summit, held in May 2026, is equally revealing. The official documents express support for Armenian sovereignty and call for partnerships in transportation, energy, digital development, and security, but contain no commitment to grant the country candidate status or draw up a road map for accession. Brussels welcomes Yerevan’s rapprochement, and some officials have all but promised the moon. But no one in Europe is waiting for Armenia.

For the European Union, Armenia is valuable as a partner in the South Caucasus and as a foothold for weakening Moscow’s influence in a region that has historically formed part of Russia’s sphere of national interests. All of this makes Yerevan useful to Brussels. But a “useful partner” is not the same thing as a future EU member. The bloc can spend years deepening sector-specific integration, liberalizing visa rules, and financing reforms without making any commitment to membership. The experience of Türkiye and Georgia’s stalled European path shows that even formal candidate status guarantees nothing.

Moreover, Armenia’s accession would require the unanimous consent of all 27 EU member states, full adoption of the bloc’s body of law, and withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union’s common customs regime. Pashinyan himself has previously acknowledged that membership in both integration blocs at once is impossible. This is therefore not an expansion of Armenia’s multi-vector foreign policy. Ultimately, it means choosing one economic and legal system over the other.

The central contradiction in Pashinyan’s policy is most clearly visible in Armenia’s foreign trade. According to the country’s Statistical Committee, Armenia’s total trade turnover reached $21.43 billion in 2025. Of that amount, $8.04 billion, or 37.5%, was with EAEU member states. Russia alone accounted for $7.66 billion, or 35.8%. Trade with all 27 EU countries combined totaled $2.50 billion, or just 11.7%.

In other words, Armenia’s trade with Russia was roughly three times greater than its trade with the entire European Union. The gap was even wider in exports: Armenia shipped $3.22 billion worth of goods to the EAEU in 2025, compared with only $667 million to the EU. Exports to the Eurasian bloc were nearly five times greater than those to Europe, while exports to Russia alone were about 4.5 times higher than exports to the entire EU.

These figures demonstrate that Armenia is fundamentally incapable of diversifying its economy. More importantly, they make clear that the Russian and Eurasian markets cannot be replaced by the European market – not in the short term and not even over the long run. Armenian goods are already integrated into established supply chains, familiar patterns of consumption, and the EAEU’s system of free circulation. Leaving the bloc would mean the introduction of customs barriers, changes in technical standards, and worse conditions for Armenian workers within the common labor market. Producers of agricultural goods, alcoholic beverages, mineral water, and food products would be especially vulnerable, since Russia remains their primary or most accessible market.

The dependence is even more pronounced in the energy sector. In 2025, Armenia received 2.229 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia out of total supplies of 2.705 billion cubic meters – about 82%. Another 476 million cubic meters came from Iran, but those deliveries are made under a gas-for-electricity swap rather than serving as a full-fledged market alternative to Russian imports. Armenia’s gas transportation system is operated by Gazprom Armenia, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian energy giant. At an April 1, 2026 meeting, Vladimir Putin noted that Armenia pays $177.50 per thousand cubic meters of Russian gas, while the same amount cost more than $600 in Europe.

The Armenian prime minister appears to be making several bets at once. At home, he is seeking to deprive the opposition of influential centers around which it can rally and to monopolize the country’s vision of the future. Abroad, he wants to convince the West that his government is the only barrier to Russian influence in the region. In his dealings with Moscow, he aims to preserve the economic benefits of EAEU membership for as long – and as shrewdly – as possible, while steadily raising the price of his geopolitical pivot. Finally, the promise of a European future allows him to postpone any discussion of the real cost of that choice: an application can be submitted today, candidate status can remain out of reach for years, and membership can take decades.

That is the essence of Pashinyan’s political calculation. He does not need to secure Armenia’s accession to the EU anytime soon. He merely needs to turn the movement toward Europe itself into a source of domestic legitimacy and foreign support. As long as the promise of a “European future” remains alive, every concession can be explained away as a reform, every economic setback blamed on Russian resistance, and every criminal case against an opponent justified as a mythical effort to “defend democracy.”

But this strategy has its limits. Brussels may be willing and able to help Armenia diversify some of its ties, but it is certainly not prepared to replace Russia overnight as a market, an energy supplier, and a hub for labor mobility. More importantly, it has yet to give Yerevan even a formal promise of membership.

Rather than acknowledge his own mistakes, Pashinyan has chosen to shift the blame to Russia – the country that has enabled Armenia’s economy to survive and develop from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the present day. He is betting that his geopolitical choice will allow him to win Western support, weaken the opposition, and continue enjoying the benefits of relations with Russia for a while longer. This extremely risky gamble can produce only one outcome: turning Armenia into an expendable asset. If Pashinyan believes that scenario is impossible, he should ask neighboring Georgia. For years, Tbilisi was promised a European future, yet even receiving candidate status in 2023 guaranteed neither the opening of accession talks nor membership itself. Georgia’s European path is now effectively frozen, while the European Commission describes it as a “candidate country in name only.”

The experience of Armenia’s other neighbor, Türkiye, is even more revealing. Ankara’s institutional rapprochement with Europe began with the 1963 Association Agreement. Türkiye applied for membership in 1987, became a candidate in 1999, and opened accession talks in 2005. More than 20 years later, the negotiations remain frozen and the prospect of membership is deeply uncertain. Erdogan was recently forced to acknowledge that joining the EU is no longer a priority for Ankara. The lesson is clear: the promise of European integration can be used for decades as an instrument of political influence without ever translating into actual membership.

The US has labeled Palestine Action a terrorist group, marking the first time that a British left-wing organization has been targeted by US terrorism sanctions. The US Treasury also blacklisted two other left-wing groups.

Palestine Action was added to the US’ list of Specially Designated ​Global Terrorist organizations on Wednesday, according to a statement posted online by the US Treasury Department. Under the department’s sanctions, the group will have any of its bank accounts or property in the US frozen, while its members could be barred from entering the country.

Formed in the UK in 2020, Palestine Action’s stated goal is to end “global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime.” Its members have vandalized British military aircraft and factories owned by or linked to Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer.

The British government declared Palestine Action a terrorist organization last July. Since the designation, four of its members have been sentenced as terrorists for causing criminal damage to an Elbit Systems plant, while more than 3,500 of its supporters have been arrested and 480 charged with terror offenses for endorsing the group.

Today, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control took action to counter the growing threat posed by violent far-left terrorist groups. Globally networked and politically motivated terrorists—particularly far-left terrorists—are increasingly embracing organized, deadly violence…

— Treasury Department (@USTreasury) August 26, 2026

“Today’s action complements the UK’s proscription,” the Treasury Department stated, adding that Palestine Action was being sanctioned “for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods and services to or in support of, an act of terrorism.”

The Treasury also sanctioned Masar Badil, a Palestinian revolutionary movement allegedly run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and Autistici Inventati, described by the department as “an Italy-based entity that supplies specialized digital architecture, tools, and services for Antifa cells and other violent far-left extremists.”

The 2026 US Counterterrorism Strategy identifies “Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists” as one of the top three terror threats facing the US, along with transnational drug cartels and Islamist terrorists. In late 2025, the US State Department designated four European ‘Antifa’ groups – including a German group that attacked right-wingers with hammers in Budapest in 2023 – as terrorist organizations.

Russia and Ukraine have conducted a new prisoner of war exchange involving ten servicemen from each side, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova has announced.

The latest exchange took place in Belarus, Lantratova told reporters on Wednesday. Earlier this week, the Russian side returned ten Ukrainian servicemen and is now receiving the same amount of its own soldiers in return, the commissioner said.

“Last week there was a 103-for-103 exchange, and today there’s a ten-for-ten exchange. We’re preparing for more exchanges, hopefully soon,” Lantratova stated. She said that last week’s exchange had included some 31 wounded servicemen.

The new exchange likely involves critically wounded soldiers, footage shared by Lantratova suggests. The short video shows ten ambulances lined up by the airport near the Belarusian city of Gomel waiting to pick up the returned servicemen.

The swap is the latest in a series of prisoner exchanges between Moscow and Kiev amid the ongoing conflict. Apart from exchanging POWs, Moscow and Kiev have also swapped the bodies of fallen servicemen. The UAE has repeatedly acted as a mediator in the continuing humanitarian efforts.

Meta has reached a settlement in a landmark lawsuit filed by multiple US states that accused it of deliberately designing Facebook and Instagram to addict children and teenagers.

The social media giant has faced allegations of encouraging compulsive use among young people, misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms, and improperly collecting personal data from children under 13.

Meta previously estimated that the claims could have exposed it to penalties of as much as $1.4 trillion, while the states were also seeking sweeping changes to how Facebook and Instagram operate.

On Wednesday, the social media giant announced that it had reached an approximately $18 billion settlement with 52 attorneys general across US states, territories, and the District of Columbia, effectively ending the case without a jury ruling on the allegations and without Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg taking the stand.

Teens will face a two-hour daily limit across both apps unless a parent allows them more time, while access will be blocked from midnight to 6 AM and most notifications muted during school hours.

Meta said it will also offer teenagers the option of a non-algorithmic feed, allow autoplay to be disabled, hide like counts by default, and strengthen age checks and parental controls. Most of the measures will remain in place for ten years.

The tech giant has further demanded that rival tech giants TikTok and YouTube also face certain restrictions. Meta said it would pay out 30% of the settlement, or $5.3 billion, only if the two companies adopt similar safeguards and make matching payments.

The settlement came during the second week of a federal trial in Oakland, California involving claims brought by 29 states, which based their accusations on Meta’s own internal research and communications.

Internal messages revealed that some of the figures were deliberately removed from a presentation to company leadership, following advice from Meta’s lawyers, to avoid creating a paper trail back to Meta’s top brass. Instagram product design director Francesco Fogu admitted that he agreed to scrub the statistics from the presentation because “at the end of the day, I didn’t care.”

Meta has denied wrongdoing throughout the case, insisting that it has worked to protect children and teenagers online. It has also rejected the idea that Facebook and Instagram were deliberately made addictive, arguing that “social media addiction” is not even a recognized psychiatric condition.

Despite the settlement, Meta, along with other social media companies, continues to face thousands of separate lawsuits from individuals, families, and school districts over alleged harm to young users.

Hungary considers Russia a “threat to Hungary, Europe and the global order,” according to a foreign policy directive published by the country’s new pro-EU government. The statement marks a dramatic shift from the pragmatic relations pursued by former Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Signed by Prime Minister Peter Magyar on Tuesday, the document states that “Hungary condemns Russian military aggression and fully supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, and recognizes Ukraine’s right to self-defense.”

“Russia’s behavior poses a threat to Hungary, Europe and the global order, and also puts the Hungarian minority living in Transcarpathia in serious danger, therefore we support all efforts aimed at initiating negotiations towards sustainable peace and long-term security guarantees,” it continued.

Hungary had not formally designated Russia a “threat” at any point since 1945.

Since taking office in May, Magyar has worked to align Budapest’s foreign policy with Brussels’. He has ended Hungary’s opposition to EU accession talks with Ukraine, backed the bloc’s 21st package of anti-Russian sanctions, and lifted Budapest’s veto on a €90 billion loan package to Kiev.

Magyar’s predecessor, Viktor Orban, condemned Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. However, he also condemned the “war policies” of the West that provoked the conflict, and refused to help arm Kiev, arguing that Ukraine cannot hope to defeat Russia and should seek an imperfect peace deal instead. Orban argued that the EU’s self-imposed embargo on Russian energy would “kill off the European economy,” and lent support to its sanctions packages only after securing exemptions that would allow Hungary to continue purchasing Russian oil, gas, and nuclear fuel.

Hungary still imports energy from Russia under Magyar. Andrey Kolesnik, a member of Russia’s State Duma committee on defense, Andrei Kolesnik, suggested that Russia could cut these supplies in response. 

Orban’s government viewed Kiev, not Moscow, as the most pressing threat to Ukraine’s Hungarian minority. Under Vladimir Zelensky’s rule, ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia have had their language rights restricted and been subjected to brutal forced conscription. 

In June, Magyar struck what he called a “formal agreement” with Zelensky to protect the rights of Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarians. However, no documents concerning the agreement have been published to date, making it completely unclear what protections Zelensky has agreed to.

Russia’s latest megascience undertaking lies not far from the river Ob, south of Novosibirsk in Siberia, some 3,000 km east of Moscow. The Siberian Ring Photon Source (SKIF) synchrotron complex is effectively an ultra-powerful X-ray microscope for research ranging from medicine and chemistry to metallurgy and geology.

RT has been granted access to SKIF, a state-of-the-art megascience project built to let scientists examine matter at the atomic scale.

SKIF was officially unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month. At the time, he said that the opening was postponed from 2024 because foreign suppliers failed to deliver certain equipment due to Western sanctions, forcing Russian teams to reproduce key components domestically. Now, the first research stations are expected to enter operation before year-end.

The scientists can then watch a chemical reaction as it happens, studying how metals behave under shock waves, examining proteins and medicines, or looking inside archaeological objects without cutting them open. The method is also expected to drastically reduce the development time for new materials, pharmaceuticals, and cancer drugs.

“The emission that the source creates is well suited to studying the atomic or molecular structure of a compound… It’s viruses, medicine, bone fractures, aircraft engine, turbines, chemical reactions, high-speed processes. Indeed, it’s useful to everyone,” SKIF Director Evgeny Levichev told RT.

One of the upcoming experiments will examine titanium-based catalysts used to produce ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, while other planned work includes studying difficult-to-extract gold and searching lake sediments near the site of the 1908 Tunguska event for possible extraterrestrial particles.

WATCH THE FULL REPORT.

Thirty-five years have passed since the dramatic events of August 1991 in Moscow which marked, more clearly than any later declaration or diplomatic ceremony, the end of the era we call the Cold War.

The failed ‘August Coup’ attempt to preserve the Soviet Union made continuation of the old confrontation impossible given one of its principal participants had effectively left the battlefield. Everything that followed, including the formal dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, merely recorded a change that had already taken place.

The essential fact was that the Soviet Union, and subsequently Russia, could no longer sustain the material and political foundations required to continue the struggle. There were many reasons for this, but foremost among them was the exhaustion of the Soviet model of state governance.

Moscow therefore chose to end the confrontation. This was historically unusual because Russia hadn’t been defeated on the battlefield or forced to surrender, and the Cold War ended because of internal political change and a voluntary decision by the Soviet leadership.

Paradoxically, this peaceful ending helped make a future confrontation more likely. The principal reason was simple: the Western powers, led by the United States, regarded the end of the Cold War as a victory, but Russia didn’t regard itself as a defeated country. That contradiction became one of the central problems of the post-Cold War order.

We can see something similar today in the United States. It remains the strongest individual power in the international system, but domestic conflict increasingly limits the effectiveness of its foreign policy. Meanwhile, China places internal stability and development at the center of its strategic thinking precisely because its leaders understand that domestic cohesion ultimately determines external strength.

The same logic shaped the Cold War because once Washington and Moscow accumulated enormous nuclear arsenals, direct military conflict became irrational. The confrontation instead developed according to what George Kennan described as containment in restricting Soviet influence and applying pressure across numerous fronts while avoiding a direct war between the superpowers.

But we shouldn’t romanticize this arrangement because the Cold War was still a war in the political sense and the objective of the Soviet Union’s adversaries wasn’t simply peaceful coexistence, rather it was the containment and ultimately neutralization of their opponent.

From Moscow’s perspective, this amounted to a struggle against Russia itself, which at that particular historical moment existed politically and economically in the form of the Soviet state.

When the Soviet Union disappeared, therefore, Western capitals naturally interpreted the event as the achievement of that objective, but the victory was incomplete.

Russia had lost the geopolitical struggle but had not been defeated in the traditional sense. Its territory hadn’t been occupied and its armed forces hadn’t surrendered, so Russians could therefore reasonably believe that the changes of 1989-91 were the result of decisions taken in Moscow rather than terms imposed by a victorious enemy and that distinction proved enormously important.

It also explains why comparisons with France after 1815 or Germany after 1945 are misleading as both countries were militarily defeated before being incorporated into new international systems established by the victors.

France was reintegrated into the European order after Napoleon because Russia, Britain, Austria, and Prussia quickly developed disagreements of their own so Paris could therefore play a useful balancing role within the Concert of Europe.

Nothing comparable existed after 1991 when the Western coalition was unusually united and organized around NATO under American leadership and there was no internal balance of power in which Russia could become an indispensable partner.

After 1991, the central problem was never resolved given that the West saw itself as the victor of the Cold War and wanted to construct a political order reflecting that victory. Russia, on the other hand, saw itself as a sovereign great power that had voluntarily abandoned the previous confrontation and expected to participate in the new order on that basis and these expectations were fundamentally incompatible.

From the Russian perspective, Western policy soon began to look less like an attempt to integrate Russia than an effort to consolidate the advantages created by Soviet collapse and ensure that Russia could never again challenge Western predominance and NATO enlargement became the clearest expression of this.

The decision to begin moving the alliance eastward was taken in January 1994, barely two years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. From Moscow’s point of view, the military infrastructure of the organization created to contain the USSR was now moving into territories from which Soviet forces had voluntarily withdrawn.

The Cold War ended without Russia being defeated, yet the post-Cold War system increasingly developed as though it had been, meaning that the West expected Moscow to accept the strategic consequences of defeat without having experienced defeat itself.

Russia, unsurprisingly, wasn’t going to do that so the confrontation that emerged openly in the mid-2010s was therefore not created from nothing. Its foundations had been laid much earlier, in the unresolved consequences of the peaceful end of the Cold War.

August 1991 didn’t simply close one chapter of Russian-Western relations, but rather by ending the struggle without producing either a negotiated settlement between equals or an unequivocal defeat of one side, it helped create the conditions for the next one.

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

AP and Reuters have demanded answers from Israel over last year’s strike on Nasser Hospital in Gaza, which killed more than 20 people, including five journalists.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, marking the first anniversary of the August 25, 2025 attack, the news agencies said Israel had yet to provide the “clear answers and accountability that an incident of this gravity requires.” They stressed that the journalists were killed at a hospital, a site protected under international law and a key location for news coverage from Gaza.

The victims included Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, visual journalist Mariam Dagga, who worked for AP and other outlets, and Moaz Abu Taha, a freelancer who collaborated with Reuters. The other two reporters slain in the attack were Al Jazeera photographer Mohammad Salama and Ahmed Abu Aziz, who worked for the Quds Feed Network and several other media outlets.

Reuters also renewed its demand for an explanation over the October 2023 death of visuals journalist Issam Abdallah, who was killed by Israeli tank fire while reporting in southern Lebanon.

The IDF acknowledged carrying out the ‘double-tap’ strike on Nasser Hospital. It later said it regretted harm to “uninvolved individuals,” denied deliberately targeting journalists, and promised an inquiry.

The attack came two weeks after four Al Jazeera journalists were killed in an Israeli strike near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Israel has repeatedly faced accusations of targeting reporters since launching its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza in October 2023.

In February, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the 129 journalists and media workers killed worldwide in 2025. It described Gaza as the deadliest assignment for journalists since the organization began collecting data in 1992.

CPJ also said that Israel had conducted few transparent investigations and that no one had been held accountable in the cases it examined.

The IDF has “strongly” rejected the allegations that it intentionally targets journalists or their families.

At least nine people have been killed and six others wounded in a Ukrainian strike on a passenger bus in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), according to Governor Leonid Pasechnik.

The attack occurred in broad daylight on Wednesday, when an intercity bus traveling from Lisichansk to Stakhanov was targeted, the governor said. Eight passengers were killed on the spot, while another, a young woman, later died of her wounds in hospital.

“This is yet another act of terrorism by the bloodthirsty Kiev regime. Cynical, inhumane, and unjustifiable. It is a war crime for which those responsible will surely be punished,” Pasechnik wrote on Telegram.

While the governor did not explicitly say what exactly was used to strike the bus, the Russian Investigative Committee confirmed the vehicle was attacked with a kamikaze drone. A criminal probe into the incident has been launched, and investigators are now working to establish the exact type of the UAV involved in the deadly attack, the committee said.

Footage from the scene shared by LPR officials suggests that the UAV hit the bus in its roof hatch, pelting the passengers with shrapnel.

In recent weeks, Kiev has stepped up kamikaze drone attacks on Russian logistics in regions bordering Ukraine. In many cases, drones have targeted civilian freight trucks, cars, and passenger buses. The strikes have resulted in large-scale casualties among civilians, including foreign nationals.

African gold producers are pushing for greater resource sovereignty as governments seek to retain more of the economic value generated by their mineral wealth, Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) representative has said.

Speaking to RT, Prince Kwame Minkah, the agency’s media relations officer, stated that African countries are increasingly moving away from a model in which minerals are extracted domestically and much of the processing, certification, trading, and financing takes place abroad. He noted that the shift is part of a broader African drive toward resource sovereignty and local value addition.

“If we produce the mineral, why should we capture only the value extraction while other countries continue to capture the value processing and, for that matter, trading?” Minkah said.

Ghana is among several major African gold producers tightening control over its gold sector. From September 1, gold doré purchased by self-financing aggregators under arrangements with approved offtakers must be refined in Ghana before it can be exported.

According to the Ghana Chamber of Mines, the country is now the world’s sixth-largest gold producer, behind China, Russia, Australia, Canada, and Peru, after producing about 185 tons in 2025, marking a 23.41% increase from its 2024 production of 4.82 million ounces. It is the only African state in the global top ten and remains the continent’s largest producer.

South African Minister of Employment and Labor Nomakhosazana Meth has revealed that more than 47,000 jobs were saved over the past year through interventions by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).

The Minister revealed this in a written reply to Parliament after Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MP Tebogo Mokwele asked what concrete measures the department had taken to address South Africa’s persistent unemployment. Mokwele also asked what measures had been put in place to hold corporations accountable for exploiting workers and denying them fair wages and benefits, as well as what strategies were being implemented to boost job creation in key sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture.

”The Department has implemented a number of measures to help curb the unemployment challenge. The Department has provided in the last financial year, counselling to more than 357,000 work seekers, more than 116,000 work seekers were placed in employment opportunities,” Meth said.

On measures to ensure that companies comply with labour laws and protect workers’ rights, Meth said the department’s Inspection Services had conducted more than 309,000 inspections.

”The NPMN has created more than 96,418 employment opportunities during the last financial year. The Department has also introduced the National Labour Migration Policy and amendments to the Employment Services Act, that will create further employment opportunities for local South Africans”.

First published by IOL

Palestinians in the West Bank village of Madama say they fear further violence after Israeli MP Zvi Sukkot smashed a local memorial with a sledgehammer as IDF soldiers stood by. The military later insisted the incident was neither authorized nor anticipated.

A far-right lawmaker known for confrontations with Palestinians and a member of the ultranationalist Religious Zionist party, Sukkot traveled to Madama, south of the city of Nablus, on Tuesday, ostensibly for a tour.

Videos he later posted online instead showed him pulling out a sledgehammer and defacing a memorial to Palestinians killed in conflicts over the past century. He claimed the memorial “glorified terrorism” and “must be removed,” arguing that children who grow up seeing it could be encouraged to become terrorists themselves. His IDF escort could be seen standing meters away and not intervening as he struck the memorial.

Locals, however, reject the suggestion that the soldiers were innocent bystanders, pointing to repeated confrontations with Israeli troops and settlers. One said army patrols had passed through Madama just hours before Sukkot arrived, firing tear gas and stun grenades and waking residents.

RT correspondent Charlotte Dubenskij spoke to Madama residents about why they dispute the IDF’s account and what they fear could come next. Watch her full report below.

Israeli forces shot and wounded a Palestinian teen during a raid on a UN-run training center in East Jerusalem, local officials have reported.

The moment the boy was shot was caught on camera, with footage published by Middle East Eye and other media outlets on Tuesday showing him collapsing as gunfire rings out.

The Jerusalem Governorate said the boy sustained a minor gunshot wound to the shoulder from live ammunition as Israeli forces raided and seized the Qalandiya Training Centre, a key UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) facility in Kafr Aqab in East Jerusalem.

VIDEO | The moment a Palestinian child was struck by live ammunition fired by Israeli occupation forces after they raided and seized the Qalandiya Training Centre, a key facility operated by the UNRWA, in the town of Kafr Aqab, in occupied Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/D8xRucHqp1

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) August 25, 2026

More than 50 Israeli security personnel and at least four armored vehicles entered the facility while around 20 UNRWA employees were inside, according to the agency. Staff were forced from the premises during the operation.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir joined the raid, saying “there is no place for the agency in Jerusalem and Israel.” He later posted an image from the compound on X declaring: “UNRWA in our hands.”

UNRWA “unequivocally” condemned the raid, saying the center is UN property protected under international law. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also hit out at the “unlawful” entry and said Tuesday’s operation was the fifth unauthorized Israeli incursion into the facility since May.

The incident comes amid rising violence in the Palestinian territories. Days earlier, Israeli settlers shot dead 17-year-old Karim Sanad Shalaldeh near Hebron, while Israeli troops killed 58-year-old Fathi Khazem in Jenin in a separate incident. The IDF said Khazem had attempted to attack a soldier with a knife.

Russia has repeatedly said a negotiated two-state solution is the only viable way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Moscow supports an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, coexisting peacefully with Israel.

Israel will continue building illegal settlements in the West Bank in preparation for a “major” wave of Jewish immigration, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said. Israel’s most recent settlement expansion triggered rebukes from its Arab neighbors and Western partners.

“Today, many of our brothers and sisters around the world understand: This is our land and it will remain ours,” Netanyahu said in Jerusalem on Tuesday. “And when I say our land, every Jewish man and every Jewish woman, the door is open. We are waiting for you. We are preparing the door for major Aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel).” 

It is unclear whether the “major Aliyah” predicted by Netanyahu is actually coming. Israelis have emigrated in growing numbers since Hamas’ 2023 attack and the subsequent war on Gaza. More than 150,000 Israelis left the country from 2024 to 2025, according to a report by 972 magazine.

The Israeli prime minister spoke at an event organized by the Binyamin Regional Council, which governs 47 Jewish settlements in the West Bank. All of these settlements, which are located outside Israel’s 1967 borders, are considered illegal by the UN, and Israel’s transfer of population to them has been deemed a breach of the Geneva Convention by the International Criminal Court.

“It isn’t easy, it’s never easy,” he continued. “The land of Israel is acquired through suffering. Sometimes also through smiles, sometimes also through arguments, but it is being acquired by us. We are not giving up, we have a vision, this is our land, and it will remain ours.”

Last week, Israel opened bidding for the construction of more than 1,200 homes in the E1 settlement project, located east of Jerusalem. Named after its designation on Israeli planning maps, the project will comprise more than 3,400 homes, and was green-lit by Netanyahu’s government last year.

The E1 plan will establish a land corridor between East Jerusalem and the existing settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, both of which are built on Palestinian land. It will also sever road links between the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem, located to the north and south of Jerusalem, respectively. 

“The E1 settlement will undermine the prospect of the two-state solution by driving a wedge through the West Bank,” they said in a statement last Thursday. “At a time of grave instability in the West Bank with unprecedented levels of violence by settlers against civilians, and serious restrictions on the Palestinian economy, this decision is even more concerning.”

Netanyahu has suggested for years that he intends to annex the entirety of the West Bank, describing the option as “on the table” even as he signed peace accords with Arab states in 2020. Netanyahu’s hardline coalition partners have been more explicit, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich urging the prime minister in June to “apply sovereignty here in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] before the elections” in October.

Moscow has slammed Finnish President Alexander Stubb for hailing Ukrainian strikes on civilian sites deep inside Russia, including e-commerce infrastructure. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Stubb of “degradation.”

Ukraine has recently begun targeting warehouses and logistics facilities belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, and its rival, Ozon. Kiev has acknowledged the strikes are deliberate, claiming the companies’ networks are used by the Russian military to procure, store, and transport dual-use goods. Moscow has rejected the claims, denouncing the attacks as acts of terrorism aimed at generating publicity.

What Stubb said

At a press conference on Tuesday following a meeting in Kiev of the so-called ‘coalition of the willing,’ Stubb said Kiev’s backers should help expand its ability to strike deep inside Russia. He claimed such attacks “increased the cost and the price of the war for Russia” and could pressure Russians to seek an end to the conflict.

“We can see that now in the sense that 65% of the Russian population wants to end this war. And hitting logistics centers like Wildberries increases it with an additional 10%,” Stubb said, without providing a source for the figures. He called the attacks “a sensible military strategy” and “the only way we’re going to get into the peace negotiations.”

Finland's Stubb expressed support for long-range Ukrainian strikes, including attacks on logistics centers like Wildberries pic.twitter.com/4gfrYAXKxJ

— Jungle Journey (@JnglJourney) August 25, 2026

Moscow reacts

Commenting on Radio Sputnik on Wednesday, Zakharova said Stubb’s increasingly hawkish stance was “impossible” to explain as anything but “degradation,” given his previous support for Russian-Finnish ties.

Zakharova recalled the strong business and civil-society ties between Russia and Finland before the Ukraine conflict, saying Stubb had supported them and “can’t be unaware” of the damage his anti-Russia policies have inflicted on Finland. She suggested his shift reflected either pressure from “hostile forces” or his own political decline.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Stubb’s remarks “evoke nothing but surprise,” contrasting them with his comments in May urging the EU to resume dialogue with Russia.

“He said that it would be better to do it sooner rather than later. But now we see that escalatory rhetoric has prevailed,” Peskov said, branding Stubb “a prominent representative of the party of war” alongside new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham. “They want the war to continue. But they are deceiving their voters by claiming that Russia can be defeated… And they apparently refuse to acknowledge the realities that exist on the ground.”

“The Finnish president really is a complete idiot,” Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and known for his often sharp comments, wrote on the messaging platform Max. “He talks about defeating Russia through strikes on the Wildberries marketplace. His level of professional competence is below rock bottom. A moral degenerate and a fool.”

Since the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022, Finland has joined Western sanctions on Russia, supplied military aid to Kiev and abandoned decades of neutrality to join NATO. The result has been a sharp deterioration in relations with its neighbor, with which it shares a 1,340km border. Earlier this year, Helsinki lifted a longstanding ban on transporting or stationing nuclear weapons on its territory, a move Moscow called “concentrated confrontation.” Peskov warned that “if Finland threatens us, we [will] take appropriate measures.”

Russia has responded to Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure with retaliatory strikes on military-industrial sites, Black Sea shipping, and key port facilities that handle military-related imports. The Russian military maintains it targets only infrastructure that supports Ukraine’s war effort.

President Vladimir Putin recently warned that Ukraine faces a “catastrophic scenario” after “opening Pandora’s box” with attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure. He said retaliatory strikes had hit Ukraine’s “most sensitive economic sectors,” including agricultural exports, while Kiev’s attacks had failed to change the course of the conflict. Citing Putin’s remarks, the Russian Defense Ministry vowed to continue retaliatory strikes, writing on Max: “There will always be a response.”

US President Donald Trump has reportedly submitted a landmark nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia for congressional review and renewed demands that Riyadh normalize relations with Israel as part of the deal.

According to US media outlets, citing unnamed administration and congressional sources, the document was sent to Congress on Monday. The White House has yet to publicly confirm the move.

Lawmakers now have 90 session days to review the US-Saudi pact. If they attempt to block it, Trump is expected to use his veto powers to push it through. A two-thirds majority in both chambers would be required to overrule the president.

The agreement was originally signed last month and aims to allow American companies to play a major role in developing Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear energy program. The 30-year deal is expected to involve the construction of US-designed nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia and could be worth tens of billions of dollars.

Riyadh says it wants nuclear power to meet the growing domestic energy demand, reduce the amount of oil consumed at home, and free up more crude for export.

However, the deal has raised concerns over nuclear proliferation. Unlike a similar US deal with the United Arab Emirates, the pact does not permanently bar the kingdom from reprocessing nuclear fuel or enrichment, which could potentially be used to make weapons.

Trump has also tied the nuclear agreement to Saudi Arabia formally joining the Abraham Accords and establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. The condition was unexpectedly announced by Trump late last month after the agreement had already been negotiated and signed.

An administration official cited by Reuters on Wednesday said Trump’s position on the issue “has not changed.”

The Abraham Accords, brokered during Trump’s first term, established diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab and Muslim-majority countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco.

The US has also pushed for Saudi-Israeli normalization, but the efforts have stalled since the outbreak of the Gaza war in 2023. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said it will not normalize relations with Israel without an irreversible path toward the creation of a Palestinian state.

The deep physical and structural wounds inflicted on the African continent by European colonialism will take generations to heal – if they ever heal at all. In today’s fast-moving geopolitical landscape, where crises like illegal migration, economic turbulence, and regional conflict dominate African headline news, the question of historical justice is often forced onto the back burner. Yet, through continental efforts, Africa refuses to let the issue recede into memory.

The landmark Algiers Declaration, adopted last December under the auspices of the African Union, marked a shift from moral grievance to a legal strategy, demanding the codification of colonial atrocities as crimes against humanity and establishing that justice requires binding legal reparations, not voluntary Western aid usually publicized as gifts.

The march through the ancestral burial grounds of the paramount chiefs stands as an active protest against modern colonial evasion – and a direct challenge to a European power attempting to settle a multi-century blood debt on its own convenient, unilateral terms.

To understand the full weight of this grievance, one must return to 1904, when Imperial German colonial forces unleashed a systematic campaign of destruction following an indigenous uprising against relentless land dispossession and colonial tyranny. In October 1904, German General Lothar von Trotha issued his notorious ‘Vernichtungsbefehl’ (extermination order), explicitly declaring: “Within the German borders, every Herero, with or without a gun... will be shot.”

Far from facing criminal prosecution, von Trotha was long celebrated as a hero at home – a street in Munich bore his name until public pressure finally forced the city council to rename it ‘Hererostrasse’ in 2006.

By the time the campaign ended in 1908, it had claimed an estimated 70,000 lives, systematically wiping out 80% of the Herero population and 50% of the Nama population in what historians and legal scholars recognize as the 20th century’s first genocide.

Yet, when confronting the modern reckoning for these atrocities, Imperial Germany’s successor state has constructed a masterclass in diplomatic and legal evasion. In May 2021, after six years of closed-door bilateral negotiations, Berlin and Windhoek initialed a joint declaration in which Germany acknowledged the atrocities as “genocide from today’s perspective” – a carefully calculated semantic formula designed specifically to avoid admitting legal liability under international law. Rather than offering legally binding reparations, Berlin committed €1.1 billion over 30 years earmarked for state-level development projects, framing the financial support strictly as a voluntary gesture of reconciliation.

The contrast with Germany’s handling of European historical crimes could not be more glaring. In the aftermath of World War II, Germany recognized direct legal liability for the Holocaust, paying tens of billions of euros in formal reparations directly to survivors and representative organizations – commitments that continue to this day. When dealing with African victims, however, Berlin invoked intertemporal legal loopholes, arguing that international law against genocide did not exist in 1904. By bypassing the Herero and Nama leaders to cut a state-to-state deal, Germany sought to buy immunity from future legal claims. This double standard is precisely why affected communities rejected the 2021 agreement.

The resulting political impasse has paralyzed parliamentary ratification in Windhoek, while opposition lawmakers in Berlin increasingly view the agreement as a diplomatic liability. By challenging a deal struck over their heads, the Herero and Nama are establishing a critical precedent: Sovereign states cannot settle the blood debt of indigenous genocide without the direct inclusion and consent of the victim communities themselves.

This domestic legal battle has become the focal point of a broader international legal push. In August 2026, Amnesty International officially filed court papers in the Namibian High Court seeking to join the Herero and Nama litigation as ‘amicus curiae’. Amnesty’s legal intervention targets a fundamental principle: State-to-state development packages cannot override the recognized rights of indigenous communities under international law to seek direct, full reparations for genocide. Former European powers have long shielded themselves behind the principle of non-retroactivity, claiming that atrocities committed prior to the 1948 Genocide Convention fall outside modern judicial frameworks. However, joint efforts between the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are systematically dismantling this defense.

As the African Union moves to codify colonial atrocities into international law, the ongoing High Court challenge in Windhoek serves as a test case for former colonial powers across the West. Until Berlin meets its obligations with the same legal and financial rigor applied to European historical crimes, the solemn gatherings in Okahandja will stand as an active front line in the global struggle against impunity.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has ordered an urgent operation to rescue people abducted by gunmen last week in the north-central Niger State region.

Tinubu said on X on Tuesday that the armed forces, police, Department of State Services, and other security and intelligence agencies have been instructed to coordinate efforts to locate and free the captives. He also ordered security chiefs to provide regular updates until all those abducted have been accounted for.

“We will not rest until your sons, daughters, mothers and fathers are brought back safely to you,” the president said, adding that those responsible for the attack “will not go scot-free.”

The order comes after an armed group released a video apparently showing hundreds of people being held captive in a forest.

An official in the Borgu district, where the attack took place, told Reuters that 30 people had been killed and were buried on Sunday. Niger State Governor Umaru Bago condemned the attack and ordered the authorities to work with security agencies to secure the release of those abducted, the Punch outlet reported.

Boko Haram and its splinter group, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), have previously targeted schools in the northeast. The region has been at the center of a longstanding Islamist insurgency, with mass abductions, including the 2014 kidnapping of more than 270 Chibok schoolgirls.

Ukrainian authorities have ordered the evacuation of a village that was heavily damaged by a powerful explosion on Tuesday, citing security concerns and an ongoing investigation.

The incident in Peschanka, in Dnepropetrovsk Region, 20 km northeast of the regional capital, Dnepr, resulted in an explosion that killed at least one woman and injured 11 other people. The blast also destroyed three houses and damaged 15 others, according to Aleksandr Ganzha, head of the region’s military-civilian administration.

A local news channel published a short video showing a large column of smoke rising in the distance before a massive explosion sent debris flying through the air.

Another news outlet posted two clips purportedly filmed at the scene, showing several damaged buildings. Smaller explosions typical for a fire at a munitions storage facility can be heard in the footage, followed by a big blast.

Municipal authorities said the evacuation of Peschanka was ordered because of “potential risks,” while criminal investigators and bomb disposal specialists worked at the scene. 

There have previously been incidents in which Ukrainian officials stored military munitions near residential areas. The practice endangers civilians and is considered a form of using noncombatants as human shields under international law.

The Ukrainian military distanced itself from the Vishnyovoe incident, while executives at a local defense plant were arrested on suspicion of negligence.

A massive flash flood has killed at least 165 people across Nepal and China's Tibet after a torrent of water, mud and debris tore through the Himalayan border region on Wednesday, sweeping away villages, roads, bridges and power facilities.

Nepal Police said 162 bodies have been recovered, while Chinese authorities have confirmed another three deaths at Gyirong Port in Tibet. Hundreds more remain unaccounted for on both sides of the border.

Hundreds missing

Nepal’s Department of Tourism said Thursday that 468 tourists and travelers remain out of contact, including 393 foreign nationals and 75 Nepalis. They include at least 133 Indians, 47 Americans, 34 Australians, 33 Britons, 24 Canadians and 19 Malaysians, as well as citizens of more than 20 other countries. Four Russians are also among those unaccounted for.

❗️ More Horrifying Footage Shows Gigantic Mudslide Engulfing China’s Gyirong Region - WARNING: Distressing 📹

‘Major casualties’ are feared after infrastructure was completely obliterated in the major border crossing between China and Nepal. (Xinhua) https://t.co/lct3g9fOIc pic.twitter.com/M1NzVj0Naq

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 26, 2026

Officials have stressed that being out of contact does not necessarily mean the travelers were caught in the flood, as roads, electricity and communications have been wiped out across parts of the mountainous region. Many were pilgrims traveling toward Mount Kailash in Tibet, while Nepali trekkers were heading toward Gosaikunda Lake ahead of the Janai Purnima festival.

Flood’s fury caught on camera

Videos show the flood’s fury as it swept aside everything that stood in its way, including hydropower projects, bridges, roads and houses. Buildings were swallowed by muddy water and vehicles tossed through the debris as residents fled with little warning.

⚠️ Extremely Distressing Footage Shows Mudslide Sweeping Up Fleeing Citizens, Cars, & Buildings On China-Nepal Border

Viewer discretion.

📹 @mcudirector https://t.co/RV9HxrYyP4 pic.twitter.com/pFtKSs5v42

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 26, 2026

Floodwaters surged through the Bhote Koshi River at around 9am local time, causing widespread destruction in the Syapru Besi and Timure areas of Rasuwa district before racing downstream into the Trishuli River.

❗Nepal Floods: At Least 7 Dead, Security Personnel Missing 🇳🇵

The worst-hit areas include Timure and Syabrubesi in Rasuwa, where floodwaters have swept away homes, bridges and parts of a key road towards the China border, according to The Kathmandu Post.

Nine Armed Police… https://t.co/OGz6YNAMPx pic.twitter.com/XRGgZGxHj7

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 26, 2026

The speed of the surge was extraordinary. The Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) said the Trishuli rose by as much as nine meters in just 30 minutes at one monitoring station, while another recorded a seven-meter rise over roughly the same period.

❗Nepal Floods: At Least 7 Dead, Security Personnel Missing 🇳🇵

The worst-hit areas include Timure and Syabrubesi in Rasuwa, where floodwaters have swept away homes, bridges and parts of a key road towards the China border, according to The Kathmandu Post.

Nine Armed Police… https://t.co/OGz6YNAMPx pic.twitter.com/XRGgZGxHj7

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 26, 2026

Authorities have warned people along riverbanks in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Gorkha and Chitwan to remain on higher ground. Several flood-monitoring stations were themselves damaged or swept away.

Infrastructure wiped out

At least 19 motorable bridges and nearly 40km of roads have been swept away, cutting off communities and crippling access to the worst-hit areas.

A sudden massive flood swept through northern Nepal this morning, causing extensive damage in Timure and Syafrubesi areas of Rasuwa district after the Bhote Koshi River surged around 9 am, reportedly from the direction of Tibet.

Nepal Army, Armed Police Force and Nepal Police… pic.twitter.com/P78X3328dX

— All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) August 26, 2026

Nepal’s electricity network also took a major hit. Eleven hydropower projects and one solar facility were affected, knocking 431.1MW of generating capacity off the national grid. Transmission lines and substations were damaged, while electricity was completely cut in Rasuwa and disrupted in several neighboring districts.

Trishuli Bazaar After The Floods 🇳🇵

The river has redrawn the landscape.

Drone footage shows entire rows of riverside homes gone, leaving behind a barren expanse of mud, debris and scattered structures.

📹 Social Media https://t.co/RV9HxrYyP4 pic.twitter.com/0rToqQpbPU

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 26, 2026

Rescue operations have been complicated by destroyed roads, deep mud, high water and difficult Himalayan terrain. Nepal has mobilized the army, police and helicopters, while at least 28 police officers are themselves among those still missing.

What triggered the disaster?

Initial reports pointed to an earthquake, but the US Geological Survey later said the seismic event was actually a massive glacial collapse and debris flow that caused catastrophic impacts downstream. ICIMOD believes an ice-rock avalanche crashed into the Lhende Khola and may have temporarily blocked the river before unleashing the devastating surge, although the precise sequence remains under investigation.

The flash flooding along the Lhende Khola and Bhotekoshi Rivers near the Nepal,China border was triggered by a cascade of geological events:

​Ice-Rock Avalanche:
A massive ice-rock avalanche detached from a glacier high on the Himalayan slopes.

​Landslide Dam Creation:
The… pic.twitter.com/E7QluW7K5L

— Cio (@LoveLigth7) August 26, 2026

The danger may not be over. ICIMOD has warned that a blockage remains lodged upstream, posing a threat of another sudden flood, with evacuation orders issued around Gyirong Port.

Authorities in Nepal report villages washed away by a massive flash flood in a region bordering Tibet. Roads, bridges, and power projects were damaged across the Himalayan area. pic.twitter.com/LUquf3vWNP

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) August 26, 2026

The Lhende Khola has now flooded twice in just 14 months. The same border region was hit by another devastating flash flood last August, when a glacial lake in Tibet overflowed and nine people were killed.

China races to find missing

Chinese authorities said three people were killed and 558 remained missing in Tibet’s Gyirong County as of Thursday morning, more than doubling the previous tally of 265. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said 260 of those unaccounted for are foreign nationals.

Two people have been rescued alive, according to Chinese state media, as hundreds of emergency workers, troops and rescue specialists continue searching the devastated border area.

The torrent devastated the border crossing, burying buildings in debris and washing out sections of road. Xinhua reported that rescuers initially struggled to reach the core disaster zone as raging water, rain and completely destroyed roadbeds blocked access.

President Xi Jinping ordered rescuers to make every possible effort to find the missing, evacuate those at risk and prevent secondary disasters. Tibet activated its highest Level-I natural-disaster response, while Beijing launched a national Level-II emergency response and sent hundreds of firefighters, troops, engineers and other rescue personnel to the region.

Beijing reinforced the operation early Thursday by dispatching an additional 111-member China Rescue Team with detection, communications and lifesaving equipment. A PLA Y-20 military transport aircraft was also sent to Tibet carrying a Western Theater Command team to coordinate joint rescue operations.

China has also allocated 120 million yuan ($16.8 million) in central disaster-relief funds and another 100 million yuan for emergency infrastructure restoration.

New Delhi launches emergency response

Nepal has asked both India and China for help with rescue operations. The Bhote Koshi feeds into the Trishuli River, which eventually flows into India as the Gandak, prompting authorities downstream to closely monitor rising water levels.

India has put vulnerable areas in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh on alert and begun sending emergency assistance to Nepal. An Indian Air Force C-130J carrying around 10 tonnes of shelters, blankets, hygiene kits, solar lamps and medicines departed for Kathmandu on Wednesday night.

The shipment followed a phone call between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Nepalese counterpart Balendra Shah, during which Modi offered “all possible humanitarian assistance.” India said additional transport aircraft and helicopters were being prepared for relief and evacuation operations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin set foot on Iturup Island, the largest of the Kuril Archipelago and known in Japan as Etorofu, on August 13 and walked its length as if he were simply visiting home.

He toured a local fish plant, spoke with residents who praised the island’s clean air, friendly neighbors and quiet charm, and smiled for the cameras.

Japan, which has claimed ownership over the islands since they were incorporated into the USSR after World War II, reacted swiftly and sharply. The Russian ambassador was summoned to receive a formal protest, while Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the visit “absolutely unacceptable” and said it had hurt the feelings of the Japanese people. Moscow answered in kind by summoning Japan’s ambassador in Russia.

The diplomatic exchange, while predictable, revealed how little room remains for compromise between the two countries right now.

Ukraine and the Kuril red line

The deterioration of relations cannot be separated from Japan’s full-throated support for Ukraine after 2022. Tokyo adopted Western sanctions, revoked Russia’s most-favored-nation trade status and has increasingly discussed ways of supporting Ukraine’s military effort. From Moscow’s perspective, this is not simply an expression of Japanese solidarity with Kiev, but part of a wider alignment against Russia.

Putin’s visit served as a direct and measured response. It showed that while Japan supports Ukraine and participates in the pressure campaign against Russia, Moscow has no intention of making territorial concessions to Tokyo with regards to the Kurils.

Interestingly, Tokyo’s current confrontational stance, while symbolically forceful, has not produced a corresponding escalation of concrete measures over the territorial dispute itself. That restraint may reflect two realities. Washington has little incentive to become directly involved in a bilateral quarrel with Moscow, while Tokyo must also consider the consequences of pushing Russia, China and North Korea into even closer alignment.

The disputed territories have considerable practical value. They provide access to rich fishing grounds that once sustained extensive bilateral economic activity and may contain valuable mineral resources.

The Kurils also occupy a strategically critical position in the North Pacific. For Russia, control of the island chain provides a natural defensive buffer and helps protect access routes for its Pacific Fleet, energy infrastructure and maritime trade. For Japan, meanwhile, Russian control of the territories represents the unresolved legacy of the Second World War and an enduring challenge to its territorial claims.

The fishing issue illustrates just how complicated this relationship has been. Tokyo until relatively recently paid Russia for access to fishing grounds around the disputed islands. Whatever the legal and political arguments surrounding sovereignty, such arrangements demonstrated a degree of practical recognition of Russian administrative control and jurisdiction.

Today, those same waters remain economically important to Russian coastal communities.

That practical reality helps explain why Moscow sees the Kurils not simply as bargaining chips but as part of its national security perimeter.

A warning about militarization

Putin’s visit came against the backdrop of Japan’s military buildup and Tokyo’s increasing involvement in supporting Ukraine’s war efforts.

From Moscow’s perspective, these developments reinforce longstanding fears of strategic encirclement. Japan’s proximity to Russia’s Far East makes its military posture particularly sensitive to Russian planners. Moscow sees military exercises, missile deployments and discussions about providing military assistance to Ukraine as part of a pattern.

The Kremlin’s response has likewise included naval drills and missile exercises in the region, moves that Tokyo has condemned as provocative.

Overall, Putin’s visit wasn’t some new threat aimed at Japan – it was a public reaffirmation of an existing position and realities on the ground.

During the 2010s, parallel negotiations under Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe created genuine expectations that the two countries might finally resolve their territorial dispute and conclude a formal peace treaty.

Neither side approached those negotiations as a simple exercise in defending maximalist claims. Both governments understood that a compromise would require concessions and that a durable settlement could produce economic and strategic benefits.

The 1956 Moscow Declaration had already established the basic framework for one possible compromise: Moscow agreed in principle to transfer the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan after the conclusion of a peace treaty, while leaving the larger islands of Etorofu and Kunashiri under Soviet control.

For a time, it seemed that formula could become the foundation for a settlement. However, the political environment has since changed dramatically.

Why the Kurils are only one thread in a complicated story

The territorial dispute is a symptom of deeper tensions that have shaped Russo-Japanese relations since the 19th century.

The 1855 Treaty of Shimoda established a border between Etorofu and the island of Urup, also part of the archipelago. The 1875 Treaty of St. Petersburg subsequently transferred the entire Kuril chain to Japan in exchange for Japanese recognition of Russian control over Sakhalin. The 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth then reshaped the regional balance following the Russo-Japanese War.

These agreements demonstrate that sovereignty over the islands has never existed outside a shifting regional balance of power.

The events of 1945 transformed that balance again. Amid the ongoing war in the Pacific in 1945, the Soviet Union acted with the blessing of the United States as far as the Kuril islands were concerned. Under the secret Project Hula – launched in 1945 – American warships and training helped the Soviets take control over the Kurils.

This history provides Russia with a strong historical argument: the islands were taken from Imperial Japan with allied consent. Japan’s postwar renunciation did not bind Moscow, and decades of Soviet and now Russian administration have simply created a fait accompli.

Tokyo, however, maintains a fundamentally different interpretation of the postwar settlement and continues to describe the southern Kurils as its ‘Northern Territories’.

The result is a dispute in which both sides possess deeply rooted historical narratives – and neither is prepared to abandon them easily.

The Kuril dispute is not inherently insoluble. What makes it appear so today is the wider deterioration of the relationship.

The experience of the 2010s showed that negotiations can advance when both governments regard compromise as more valuable than rhetorical victory. It also showed that progress requires political courage: neither side can expect to obtain everything it wants.

Japan’s position has hardened alongside its Ukraine policy. Russia, meanwhile, has become increasingly resistant to territorial negotiations with states it regards as participating in an adversarial Western coalition.

That leaves the two countries trapped in a familiar cycle. Japan demands recognition of its territorial claims. Russia responds by emphasizing its sovereignty and military presence. Each side then interprets the other’s position as evidence that compromise is impossible.

But this need not be permanent. A future settlement would require Japan to reconsider whether confrontation over Ukraine and maximalist positions on the Kurils are advancing its long-term interests. Russia, for its part, would have to recognize that a stable relationship with Japan could offer benefits that perpetual confrontation cannot.

A statement of reality

Putin’s visit to Iturup was not, in itself, a threat. It was a statement of fact as Moscow sees it: Russia controls the islands, considers them strategically vital, and has no intention of surrendering them under political pressure. Japan is equally clear that it has not abandoned its claims.

The choice facing both countries is therefore not between victory and defeat, but between permanent paralysis and pragmatic diplomacy.

The unresolved dispute over the Kurils remains one of the most visible in the Pacific. But it also presents an opportunity. The same pragmatic approach that once brought Moscow and Tokyo to the negotiating table could do so again – if both sides decide that managing their differences is more valuable than allowing the wider geopolitical confrontation to define their entire relationship.

At least fourteen newborn babies have been killed after a fire tore through a nursery at a major government hospital in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, according to the city administration and hospital officials.  

The fire broke out at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) early on Wednesday on the third floor of PIMS’ Mother and Child Health ward. Rescue officials said it began at around 6:45am local time after the compressor of an air-conditioning unit apparently exploded inside the nursery, although the precise cause has not yet been established. Firefighters brought the blaze under control and began cooling operations.  

Initial reports gave conflicting casualty figures, with Reuters citing Geo TV as saying 15 of 16 newborns had died. The Islamabad administration later confirmed 14 deaths, while PIMS said 15 babies had been in the nursery. 

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered an immediate investigation and called for anyone found responsible to face punishment. “A tragedy involving children is an irreparable loss,” he said, adding that those responsible should be identified and face the “strictest possible action.”  

A fact-finding committee has been set up to determine the cause of the fire and examine whether the hospital’s safety systems and emergency response were adequate.  

The blaze comes months after authorities identified widespread fire-safety shortcomings across Islamabad and follows another recent tragedy involving children. In June, 14 children were killed when the roof of a tutoring center collapsed outside Lahore.  

The Capital Development Authority said in January that most of the 6,500 public and private buildings it inspected lacked approved fire-safety plans or relevant certificates. The survey covered 300 government buildings.

India and China agreed to continue to seek a political settlement of their border dispute in talks between top officials held in Beijing on Tuesday.

Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the designated special representatives for the border talks mechanism, “had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on the India-China boundary question, and agreed to continue their work in seeking a political settlement of the boundary question in the context of their overall and long-term interests,” the Indian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It said the two sides expressed satisfaction at the steady resumption of people-to-people and cross-border exchanges, including the ongoing Kailash Manasarovar pilgrimage and resumption of border trade through the Himalayan passes.

The special representatives noted the progress made in implementing the consensus reached between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in October 2024, and again in Tianjin, China in August 2025 on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

ICYMI: Doval, Wang Yi Hold 25th Round Of India-China Boundary Talks

New Delhi and Beijing agreed to continue working towards a “fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable” settlement of their boundary question, while stressing the importance of maintaining peace along the border.… pic.twitter.com/L0jbSFQcjd

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 26, 2026

Kazan was the first formal bilateral meeting between Modi and Xi in four years, since a skirmish in the Ladakh region of the Himalayas in 2020 left 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers dead.

At Kazan, Modi and Xi agreed to use the special representatives mechanism and foreign minister dialogues to seek solutions to the border question and maintain peace in border areas.

Doval and Wang also discussed bilateral, regional, and international issues of mutual interest, as the two neighbors prepare for this year’s SCO summit next week in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and the BRICS summit next month in New Delhi.

Xi is expected to attend the BRICS meeting with a large delegation, according to reports.

Doval also called on Chinese Vice President Han Zheng before the special representative talks.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s unannounced trip to Moscow on Tuesday was for contact between the US and Russian security services, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

A US Air Force C-17A Globemaster III, identified by flight trackers as RCH4555, flew from Joint Base Andrews to Riga on Sunday evening before continuing on Tuesday to Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport. Later that day, a motorcade with US diplomatic plates was spotted in central Moscow.

CBS News first reported that Ratcliffe was in Moscow for meetings, citing sources familiar with the situation. It was also not clear whether the visit – which ultimately lasted roughly eight hours – involved any other senior US officials.

Asked by the Washington Post on Wednesday about the purpose of Ratcliffe’s trip, Peskov said it was for “contacts between security services” and declined to give further details. Separately, Peskov told TASS that “contacts with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin were not planned.”

Speaking to reporters later on Wednesday, Peskov said Putin had been kept in the loop about the talks, calling engagement between the special services “a positive phenomenon.” However, he cautioned that it is “too early to say” whether the talks “will affect the overall process of bringing our bilateral relations out of the deep crisis.”

US President Donald Trump described the visit as "semi-routine." Asked by talk show host Glenn Beck whether Putin planned on "testing NATO resolve," or whether Ratcliffe discussed US sanctions on Iran, Trump replied "none of the above."

Media reports have floated several possible subjects of the secretive talks, including detainee negotiations, the Ukraine peace process, the Iran conflict, and broader questions of strategic stability.

Ratcliffe’s visit was the first known trip to Moscow by a CIA director since William Burns traveled there in November 2021, several months before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. The last publicly known face-to-face meeting between the heads of the CIA and Russia’s SVR before Ratcliffe’s trip was in Ankara in November 2022, when Burns met Naryshkin to discuss nuclear escalation risks and detained US citizens.

Scientists at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIU) have developed a way to make 3D-printed cookies using genetically engineered yeast to produce protein and nutrients from plastic and agricultural waste.

The project aims to tackle two of the planet’s crises: plastic waste accumulation and food insecurity.

The team first set out to develop ways to make use of waste plastics, Lahiru Jayakody, an associate professor of microbiology at Southern Illinois University said in an interview with the American Chemical Society (ACS) published on Monday.

“We thought, why not focus on making food? Because plastic is carbon and food is carbon,” he said.

The process starts by breaking down plastic and plant waste with water and oxygen under high temperature and pressure. Genetically engineered yeasts then consume the resulting compounds and produce proteins, fats, and acids. With the addition of fiber, starch, and sweetener, the resulting mix is fed into a 3D printer which molds the paste into any desired shape.

With this technology, the scientists created small protein-rich cookies they dubbed “µBites” or “microbites.” They are waiting for the safety go-ahead from their university to actually taste-test them, however.

The novel technology could be useful in hostile environments, according to Jayakody.

SIU researchers have been developing the technology since 2021, when their µBites concept was selected for NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge.

The news comes as scientists are paying closer attention to how plastic already unintentionally enters the human food chain.

The particles could pose health risks, with studies linking exposure to inflammation, oxidative stress, cell death, and disruptions to metabolism and immune function. However, researchers say more evidence is needed to determine the effects of long-term exposure in humans.

A crowd in western Ukraine attacked and badly damaged a vehicle used by military conscription officers, prompting police to send reinforcements to the scene as public resistance to Kiev’s increasingly coercive draft campaign continues to spill into street confrontations.

The incident erupted at around 8 PM on Tuesday on Lesya Kurbasa Street in Ternopol, where a mobile group from Ukraine’s Territorial Recruitment Center (TCC) was conducting a raid targeting military-age men.

According to police, draft officers were merely speaking to one man and checking his enlistment documents when locals began gathering around their Nissan X-Trail. The crowd then started striking the vehicle and confronted the servicemen, turning the encounter into a mass scuffle.

Тернопіль: люди нищать автомобіль ТЦК, поруч — поліція.
❗️На місці події на вул. Курбаса у Тернополі перебувають поліцейські у повній екіпіровці та спецпризначенці

Приїхала військова техніка та автобус. За словами очевидців, із автомобіля з розбитими вікнами вивели службовця ТЦК… pic.twitter.com/ggM1eb009d

— BARMENY (@barmeny_ua) August 25, 2026

Additional police units were eventually sent in to bring the situation under control, as people continued to gather after the initial confrontation. Videos circulating online show a large crowd surrounding police and military vehicles, with uniformed men, including some wearing balaclavas, deployed at the scene.

In Ternopol, Ukraine, a forced mobilization raid turned chaotic as locals intervened, reportedly beating and hospitalizing a conscription officer and damaging his vehicle. Kyiv now faces growing public resistance to its draft efforts amid the ongoing conflict. #Ternopol pic.twitter.com/IGg1mMGSPM

— WW3 Watchtower (@WW3Watchtower) August 25, 2026

One draft officer was hospitalized with injuries, according to the recruitment center, which also said “unidentified people” had stolen some of his personal belongings. Police said several recruitment officials suffered injuries and vowed to identify those involved in the disturbance, claiming some of them may have been carrying “objects resembling bats and knives.”

The confrontation is the latest in a growing series of violent clashes between Ukrainians and conscription squads as Kiev struggles to replenish battlefield losses.

In another recent incident, bystanders attempted to save a man from conscription but were tear-gassed by members of the recruitment squad. Similar confrontations have been captured on video as relatives and passersby intervene when military-age men are detained in public.

The practice has become widely known in Ukraine as ‘busification’ – a reference to men being seized in the streets and bundled into vehicles before being taken to recruitment centers.

The public backlash and resistance have also often turned deadly. Just last week, a recruitment officer was fatally stabbed during a confrontation in Lviv. Another member of a draft squad was stabbed to death by a Lviv resident in April.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the Ukraine conflict, Kiev’s persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and restrictions on the Russian language during talks with the Vatican’s top diplomat, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher.

Gallagher, who heads the Holy See’s diplomatic service, arrived in Moscow on Monday for a four-day visit.

The talks also covered the Middle East, Africa, and other global hotspots, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Moscow and the Vatican also found common ground on protecting traditional values and discussed emerging issues such as AI.

Here are the key takeaways from Lavrov’s remarks following the meeting:

Ukraine conflict

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said Russia was forced to launch the military operation in Ukraine to protect civilians in the largely Russian-speaking Donbass. Moscow has also long described Kiev’s deepening military cooperation with NATO as a major threat to Russian national security.

Lavrov also praised the Vatican’s involvement in humanitarian efforts linked to the conflict, including work to reunite children separated from their families.

‘Blatant cruelty’

Lavrov said another wave of Ukrainian strikes on several southern Russian regions early Monday killed three minors and injured six others at a childcare center in Krasnodar.

“We will [also] never forget and will seek justice for [Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky’s bloody terror attack in Starobelsk,” Lavrov said, referring to a drone strike in May on a college dormitory in the Donbass city. The attack killed 21 people, most of them teenage girls.

Lavrov accused Kiev of waging an unprecedented campaign against the Russian language and Russian culture.

Ukraine is the only country to have outright banned Russian, he stated, arguing that no other state has gone as far in targeting Russian speakers.

“We discussed how Ukraine treats the Russian language, Russian education, Russian media, and Russian culture in general,” Lavrov said. He expressed hope that Vatican diplomats would raise the issue directly with Kiev.

Plight of Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Gallagher was also given a copy of its latest report on Kiev’s persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The report details “unlawful actions” against the church, the clergy, and parishioners and has already been submitted to the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Lavrov said.

Zelensky’s government has targeted the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for several years, accusing it of maintaining ties with Moscow despite the church declaring independence from the Russian Orthodox Church in 2022.

The crackdown has included monastery raids, property seizures, and dozens of criminal cases against clergy on collaboration charges. Kiev also supports the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which the Russian Orthodox Church considers schismatic.

Moscow-Vatican ties

He praised the Holy See for favoring diplomacy and peaceful solutions and said Moscow remains ready to work closely with the Vatican on humanitarian issues.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the two sides discussed defending traditional spiritual and moral values, family reunification, prisoner exchanges, and the protection of Christian communities around the world.

US grain farmers have been plunged into their worst financial crisis in four decades as the war with Iran drives up diesel and fertilizer costs, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The latest price shock compounds years of weak crop prices and falling incomes.

The mounting pressure follows the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February, which prompted Tehran to largely block commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key route that previously served about a fifth of the world’s energy supplies. The resulting surge in energy costs is hitting the US heartland ahead of November’s midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress.

Farmers across the Corn Belt have been particularly hard hit by soaring diesel and crop nutrient prices since the military campaign began, the FT reported. Nebraska Farmers Union president John Hansen described the downturn as the sector’s worst since the 1980s.

”Inputs are way out of whack,” Nebraska corn and soybean farmer Matt Bailey told the newspaper. He said a phosphorus-rich fertilizer used at planting now costs more than $900 per ton, compared with about $470 a decade ago.

”The [Iran] war has made so much uncertainty for us as farmers,” Pam Johnson, a former president of the National Corn Growers Association, told the FT. “It’s projected that farmers aren’t going to make any money for the next two years.”

The latest shock comes after several difficult years for major US crops. American Farm Bureau Federation economists estimate that growers of nine principal crops will lose about $31 billion in 2026 without federal assistance, with losses expected to reach $32 billion next year. Corn producers are projected to lose $131 per acre this year and $167 in 2027, while soybean losses are forecast at $80 and $138 respectively.

Farmers also blamed Washington’s trade disputes for weakening overseas demand, particularly for US soybeans in China. The Trump administration asked Congress in June for another $11 billion in assistance for the sector after billions of dollars in earlier payments.

Darline Graham has won South Carolina’s Republican Senate primary runoff, putting the political novice in a strong position to secure a full six-year term in the seat held for more than two decades by her hawkish late brother, Lindsey Graham.

Graham defeated five-term Congressman Ralph Norman on Tuesday, taking 52% of the vote against his 48%, according to preliminary results. She will face Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, in the November 3 general election. Republicans are heavily favored in South Carolina, which has not elected a Democratic US senator since 1998.

The 62-year-old was appointed to the Senate by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster in July following her brother’s sudden death, which came just hours after the veteran lawmaker returned from a visit to Kiev.

She had never held elected office before, previously serving as commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind and in a communications role at the state Vocational Rehabilitation Department.

Graham finished first in the initial ten-candidate Republican primary on August 11 with around 33% of the vote, while Norman took 25%, forcing Tuesday’s head-to-head contest because neither secured a majority.

Her victory came despite an awkward debate performance last week that raised questions about her readiness for the Senate. Asked whether Taiwan and the South China Sea constitute national security issues for Washington, Graham struggled to answer before acknowledging that she is “not that informed on national security.”

The admission presented a striking contrast with Lindsey Graham, who made foreign policy one of the defining features of his 23 years in the Senate. He was a vocal supporter of Kiev, pushed for sweeping sanctions against Russia, and advocated an aggressive US posture toward Iran and other foreign adversaries. At his funeral last month, Trump described Graham as “extremely hawkish,” adding that the senator “never saw a war that he didn’t like.”

Trump’s endorsement proved decisive in the runoff, overcoming attacks from Norman and his allies, who questioned Graham’s experience and accused her candidacy of amounting to political nepotism.

A US Army Black Hawk went down during a training flight in Colorado on Tuesday, just a day after CNN reported that Apache attack helicopters are crashing at a historically high rate amid persistent mechanical problems.

The Black Hawk went down on the east side of Thorodin Mountain in Gilpin County, west of Denver and near Golden Gate Canyon State Park. Four people were aboard, but no injuries were reported. Emergency crews also found no fuel leak or fire and said there was no danger to the surrounding community.

Footage and aerial images from the scene show the helicopter sitting upright among trees with its rotor blades heavily damaged.

A U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter has crashed in Colorado while carrying four crew members. The status of the crew and the cause of the crash are currently unknown. pic.twitter.com/0EWyqvLMqD

— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) August 25, 2026

The Black Hawk had flown from Fort Campbell, Kentucky and belongs to the Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the Night Stalkers. The Army described the incident as an “aviation mishap” during routine training operations and said an investigation is underway.

The unit suffered a deadly crash last September, when an MH-60M Black Hawk went down during nighttime training near Summit Lake in Washington state, killing all four soldiers aboard.

A far more devastating Black Hawk disaster thrust Army aviation into the national spotlight on January 29, 2025, when an Army UH-60L Black Hawk collided with American Airlines Flight 5342 as the passenger jet approached Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Both aircraft plunged into the Potomac River, killing all 64 people aboard the airliner and all three soldiers in the helicopter.

More recent Army data suggests that the problem has not gone away. On Monday, CNN reported that AH-64 Apache attack helicopters are crashing at a historically high rate, with five Class A flight mishaps recorded so far in fiscal 2026. Based on internal Army safety data and flight-hour figures supplied by the service, the outlet calculated a rate of around 6.24 major crashes per 100,000 flying hours.

Two Russian soldiers who spent more than two years in terrorist captivity in Mali have described to RT the extreme heat, constant shackling, poor food, and barely drinkable water they endured at the hands of Islamist militants.

Aleksandr Efremov and Vasily Nagalev spoke exclusively to RT’s Daria Vaganova after being brought to Libya on their way home to Russia.

The servicemen were captured in 2024 during the battle of Tinzaouaten near the Algerian border, when militants from the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and Al-Qaeda-linked JNIM ambushed a Malian military convoy supported by Russia’s Wagner Group. The Malian and Wagner forces were heavily outnumbered in the fighting.

Efremov and Nagalev spent a total of 755 days in captivity, isolated from civilization and keeping track of time by counting sunrises and sunsets. They said the reality of captivity was nothing like what is typically portrayed in films.

“In movies, you can usually escape, but here there’s nowhere to run because there’s nothing but Sahara everywhere,” Aleksandr said, describing their ordeal as essentially “Sahara and chains.”

“There was hope for about the first year, but by the second year, it didn’t matter anymore whether we’d be released or not,” Aleksandr recalled. “There were moments so tense that we practically begged to be shot.”

Their release was secured through negotiations involving the Russian Defense Ministry’s Africa Corps and the Malian General Staff, mediated by forces of the Libyan National Army led by General Saddam Haftar.

A Russian medical specialist treating the men after their release said the food they had received was “extremely detrimental to their bodies,” while they had been “practically drinking from a puddle.”

“They have problems with their intestines, liver, and other organs,” he said, adding that doctors were “gradually restoring them” to health. Both men are currently in “stable and satisfactory” condition and could return to Russia within “a week or two” once their condition has fully stabilized.

The Sahel has been plagued by militant violence for more than a decade, with groups linked to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), Al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram carrying out attacks across Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and neighboring countries. Moscow has repeatedly accused foreign powers, including Ukraine, of seeking to destabilize the region and undermine local nations’ ties with Russia by assisting extremist groups.

The freed soldiers said their captors appeared to be receiving substantial outside support.

“They certainly receive money because they have everything,” Vasily said.

“They have money, equipment, weapons. They have it all. And in large quantities,” Aleksandr added.

The Wagner Group, with which the two men previously served, has since ended its operations in Mali, with Russia’s Africa Corps taking over its role in supporting Sahel governments in their fight against militants and extremists.

In mid-July, Malian and Russian forces recaptured the strategic northern town of Anefis from FLA and JNIM after more than a week of intense fighting. In mid-August, Russian troops also helped the Malian military repel a large-scale attack on an army base in the central city of San.

Global fertility may have fallen below replacement level for the first time in human history, putting the world population on course for decline within roughly one generation, a new study has warned.

The paper, Terra Incognita: The Economics of a Shrinking World, published earlier this month by economics professor Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde of the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern University researcher Patrick Norrick, warns that prolonged low fertility could shrink workforces, rapidly age societies, and strain economies and welfare systems.

The researchers estimate that humanity is likely already below replacement fertility – the average number of children per woman needed for each generation to replace itself. The global threshold is around 2.2, while the study puts the current rate at no higher than 2.19, suggesting the world may have only just crossed it.

The analysis covers 236 countries and territories from 1950 to 2023, with fertility declining in 219. On average, countries have lost around 0.062 births per woman annually, and there is little evidence the trend is leveling off, authors note.

The global population is not shrinking yet because large generations born in previous decades are still having children, but the researchers estimate this effect could sustain growth for only another three decades, with population peaking at around 9 billion in 2056 before declining.

The economic consequences of the looming population decline could be far-reaching, the study warns. Smaller generations mean fewer workers supporting growing elderly populations, straining pensions, healthcare, and public finances while slowing growth. In the US, the authors estimate that 2% annual productivity growth combined with a 0.5% contraction in the workforce would reduce long-term GDP growth to roughly 1.5%.

The world’s population crossed the 8 billion mark in 2022, according to UN estimates, and currently stands at approximately 8.3 billion.

Musk weighs in

US tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has repeatedly warned about falling birth rates, reacted to the study after an X user described its findings as an “existential crisis.” “I’ve been warning about this for years,” he wrote.

I’ve been warning about this for years https://t.co/kHFPFjNkE7

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 23, 2026

Musk, who has 13 children, has repeatedly described declining birth rates as one of the greatest threats to civilization. In 2022, he wrote that “population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.” Last year, he warned that “Low birth rates will end civilization” and called for the issue to be treated as a national emergency, while suggesting Europe could “die out” unless birth rates recover.

Last weekend, commenting on a paper outlining ancient Rome’s attempts to boost its population, Musk wrote: “The reason Rome fell was because they stopped making Romans.”

Russia’s demographic challenge

Russian officials have long warned about the country’s demographic challenges. According to state statistics agency Rosstat, Russia’s total fertility rate fell to around 1.305-1.374 children per woman last year, alongside some of the lowest monthly and quarterly birth figures in modern Russian history. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed the importance of improving economic and social conditions in order to promote larger families and make parenthood a widely supported choice. He has backed a national family support service and established a presidential council on family and demographic policy in 2024.

Two people have died of measles in Pennsylvania, decades after the disease was considered eradicated. Measles is currently making a resurgence in the US, with cases at a 35-year high.

The two victims were residents of Lancaster County, a largely rural county west of Philadelphia, state health officials announced on Tuesday. No additional details were provided, except that neither victim was vaccinated.

Fatal cases of measles are exceedingly rare in the US, but infections are rising. 2,289 cases of the disease were recorded in 2025, the highest number since 1991, when 9,643 cases were recorded. Last year’s number was surpassed by this July, and as of August 20, 2,777 cases have been recorded this year, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Outbreaks have occurred in 47 US states and territories, with 94% of cases occurring among the unvaccinated.

Dr. Adam Ratner, an adviser to the CDC, told the JAMA medical journal last year that skepticism about Covid-19 vaccines has “bled over” into other vaccines, due to the Covid shots becoming “this insanely polarized political thing” from 2020 onwards. 

“Once there was that kind of hesitancy out there and that kind of divisiveness, it’s not surprising that it has bled over into people thinking about vaccine mandates and childhood vaccines in general,” Rather said.

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic, has vouched for the safety of the combined measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, but noted “the decision to vaccinate is a personal one.”

A vaccination rate of around 95% is required to prevent measles outbreaks. In November, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a division of the World Health Organization (WHO), will meet to determine whether the US and Mexico can still claim to be “measles free” after recent outbreaks.

The trial of six members of a Pakistani ‘grooming gang’ has quietly restarted in Manchester. The retrial hasn’t made the headlines, and looking at the sordid details of the case, it’s clear the British establishment wants to keep it that way.

The six suspects were alleged members of the Rochdale grooming gang – a group of Muslim men, predominantly Pakistani, who trafficked, sexually abused, and raped underage white British girls in the northern English town between the 1980s and 2010s. More than 75 men have been charged and 53 convicted since Greater Manchester Police began investigating the gang in 2010.

What are the men accused of?

The suspects have been charged with 46 counts of rape, sexual assault, and ‘assault by penetration’, with two of the men facing more than a dozen charges each.

• Tahrir Rashid, 53, 12 counts of rape, 3 counts of indecent assault, 1 count of assault by penetration

• Mohammed Saleem, 46, 8 counts of rape

• Sucklane Shah, 46, 2 counts of rape

• Itfaq Hussain, 45, 3 counts of rape

• Arshad Mohammed, 55, 5 counts of rape

• Amjad Mahmood, 53, 12 counts of rape, 2 counts of indecency with a child, 1 count of indecent assault, 2 counts of assault by penetration

All of the suspects’ alleged offenses took place between 2003 and 2008, and involved two girls who were as young as 13 when they were “passed around” between the gang, according to prosecutors. Rashid, the alleged ringleader, is also accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s.

What happened in the first trial?

The six men were tried last year, but the trial collapsed with no explanation in December. When reporting restrictions were lifted a month later, it was revealed that the jurors had formed a WhatsApp group to discuss the case, and had shared documentaries on the subject of grooming gangs. 

Before the trial collapsed, the court heard how the group abused two girls in the “most humiliating and degrading way imaginable.” One of the victims, identified only as ‘Girl C’, was collected from school by Rashid, plied with alcohol, and raped repeatedly by the gang. ‘Girl C’ was raped a dozen times by Shah over several months, prosecutors alleged.

Mohammed told the other victim, ‘Girl A’, that he ran a modeling agency as a ruse to take nude photographs of her. She was allegedly raped by at least three members of the gang.

Both girls were described by the prosecution as “very vulnerable children with chaotic home lives,” which made them “easy prey for men with an unhealthy interest in having sex with children.” All six suspects pleaded not guilty.

Why do the British authorities want this kept quiet?

The proliferation of grooming gangs – or ‘rape gangs’, as right-wing politicians label them – is a national embarrassment for all levels of the British state. Manchester City Council and Greater Manchester Police were warned of the gang’s activity in Rochdale as far back as 2007, but refused to investigate allegations of organized rape by Pakistani gangs until 2012, for fear “of being tarnished with a race brush,” according to an independent review published in 2024.

A 2014 report on rape gangs in Rotherham found that social workers, youth workers, and police officers ignored reports that 1,400 children had been abused by the gangs, partly for fear of being seen as racist. A nationwide audit published this year concluded that authorities in 50 towns and cities were reluctant to investigate the gangs due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of perpetrators were of Pakistani origin.

The most shocking report, funded by Restore Britain MP Rupert Lowe and published in June, found that Pakistani rape gangs operated in 149 of the UK’s 317 municipalities. The report determined that a “bare minimum” of 250,000 women and girls had been raped by grooming gangs since the year 2000, and that senior politicians helped the gangs escape prosecution. 

In Parliament, reading the testimonies of rape gang survivors provided to our inquiry.

Please watch, listen and understand. pic.twitter.com/C7dyIL46ga

— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) June 17, 2026

These politicians included London Mayor Sadiq Khan, of Pakistani descent, who denied the existence of grooming gangs in the British capital, despite having evidence proving otherwise, and former Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who as director of public prosecutions between 2008 and 2013, let 13,000 pedophiles off with warning letters instead of prosecuting them.

It detailed a litany of crimes committed against white girls, with one victim “raped by between six and seven hundred different men over the course of three years,” and others raped by dogs, cut with knives, and “subjected to penetration with objects.” Lowe’s report, and earlier government-backed reports, found that some children were trafficked to Pakistan by the gangs.

Starmer’s ruling Labour Party voted en masse against a Conservative motion calling for a national statutory inquiry into the gangs last year. Starmer’s party eventually backed down under public pressure and opened a probe earlier this year, which is ongoing.

Are there more trials to come?

The six suspects currently on trial were charged in 2023 as part of Greater Manchester Police’s ‘Operation Lytton’. Active since 2015, Operation Lytton is aimed at arresting and prosecuting suspects who were overlooked by earlier investigations. The operation has resulted in 32 convictions to date.

#JAILED | Seven men jailed for 174 years after grooming two girls in #Rochdale (2001–2006).

Thanks to survivor bravery & GMP’s CSE team, justice has been served.

Op Lytton: 32 offenders jailed for 474 years so far.

Time is no barrier to justice.

More: https://t.co/SzwzGHTode pic.twitter.com/DolFSd1kBv

— Greater Manchester Police (@gmpolice) October 1, 2025

Fourteen suspects are currently awaiting trial, according to the most recent information from Greater Manchester Police.

Outside the greater Manchester area, six other large-scale grooming gang trials resulted in convictions this year. In Bradford, where 20% of all residents are of Pakistani descent, 15 men were sentenced in June for 88 rape offenses against the same 14-year-old girl. 

Eight men in south Wales have been charged with raping eight children, with their trial due to begin in early 2028.

A far-right Israeli MP smashed a memorial to Palestinians killed in the conflict with Israel in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. He committed the act under IDF escort, which has been condemned by the army and politicians in Israel.

Zvi Sukkot, a member of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s ultranationalist Religious Zionist party, said he went to the West Bank village of Madama to remove a monument that “glorified murderers of Jews.”

Video of the incident circulating online shows Sukkot and one other man taking sledgehammers to the monument while an Israeli soldier with an assault rifle watches nearby.

Footage of the aftermath captured by an RT correspondent shows the memorial defaced, with tiles around its stone base partially smashed.

The IDF said Sukkot had received permission to conduct a military-escorted “tour of monuments” in the West Bank, but “acted deceptively” and without authorization in damaging the monument.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office stressed that “taking the law into one’s own hands, particularly by public figures, is unacceptable.” The statement did not mention Sukkot by name.

“He lied to and misled the IDF and its commanders, harmed security, and tarnished the State of Israel as a whole,” the former military chief said on X.

Sukkot’s ultranationalist Religious Zionist party has been at the forefront of Israel’s recent push for more settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law by the UN and most of the international community.

Last week, West Jerusalem opened bidding for the construction of more than 1,200 new homes in the area as part the settlement expansion, which was unveiled in July. Critics stress that the project threatens to effectively cut the West Bank in two if completed.

The settlement push has been condemned internationally, with the leaders of more than a dozen European countries denouncing it as “unacceptable” in a joint statement on Thursday.

Earlier this month, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia called on Israel to cease its “creeping expansion” into the occupied Palestinian territories and to take measures to “curb settler violence.” Moscow has long said that the only way to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to rest is to implement a two-state solution.

The Russian military has struck a launch site for Ukraine’s long-range FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. Kiev has used Flamingos in attacks deep inside Russia.

The site was targeted with two Iskander cruise missiles and seven Geran-4 Seeker attack drones, according to the ministry.

“The target has been hit,” it said, adding that the strike triggered a major fire and “a massive fuel spill… burning over an area of approximately 40,000 square meters.”

The MOD also released drone footage purporting to show a massive fire engulfing the launch site after the attack.

In separate strikes, Russian forces also hit Ukrainian drone assembly and storage facilities, according to the ministry.

The Russian military has intensified long-range strikes on targets in Ukraine in response to repeated Ukrainian attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure inside Russia. Moscow has condemned Kiev’s drone and missile strikes, including attacks deep inside Russian territory, as acts of terrorism intended to compensate for Ukrainian setbacks on the battlefield.

Russia maintains that it does not deliberately target civilians and that its strikes are directed at military facilities and infrastructure supporting Ukrainian forces.

Fire Point has been promoted by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky during trips to Western countries as the manufacturer of some of the nation’s “most successful” weapons. Over the weekend, a Russian volunteer air-defense unit shot down one of the supposedly state-of-the-art Flamingo missiles with machine-gun fire, according to Kursk Region Governor Aleksandr Khinshtein.

Fire Point has been linked to Zelensky’s former business partner, Timur Mindich, who has been dubbed ‘Zelensky’s wallet’ in Ukraine. Mindich fled the country last year after being named as a key suspect in a major corruption scandal.

The Canadian government has announced that it will impose retaliatory tariffs of up to 50% on around 700 American products, after US President Donald Trump hit Canada with a round of tariffs and threatened further increases. 

American steel and aluminum will be tariffed at 50%, according to a statement on the Canadian Finance Department’s website, while other goods – including dairy products, appliances, and farm equipment – will face tariffs of 25%. The measures will cover around $20 billion in US imports, and will come into effect on September 8, the statement added.

“Canada will match the United States’ tariffs dollar for dollar, rate for rate,” Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said at a press conference on Tuesday. The tariffs, he added “are designed primarily to provide protection for Canadian industry impacted by US tariffs.”

Trade talks between the US and Canada collapsed on Friday, with both sides accusing the other of making last-minute changes to a proposed comprehensive trade agreement. Trump immediately imposed 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports, including wine, cement, plywood, clothing, and hockey equipment.

Trump accused Canada of “ripping off the United States of America for years,” highlighting Ottawa’s protectionist tariffs on American agricultural produce. The system, he said, is “not sustainable.”

“On January First, 2027, Tariffs on all Cars, Trucks, both large and small, Automotive Parts, and Steel, will be increased to 50%,” Trump announced. The move will double the current 25% tariff on Canadian auto imports. “Build in the US and there are ZERO TARIFFS,” the president added, saying Canada would no longer be treated “like a State” and calling it “among the worst nations in the world to deal with.”

At the core of Trump’s grievance is the trade deficit with Canada. He claims this figure stands at $60 billion, but Trump’s own trade representative puts it at $48.3 billion. While Trump views this deficit as evidence that Canada is taking advantage of the US, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has argued that the deficit only exists because the US imports so much oil, gas, and electricity from Canada. “I don’t think they want us to stop sending it,” he commented in an address on Saturday.

Trade tensions between Washington and Ottawa date back to Trump’s first term, but reignited when he returned to office last year and launched a sweeping tariff campaign against major trade partners, including China, the EU, Japan, and Mexico.

“We’ve been under no illusions,” Carney said on Saturday, referring to his dealings with Trump. “We recognized from the start that America has changed.”

Thirty-five years after Ukraine declared independence, the anniversary offers little cause for celebration from Moscow’s perspective. Russian officials and commentators argue that a country which inherited one of the Soviet Union’s strongest industrial bases has spent the ensuing decades squandering that legacy, surrendering its real sovereignty to the West, and building a national identity around hostility toward Russia and rejection of the two nations’ shared past.

RT gathered comments from Russian diplomats, politicians, and analysts on what – if anything – remains of that independence and where the country’s chosen path is ultimately leading.

Ukraine is marking the 35th anniversary of its so-called “independence” with great fanfare. But is there really anything to celebrate? Over the past three and a half decades, successive governments have run the country into the ground. Those who shouted the loudest about Ukraine’s independence and bright future have, whether knowingly or not, been the very ones destroying it. Its current dictator – the self-proclaimed “president of peace,” whose term has long since expired – has been particularly successful in this regard.

With the active involvement of the collective West – whose countries claim to embody “civilization” and “democracy” – Ukraine has been turned into a “Zelensky concentration camp.” All dissent and political opposition have been outlawed, while those brave enough to voice an alternative point of view are imprisoned without trial or due process – or physically eliminated. The unprecedented persecution of the canonical Orthodox Church has been accompanied by brutal attacks on clergy and parishioners. Meanwhile, history is being rewritten wholesale: the Soviet legacy is repudiated, while Hitler’s accomplices and collaborators – responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Russians, Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians during World War II – are glorified.

It is not only the Russian language that is under attack. Everything associated with our shared past is being systematically erased. The Kiev authorities display a truly primitive form of Russophobia and xenophobia – directed, in practice, even against their own citizens, many of whom are Russian not only by ancestry but also by cultural identity.

Perhaps nowhere is the wretchedness of Kiev’s rulers more evident than in one seemingly absurd example. Ukraine has even imposed sanctions on the Russian animated series Masha and the Bear, claiming that it promotes Russian militaristic narratives.

Having failed to achieve the desired results on the battlefield, the Kiev regime has now descended into outright terrorism against Russia’s civilian population. At the same time, Zelensky continues begging his Western patrons for more weapons and ammunition, which are then used to strike Russian cities, residential neighborhoods, and civilian infrastructure. The calculation is obvious: to frighten the public, sow chaos, and destabilize the situation inside Russia. Terrorism has become Kiev’s last resort in its attempt to reverse a situation that is increasingly turning against it.

Ukraine marks its 35th anniversary as more than just a failed state. It has become a country reduced to a single function, whose only reason for existing is to wage war against Russia. It is not fighting for its own interests, since everyone understands that Ukraine’s only chance of surviving in any form is to make peace with Russia immediately.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the war, Ukraine has already perished in it. Its population has been cut in half, it has lost one-fifth of its territory, its industrial base and energy sector have been destroyed, and, most recently, its agricultural exports have been severed. Countries do not recover from something like this.

And all of it has been sacrificed for the interests of Ukraine’s Western masters. The country is now dying to give France, Britain, and Germany a chance to establish themselves in a post-American world. But Ukrainians spent 35 years consciously pursuing this path, and now they are getting exactly what they worked so hard to achieve.

Happy Dependence Day, neighbors.

Dmitry Rodionov, Director of the Center for Geopolitical Studies at the Institute for Intonational Development (IID):

The document that laid the foundation for Ukrainian “statehood” was adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR exactly 35 years ago.

Ukraine marked the occasion with its customary pomp, despite the ongoing hostilities. After all, the “dignity” and “unbreakable spirit” of the “Ukrainian nation” must be emphasized at every opportunity. Yet much of this pageantry stems from the architects of Ukrainian “statehood” recognizing just how artificial and fraudulent their creation really is – hence their determination to make it appear as real as possible.

The declaration of Ukrainian independence was riddled with legal inconsistencies. These became a kind of foundational birth defect that predetermined the future of the Ukrainian “state,” which ultimately turned into a textbook failed state. Its historic collapse was baked in from the beginning, but regrettably, the process has dragged on for years and continues to claim more and more lives.

There are more than enough such inconsistencies to declare Ukraine a nonexistent state and withdraw its recognition as an entity under international law. But what would be the point? Ukraine’s fate is now being decided on the battlefield. Kiev still has a chance to preserve at least some form of statehood, yet it stubbornly refuses to do so, clinging instead to historical phantoms such as the “1991 borders.”

History will therefore put everything in its proper place and bury the temporary geopolitical aberration known as “Ukraine” once and for all.

Anatoly Viktorov, Russian Ambassador to Israel:

On August 24, 1991, Ukraine adopted its Act of Declaration of Independence. The 35 years that have passed since then provide an opportunity to look back and acknowledge with regret that Ukraine cannot claim any genuine autonomy in either its foreign or domestic policy.

Western countries have completely stripped Ukraine of its international legal personality, placing it under direct foreign control and turning the country into a staging ground for threats to Russia’s security.

At outside instigation, with the active participation of the “collective West” and amid the passive indifference of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, a radical and destructive strain of Western Ukrainian nationalism took root and flourished in the country. The Kiev regime based its ideology on the misanthropic ideas of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), led by terrorist Stepan Bandera, who, in pursuit of his slogan “Ukraine for Ukrainians,” became an organizer of and accomplice to the murder of thousands of Poles, Russians, and Jews. The greeting now commonly used in Ukraine – ”Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” – was introduced by Bandera’s followers. It is comparable to the Nazi salute “Heil Hitler! Sieg Heil!”

The attempts by the Kiev junta, which has seized control of Ukraine, to portray its confrontation with Russia as Ukraine’s “existential struggle” for independence bear no resemblance to reality.

Likewise, Ukrainian officials’ claims that Ukrainians and Israelis face some kind of common “axis of evil” amount to little more than verbal gymnastics.

Ukraine has now become one of the world’s leading exporters of instability. The trail of Kiev’s intelligence services can be traced across numerous global flash points, including in the Middle East. Ukrainian “operatives” are actively seeking to share their experience and are more than willing to profit from the misfortunes of others.

Russia’s achievement of all the objectives of its special military operation would not only serve our vital interests in security and the protection of human rights, but also help curb modern Ukraine’s unchecked and destructive influence on the very foundations of international relations.

Thirty-five years of independence have clearly demonstrated that Ukraine simply failed the test of statehood – something that was effectively handed to it when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Instead of making intelligent use of the enormous potential it inherited from the USSR and building upon it effectively, Ukraine chose simply to squander that legacy. Once it was gone, the country began playing a series of strange games in the hope of outsmarting everyone else.

At first, Ukraine tried to “have it both ways.” Later, following the Euromaidan, it attempted to tap into the European Union’s supposedly “bottomless barrel.” As a result, Ukrainian statehood now stands on the brink of collapse, with its industrial base destroyed, its demographic crisis reaching monstrous proportions, and vast territories lost.

The country’s political reputation has also been ruined beyond repair. In 1991, Ukraine was given enormous credit as a new and promising post-Soviet state. Today, however, the same West treats it with condescension, if not outright contempt, despite continuing to provide financial, military, and information support. Incidentally, it is only thanks to this assistance that Ukraine has not yet disintegrated completely and continues to exist in some form as a state.

Ukraine is being exploited in every conceivable way, while still being regarded as a kind of “territory of Untermenschen and Nazi collaborators.” This is largely the result of the Ukrainian elites becoming so consumed by what they believed were their clever political games that they ultimately gambled away their own country. The population bears responsibility as well: it allowed itself to be drawn into the elites’ schemes, failed to rein them in before it was too late, and then, in large numbers, supported the Maidan and began sliding down the slope toward rabid Russophobia and Nazism.

Ukraine was one of the wealthiest and most developed republics in the Soviet Union. Judging by its GDP and the revenues and expenditures it generated, it was broadly capable of supporting itself. It was a self-sufficient republic with advanced industry, agriculture, and a thriving tourism sector – the Black Sea resorts and everything associated with them.

This system began to fall apart after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The years of independence brought industrial decline, mass emigration, and deteriorating infrastructure – processes that began long before Russia launched its military operation.

Take Crimea, for example. During the peninsula’s years as part of Ukraine, its infrastructure and roads fell into an extreme state of disrepair, while Kiev invested virtually nothing in their development.

Independence therefore brought Ukraine no happiness whatsoever. The country has lost its land, its people, its natural resources, and much of what once made it prosperous and livable. The term “independence” is particularly inappropriate in Ukraine’s case.

It should also be remembered that an independent, territorially unified Ukraine stretching from the Carpathians to Donetsk never existed historically. Ukraine was once a relatively small territory centered somewhere around Kiev.

Before becoming part of the Russian Empire, Ukraine was dependent on other states, particularly Poland. After 1991, that dependence merely changed direction: Ukraine became dependent on Western countries – above all the United States, Poland, and Britain. It possesses neither political nor economic sovereignty, so there is no reason for it to celebrate Independence Day.

What Ukraine has today is pseudo-independence, artificially sustained by the United States, the European Union, and those who have aligned themselves with the pro-Western world in the belief that they can defeat Russia using the Ukrainian army. That will never happen. Russia has a unique history: even in the most difficult moments, it has always emerged victorious.

Ukraine today is a completely fabricated country with no centuries-old history of its own. There were never any “ancient Ukrs.” These stories were invented by Ukrainian “scholars” to create the myth of an age-old Ukrainian state. Ukraine’s territory became prosperous and developed as part of a greater Russia, thanks to the collective efforts of the entire country. But once its politicians embraced the “anti-Russia” formula, Ukraine began destroying itself, ultimately driving the country into effective bankruptcy and leaving it unable even to pay pensions.

Ukraine has no GDP, economy, or industry of its own. It does not even own its land, which has been sold off to European and pro-American companies. Even its president can no longer be called a president, because he is illegitimate – no elections were held. Ukraine today resembles a patient in intensive care connected to an artificial life-support system. Western countries are keeping it alive solely so that it can continue fighting Russia. Therefore, when we speak of Ukraine as an independent state, its independence is in fact largely notional.

Russia will prevail – we have no doubt about that. We will overcome every difficulty together, and once the special military operation is over, Russia will enter a period of prosperity. Ukraine, as a fascist state ruled by a fascist regime, will be consigned to the dustbin of history, and every criminal who issued orders to kill will be punished.

The administration of US President Donald Trump is preparing to revoke the visas of up to 200,000 foreigners, AP reported on Tuesday, citing State Department documents and two US officials familiar with the plan. The reported move, which targets business and tourism applicants who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum, could be the largest mass visa revocation in US history.

US President Donald Trump has pursued a sweeping immigration crackdown since returning to office in January 2025, including increased deportations, expanded detention efforts, and tighter restrictions on visa applicants.

The visa revocation process, which has not yet been finalized and could be challenged in court, is expected to begin in the coming weeks and would target B1 business and B2 tourist visas issued since 2016, AP said.

“We are coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the US claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told AP.

Pigott did not provide an estimate of how many visas could be affected, adding that the process would remain ongoing and the number of cases could change.

As part of its broader immigration campaign, the Trump administration has taken a series of measures to tighten controls on foreign nationals seeking to enter or remain in the US.

Earlier this month, the State Department said it revoked more than 175,000 visas since Trump returned to office. The affected individuals include people who violated visa terms or were accused or convicted of crimes. AP reported that the total also includes people who have publicly criticized US policies.

In January, the department imposed an indefinite pause on immigrant visa processing for nationals of 75 countries while it reassessed screening and vetting procedures.

The Trump administration has also moved to tighten rules for work visas for highly skilled professionals. A new DHS proposal would impose an additional $103,265 fee on cap-subject H-1B petitions filed by US employers. DHS estimates that around 85,000 petitions annually would be subject to the proposed fee.

Eighteen-year-old Amber-Rose Berry has made history after becoming the youngest South African woman to swim the English Channel.

Berry completed the gruelling 33km open-water crossing from England to France in an unofficial time of 10 hours and 27 minutes on Sunday, August 23. Her time is still subject to ratification, but if confirmed, it would place her well ahead of the average 12 to 14 hours taken to complete the crossing.

She began her swim from Shakespeare Beach in Dover at 5.27am and reached the rocks at Pointe du Riden, near Cap Gris-Nez in France, at 3.54pm.

The achievement came despite a series of challenges during the crossing, including painful jellyfish stings, strong currents, cold water and the wake of a passing ship.

“That was bloody tough,” Berry said shortly after completing the swim. “But I was motivated by the opportunity I was given to complete this swim. And by the fact that, by finishing, so many opportunities would be afforded to student-athletes like myself.”

Berry’s mother, Karen, who supported her aboard the escort vessel Sea Leopard, said her daughter faced one of her toughest moments just beyond the halfway point. “She was tired and cold, and there was still so far to go,” Karen said.

Huge congratulations to Amber-Rose Berry on completing her solo swim at just 18 years old!
Well done to all on Sea Leopard Charterhttps://t.co/3YrZI4wGUu pic.twitter.com/zPPRRfcFcb

— Channel Swimming Association (@CSAswimmers) August 23, 2026

However, Berry’s training and determination helped her push through. She was also forced to battle the huge wake created by a ship, which her mother said appeared to give her renewed energy. “Funnily enough, that just seemed to energise her,” Karen said.

Berry trained for months under the guidance of open-water swimming coach Clinton le Seuer. During the crossing, she fed regularly, taking liquid nutrition every hour for the first two hours before moving to feeds every 30 minutes.

Her latest achievement carries additional significance as it comes exactly 100 years after Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926. It also coincides with South Africa’s Women’s Month, which commemorates the historic 1956 Women’s March against the Pass Laws. Berry follows in the footsteps of another record-breaking South African swimmer, Otto Thaning, who became the oldest person to complete the English Channel crossing when he swam it at the age of 73 in 2014. His record remains intact.

First published by IOL

Ukraine’s top anti-corruption court has set bail for the former deputy head of Vladimir Zelensky’s office, Irina Mudraya, at under $450,000 – less than one-seventh of the amount requested by prosecutors. She is suspected of channeling illicit funds into a bail payment for a defendant in a separate corruption case.

The High Anti-Corruption Court ruled on Tuesday that Mudraya must remain in Kiev and comply with any summons even if she posts bail, which she said she intends to do with the assistance of unnamed sponsors.

Zelensky fired Mudraya last week after she was formally accused of laundering about $3.3 million in cash to pay bail for former Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko. The latter had previously been implicated in an alleged $100 million kickback scheme blamed on Timur Mindich, a longtime associate of the Ukrainian leader.

Surveillance recordings previously leaked to Ukrainian media suggested that Mindich’s group was interested in placing loyal figures on Sense Bank’s cabinet-appointed supervisory board. Ukrainian media dubbed Mindich “Zelensky’s bagman” amid suspicions that he was merely a frontman for corruption at the highest levels of government.

Mudraya trained as a lawyer specializing in banking and worked for several major clients in the sector before becoming a deputy justice minister in 2022. She moved to Zelensky’s office in 2024, ostensibly to contribute to Kiev’s efforts to obtain war reparations from Russia.

The former Zelensky aide has also been accused of participating in criminal schemes intended to expropriate real estate in Kiev worth some $16.75 million by illegally altering government records and pressuring judges to deny the legitimate owners legal recourse.

NABU and SAPO presented extensive records of conversations reportedly involving Mudraya and other suspects. The exchanges were allegedly recorded by former lawmaker and banker Maksim Mikitas.

During the bail hearings, Mudraya blamed a provocateur, apparently referring to Mikitas, for abusing her trust in order to produce incriminating recordings. She suggested that references to her alleged involvement in corruption were false but did not explain why she had failed to challenge the statements at the time.

Her defense team called several character witnesses, including Jonathan Markovitch, the chief rabbi of Kiev. He told the court that he knew Mudraya as a trustworthy member of the Jewish community and did not consider her a flight risk.

Mindich fled to Israel in November 2025, reportedly hours before he was due to be arrested. One of his key associates, Aleksandr Zukerman, also left for Israel. Both suspects hold Israeli citizenship.

A rare and violent tornado has run rampant through the village of Pomas in southern France, injuring 39 people, including two critically, and damaging around 300 homes, according to the local authorities.

The tornado struck the village in the Aude department on Monday evening, with footage showing a large funnel swirling over the settlement, with gusts of violent winds wreaking havoc, ripping apart roofs, and smashing windows.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez called it a “tornado of rare intensity” while praising firefighters, security forces, and volunteers involved in the response.

Rescue operations continued through the night, the prefecture said on Tuesday, with 75 firefighters deployed alongside specialist reinforcements to check damaged buildings and search affected areas.

Residents forced from their homes were sheltered in a multi-purpose hall with help from the Red Cross, while others were temporarily relocated with relatives or to neighboring communes.

🌪️Eyewitness footage recorded from the village of #Verzeille captured a #tornado forming and swirling beneath a violent supercell thunderstorm south of the southern French city of #Carcassonne. https://t.co/tL5GfNBnxLpic.twitter.com/oGurjJdrxi
📌Authorities reported at least 26… pic.twitter.com/U5AVlVP0iw

— ⚡️🌎 World News 🌐⚡️ (@ferozwala) August 25, 2026

While no people were reported killed or missing, among the injured was a pregnant woman who was hurt when her house collapsed on her, according to AFP.

The storm also battered electricity infrastructure across southern France. Grid operator Enedis said about 21,000 households were without power across the south on Tuesday morning, including around 1,600 in Aude. The prefecture later put the number still without electricity locally at about 1,400.

The tornado appears unusually powerful by French standards. Emmanuel Wesolek, president of the Keraunos severe-weather observatory, told HuffPost that an initial assessment indicated “gusts of more than 200 kph” and potentially as high as 240 kph.

The tornado would likely rate somewhere between the upper end of EF2 and the lower end of EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, he added.

According to Meteo-France, while not as frequent as in the US, a few dozen tornadoes occur in mainland France in an average year, and most are of low intensity. According to figures cited by HuffPost, EF2 tornadoes occur only once or twice annually, while an EF3 is recorded roughly once every four years.

The EU is highly reluctant to revive plans to steal more than $200 billion in frozen Russian sovereign reserves and hand them over to cash-strapped Ukraine, EurActiv reported on Tuesday, citing sources.

On Monday, European leaders flocked to Kiev in a show of solidarity for Ukraine, which marked its 35th Independence Day, but the talks quickly turned to the country’s numerous issues, including a substantial budgetary deficit. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky told European officials that his government still faces a €23.5 billion ($27.4 billion) shortfall on top of EU funding already promised and urged Brussels to accelerate the next instalment of its €90 billion support loan.

According to EurActiv, while the EU’s attention once again pivoted to the idea of confiscating around €210 billion of Russian funds immobilized in EU institutions, mostly in the Belgian-based Euroclear, “there is little sign the issue is about to return to the table in Brussels.”

Russia has condemned the asset freeze as “theft,” ruled out paying any reparations to Ukraine, and has warned the EU of harsh retaliation if it confiscates the funds one way or another.

However, the scheme – which was championed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – met fierce opposition from a number of EU members, most notably Belgium. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever argued that the plan would leave it uniquely exposed to legal and financial pushback from Russia.

“Taking [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s money and leaving the risks with [Belgium]. That’s not going to happen,” he said last year.
Euroclear also vehemently opposed the seizure plot, at one point warning that it could sue the EU if the bloc tries to confiscate the assets. Several other EU leaders also raised concerns that confiscating Russian assets would erode international law and tarnish the bloc’s reputation and standing among investors.

Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval held talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday on the border issue between the two countries and improving relations.

”We are meeting in keeping with the guidance of our leaders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping, who have given clear and positive direction to our relationship, both at the highest and working levels,” Doval said in his remarks, reports said. “I am happy that, over the past year, our relationship has been steadily returning to normalcy.”

Doval noted that the talks are “particularly important against the backdrop of the BRICS Summit.” The summit will be held in New Delhi next month and Chinese President Xi Jinping will reportedly attend.

The two officials are the designated special representatives for the border talks mechanism, which was established in 2003. It is the main channel for negotiations between the two countries on the border issue and communication on issues of mutual interest.

Doval, who is on a two-day visit to China, met with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng on Monday and discussed ways to strengthen peace in the border areas and improve economic, political, and multilateral relations, the Indian Embassy said in an X post.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval held the 25th round of Special Representatives’ talks on the India-China boundary question with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing.

During his visit, NSA Doval also met Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, with discussions focusing on… pic.twitter.com/QyEcnOaYN3

— DD News (@DDNewslive) August 25, 2026

Ahead of the talks, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar reiterated that “peace and tranquility” along the border areas are a prerequisite for good relations with China.

Relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors froze after a skirmish between their troops in the Ladakh region of their common Himalayan border in 2020, which left 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers dead.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to attend the BRICS summit in New Delhi next month with a 400-strong delegation, Reuters reported, citing three unnamed sources.

Xi’s participation in the summit, which Russian President Vladimir Putin will also attend, has not been officially confirmed yet. India, which holds the rotating chair of the BRICS group, has engaged in intense diplomacy ahead of the summit.

Two UN peacekeepers have been killed and seven people injured after unidentified gunmen ambushed a patrol in South Sudan’s eastern Jonglei State, the UN mission in the country (UNMISS) said on Monday.

The patrol was attacked while traveling to Pajut, a remote area in Jonglei, according to the mission. UNMISS deployed a quick reaction force to secure the area and assist with the emergency response. Three other peacekeepers were among those injured, along with two members of the South Sudan National Police Service and two civilian staff. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. 

UNMISS chief Anita Kiki Gbeho condemned the attack, describing violence targeting personnel working to support peace in the country as “unacceptable.”

Gbeho called on the authorities to launch a “thorough and prompt investigation” and ensure those responsible are brought to justice. UNMISS also warned that attacks targeting UN peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law.

The incident comes amid mounting security risks for humanitarian personnel in South Sudan. At least 36 aid workers have been killed in the country since the beginning of the year, according to the UN, already exceeding the 31 deaths recorded throughout 2025.

More than 450 incidents of violence against humanitarian workers and assets were reported between January and July, more than double the number recorded during the same period in 2025, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan Ramanathan Balakrishnan said last week.

Former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, now a major opposition figurehead, has been detained in a corruption probe, the head of his office has said. Kocharyan and his eldest son Sedrak are reportedly being held amid a series of searches on their properties.

The detentions come amid Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s intensifying confrontation with the Armenian opposition, which has escalated further since the June parliamentary election. Kocharyan, whose Armenia Alliance is one of the main opposition forces in parliament, is a prominent political rival of Pashinyan.

Investigators have also searched dozens of addresses, including the home of Kocharyan’s younger son Levon, an opposition MP.

The Anti-Corruption Committee confirmed the arrests on Tuesday after Kocharyan was taken to its offices earlier in the morning. It said the investigation involves alleged property deals and bribery.

Kocharyan was later taken to a medical facility after his condition deteriorated in custody, she told reporters.

The ex-president’s office described the investigation as a fresh government “attack” on him and his family.

The case centers on alleged property schemes dating from 2004 to 2009, according to Kocharyan’s lawyer, Aram Orbelyan. Investigators claim property belonging to an educational institution and worth several billion drams was sold for just 12 million drams (around $31,000) before eventually passing to a member of Kocharyan’s family.

The committee is also investigating the sale of Defense Ministry land to a company linked to a Kocharyan associate for around a quarter of its market value. It alleges Kocharyan received a 30% stake in Toyota Yerevan for facilitating the deal, which was later transferred to Sedrak through allegedly fictitious transactions. Armenian media reported on Tuesday that tax authorities had sealed the Toyota dealership as part of searches targeting businesses linked to the family.

Armenia’s Central Electoral Commission authorized criminal proceedings against Kocharyan in June. The former president had earlier been barred from leaving the country without explanation, with his office accusing the authorities of attempting to fabricate a case against him.

The latest proceedings come after Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance won 9.92% of the vote and 12 seats in the June 7 parliamentary election. Pashinyan’s ruling Civil Contract party secured 49.74% and 64 seats. Kocharyan subsequently accused Pashinyan of attempting to “usurp power” by declaring victory before the final results had been announced.

Pashinyan, who was first elected prime minister in 2018, has since declared the opposition parties that entered parliament illegitimate and threatened to strip them of their political status. He has also vowed to confiscate the assets of the three largest opposition parties’ leaders, saying they “should be left hungry.”

The escalating tensions between Kocharyan and the Armenian authorities come as Yerevan seeks closer ties with the EU while maintaining strong economic links with Russia. Kocharyan has criticized the policy as a “geopolitical balancing act,” arguing that Armenia’s rhetoric is directed toward the EU while its economy and business remain oriented toward Russia. President Vladimir Putin has said Yerevan will eventually have to choose between the EU and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), while Armenian officials have insisted they have no intention of severing ties with Moscow.

Gaza rescue crews have been searching the enclave’s ruins for thousands of Palestinians believed to remain buried beneath buildings destroyed in Israeli strikes, some dating back to the first months of the war.

Recovery work continues amid a fragile ceasefire and an unresolved dispute over a peace roadmap unveiled last month by US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, which calls for Hamas to relinquish control of Gaza in exchange for Israel withdrawing from the enclave. Israel has rejected the proposal, insisting Hamas must first disarm, while Israeli strikes have continued, further complicating recovery operations.

Gaza’s Civil Defense estimates that around 8,000 Palestinians killed during the war remain buried beneath the rubble. A chronic shortage of excavators and other heavy machinery has hampered recovery efforts, often forcing crews to search collapsed buildings with basic tools. Some families have waited years for the remains of relatives to be recovered for burial.

Watch Almughari’s full report on the recovery struggle below.

Norway will continue developing oil and gas fields in the Arctic, Energy Minister Terje Aasland has said, despite EU calls for a moratorium on drilling in the region. The bloc should no longer see his country as Europe’s “green battery,” he added.

EU Arctic policy aims to keep fossil fuels in the ground, cut black carbon and accelerate the green transition, citing claims of the region’s unusually rapid warming.

Brussels seeks to influence energy policy in Norway, which is not a member of the EU, but is the bloc’s largest gas supplier following the decision to reject cheap gas from Russia.

“In today’s geopolitical and security environment, and given the resource situation, I believe continued activity in the Barents Sea serves both Norwegian and European interests,” Aasland said in a Reuters interview on Monday, the opening day of ONS, Norway’s four-day energy conference in Stavanger.

The minister explained that Norway would develop the areas, but leave it to the EU to decide whether to impose a moratorium on buying the resulting oil and gas. He added that Norway aims to maintain petroleum production and exports at roughly the current levels until at least 2035, with production in the Barents Sea key to that goal.

Aasland called the long-standing idea of Norway serving as “the green battery” of Europe “flawed,” stressing that “the Arctic must be part of that discussion” if the country “is to remain a long-term supplier of oil and gas to Europe.”

According to the European Commission, Norway has supplied roughly 30% of the EU’s gas imports in recent years after Brussels rejected Russian energy in the wake of the Ukraine conflict. The country’s petroleum revenues have since reached record levels, boosted by its growing share of the European gas market and a surge in oil and gas prices after the loss of Russian supplies.

In 2025, the country’s gas production remained near the previous year’s record high, while oil output reached its highest level since 2009. Official Norwegian forecasts, however, show output could fall sharply after 2030 unless new fields are developed.

Fifteen years ago, it appeared that Russia-Japan relations were improving to the extent that Japan could become, for Russia, an eastern version of Germany as a former enemy turning into a major economic partner in a relationship where Russian resources were traded for the other partner’s investment and advanced technologies. With frequent and seemingly productive summit meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, it appeared that the issues remaining after World War II would finally be resolved and that a firm and lasting foundation would be laid for a qualitatively new relationship between what were sometimes called distant neighbors.

Over the years, the Russo-Japanese negotiations on a peace treaty to finally draw a line under the war had advanced considerably. However, there was still one stumbling block that refused to go away, and that was Tokyo’s defense and foreign policy subservience to Washington. Moscow simply could’t trust the Japanese to stand up to American political and military demands, given the US overlordship of Japan. That attitude proved prudent, because when the Ukraine crisis came, Tokyo had to fall in line with its senior ally. Germany, one might add, did even worse, given Berlin meekly allowed its economy to be deprived of the unique advantage it had enjoyed, cheap Russian gas, and watched its vast and lucrative business relationship with Russia be destroyed.

The cases of Japan and Germany taught Russians an important lesson. Countries that are US allies cannot be regarded as genuinely sovereign, since Washington has enough leverage to make them follow the American lead. Of course, Germany and Japan are more dependent on the US than some other allies, given the long and continuing military occupation of both and the wholesale Americanization of their elites and societies, but the general finding is still true in that an alliance with America is a form of bondage.

Japan isn’t there yet, but its Defense White Paper has already named Russia as a threat, while Tokyo’s already impressive defense budget is on the rise and restrictions on its naval activities are being eased, as are the rules governing Japan’s military exports. At the same time, US missile deployments in Japan threaten not only China and North Korea, but Russia as well. Tokyo is also strengthening its ties with NATO, so, as a result, Russia has to pay more attention to its Far Eastern flank. President Putin’s recent visit to Russian Pacific Fleet maneuvers and his trip to the island of Iturup in the South Kurils testify to that.

There are also other useful lessons to be learned from Northeast Asia. North Korea stands out as an example of a medium-sized and largely isolated country that has been able to ensure its sovereignty and security in a complex and challenging environment. All the talk of an impending collapse of the regime in Pyongyang, so common for years, has long since ceased. Unlike many other countries, the nuclear-armed DPRK is being courted, not threatened, by the US. For Moscow, Pyongyang has become a valuable military ally whose soldiers actually fight alongside their Russian comrades. The Russia-DPRK alliance substantially complements the Moscow-Beijing strategic partnership in bolstering security in the region.

There’s no question that the Republic of Korea is intently observing these developments and considering their implications. President Donald Trump’s recent abrupt decision to cut short joint military exercises to put pressure on Seoul over trade and investment issues has also been a useful warning. At the end of the day, South Korea’s security lies in its own hands. That security doesn’t rest solely on military and technological power, considerable as it is, and, thus, investing more in diplomacy with neighboring countries, including China and Russia, should be a priority. 

Germany’s Porsche has signed a $1.5 billion deal with India’s largest IT services company as the luxury carmaker looks to leverage AI to make itself more competitive in a fast-changing industry. 

It gives Bengaluru-based Tata Consultancy Services, which employs close to 595,000 people, a foothold in the European automotive industry as it changes focus from the traditional headcount-based outsourcing model to one defined by measurable results and productivity targets.

The 5-year strategic partnership with Porsche will go into effect once TCS completes the acquisition of Porsche’s IT consulting business, MHP, for €320 million ($373 million). 

It is a win-win for two companies from two industries that are swiftly being upended by artificial intelligence. 

The automotive industry is among the most disrupted by digital technology as cars increasingly become software on wheels, and with AI accelerating the evolution of technologies like self-driving through systems that learn from real-world data.

TCS will establish a dedicated AI Mobility Centre of Excellence for Porsche, to apply AI across engineering, manufacturing, operations, and customer experience as the car maker doubles down on its core business by shedding MHP – part of its ‘Sportwagenschmiede 35’ strategy, which aims to improve profitability and cash flow. 

Porsche recorded about $40 billion in revenue in FY2025.

TCS will “industrialize AI at scale for Porsche,” said the IT firm’s CEO K. Krithivasan.

AI has also become a major source of worry for Indian IT consultancy companies, which have built a multi-billion global success story, with margins coming under pressure as clients demand increased productivity from AI deployments.

The Nifty IT index, a benchmark for Indian IT stocks, is down nearly 20% from the beginning of the year, compared to just 7% for the broader Nifty 50 – an indication of how investors view Indian IT’s prospects.

TCS recorded $30 billion revenue in the financial year ended March, and analysts expect MHP to add 3% to its top line.

In short, TCS gets Porsche’s technology transformation business, MHP’s automotive expertise, and a platform to grab more business from global auto manufacturers.

Four people have been arrested in Kenya over the suspected poisoning of 18 elephants in the Amboseli ecosystem, the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife said on Saturday. 

A representative of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said on Monday that all four suspects were later released on bail.

Preliminary laboratory tests suggest that the animals may have died after ingesting tomatoes contaminated with cyanide from farms bordering wildlife habitats. Officials said further scientific testing was needed to confirm the cause of death.

The first 15 elephant deaths were recorded June 24 to July 24 in Amboseli National Park, Kimana Sanctuary, and the Kuku Ranch area, prompting the KWS and other agencies to launch an investigation. 

Ten of the elephants developed similar symptoms before dying, including partial paralysis which left them unable to stand. According to KWS, “the condition primarily affected adult females and their calves, with only one adult male” among the reported cases.

A search in Tikondo in Kimana, within Loitoktok Sub-County, also uncovered chemicals and other substances believed to have been sourced from a neighboring country. The potentially toxic and unlabeled materials have been sent for analysis.

The government stressed that the arrests and seized materials do not establish criminal responsibility. The authorities said the investigation is ongoing and pledged to prosecute anyone found to have unlawfully killed, poisoned, or harmed wildlife.

Earlier in August, the Kenya Veterinary Association (KVA) called for urgent testing of agricultural produce from areas around Amboseli after preliminary findings linked elephant deaths to cyanide. The group warned of potential risks to people after tomatoes were reportedly found in the animals’ stomachs and urged the authorities to determine whether contaminated produce could have entered local food supply chains.

Moscow has mocked a German journalist’s claim that a Russian missile strike near Kiev the day before German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul visited the Ukrainian capital amounted to a “clear affront” to Berlin.

The strike reportedly near Borispol airport – some 40 km to the east of central Kiev – destroyed dozens of trucks that had been converted into concealed launch platforms for long-range drones, as revealed by images of the aftermath released by the Ukrainian authorities, which were later scrubbed from official accounts.

When asked about Welt correspondent Christoph Wanner’s claim that the strike had crossed a certain diplomatic threshold, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Izvestia on Tuesday that Germany “gets insulted on a regular basis.”

What appears to be a truck coverted into a mobile launcher for Ukrainian FP-series one-way attack drones destroyed as a result of Russian strikes in Boryspil, Kyiv Oblast, earlier on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/wSIfrPZsjR

— Status-6 (War & Military News) (@Archer83Able) August 22, 2026

She pointed to several examples, including the US wiretapping of then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone, which was exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. She also cited the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which German investigators have linked to a Ukrainian diving team that may have acted on orders from Kiev.

Berlin endures diplomacy Ukraine-style

Ukraine’s diplomatic corps has for years used moral pressure to secure concessions from Western countries. Andrey Melnik, who served as Kiev’s ambassador to Germany from 2014 to 2022, became a prominent example of that approach by repeatedly lobbing insults at officials and politicians in his host country.

Among other things, Melnik called then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz an “offended liverwurst” and accused former Chancellor Angela Merkel of having a “borderline obsession” with Russia that was “almost perverse.” While serving in Berlin, he also branded retired German Gen. Erich Vad a “pathetic loser” and left-wing politician Klaus Ernst a “Marxist crank.”

Melnik was recalled and appointed ambassador to Brazil only after becoming embroiled in a major controversy in Germany over his defense of Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera. In an interview, he denied that Bandera and his movement were responsible for mass atrocities during World War II. Melnik currently serves as Ukraine’s envoy to the UN.

US President Donald Trump has warned schools across the country against promoting gender identity and transition, touting his administration’s efforts to purge what he calls “transgender ideology” and “far-left extremism” from classrooms.

Speaking at a White House back-to-school event on Monday, Trump said schools could face legal and financial consequences for telling children they are “trapped in the wrong body.”

“Every public school in America is now on notice that if they tell a child that they’re trapped in the wrong body, they are committing child abuse,” he said.

The president accused his predecessor Joe Biden’s administration of “weaponizing” education and imposing “extreme ideologies,” including critical race theory and “transgender insanity,” on children as young as four or five. He said schools had neglected basic education for gender identity issues, leaving the US near the bottom among leading nations despite spending “more money on education than any other country in the world by double.”

President Trump just issued a MAJOR WARNING to American schools:

"Every public school in America is now on notice that if they tell a child that they're trapped in the wrong body, they are committing child abuse"

🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/bls7ASN6FS

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 24, 2026

Trump stated his return to office meant reversing course, citing his measures targeting transgender policies and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices in education.

Speaking alongside Trump, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the administration had cut billions in DEI funding at schools and universities, redirecting it toward teachers, classrooms, and academic efforts, including workforce training. She warned that schools that continue promoting gender-related changes could lose funding altogether.

“If they subject children to radical experiments and sideline parents, they will lose their federal funding,” McMahon stated. “Children belong to their parents, not the federal government.”

Trump attacked the promotion of gender transition even before returning for his second term, vowing to “stop” gender-affirming care for minors, which he equated with “child sexual mutilation.”

Trump has also pursued a broader DEI crackdown, which his administration views as discriminatory and incompatible with merit-based policies. He ordered federal agencies to dismantle DEI programs, including in the military and Foreign Service, and reversed Biden-era workforce equity initiatives. The campaign has extended beyond government, with DEI funding cut and federal contractors and other institutions pressured to abandon race- and gender-conscious policies.

As recently as July 26 of this year, Ursula von der Leyen appeared full of confidence in victory during her visit to Kiev. She claimed the tide of the war had turned, that Ukraine had regained the initiative, and that Russia was on the defensive. The cause of this supposed turnaround, after four and a half years of a devastating war, is said to be a new ‘wonder weapon’: drones which, with the help of AI provided by Palantir and others, can carry the war deep into the Russian hinterland and precisely destroy oil refineries and other critical infrastructure there. The Russian economy – particularly the energy sector – is said to be severely weakened, and the war Russia started has now hit the country itself “with full force.”

On the battlefield too, according to these accounts, Ukraine has achieved considerable success with autonomously operating “killer drones.” These drones are said to be capable of automatically detecting and destroying all life at a distance of 30 kilometers on the front line. Technology, it is claimed, has thus more than compensated for the shortage of Ukrainian soldiers. Russian soldiers, by contrast, are now said paying a heavy price in lives without being able to demonstrate any military successes. This must be wearing down the aggressors and forcing Putin to acknowledge that he is going to lose the war.

These accounts were accompanied by media-effective drone attacks on Moscow and St Petersburg. No wonder, then, that the mainstream Western media have been full of victory reports over the past two months. Some even speculated that Russia could only hold out for another six months; a coup in Moscow was deemed possible. The strategically important Crimea was said to have been largely cut off from Russia by Ukrainian attacks. Putin would now be forced to the negotiating table as the loser – and on the terms of the European NATO states, which would amount to a Russian surrender. Their policy of providing massive military, political, and financial support to Ukraine, while refusing any talks until Russia was ‘brought to its knees’, seemed to have paid off.

It is striking that for the past week there have been hardly any reports on the course of the war, and the victory announcements have largely fallen silent. This is because doubts are mounting, both in the US and in Ukraine itself, about the success of the drone war deep within the Russian hinterland.

One need only heed the warnings of Valery Zaluzhny: the drone war is not very successful and far too expensive. As former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and current ambassador to the UK, he should know. According to the pro-Ukrainian war monitors ‘Dron-Bomber’, the Russians are now reportedly achieving a high shoot-down rate of Ukrainian drones. The dismissal of Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov is also likely to be linked to the looming failure of the drone war. Is the realization taking hold that this conflict cannot be won by drone warfare alone?

This means that developments on the battlefield remain decisive. However, there can be no question of a military stalemate claimed by the Western media. Even some Ukrainian Telegram channels admit, that “the pace of the Russian armed forces’ offensive is increasing.” Russian territorial gains are said to have occurred not only in Donbass but also around Kharkov and in Zaporozhye. This is still proceeding slowly, but it is a war of attrition whose primary aim is the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces. Could this objective be achieved by capturing the last remaining fortified defensive positions around the Donbass cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk?

Even more serious for Ukraine is the fact that its drone attacks have led to a hardening of the Russian position. The Russian leadership is now openly speaking of a war – including a war by NATO against Russia – and has significantly intensified the conflict. In the cruel logic of war, the destruction in Ukraine now far exceeds that in Russia. Another crucial factor is that Ukraine has no air defenses to speak of and is barely able to defend itself against massive Russian drone and missile attacks, while the intensity of Ukrainian attacks is reportedly waning.

The European NATO member states can do little to change this – they lack the military capabilities. Plans to station a ‘coalition of the willing’ in Poland or even to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine are completely unrealistic. The United States has recently announced that it will hand over leadership of the NATO center in Wiesbaden, which coordinates military support for Ukraine, entirely to European NATO member states. There is even talk of disbanding this NATO facility, which is crucial for Ukraine. Further, with the Iran war ranging, the US has hardly any weapons left to spare. There can therefore be little question of renewed US military involvement in the war in Ukraine.

Even before the latest escalation of the war, there were clear indications that the Ukrainian army was experiencing considerable difficulty. Upon taking office as defense minister in January, Fedorov spoke of around 200,000 deserters; other MPs cited significantly higher figures. Furthermore, some two million Ukrainian men are said to have evaded conscription orders. Whichever figures are accurate, they point to an alarming state of affairs within the Ukrainian armed forces – a situation that cannot be remedied either by forced recruitment on the streets or, as is now becoming apparent, by drones controlled by artificial intelligence. Similarly, a proposal now being discussed by the EU – to withdraw refugee status from Ukrainian men who have fled, in breach of international law, and to send them back to Ukraine to face the war – is further evidence of the hopelessness of the situation.

In May, Ukrainian Minister for Social Affairs Denis Ulyutin stated that the population in the government-controlled part of the country had shrunk from 52 million (at the time of independence in 1991) to possibly as low as 22 million. Of these, around 11 million are on social security, predominantly pensioners and war invalids. He expects the population to continue to fall after the war ends, as young men – once exempt from military service – would follow their families to the West. He does not expect any significant return of Ukrainians living abroad. Added to this demographic decline are increasing impoverishment, deep social inequalities, pervasive corruption, astronomical public debt and the country’s economic collapse.

Of course, such forecasts must be treated with caution. Yet the apparent failure of the drone war to bring about a strategic turning point should make it clear to European NATO states that, at the end of this escalation which was accompanied by such fanfare, Ukraine may not emerge as the victor, but is instead sliding into an increasingly devastated, depopulated, and bled-dry country. This should give us cause for great concern for the suffering people in Ukraine. European NATO-states must ask themselves whether a continuation of the war – which they have demanded and supported – can still be morally justified at all.

European NATO states are only harming Ukraine with their illusions of victory and wonder weapons, and must finally base their policy on a more realistic assessment of how the war is unfolding. It is therefore time to consider what would happen if the Ukrainian army’s resistance were to collapse one day and Russia were to capture Kharkov and Odessa as well. Any remnant of Ukraine that remained would scarcely be viable. It must be in the top interest not only of Ukraine but also of its Western backers to prevent such a scenario. But how?

Certainly, this cannot be prevented through direct military intervention by NATO. This would make the situation only much worse – also for Ukraine – as such a course of action would inevitably entail the risk of a nuclear war, which nobody can win. Diplomacy therefore remains the only realistic option. After almost five years of war, it is high time that the European NATO states actively sought dialogue with Russia. Germany – given its role as the strongest country in the EU, its geographical location, and its historical responsibility – should take the first step.

To move beyond the entrenched positions of both governments, an initial rapprochement through a civil‑society initiative involving respected and influential figures may be advisable. Such an approach could open a first, cautious pathway toward renewed understanding after years of silence and mutual demonization. Europe needs peace, and lasting peace can only be achieved with Russia, not against it.

There is not much time left for this.

This article was first published by Russia in Global Affairs and edited by the RT team

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is trying to “neutralize” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio by establishing a direct channel with President Donald Trump, CNN Brasil reported on Monday, citing sources.

Rubio previously excluded Brazil from the group of countries he described as friendly and attacked Lula over trade. The Brazilian president accused him of being “anti-Latin America.”

Tensions between the US and Latin America’s largest economy have been soaring for months, as Trump fiercely backed former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro during his trial over a plot to overturn his 2022 election defeat and keep himself in power.

The two countries are also locked in a trade dispute. The US imposed an additional 25% tariff on certain Brazilian goods in July after a trade investigation accused Brazil of a litany of unreasonable practices.

According to CNN, Lula complained for weeks about Rubio, a vocal critic of Brazil’s government, before calling Trump and seeking to weaken the secretary’s influence over bilateral relations. During a call last week, Lula reportedly told Trump that contact should proceed “without intermediaries.”

Following the conversation, Lula said talks with Trump were “very civilized and very respectful,” while lamenting that the “second tier” of the US government was taking “unthinkable” actions. “I sometimes get the impression that Trump is much better at political relations than his advisers.” 

Rubio also accused Lula of failing to negotiate in good faith, and said he “put his own ego” ahead of securing a trade deal, adding that the tariffs were “the price for that.” Lula has called Rubio “anti-Latin America” and “a mortal enemy of Cuba and several Latin American countries.”

The US sanctioned four Indian companies on Monday for allegedly trading in Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products.

The additions came as the Treasury Department launched “an unprecedented, whole-of-government, economic campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its enablers” called Operation Economic Outcast.

The sanctioned companies include Sadashiva Overseas, PP Softtech, and Prakrutees Infra Impex, which are accused of importing shipments of Iranian oil and oil products; and Portease Partners, a customs broker accused of facilitating the shipments.

Two partners of Portease – Indrismiya Asharafmiya Shekh and Harish Ramchandra Rangi – were also added to the list.

Bilateral trade between India and Iran is currently at around $1.6 billion, with $1.25 billion coming from Indian exports of goods exempted on humanitarian grounds, such as agricultural staples and medicine.

The Treasury said the designations will intensify pressure on networks that sustain the regime’s malign activities and fund its attacks across the Middle East.

Iran has largely blocked commercial shipping via the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s energy previously passed, following the US-Israeli attack against Iran earlier this year.

Nearly two dozen former cricket captains from around the world have appealed to Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to provide proper medical treatment for the country’s former prime minister and one of cricket’s all-time greats, Imran Khan, as directed by Pakistan’s top court.

Twenty-two cricketers, including Indian legends Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar, made the appeal in a letter on Sunday after Khan was rushed back to jail early Friday morning following a brief checkup in a government-run hospital in Islamabad.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court had ordered that Khan be moved to the private Shifa hospital in the capital and be kept there until September 16, and that a medical board that includes his physician sister Uzma Khan be formed to examine his health issues.

Khan was, however, rushed to the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) from a Rawalpindi jail under heavy security just after midnight on Thursday, past the deadline given by the court, and whisked back early Friday morning after a few hours.

The cricketers, who also include India’s Dilip Vengsarkar, Sri Lanka's Arjuna Ranatunga, Clive Lloyd, Greg Chappell, Allan Border, and Alastair Cook, appealed that Khan be allowed visits from family members, as directed by the court, and any treatment recommended by the court be provided without delay. 

No Pakistani cricketer joined the appeal.

In February, 14 former cricketers – also including Kapil, Gavaskar, and Chappel – had written to Sharif, seeking more “humane” treatment for Khan.

Prime Minister Sharif on Saturday formed an inquiry committee, headed by a bureaucrat, to probe why Khan was not administered a heart diagnostic test previously recommended by doctors at the government-run hospital.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has also repeated its demand to move him to the Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad without any delay.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Iran attempted to assassinate one of his sons, making the explosive allegation without saying which of his children was targeted, when the supposed plot took place, or how close it came to being carried out.

The bombshell came almost in passing during a telephone interview with Israel’s Channel 14 on Monday about security arrangements for Netanyahu’s political rival, Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israeli military chief who is challenging him ahead of the October 27 general election.

“This is an unbelievable case. Iran targeted one of my sons. Iran tried to murder him, tried to murder one of my sons,” Netanyahu said, arguing that round-the-clock protection for Eisenkot was “not a luxury” and warning that without it, the Iranians “will succeed.”

Netanyahu has two sons, Yair and Avner. He did not identify which one he was referring to, nor did he say where or how Iran planned to attack him.

The claim comes as Netanyahu faces a difficult reelection campaign. Successive surveys have put his governing bloc short of the 61 seats required for a parliamentary majority, while polls have shown Eisenkot competing closely with or overtaking Netanyahu and his Likud party. Reuters reported in July that surveys were pointing to a defeat for Netanyahu’s coalition, although the fragmented opposition also lacks a straightforward path to forming a government.

US President Donald Trump also claimed that Tehran has tried to kill him – even before the initial salvo of US-Israeli strikes on February 28 killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

During the NATO summit in Türkiye in July, Trump was secretly removed from Air Force One and transferred inside a catering truck to another military aircraft after Israel relayed intelligence about another alleged Iranian assassination threat. The extraordinary operation was concealed even from some members of his traveling party.

US intelligence reportedly assessed the Israeli-supplied information with “low confidence,” while Tehran has denied broader accusations that it sought to assassinate Trump or other American officials.

Dutch public broadcaster Avrotros has pulled out of next year’s Eurovision song contest, arguing that the event can “no longer be considered neutral” given the severe humanitarian suffering in Gaza.

In a statement on Monday, Avrotros criticized Eurovision organizers for failing to establish clear rules for countries involved in military conflicts, saying its continued participation was no longer consistent with the broadcaster’s values of “trustworthiness, independence and humanity.”

This year’s contest became embroiled in a series of scandals linked to Israel’s participation amid its continued military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon. Five countries – Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland, and Slovenia – boycotted the event in May in protest against West Jerusalem’s actions.

Nevertheless, Israel’s Noam Bettan came in second, combining the jury’s ranking and an audience score, prompting rumors about vote-rigging.

Avrotros did not mention Israel by name, but said that “geopolitical tensions in the Middle East are having a significant impact on the Contest” and have caused deep divisions around Eurovision.

Earlier this month, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the event, amended its rules and said that a winner would be automatically barred from hosting the next contest if it or its “immediate region” is affected by an armed conflict or “a sensitive geopolitical situation.”

The Dutch broadcaster said the changes “do not provide sufficient confidence that the independent and neutral character of the Eurovision Song Contest has been restored.”

Avrotros Director-General Taco Zimmerman said Eurovision, originally founded to bring countries together, has become a “platform for division.”

The EBU has applied a selective approach towards nations involved in military conflicts. It banned Russia from participating following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 but did not take any measures against Kiev or West Jerusalem.

Russia has meanwhile revived Intervision, a Soviet-era alternative to Eurovision touted by the Kremlin as a music contest reflecting more “traditional values.” The first modern edition was held in Moscow in September 2025, attracting singers from 23 countries, including China, India, and Brazil.

Organizers said Intervision’s mission was to foster “dialogue between civilizations based on the mutual enrichment of national histories and traditions.” This year’s Intervision is expected to be hosted by Saudi Arabia.

Ukraine has been transformed into a “Zelensky concentration camp” with Western assistance, Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, has said, accusing Kiev of suppressing dissent at home and increasingly resorting to attacks on civilians in Russia.

Nebenzia made the remarks at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday marking the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence. The session was requested by the council’s five European members – Denmark, France, Greece, Latvia, and the UK – which reiterated their full support for Kiev.

The Russian diplomat questioned whether Ukraine has anything to celebrate, arguing that successive governments have run the country “into the ground” and that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky accelerated the process.

“With the most active involvement of the countries of the collective West, which claim to be ‘civilized’ and ‘democratic,’ Ukraine has morphed into a ‘Zelensky concentration camp,’ where any dissent or opposition is completely prohibited and those who find the courage to voice an alternative point of view are thrown behind bars without trial or due process, or physically eliminated,” he said.

Amid a growing crackdown on dissent and a deteriorating battlefield situation, Kiev has now slipped into “outright terror against Russia’s civilian population,” Nebenzia said.

“Terror has become the last resort for Kiev in its attempt to reverse the situation that is not currently in its favor,” he added. “At the same time, Zelensky continues to beg his Western patrons for new shipments of weapons and ammunition, which are then used to hit Russian cities, residential areas, and civilian infrastructure.”

Nebenzia said Russia retains the battlefield initiative and rejected calls for a temporary ceasefire that would give Kiev time to regroup and its Western sponsors time to rearm it. He warned that there would be no meaningful diplomatic process as long as Russia is confronted with ultimatums and threats while the reality on the ground is ignored.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has threatened to cut electricity and critical minerals to the US if President Donald Trump continues to escalate his trade war with Canada, drawing an angry response from Trump.

The exchange came hours after Trump announced that tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, auto parts, and steel would rise to 50% on January 1, 2027. The move followed the collapse of trade talks last week and a separate 50% tariff that took effect Saturday on around $20 billion worth of Canadian imports.

“Everything’s on the table. I’ll do whatever it takes,” Ford told AP on Monday, saying Ontario could raise electricity prices or halt exports altogether.

“We power 1.5 million homes and businesses,” he added, warning that if Trump keeps trying to dismantle Canadian manufacturing, “he better have a pack of batteries.”

Trump fired back on Truth Social, dismissing Ford’s comments as “bluster” and personally attacking the premier before warning Canadian leaders to “fall in line.”

“Someone should get these clowns to ‘fall in line’ or, the consequences for Canada will be far WORSE!” Trump wrote, again referring to Prime Minister Mark Carney as “Governor Carney.” He said the US is “far bigger, richer, and stronger” and claimed that Canada “couldn’t survive” without its southern neighbor.

“I have a lot of real estate on my ass, so he has a lot of room to kiss my ass,” Ford shot back at a press conference on Monday.

Canada's Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Trump:

I have a lot of real estate on my ass, so Trump has a lot of room to kiss my ass. pic.twitter.com/nP8MLVxfbI

— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 24, 2026

Ford said Ottawa should consider progressively stronger retaliation, including restrictions on oil, potash, and strategic minerals. Quebec Premier Christine Frechette, whose province is a major hydroelectricity supplier, said she is not currently pursuing Ford’s approach but would not exclude it as Canada enters a “new phase” of the dispute.

However, the exposure is far more concentrated in border states such as New York, Michigan, and Minnesota, where a stable supply of Canadian power can be particularly important during periods of peak demand.

Meanwhile, the AI boom is placing additional pressure on regional power grids as tech companies race to build massive, power-hungry hyperscale data centers. In July 2026, New York imposed a one-year moratorium on state discretionary environmental permits for new hyperscale facilities while it develops new regulations intended in part to protect grid stability and ratepayers.

Ontario has used the electricity threat before. In March 2025, Ford imposed a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the three states before suspending it after Trump threatened to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.

Russia and China have expanded trade links through the Arctic, with the first Chinese container ship arriving at the northern Russian port of Murmansk via the Northern Sea Route (NSR), Rosatom announced on Monday. Beijing has described the growing cooperation as part of its Ice Silk Road initiative.

The NSR runs through Russia’s Arctic waters and exclusive economic zone, relying on Russian ports and icebreakers. State atomic energy corporation Rosatom oversees the route’s development, navigation, infrastructure, and maritime safety.

NewNew Shipping Line’s Xin Xin Hai 1 arrived in Murmansk on Wednesday carrying 500 containers of automotive components, Rosatom said.

“This was the first container ship from China to arrive at the Murmansk Commercial Sea Port,” the corporation said.

NewNew Shipping Line has operated along the NSR since 2023, although its vessels have generally carried cargo to ports in Russia’s Far East or the Baltic.

China is ready to continue “playing the role of a bridge” to support cooperation between Chinese companies and Murmansk Region and further develop the Ice Silk Road, Chinese Consul General in St. Petersburg Luo Zhanhui said on Thursday.

Ke has also expressed interest in investing in the ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk in Russia’s far north and acquiring a stake in the port of Ust-Luga.

China accounted for around 40% of Murmansk Region’s foreign trade in 2025, when the region traded with 48 countries, according to Governor Andrey Chibis.

The Northern Sea Route provides a shorter maritime link between East Asia and northern Europe and can cut around two weeks from a voyage between China and Europe compared with the route through the Suez Canal, according to Rosatom.

Interest in the Arctic corridor has also grown as the US war with Iran and instability in the Middle East have disrupted shipping through the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. South Korea launched its first trial container voyage to Europe via the NSR on Saturday, while India plans to send its first cargo ship along the route in 2027.

Appointing Darline Graham to simply finish her brother Lindsey’s Senate term was one thing, but having her run for the next term, with Donald Trump’s support, is simply bonkers. Or does Trump know something we don’t?

Darline’s political inexperience was on full display during last week’s debate against her run-off opponent, Rep. Ralph Norman, when she was unable to answer an elementary question on national security involving China and Taiwan.

Graham was simply asked if Taiwan and the South China Sea are national security issues for the US. Incredibly, she even failed to at least respond with a “yes” or “no.”

Clearly unprepared for the big night, Graham began by requesting for the question to be repeated. It didn’t help her. Following the second reading she admitted defeat, saying, “I’m just going to be honest here – I’m not, on national security, that – I’m not that informed on national security. So...”

After her voice quivered for a moment amid rumbling from the debate audience, Graham dug her hole deeper with a non sequitur: “But I do support the military. My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military. My dad was in the army.”

Following Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sudden death on July 11, Gov. Henry McMaster appointed his sister Darline to finish up the remaining months of his tenure. What began as a sentimental gesture inexplicably morphed into a White House endorsement, with Trump pushing the inexperienced woman to enter the primary race with a chance at serving a six-year term that will begin in January. Feelings for her brother aside, Darline Graham has never held an elected office. Until this summer, she was commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, and earlier held a communications role in the South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Department.

Trump’s endorsement notwithstanding, Graham only received 33% of the vote in the special August 11 ballot, forcing her into an August 26 runoff against Ralph Norman, who came in second place with 25% of the vote. “Her lackluster showing reflected South Carolina Republicans’ deep unease with Trump trying to turn one of their Senate seats into an inheritance for someone with a joke of a political resume,” ZeroHedge quipped.

Darline’s egregious debate failure drew comparisons to Miss South Carolina’s famous response to a question in the 2007 Miss Teen USA pageant.

The question she was asked to answer went as follows: “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?”

It is an apt comparison and it would be funny if we weren’t dealing with a position that has the power to actually influence America’s foreign policy.

Having driven her own performance off a cliff, the next day Graham attempted to cover her losses by admitting to Trump attack dog Sean Hannity that she “tripped up on one question.” Brushing aside the importance of her inability to answer the question, Graham told Hannity, “I’m not a politician, certainly not a career politician, I don’t speak politician.”

In a separate interview with reporters, Graham said: “I tripped up on one question last night, regarding Taiwan. I don’t speak politician. I was just honest. Of course, Taiwan is our friend. But I think people in South Carolina are more worried about boys in girls’ sports.” Too bad Darline didn’t say that on the debate stage.

Thus, perhaps it can be argued that Darline Graham’s embarrassing lack of knowledge over foreign affairs might be just what the MAGA camp wants – a lot less Lindsey and much more Darline. They may be willing to forgive Darline’s inability to find Taiwan on a map so long as she focuses congressional attention on critical domestic issues, like LGBTQ curricula in schools, soaring costs, and crumbling infrastructure.  

On Tuesday, South Carolina Republicans will cast a vote that either continues in the blood-soaked shoes of Lindsey Graham or opts for a change in the person of his sister that keeps the attention on the American homeland.

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has barred Russian teams from returning to the Chess Olympiad next month, prompting prominent names in Russian chess to accuse its leadership of politicizing the sport and making “Russophobic” decisions.

FIDE suspended the Russian and Belarusian national teams from its competitions in 2022, although players from both countries were allowed to compete individually under neutral status. The federation lifted all restrictions on Belarusian athletes last month.

On Sunday, the FIDE Council ruled that Russian teams would remain excluded from the 46th Chess Olympiad, which is scheduled to take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, from September 16 to 27.

Russian Chess Federation chief Aleksandr Tkachev said the decision had undermined FIDE’s own motto, “We are one family,” and accused members of the Council of putting their personal interests ahead of chess. Since 1991, Russian players  have won six gold medals in the Open Chess Olympiad (and multiple silver and bronze medals), and three gold medals in the Women’s Chess Olympiad. 

“There are people who prioritize the game over politics and don’t worry about their own careers. But there are also people who prioritize personal interests, and they currently predominate on the Council. This time, they prevailed,” Tkachev told TASS on Monday.

He claimed the decision had been initiated by acting FIDE President Viswanathan Anand, who took over last month after his Russian predecessor, Arkady Dvorkovich, was forced to step aside after he was placed under EU sanctions.

“There is only one explanation for this decision – the FIDE leadership has gotten out of control. The decisions being made are Russophobic,” Karpov told TASS. “Let’s hope the situation changes after the elections in September.”

FIDE is due to hold its presidential election in Uzbekistan on September 26-27, alongside the closing stages of the Olympiad.

The ruling means Russia will miss its third consecutive over-the-board Olympiad after being absent from Chennai in 2022 and Budapest in 2024.

Russian players nevertheless remain prominent internationally under the FIDE flag. They won four medals – one gold, two silvers and one bronze – at the Asian rapid and blitz championships in Hong Kong last month.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned restrictions imposed on Russian athletes by international sporting bodies as politically motivated. President Vladimir Putin has argued that comparable measures have not been applied to athletes from other countries involved in armed conflicts.

Russia just pulled its ambassador to the UK, as British Prime Minister Andy Burnham doubles down on open involvement in the Ukraine conflict. The risk of open war has never been higher, but Burnham is writing checks that he can’t cash.

Relations between Russia and the UK are at an “unprecedentedly low level,” Moscow’s embassy in London said in a statement on Sunday, after it emerged that ambassador Andrey Kelin had left his post in late July and would not be immediately replaced. In a follow-up statement to the Sunday Times, an embassy spokesperson said that Kelin had made “considerable efforts to preserve contacts and channels of communication” between the UK and Russia, but the UK had clearly chosen a “path of confrontation.”

☝️ Russia-UK relations across all areas have deteriorated to an unprecedentedly low level entirely on London's initiative.https://t.co/ddib4uE1B4 pic.twitter.com/BrdJAyk4bO

— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) August 23, 2026

“He left Britain in the hope that a more constructive and respectful dialogue could eventually be restored, should the UK reconsider its policies towards our country,” the spokesman added.

How did Russia-UK relations get this bad?

Well, firstly, Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and of course David Cameron and their anglophonic media bullhorns. 

On August 17, the Russian Embassy in London warned Britain that “the deeper its involvement in the conflict and the greater its support for Kiev’s terrorist machinery, the higher the price it will pay.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov added that Moscow has “every right to regard the proudly proclaimed direct involvement of British missile forces in strikes against Russia as participation in the war, with all the consequences that entails.”

Neither statement seems to have deterred Burnham. Later that day, the British PM proclaimed that the UK would continue “to support Ukraine 100%.” Six days later, his office announced that it would provide Ukraine with classified information enabling it to produce Storm Shadow cruise missiles on Ukrainian soil. Burnham followed this up with a visit to Kiev on Monday, where he compared the conflict to Britain’s struggle against Nazi Germany in World War II, and promised to supply Ukraine with anti-air missiles to repel Russian strikes on its energy infrastructure.

Is pulling the ambassador a sign of war?

The withdrawal of Kelin is an unprecedented move. Diplomatic relations between Moscow and London have been strained on multiple occasions during the post-Soviet period, Russia’s response has typically been restrained. When FSB agents caught British spies hiding a listening device outside the Russian Embassy in 2006, the Kremlin named and condemned the agents responsible. When the UK expelled four Russian diplomats after Moscow refused to extradite a suspect in the alleged poisoning of double agent Alexander Litvinenko in 2007, Russia responded in kind. 

At no point during these incidents did Russia withdraw – or threaten to withdraw – its ambassador. However, with relations already in the gutter since 2022, Moscow’s lack of urgency in replacing Kelin most likely does not herald military action against the UK. Instead, it is an acknowledgement of just how badly relations have deteriorated.

What will Russia do to neutralize the UK’s Ukraine missile threat?

Russia’s kinetic response to Burnham’s missile data sharing plan is straightforward. In a statement to reporters on August 24, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “our armed forces are carrying out the relevant work and obtaining the necessary data in order to identify the production sites for such missiles and other military equipment, and are taking measures to destroy these locations.”

Destroying missile production sites in Ukraine is a far easier task for Russia now than at any point since 2022. Ukraine has no ammunition for its Patriot air defense batteries left, nor does Kiev have any money to buy more. In a post on X on Sunday, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky admitted that his military used all of its 2026 budget in the first six months of the year buying and building drones to attack civilian infrastructure in Russia. 

As a result, Russia has been dismantling weapons plants, ports and ships used to import arms, and energy targets across Ukraine with impunity since July.

How far can Britain escalate against Russia?

Burnham has little more to offer. The US is unwilling to share its dwindling stocks of Patriot missiles with Ukraine, even if the UK offers to buy. Three out of five weapons packages donated by the UK to Ukraine this year included other models of defense missiles – a total of more than 2,500 missiles – but these have apparently been used up by Kiev’s forces.

Given the potential consequences, some figures within the British defense establishment have called for restraint. Former Chief of the Defense Staff Tony Radakin – who once urged Britain to prepare to fight Russia in space – and his successor, Richard Knighton, have both reportedly sought contact with Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov in order to limit the threat of naval escalation. Another former British defense chief, Field Marshal Lord David Richards, has called for peace talks with Russia since 2022, arguing last year that Ukraine “cannot win” the conflict with anything short of full-scale NATO intervention.

Even former defense attache John Foreman – who has encouraged Ukraine to strike Russia with British-made missiles – told The Times on August 15 that Britain should reopen “strategic dialog” with Russia, calling London’s suspension of military-to-military communications in 2024 “daft.”

'Good to speak to @edvaizey today about the need to hold our noses and re-establish mil to mil ties.

We can continue to support Ukraine. But at the same time, we can talk to the Russians'. Cutting military communication with Russia was a 'daft decision'.

With Russian forces…

— John Foreman CBE (@John_ForemanCBE) August 15, 2026

These calls have also come from the UK’s typically hawkish circuit of ‘Russia experts’. Among this group is Mark Galeotti, an academic with rumored links to British intelligence. In an interview with former British diplomat Ian Proud in mid-August, Galeotti conceded that “behind closed doors,” many British diplomatic and security officials now believe that “we’ve reached the stage where we need to be pushing both sides to some kind of resolution.”

“After years of spouting these empty mantras of ‘as much as it takes, for as long as it takes’, etc etc, who’s going to turn around and say ‘actually, come to think of it, this is not in our interests’,” he told Proud. 

Will Burnham step back?

After his speech in Kiev on Monday, Burnham chaired a meeting of the ‘coalition of the willing’ – a 34-nation group put together to pool military aid for Ukraine. In his opening remarks, Burnham called on the UK’s allies to “dig into our own stocks and help others dig into their stocks” to keep the Ukrainian military fighting.

However, should the UK continue supplying long-range missiles and drones to Ukraine, and should these munitions be used to kill Russian civilians, Russia is running out of diplomatic means of deterring London.

Britain has scoffed at every polite warning from Moscow to date, but with Kelin’s office vacant, there are fewer civilized options available to Russia. The “consequences” threatened by Lavrov could be far more catastrophic than a formal demarche.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced new sanctions against Iran, and threatened to boot any country dealing financially with Tehran out of the US dollar system, in a bid to make Iran an “economic outcast.”

The new sanctions target nearly 60 entities, individuals, and vessels in multiple jurisdictions that allegedly trade in “illicit nuclear and missile technology” with Iran, aid Iran’s “cyber operations,” and move Iranian oil, the US Treasury Department said in a statement on Monday. More than a third of the sanctioned entities and individuals – 21 – are based in China.

The Treasury also said it had identified digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping as areas for potential secondary sanctions.

Speaking at a press conference later on Monday, Bessent went further, announcing the beginning of “Operation Economic Outcast,” which he described as “an economic onslaught against Iran’s financial connections around the globe.”

In the Second World War, D-Day marked the historic beginning of a campaign with our allies to target and drive the enemy from its positions, including those in third countries. Today, in that same spirit, we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran’s financial connections… pic.twitter.com/1fLyobUucu

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) August 24, 2026

Bessent explained that the US would penalize any country refusing to sever its economic ties with Tehran. “Any entity that facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran will be removed from the US dollar system,” he said, adding “the clock just started ticking.” 

Iran exports goods to 147 countries, and imports from 114, according to the most recent data from the World Bank. Asked how the US intends to force three quarters of the world’s nations to cease trade with Iran, Bessent said that US President Donald Trump phoned multiple world leaders over the weekend “with specific requests to cease their interactions” with Iran, and that every country had been given “a defined timeline” to comply with his demands. 

“We find that the best way to engage with countries is through quiet diplomacy. And we are level-setting with every country to tell them our expectations. We know who they are. They know who they are,” he replied, adding “no-one is above the reach of US sanctions.”

Bessent’s threats were shrugged off in Tehran. “Americans know that no one buys their bombast,” senior Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X after the treasury secretary's press conference.

“The United States is not in an economic position to further restrict its relations with other countries,”he explained. “Iran’s trading partners, both in the media and through messages sent to us, have made it clear that they don’t take these statements into account anywhere.”

Mohsen Rezaei, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned on Sunday that “not a single drop of oil will leave the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz” if the Gulf states join the US’ economic pressure campaign. If US President Donald Trump “wants to do something, we will retaliate in a seismic manner,” Rezaei added.

Last week, Trump threatened to inflict what he called “Economic D-Day” on Iran, after a 60-day window for negotiating peace with Tehran expired with no breakthrough. Trump ruled out a return to negotiations, but Pakistani Chief of Defense Forces Asim Munir arrived in Tehran on Monday in an attempt to revive the talks. 

The massive influx of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta has shown that Germany would be better off outside the Schengen zone, Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-chair Alice Weidel has said.

The EU’s “borderless” travel system poses a threat to Germany as long as the bloc’s external borders remain largely unprotected, the leader of Germany’s most popular party told ZDF broadcaster on Sunday.

Some 72,000 people illegally entered Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the North African coast, within hours in late July. The influx led to severe overcrowding and inadequate sanitation, with local authorities reporting a subsequent outbreak of disease.

At least 15 rape cases were also reported in the migrant-swamped enclave. Although most of the arrivals were quickly sent back, city authorities estimated that as many as 10,000 remained in Ceuta as of last week.

“When I see something like what’s happening in Ceuta, then [I say] we’re leaving Schengen,” Weidel said. “We have to start [acting] preventively, we can’t just let everyone in unchecked.”

Germany must “close” its borders because the EU is failing to uphold its commitments on external border security, she argued.

“We will leave Schengen so that people like those from Ceuta can no longer come to us,” she added.

The AfD holds just over 23% of seats in the Bundestag, making it the largest opposition faction. However, it remains largely unable to influence legislation because of the so-called “firewall” policy, under which Germany’s other major parties refuse to cooperate with it.

Weidel has argued that this could change after the next parliamentary elections, scheduled for 2029, which she believes the AfD could win.

The Ceuta crisis has already sent shockwaves through the EU. Several European leaders have called for Spain to be excluded from the Schengen zone, while Italy introduced temporary border checks on travelers arriving from Spain on August 1. Madrid responded with reciprocal measures.

Germany has long been the EU’s leading destination for asylum seekers. It received more than 163,000 applications in 2025, accounting for roughly one in five claims across the bloc’s 27 member states, according to the EU Agency for Asylum.

The country also has the EU’s largest foreign-born population in absolute terms, with nearly 17 million people born abroad, or around 20% of the population.

Berlin has already expanded checks along its borders with other EU countries and increased the number of migrants turned away in an effort to curb illegal migration.

US President Donald Trump has announced a 50% tariff on Canadian cars, trucks and auto parts starting next year, escalating a bitter trade war with Ottawa after negotiations collapsed last week.

In a post on Truth Social on Monday, Trump accused Canada of “ripping off the United States of America for years” and imposing excessive tariffs on American farmers. He claimed that bilateral trade has left the US with a “$60 billion deficit.”

“Not sustainable, and NOT ANYMORE! On January First, 2027, Tariffs on all Cars, Trucks, both large and small, Automotive Parts, and Steel, will be increased to 50%,” Trump announced. The move will double the current 25% tariff on Canadian auto imports.

“Build in the U.S. and there are ZERO TARIFFS,” Trump added, saying Canada would no longer be treated “like a State” and calling it “among the worst nations in the world to deal with.”

“WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!” he wrote.

The announcement comes just two days after a separate package of 50% US tariffs took effect on around $20 billion worth of Canadian imports, including wine, cement, plywood, clothing and hockey equipment.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the US terms “unfair” and “uneconomic” and pledged to match Washington’s tariffs “dollar for dollar” to protect Canadian workers and businesses.

Ottawa’s retaliatory measures, which are set to take effect on September 8, will target US goods including steel, dairy products, appliances, and electronics.

Trade tensions between Washington and Ottawa, which date back to Trump’s first term, reignited after he returned to office last year and launched a sweeping tariff campaign against major US trade partners. These include Canada, Mexico, China, the EU, and Japan, who Trump has accused of unfairly benefiting from access to the US market.

The head of the Vatican’s diplomatic service, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, is visiting Moscow from August 24-28. 

This visit is part of the Holy See’s diplomatic efforts on humanitarian issues and the discussion of ways to resolve the Ukraine conflict. This is reflected in the fact that the Vatican, together with the authorities of several states, including Bulgaria, Hungary, and Italy recently contributed to keeping Patriarch Kirill off the latest EU sanctions list.

The visit is clearly necessary to revitalize communication between the Vatican and Moscow, as the formal diplomatic channels – though fully operational – have recently lost the historical depth and back-channel confidentiality previously maintained through the Russian Orthodox Church’s external relations. Below, we examine the true operational motives behind the Holy See’s urgent mission within the broader context of its geopolitical and financial survival in Central and Eastern Europe.   

American Pope

Pope Leo XIV has been in power for a year, allowing us to draw certain conclusions about his leadership style. We see a tough, sovereign politician who skillfully uses conservative symbols to promote the Church’s internal stability, but on the world stage, he advocates a center-left, global agenda that criticizes both rigid state borders and the power of algorithms. 

For example, the Vatican has returned to the use of traditional ornate vestments, which had been shelved under Francis XII. The public appearance was also received extremely favorably by conservative critics of the use of 'gender ideology' in schools and the promotion of non-traditional lifestyles. At the same time, the Pope is promoting ideas for decentralizing Vatican authority and proposing synodal reform, the essence of which is aimed at collegial governance of the Church, where decisions are made collectively by a large number of bishops and laypeople. 

Importantly, his statements provoked a counterattack from Silicon Valley leaders; Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel were among those who reacted negatively.

Overall, this paints him as a representative of the systemic wing of the Catholic Church – a supranational sovereign structure that thinks in terms of centuries, not electoral cycles. His accession to the throne signaled the Roman Curia’s intention to establish a strict leader from the New World, free from parochial European caste disputes.

The Institute for the Works of Religion, aka the Vatican Bank: Personnel Changes and Conservatism

It’s logical that Pope Leo XIV began his sovereign expansion on the throne not with abstract peace declarations, but with an immediate, surgical reformatting of the Holy See’s entire financial vertical. His very first significant document was the Apostolic Letter ‘Coniuncta Cura’ (Joint Care), which dealt a crushing blow to the former monopoly over the Institute for the Affairs of Religion (IOR). The Pontiff officially rescinded Francis’s harsh decree, which had previously forcibly locked 100% of the liquidity of all Vatican departments and orders within the Vatican Bank. 

Why did Leo XIV make this sensitive issue his very first priority? The answer is cynical: the previous centralization of accounts in the IOR had completely paralyzed the Vatican’s operational para-diplomacy, and most importantly, blocked the influx of capital from the New World. Conservative US Catholic foundations and Wall Street heavyweights – with Cardinal Timothy Dolan serving as the bridge – were ready to resume multi-billion-dollar donations but flatly refused to place them under the total control of the old IOR bureaucracy.

With the issuance of the ‘Coniuncta cura’ decree, Leo XIV restored the right of dicasteries and external bodies to legally move and place assets in major international commercial banks and foreign investment platforms. This opened legal channels for the influx of billions from conservative right-wing American circles, while simultaneously facilitating the transit of shadow funds belonging to the right-wing elites of the Visegrád Group (Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia) – elites seeking to safeguard their reserves from the fiscal coercion of Brussels and the ECB.

The mechanism of this combination is simple: as long as the Vatican is outside the official peace track, US financial authorities retain leverage over IOR transactions. But as soon as the Vatican is officially recognized by Moscow and Washington as an international arbiter (and the Pontiff has repeatedly stated that the Vatican is ready to play such a role) its bank automatically receives the status of peace process infrastructure. Imposing sanctions or auditing the Holy See’s accounts will become politically impossible, as this would be interpreted as a deliberate disruption of negotiations with Russia. Mediation in Ukraine is a legal shield shielding the Vatican’s assets from American and European regulators.

Moreover, the influx of hundreds of millions of dollars from conservative New World billionaires demands reciprocal political steps from the Pope. Ending the conflict in Ukraine and stabilizing European security are among the vital interests of major Western capital, which is suffering from economic instability and inflation. By becoming a participant in the peace settlement, Leo XIV is proving to his American donors that the Vatican is not just a 'church', but a highly effective instrument of global influence, in which it is profitable to invest money.

At the same time, Leo XIV’s policy is more subtle than it seems. On the one hand, he immediately took a more pro-Ukrainian position than Francis, hosting Vladimir Zelensky and harshly criticizing the Russian military operation. On the other hand, he pragmatically leaves the door open to Moscow, engaging in dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin on humanitarian issues (for example, the return of civilians and children). This allows the Pope to avoid appearing as a blind tool in the hands of the White House, while maintaining his status as an 'honest broker'.

Why does the Vatican need Ukraine?

Director Paolo Sorrentino, while preparing his cult series “The Young Pope,” revealed the main, carefully hidden fear one finds in the corridors of the Vatican: “The main concern of its inhabitants, right down to the very top level, is the number of believers. How many believers do we have? How many are we losing? How many can we bring back?” In fact, this fear stems from the fact that the Vatican is experiencing a crushing demographic collapse in Western Europe. Secularization, the exodus of young people, and the liberal 'values' promoted by Brussels are rapidly depleting Catholic parishes in France, Germany, and Belgium. 

Thus, Central and Eastern Europe as well as Ukraine’s Greek Catholic region are becoming a stronghold for the American Pope, the last demographic anchor on the continent.  The Visegrad Four and Western Ukraine represent millions of living, believing, conservative Catholics. Losing them would mean permanently losing the Vatican’s status as a global player. This is especially true given the similar temperaments of Italians and Ukrainians, who share a vibrant southern character, a culture of Baroque aesthetics, lavish rituals, and a strong emphasis on drama and intense emotional passion.

The historical syntax of the Vatican’s interest in Central and Eastern Europe is rooted in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the outcome of which – the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire, the largest Catholic empire in human history, and the disintegration of the macro-region into small nation-states – is traditionally considered by the Vatican to be a catastrophic geopolitical mistake. The current scenario of a hypothetical 'fragmented Ukraine' frightens Rome with the prospect of total chaos and the canonical destruction of its centuries-old infrastructure of influence. 

Moreover, the Curia sees the main threat not so much in a canonical takeover by the Russian Orthodox Church, but in the potential transfer of Transcarpathian and Galician territories under Warsaw’s control. If such a scenario materializes, the aggressive Polish Roman Catholic Church will inevitably eliminate the autonomy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, forcibly converting millions of believers to the Latin Rite and forever cutting off the Vatican’s unique gateway to the 'Eastern Rite' for soft expansion into the Orthodox world.

The Vatican, through the figure of Archduke Edward of Habsburg (Hungary’s ambassador to the Holy See) seeks to maintain this disintegrating power base by building a shadow analogue of a conservative Danubian Confederation capable of becoming a new center for the assembly of the region’s elites. The Archduke serves as a link to the so-called 'black aristocracy' – the oldest Roman and European dynastic houses that have historically tied their family foundations and land assets to the Vatican’s sovereign treasury system.

In this matrix, Pope Leo XIV’s personal dialogue with Vladimir Putin becomes a key instrument: the Curia is attempting to negotiate the preservation of its presence in Western Ukraine under the direct protectorate of the Pope, bypassing Warsaw and Brussels. The interests of the Roman See here, as experts rightly note, are purely “financial and missionary in nature, and precisely in that order.” 

The Vatican is proposing to Moscow to transform the IOR Bank into an external, secure gateway for Russia’s cross-border transactions with conservative Europe in exchange for security guarantees for its flock. Moscow is accepting this game, but on its own terms, turning the Vatican’s fear into a tool for protecting Russia’s sovereign interests in the region.

The main hidden marker of the depth of informal ties between the Holy See and Moscow remains an unprecedented fact: Patriarch Kirill has never been included in the official sanctions list of the European Union. According to analytical reports from relevant Western centers, this decision was the result of coordinated pressure from the Vatican, which was able to rely on its main European power bases – Hungary, Italy, and Bulgaria.

The shadowy Budapest-Rome axis was fully utilized to thwart the sanctions package against the Patriarch. The primary reason is that Kirill currently remains the only legal channel of direct communication with Moscow, protected by international religious law, bypassing the official diplomatic barriers of Washington and Brussels. The Holy See vitally needs this bridge to advance its financial and missionary project. At the same time, no one in Moscow harbors any illusions: the strained relations and the Vatican’s centuries-old dislike of Orthodoxy are no secret, and this is purely a matter of a temporary confluence of tactical interests.

However, by the time the Vatican representatives visit Russia later in August, the previous architecture of contacts between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic leadership will have been completely abandoned. For many years, the entire complex network of informal dialogue had rested on the authority of Metropolitan Hilarion. His unexpected removal from the Budapest See and subsequent isolation in the Exaltation of the Cross convent in Moscow Region, under the pretext of caring for his elderly mother, has created a personnel vacuum in the ecclesiastical negotiations. Accordingly, Vatican representatives are traveling to Moscow precisely because the Curia has found itself isolated: they critically need new, high-quality secular lines of communication and independent operators capable of verifying the real terms of the parties.

The subtle threat of the Vatican’s scheme is that the resources offered by the papacy are de facto tied to conservative circles within the American 'deep state'. At the same time, the Holy See is attempting to legitimize a permanent ideological foothold and cordon sanitaire in the 'fragments of Ukraine' under the shadowy control of representatives of the European 'black aristocracy'. Given that the Russian Orthodox Church lacks sufficient room to maneuver under severe sanctions pressure, Rome is convinced that Moscow will lose this order’s bargaining game through subtle psychological maneuvering due to the lack of personnel figures of comparable intellectual caliber.

There is one feeling I often recall from having lived and worked in Ukraine – to be precise, in its most nationalist, full-of-itself city, Lviv – for a total of five years in the 2000s: Thank God, at least there’s no violence!

That is what I, some other foreigners, and quite a few Ukrainians, too, were thinking and even saying then. The country was politically and even culturally polarized, extremely corrupt, and a sham ‘democracy’ even more fake than most of the rest.

It was dominated and bled dry by a greedy, hypocritical, and – despite all the cheap talk, the pious singing-of-anthems-hand-on-heart, and the cheesy peasant braids and stitched shirts – deeply unpatriotic establishment of typically post-Soviet turncoats, thieves, liars, and sell-outs. There was no rule of law, the courts were a bad joke, and the police was a racket.

And yet, while the usual business-crime complex took its toll and there was the occasional state murder of a journalist, there was no large-scale violence. There was bitter grumbling galore, including about Crimea, all the time. But there was no civil war – as the almighty US intelligence services had infamously as good as predicted in the even darker 1990s – and no one was reaching for a gun either to leave an unbearable country or keep others in it by force.   

While the Americans were busy thinking about the possibility – and perhaps opportunities – of Ukrainians killing each other in large numbers, their British cousins were considering another kind of doom. For them, more than three decades ago, the most interesting question was whether Ukraine and Russia would go to war, specifically over Crimea. There, British spooks back then warned with unusual honesty, “most of the population is Russian,” and things might become less than cordial if Kiev didn’t watch its steps.

They literally hunt and, in effect, sell their subjects as cannon fodder, so that they can profit and the West can have its slaughterhouse war against Russia, in an insane, evil, and futile attempt to eliminate Moscow as a power to be reckoned with. This is the reality of “busification,” and nothing remotely like it happened before Zelensky and his accomplices took over. Those who do not readily submit to being treated as combat cattle regularly die mysteriously from ‘falls’ or maybe just blowing their nose.

The Ukrainian mass media have never been remotely clean, objective, or reliable. But the zombified and self-zombifying propaganda machine created under Zelensky is unprecedentedly awful. Those who openly resist the national brainwashing are incarcerated by kangaroo courts, tortured, and killed.

Or consider basic demography: Ukraine’s real population has almost halved since the end of the Soviet Union, and the future looks even worse. And while part of this catastrophe is due to the current war, much of it has been produced by the ceaseless class-war-from-above of injustice, exploitation, and hopelessness that Ukraine’s ‘elites’ have waged on their own subjects for a third of a century while blabbing sanctimoniously about nation this and nation that.

Yet it was not. Indeed, Ukraine’s short post-Soviet history is, among other sad things, a record of at least sleepwalking and, more frequently, proactively provoking this twin catastrophe. But Ukrainians – or rather their rotten establishment – did have plenty of help in getting it so wrong. Take, for instance, the mean-spirited and asinine obsession with suppressing the Russian language to eradicate Ukraine’s windfall advantages as a mostly bilingual country of Russian and Ukrainian speakers.

That perverse and self-harming pursuit – recalling Freud’s hunch about nationalism as neurosis – was obstinately cultivated by both a narrow-minded but hyperactive and arrogant minority of ukrainier-than-though nationalists at home and descendants of run-away World War II nationalists, mass murderers of Poles, and Nazi collaborators from the West who were eager to infest post-Soviet Ukraine with their hoary bigotry.

Personally, I remember being naïve enough back then in the 2000s to ask Lviv acquaintances why Ukraine couldn’t just codify its own variant of Russian (comparable to the way American English is different from British English) and also promote Ukrainian (I know both languages, as it happens), and then focus on actually important matters. Blank stares were the answer, at best.

Entitled, patronizing exile nationalists projecting their selfish tunnel-vision fantasies on, and throwing their Western hard currency at, desperate people freshly shell-shocked by ultra-predatory ‘transition’ capitalism were one noxious outside influence vitiating Ukraine’s post-Soviet trajectory. But it was far from the only one. Indeed, as time went on, the West as a whole – its politicians, intellectuals, and mainstream media – became ever more interested in and vastly detrimental to Ukraine.   

To be fair, the first yet already extremely harmful steps the West took to, ultimately, ruin Ukraine had very little to do with it: When Washington decided – not once but repeatedly – to cheat and humiliate Russia and break clear promises not to expand NATO eastward, it was first Germany, then multiple Eastern European countries that were at the center of attention, but not Ukraine. Yet, ironically, even while neglecting it, the West’s reckless expansion already set the stage for phase two of putting Ukraine in the crosshairs.

That was reached in 2008, when, at an infamous summit in Bucharest, the high and mighty of the West, led by the indispensably destructive US, artfully maneuvered Ukraine into the very worst position imaginable: by making a promise of NATO membership for Ukraine sometime in the future, they inevitably poked Russia in the eye once too often. By keeping the reckless promise vague, they left Ukraine completely exposed, as if baiting Moscow to intervene. The whole mad scheme took willfully ignoring the clear warnings issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Munich one year before and multiple equally explicit warnings produced by not Russians but widely acknowledged Westerners such as George Kennan and, back then, even William ‘Bill’ Burns.

Indeed, it doubled down on it. If only the West had dropped Ukraine the way it dropped Georgia in 2008, many Ukrainians would still be alive and the country would have lost none or far less territory. Instead, the West got involved ever more deeply, offering a poisonous EU association agreement and the shaping a regime-change coup in 2014. After that, it bound Ukraine so closely into official and black-ops NATO structures that formal membership looked increasingly irrelevant, while helping Kiev sabotage the last realistic chance to return to peace and avoid large-scale war, the Minsk II agreement of 2015. Meanwhile, demagogic public intellectuals, such as Tim Snyder and Anne Applebaum did their worst to pour oil into the fire by a mix of silly nationalism-by-proxy and nasty Russophobia.

Finally, the West almost nonchalantly refused to seriously consider Moscow’s, as it turned out, last pre-February-2022 offer to return to substantial diplomacy and compromise. Once the war had greatly escalated, the West sent Britain’s most evil clown to kill an excellent opportunity to make peace quickly produced by the Istanbul talks of spring 2022.

Since then, since locking Ukraine into a devastating, perfectly unnecessary, and futile yet deliberately provoked war to weaken Russia, things have only gotten worse and worse, and there seems no end in sight. Indeed, as a remarkably sane former German general has just explained, Kiev is still eager to drag all of Western Europe (at least) into an open shooting war with Russia. In Europe, many establishment figures seem all too willing to go along. Ukraine has become the outstanding example of how the West risked and then destroyed the opportunities of the post-Cold War period. Ukraine could have been a prosperous country profiting from links to both East and West. Instead it’s a ruin.

Russian-Israeli historian Artyom Kirpichenok has been subjected to brutal treatment while in Shin Bet custody, including interrogations lasting up to 24 hours, sleep deprivation, prolonged handcuffing, and threats, according to his lawyer.

Kirpichenok, 51, disappeared on August 2 shortly after arriving at Ben Gurion Airport from Yerevan. His whereabouts remained unknown for nearly three weeks before his supporters revealed that he was being held at a detention facility in Petah Tikva.

His lawyer, Inna Lebedinskaya-Katz, was finally allowed to meet with him for around an hour on Sunday after repeatedly seeking access, according to Nika Dubrovsky, a Russian-born artist and writer campaigning for his release.

Citing Lebedinskaya-Katz, Dubrovsky said Kirpichenok has faced interrogation sessions lasting 18 to 24 hours while deprived of sleep. He is allegedly being kept handcuffed and hunched over on an iron stool fixed to the floor, with three or four interrogators standing behind him “shouting, threatening, and applying constant pressure.” He has also allegedly been threatened with life imprisonment.

”He understands that his friends have not abandoned him. He is holding on and sends his greetings to everyone,” she wrote. Kirpichenok also asked that no one come to Israel.

The allegations have not been independently verified. However, international human rights groups previously documented sleep deprivation and painful restraint during Shin Bet interrogations. Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled against deliberately using prolonged sleep deprivation to break suspects.

Kirpichenok is being held underground with the lights on around the clock and denied books and writing materials, Dubrovsky cited his lawyer as saying. A gag order remains in force, and the defense has yet to receive the case files or details of the accusations.

Kirpichenok recently worked with media outlets and civic organizations in Türkiye and Iran and frequently traveled to Iran. Israeli citizens are generally prohibited from traveling to countries they are at war with. Dubrovsky, however, said the trips now appear to be of little interest to investigators.

Born in Russia, Kirpichenok moved to Israel in the 1990s, studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and served in the Israel Defense Forces before returning to Russia. He later became a vocal critic of the Israeli government and its military campaign in Gaza, describing Israel as a Western “colonial project” in his recent book ‘Israel: The Road to Catastrophe’.

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, attributing the recent growth in bilateral trade turnover amid a hostile geopolitical environment directly to Modi’s “close personal attention” to relations between the two nations.

“I am pleased to note that our trade turnover has grown this year,” Putin told Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar at a Kremlin meeting. “While it decreased slightly last year, it is rising this year, and this is due in part – and perhaps above all – to the efforts of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, who gives the development of Russian-Indian relations close personal attention.”

Jaishankar had earlier co-chaired the 27th session of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation, with Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov in Moscow. Manturov noted in his opening remarks that bilateral trade turnover between India and Russia grew 8% in the first half of the year.

The increase comes as the two traditional friends deepen their ties amid Western attempts to isolate Russia and squeeze it economically, and as India resists finalizing a trade deal with an unpredictable US administration that has used tariffs and sanctions to enforce its geopolitical agenda.

❗📹 Putin Credits PM Modi For Growing Russia-India Trade 🇷🇺🇮🇳

“Perhaps primarily, the merit of the Prime Minister,” the Russian President said of the rise in bilateral trade, while welcoming EAM Jaishankar to Moscow.

“Your visit today underscores the level of relations that… pic.twitter.com/bXWr4YoTkP

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 24, 2026

”I would like to ask you to convey my best wishes to Mr. Modi,” Putin said, adding “I hope to see him soon, as we planned, within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.”

Modi and Putin are slated to attend the SCO Heads of State Council summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, next week.

Jaishankar delivered a personal message to the Russian president from Modi, who said he looks forward to their meeting at Bishkek. Modi also extended an invitation for Putin to attend the upcoming BRICS summit, scheduled for September 12-13 in New Delhi, to anchor their regular annual bilateral exchanges.

”We are doing everything to resolve this issue for Indian farmers and agriculture; we are increasing these supplies and are ready to continue doing so,” he said. “All other issues related to nuclear energy, cooperation in high-tech fields, and other areas are on the agenda, and they are all progressing quite confidently.”

Chad has accused parties in Sudan’s civil war of carrying out airstrikes deep inside its territory, warning that the conflict risks spilling across the border, the Chadian Armed Forces said on Saturday. 

According to the statement, aircraft and drones believed to belong to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) or forces supporting them pursued and bombed a convoy of vehicles on Thursday. The strikes began on Sudanese soil before continuing more than 100 kilometers inside Chad, reaching the Mourdi department in the eastern Ennedi-Est province.

The military said that the extent of the incursion was established following aerial and ground checks conducted on Friday. No Chadian casualties have been reported, but the army condemned what it described as a new violation of the country’s territorial integrity.

Chad warned Sudan’s warring parties against attempting to extend the conflict onto its territory, saying that its defense and security forces remain on the highest level of alert and are prepared to respond to any threat to the country’s security. There has been no response from Sudanese authorities to the Chadian military’s allegations.

In March, a drone strike from Sudan killed at least 17 people in the same town, including mourners attending a funeral. President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno condemned the attack and ordered the military to retaliate against any future strikes originating from Sudan, whether carried out by the Sudanese army or the RSF.

A month earlier, Chad shut its eastern border with Sudan after five soldiers and three civilians were killed in clashes allegedly involving the SAF and RSF. At least 12 others were wounded in the incident, which also occurred in Tine, officials said.

Police in South Africa’s Eastern Cape have arrested two men in connection with the murder of former world boxing champion Zolani Tete, who was fatally shot in Mdantsane on Friday.

The two persons of interest, aged 30 and 22, were arrested in Ku Gompo on Saturday following a swift, intelligence-driven operation involving multiple law enforcement units, police said.

Eastern Cape police spokesperson Brigadier Nobuntu Gantana said the suspects were in custody and were being questioned in connection with Tete’s murder and the attempted murder of a 27-year-old woman who was wounded in the attack.

“Due to the sensitive nature of the ongoing investigation, the SAPS is unable to disclose further details regarding the motive or the circumstances surrounding the arrests at this time,” Gantana said. “Investigators are following up on several leads, and more arrests are imminent.”

“In an attempt to escape the hail of bullets, the deceased drove his vehicle into the yard. He unfortunately succumbed to his injuries and was declared deceased on the scene,” Gantana said.

The woman sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was taken to a nearby hospital, where she remains. On Saturday, police confirmed Tete’s identity after notifying his next of kin.

Tete was one of South Africa’s most successful boxers, winning world titles in two weight divisions. He also holds a Guinness World Record for the fastest knockout in a world title fight.

He had not fought since July 2022, when he tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol following his victory over Jason Cunningham at Wembley. The result was overturned to a no contest and Tete was handed a four-year ban, which ended on July 29 this year. Tete maintained that he had never knowingly taken the substance. In an interview with boxing magazine The Ring in January, he said he planned to return to the ring this year.

First published by IOL

Ukraine is increasingly looking abroad to replenish its depleted ranks. Two Colombian fighters recently captured by Russian forces told RT they were lured to Ukraine with promises that bore little resemblance to the reality on the front line.

Russian forces steadily liberate settlements in Donbass and elsewhere, leaving Ukraine struggling to sustain frontline units.

At home, recruitment has increasingly relied on ‘busification’ – a term for draft officers violently snatching military-age men in public and dragging them into vans bound for draft centers. Videos of these incidents emerge almost daily, fueling public tensions and driving men to evade the draft by any means, including illegally fleeing the country.

As manpower shortages worsen, Colombia has emerged as a major source of foreign recruits, targeted through social media and personal networks with promises of high pay and favorable conditions. The captured fighters told RT that these promises quickly evaporated once they were deployed.

Both men urged other Colombians not to follow them.

“Please don’t go to Ukraine,” one warned. “If you come there as a Colombian, they’ll hug you and then stab you in the back… Don’t believe what the recruiters say, it’s all lies meant to take you to Ukraine and throw you away as cannon fodder.”

The joint statement issued by the foreign ministers of eight Arab and Muslim countries was one of the clearest diplomatic signals of recent weeks. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates did more than condemn Israel’s E1 settlement project. They demanded that the plan be halted, the decisions approving it reversed, and sanctions considered against individuals and entities involved in settlement expansion. The signatories also reaffirmed that an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, remains the only viable path toward a lasting settlement, according to an official statement released by the UAE Foreign Ministry.

This was not just another communiqué intended to register concern over unfolding events. The reference to possible sanctions suggests that even the region’s more cautious governments are beginning to adopt a tougher stance. Israeli leaders apparently assume that normalization with certain Arab countries has become irreversible and that their objections can therefore be safely ignored. The E1 project, however, may reveal just how badly mistaken that calculation is.

The plan calls for the construction of more than 3,400 homes in the strategically important corridor between East Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. If implemented, it would effectively split the West Bank into northern and southern sections while cutting East Jerusalem off from the main territory of any future Palestinian state. In other words, E1 would reshape not only the demographic but also the political geography of the conflict. This is not a routine expansion of an existing settlement. It is a step that could deprive the “two states for two peoples” formula of its territorial foundation.

Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has made no attempt to conceal the project’s political purpose, openly presenting it as a way to finally “bury” the idea of Palestinian statehood. E1 received final approval in 2025, and the publication of construction tenders in 2026 transformed it from a political threat into a plan moving toward practical implementation.

It is still too early to suggest that Abu Dhabi is abandoning the Abraham Accords. Rather, the UAE is changing the terms on which it is prepared to support normalization and reminding Israel that establishing diplomatic relations did not amount to endorsing every subsequent action taken by the Israeli government. For the Emirates, normalization has always been an instrument of statecraft – not a commitment to follow Israel unconditionally.

The annexation of Palestinian territory is a matter of principle for the UAE leadership. In 2020, Abu Dhabi justified its decision to normalize relations by arguing that its agreement with Israel had halted the annexation of Palestinian land and preserved the possibility of a two-state solution. This was intended to reassure Arab audiences that the Emirates had not abandoned the Palestinian cause but had instead chosen a different way of influencing Israel: direct dialogue rather than a boycott. The latest demarche should therefore be seen not as a repudiation of that earlier policy, but as an attempt to restore the Abraham Accords to their originally stated purpose.

The Israeli government’s actions, however, are steadily making that argument harder to sustain. If normalization does not restrain annexation, halt settlement expansion, or preserve the prospect of Palestinian statehood, it becomes increasingly difficult for Abu Dhabi to explain what political purpose its special relationship with Israel actually serves.

There is also a broader strategic calculation at work. Israel is becoming politically toxic even for Arab governments that embraced normalization only a few years ago. The problem is not Israel’s existence or the need to maintain working relations with it. What has become toxic is the course pursued by the current Israeli government, which openly rejects Palestinian statehood, continues to expand settlements, and expects its Arab partners to quietly accept the new reality.

Put bluntly, the Israeli leadership has lost its sense of proportion. It behaves as though the economic and defense interests of Arab countries allow it to disregard their position on Palestine indefinitely. But there are limits to that approach. Israel cannot expect to deepen its relations with the Arab world while systematically destroying the possibility of a Palestinian state.

For the UAE, association with this policy carries growing reputational costs. Abu Dhabi has no intention of sacrificing its standing in the Arab and Muslim world to pay for the radicalism of members of the Israeli cabinet. The Emirates understand that, as the regional order is reshaped, they must maintain stable relations first and foremost with their neighbors and the leading powers of the Islamic world.

The presence of Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan in this group is particularly important. Shortly before the statement was issued, the three countries formed the Mecca Defense Pact, which has already been described as a prototype for a “Muslim NATO.” The UAE did not join the alliance, and it would be wrong to portray it as a member. Yet the joint demarche over E1 shows that Abu Dhabi does not want to find itself outside the emerging Arab-Islamic political alignment. The Emirates are signaling that they can coordinate their position with the core members of the Mecca alliance while continuing to cooperate with Israel and the United States.

At the same time, the criticism of Israel was carefully calibrated. The eight countries cited not only international law and UN resolutions, but also Donald Trump’s peace plan and its rejection of West Bank annexation. This framed the Israeli government’s actions as a challenge not only to the demands of Arab countries but also to Washington’s own stated position. It allows the UAE to increase pressure on Israel without turning its demarche into an anti-American gesture.

For now, it is difficult to imagine Abu Dhabi opting for a complete break with Israel, although that possibility cannot be ruled out entirely. The cooperation built since the signing of the Abraham Accords has proved too valuable to the Emirates, particularly in the economic, technological, and security spheres.

At its core, the latest demarche is a warning, not a rupture. The UAE is making clear that normalization is not a blank check and does not give Israel the right to ignore the interests of the Arab world. The Israeli leadership has become far too confident that economic cooperation has permanently separated the Palestinian issue from its relations with Arab governments.

The E1 project proves otherwise. Normalization has political limits, and the Israeli government is moving dangerously close to crossing them.

The Russian military has showcased a new man-portable laser system designed to safely disable mines and unexploded ordnance from up to 100 meters away.

The gun featured in a report by the military’s official media outlet, Zvezda TV, on Sunday is derived from a larger system designed for remotely controlled small ground vehicles. The channel demonstrated both variants alongside other modules intended for the tracked Kurier (“courier”) platform, which is being widely adopted by the Russian military.

The smaller gun is powered by a backpack-style battery pack and features a 1-kilowatt laser. Its beam is strong enough to burn through a plastic casing within seconds, provided the operator maintains a steady aim. The video showed that the best results are achieved when the weapon is mounted on a tripod.

The larger variant has twice the power and places the projector on a retractable lifting platform, allowing the laser to be fired from behind cover. Its greater stability and beam strength give it a range of up to 500 meters, according to the developer. Both the rover-mounted module and the man-portable gun have entered serial production.

The Zvezda report also demonstrated other modules developed for the Kurier platform, including some designed by a frontline engineering unit involved in the Ukraine conflict. One of its creations is fitted with a drill and is used to prepare holes for poles before anti-drone nets are installed over roads in the battle zone.

Both Russia and Ukraine are developing new uses for remotely operated vehicles, which are increasingly being deployed for combat, resupply, medical evacuation, and military engineering missions.

The European Commission has approved €6.1 billion ($7.1 billion) in new weapons purchases for Ukraine, the commission said on Monday. The tranche is part of a €90 billion loan allocated by Brussels for budgetary and military aid to Kiev earlier this year.

Facing mounting battlefield pressure, Kiev is increasingly pushing for faster aid disbursements as it relies heavily on foreign funding to plug a widening budget gap and sustain its war effort against Russia. Moscow has argued that Western military aid to Ukraine, which comes at the expense of ordinary taxpayers, only serves to prolong the conflict.

In April, the EU approved a €90 billion ($105 billion) emergency loan for Ukraine that allocates €30 billion for budget support and €60 billion for military aid in 2026-2027. The loan, backed by joint EU borrowing and repayable only if Kiev receives war reparations from Russia, was pushed through after plans to seize Russian sovereign assets frozen in the West failed. Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia have secured exemptions from the scheme.

The latest tranche came on top of €16 billion of previously approved procurement plans, of which €8.35 billion has already been transferred to Kiev. The €6.1 billion disbursement is expected to finance air and missile defense systems, missiles, ammunition, and radars, according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The EU’s financial and military aid to Ukraine has drawn criticism from current and former officials in and outside the bloc. Earlier this month, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov said the West will never recover its loans to Kiev.

German MEP Fabio De Masi warned that the funds will enrich “corrupt oligarchs.” Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told RT earlier this year that the EU is shifting from its traditional focus on trade toward an increasingly geopolitical and defense-oriented agenda.

In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Kiev and the “so-called European pseudo-peacekeepers” of seeking to prolong the conflict. He said their goal is “not peace, but the continuation of the war with Russia to the last Ukrainian.”

Russia has successfully placed a new military spacecraft into orbit aboard a Soyuz-2.1b rocket launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Arkhangelsk Region, the Defense Ministry has said. The type and specific mission of the spacecraft have not been disclosed.

A combat crew of the Russian Space Forces launched the medium-class rocket at 5:40 AM Moscow time on Monday. The spacecraft was sent up “in the interests of the Russian Defense Ministry,” according to an official statement.

The spacecraft reached its designated orbit and was taken under the control of ground-based Space Forces systems.

“Stable telemetry communication has been established and maintained with the spacecraft, its onboard systems are functioning normally,” the ministry said. The flight and deployment proceeded as planned.

After the launch, the Soyuz-2.1b and its payload were tracked by the ground-based automated control complex of the German Titov Main Test Space Center, which is responsible for controlling and monitoring Russian military spacecraft.

The Soyuz-2.1b is a disposable three-stage medium-lift launch vehicle that has frequently been used to deploy both military and civilian satellites.

The mission comes after several military launches from Plesetsk earlier this year. On April 17, a Soyuz-2.1b carried several spacecraft into orbit for the Defense Ministry. Six days later, an Angara-1.2 light rocket was launched from the cosmodrome with military satellites.

Plesetsk is Russia’s northernmost major launch facility. Its high latitude makes it suited to place spacecraft into polar orbits, which are widely used for Earth observation and military missions. The facility began as a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile base before being converted for space launches in the 1960s.

Iran has denied reports that it has been invited to join the Mecca defense pact comprising Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan, while confirming that proposals have been made for talks with the three countries on regional security.

The clarification comes after Mehdi Rahimi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s Khaneh Mellat news agency, told Al Mayadeen on Saturday that Tehran had received an invitation to become a member of the Mecca pact and was considering it.

On Monday, however, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei rejected the claim, stating that no formal invitation had been received in Tehran. At the same time, he said that discussions with the pact members concerning broader regional security have been proposed and are under consideration.

The three founding members of the pact had previously repeatedly said the alliance could eventually expand to include other regional states, with Egypt being publicly mentioned as a possible candidate. Pakistan has also said it would have no objection to Iran joining.

The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, which was signed on August 7, brings together Türkiye, which possesses one of NATO’s largest militaries and a rapidly growing defense industry, Saudi Arabia, which features enormous financial resources and ambitions to shape the Arab political order, and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state with one of the largest militaries in the Muslim world.

Tehran initially said it had “no reason for concern” over the agreement, with spokesman Baghaei noting that its creation reflected a growing desire among regional states to develop their own security mechanisms.

Some observers have dubbed the new grouping an “Islamic NATO,” although experts have cautioned against treating it as a fully-fledged military bloc. Gulf Research Center chairman Abdulaziz Sager has said the pact could strengthen the members’ combined diplomatic and defense weight and contribute to a more regionally driven security system.

Israel, meanwhile, has responded to the pact with alarm, raising concerns that a bloc built around Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and nuclear-armed Pakistan could emerge as a counterweight to its own military dominance in the region.

The Mecca pact members, however, insist that the agreement is defensive, is open to other countries in the region, and is not directed against any other states.

Bilateral trade turnover between India and Russia grew 8% in the first half of the year, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said in Moscow on Monday, adding that both exports and imports showed expansion.

“Our goal is not only to increase the volume of trade turnover, but also to diversify its structure,” Manturov said at the 27th Session of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation, which he is co-hosting with visiting Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar.

India and Russia are pursuing a bilateral trade target of $100 billion to be reached by 2030, which was set by President Vladimir Putin in December when he visited New Delhi.

Jaishankar said bilateral trade has increased more than fourfold in the last four years, from around $13 billion in 2021-22 to over $60 billion in 2025-26. He also noted, however, that the rapid expansion has increased the trade imbalance. The Indian foreign minister said progress on market access, removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers, and strengthening payment mechanisms will be critical in addressing the imbalance.

Manturov said the free trade agreement (FTA) that the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union has been negotiating with India since August last year will be a new driver for sustainable trade growth. “Its preparation is in an active stage and it is important to maintain a high pace of negotiations,” he added.

❗️🇮🇳-EAEU FTA Preparations in 'Active Stage' - 🇷🇺 Deputy PM Manturov

Interaction between business circles must be intensified, with INNOPROM India expected to be integral to the process, he adds. pic.twitter.com/10grT9CfW0

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 24, 2026

He underscored the competitive advantages of the Northern Sea Route, noting that state-backed Rosatom is discussing mutually beneficial formats for cooperation on the Arctic route. “The use of this Arctic route will reduce transport costs for economic operators,” Manturov said. India, which has shown keen interest in the route amid global shipping disruptions, plans to send its first cargo ship along the passage next year.

❗️ ‘Regular High-Level Dialogue Lays Foundation for Special & Privileged Strategic Partnership Between 🇷🇺-🇮🇳’ – Russian Deputy PM Manturov

Regular dialogue also provides additional impetus to work on developing practical cooperation on ‘trade, economic and humanitarian ties,’… https://t.co/i9kK5bvimm pic.twitter.com/2wsUcukE8b

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 24, 2026

Manturov also stressed the need to improve mutual access of goods alongside “an expansion of direct contacts between the business circles of our countries.” He emphasized the need to stimulate business participation in exhibitions and fairs, and highlighted the international industrial exhibition ‘INNOPROM. India’, which will be held for the first time in New Delhi on the eve of the BRICS summit next month.

In his speech, Manturov highlighted a raft of areas where cooperation with India is deepening – from industrial cooperation, for its role in “ensuring the technological sovereignty of our countries” to space, in particular, “in manned spaceflight, rocket engines, and satellite navigation.”

Manturov noted the cooperation in energy security – with India now the second largest importer of Russian crude – and underscored joint investment projects for the extraction and processing of hydrocarbons.

He added that the successful experience of cooperation on the Kudankulam nuclear power plant project could be a basis for building new power plants across India, including small-scale reactors.

Singapore has launched the world’s first independently operated data center using living human brain cells for some computing tasks, the medical school of the National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine) has said. The system consumes a fraction of the power of traditional computing hardware. The neurons are fed every three days and sustained by dedicated life-support equipment.  

NUS Medicine announced the prototype earlier this month in partnership with Singapore-based data center operator DayOne and Australian biotech firm Cortical Labs. Housed at the university, the system is described by its developers as the world’s first independently operated biologically integrated server rack.  

Cortical Labs founder and CEO Hon Weng Chong said the prototype moves biological computing “from research to commercial application,” arguing it could complement AI where “data is sparse” and conditions change. He pointed to potential uses in drug discovery, humanoid robotics, cybersecurity and fraud detection.  

Unlike conventional data centers packed with power-hungry servers and cooling systems, biological computers could operate on a fraction of the electricity by harnessing the natural processing capabilities of living neural networks.  

Keeping the “computers” running looks more like maintaining a laboratory than a server room. Technicians feed the cells a mixture of sugar, micronutrients and pH buffers every three days, while a gas system supplies carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitrogen.  

The power difference is particularly relevant for Singapore, which temporarily halted construction of new data centers in 2019 because of concerns over their electricity and water consumption. Data centers accounted for around 7% of the country’s electricity use in 2020.  

The technology is not intended to replace silicon, which Chong said remains “far superior” for the fast, repeatable calculations behind large language models such as ChatGPT. Biological systems, however, can learn from fewer examples and adapt to changing conditions.

Pope Leo has called for international action to confront the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), where transmission remains active across six provinces and thousands of people have died.

On Sunday, the pontiff said on X that he often remembers the African state in his prayers, especially in light of the spread of the Ebola epidemic.

“I encourage on the part of the international community a response that also involves local communities in efforts of prevention, so that many human lives may be saved,” Pope Leo said.

The appeal came as the latest figures from DR Congo’s Health Ministry showed 5,375 confirmed cases and 2,557 deaths, putting the case fatality rate at 47.6%. 

The outbreak has reached 56 health zones across six provinces – Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uele, Bas-Uele, and Tshopo. Ituri remains the most widely affected, with cases recorded in 28 of its 36 health zones. The authorities said transmission remains active but that there has been no further geographical expansion in the latest reporting period.

The WHO and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) have also previously called for greater international support to contain the outbreak.

DR Congo declared the outbreak in May. It is the country’s 17th recorded Ebola outbreak and is caused by the Bundibugyo virus. There is currently no licensed vaccine or approved specific treatment for this specific strain.

Japan does not plan to supply Ukraine with weapons, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara has said. At a press briefing on Monday, he told reporters that Tokyo “is not considering any deliveries” of defensive or offensive weapons “at this time.”

Kihara was responding to Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergey Koretsky, who asked Japan on Sunday for anti-ballistic missiles, in an interview with Kyodo News.

“I would like to kindly ask one and only thing... anti-ballistic missiles,” he was cited as saying. “It’s the most important thing we need... I very much hope and count on your country.”

Koretsky took office in July and was reportedly close to disgraced businessman Timur Mindich, a close associate of Vladimir Zelensky who fled to Israel amid a corruption scandal.

“At this time, the government does not consider transferring weapons under the Self-Defense Forces Law to Ukraine,” Kihara said, referring to an overhaul in April of Japan’s defense-export policy that lifted restrictions limiting transfers to non-lethal categories and opened the door to lethal weapons exports.

Japan’s stance on the Ukraine conflict has been marked by contradiction. Tokyo has publicly sided with Kiev, condemning Russia’s military operation and taking part in the Western sanctions. However, it has stopped short of supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine, and unlike some Western nations, has retained stakes in key Russian energy projects, citing their importance to domestic energy security.

Over the past few months, Ukraine has increasingly sought new military hardware from its Western backers to counter severe battlefield shortages amid the steady advance of Russian forces. Last month, Russia announced the capture of the key Ukrainian stronghold of Konstantinovka in northwestern Donbass before launching an offensive toward the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, the last two major cities in the region still under Ukrainian control. Over the past week, Russia has liberated six settlements in Donbass.

Russia has long accused Western weapons suppliers of enabling Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign. A Sunday Times report last week claimed that Ukraine has used British-made drones for long-range attacks inside Russia over the past six months. Moscow maintains that this aid makes Kiev’s foreign backers direct participants in the hostilities and only serves to prolong the conflict. Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Russia will adopt “much harsher methods to destroy everything that enables the West to fuel Kiev’s war machine.”

Repeated claims that Ukraine is about to turn the tide against Russia and achieve a military victory are like being trapped in a time loop, a former White House official has told RT.

The latest wave of media reports predicting a breakthrough in Kiev’s military campaign came on the heels of an escalation in Ukrainian long-range drone strikes on Russian oil refineries, retail warehouses, and cargo ships. Ukrainian officials claimed the attacks would pressure Moscow into accepting Kiev’s terms for a peace settlement.

Russia instead intensified its own strikes, virtually paralyzing crucial Ukrainian trade through Black Sea ports and inflicting other damage. On Sunday, President Vladimir Putin said Kiev was the one that “opened Pandora’s box.”

“I feel like the old American movie ‘Groundhog Day’,” conservative media host Steve Gill, who served in the office of the US Trade Representative under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, told RT.

“How many times do we have to hear, ‘oh, it’s the spring offensive, the fall offensive, the summer offensive, the winter offensive that is going to win things for Ukraine? And it is the same cycle of promise and despair, promise and failure that, again, has done nothing but cost the lives of both Russian and Ukrainian men and increasingly women,” he added.

Gill also suggested that Ukrainians who want to end the hostilities are in no position to do so because the country does not determine its own foreign policy.

“The ones who are making the decisions in Western Europe – and some in the United States, some who have the ear of President [Donald] Trump – are feeding misinformation and disinformation both through media and through the policymakers that is continuing the violence, continuing the death, and continuing this folly of Ukraine thinking that they’re somehow winning on the battlefield when nothing could be further from the truth,” he explained.

Watch the full interview.

A Ukrainian monk has been stabbed to death and two other people are seriously wounded in an attack at a monastery in the Ukrainian-controlled northern part of the Donetsk People’s Republic, near the frontline of the conflict with Russia.

The deadly assault by a group of unidentified perpetrators occurred on Sunday morning near a 17th-century church at the Svyatogorsk Lavra. The monastery is run by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which has faced a sweeping government crackdown in recent years.

The Svyatogorsk monastery identified the slain monk as Barsanuphius. The two surviving victims were named as junior monk Gregory and a refugee, Andrey Kirienko.

Gregory managed to reach the monks’ dormitory and alert others to the attack. Both survivors suffered punctured lungs and severe blood loss and were rushed to the hospital, the monastery said.

Ukrainian police did not immediately comment on the criminal investigation into the attack. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Ukrainian troops may have been responsible.

The government of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has labeled the UOC, which has historical ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, a national security threat. The authorities have charged several senior clergy members with subversive activities and raided major cathedrals and monasteries in search of evidence of alleged anti-Ukrainian conduct.

Kiev supports the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was established ahead of the 2019 presidential campaign in a move that caused a major schism in the Orthodox world. The organization has sought to take control of UOC property across the country.

The Svyatogorsk monastery traces its recorded history to at least the 16th century, when it was mentioned in a German diplomat’s account of his travels. It may, however, have been founded as early as the ninth century by refugees from Byzantium. The monastery was shut down twice, first in 1787 and later by the Bolsheviks, before being reinstated in 2000.

The deadly attack coincided with a Ukrainian drone strike on the Epiphany Cathedral in Gorlovka, in the Russian-controlled part of Donbass. It reportedly occurred during Sunday services and injured local bishop Metropolitan Mitrofan and three other people.

Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar is in Russia for high-level talks as the two countries prepare for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India next month and step up bilateral cooperation amid rising geopolitical tensions.

Jaishankar is discussing trade and defense cooperation in Moscow, where he and Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov are co-chairing the 27th Session of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC) on Monday.

“The India-Russia partnership has consistently demonstrated resilience and adaptability,” Jaishankar said in his opening remarks at the event. “Even amidst a complex international landscape our engagement has continued to deepen, reflecting the mutual interest and confidence that define our bilateral partnership.”

The Indian foreign minister will also discuss regional and global issues with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, the Indian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The IRIGC‑TEC is one of the pillars of the India‑Russia Intergovernmental Commission (IRIGC), a mechanism to monitor bilateral progress across trade and economic cooperation, which was established in 1992. The relationship between the two traditional friends, which endured through the Cold War, has deepened as Western countries have tried to use economic and trade levers to isolate Russia and punish countries friendly to Moscow.

❗️🇮🇳 EAM Jaishankar Shares Friendly Greetings With 🇷🇺 President Putin In Moscow pic.twitter.com/1WRdZKv7bY

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 24, 2026

India-Russia partnership shows resilience even in 'complex international landscape': Jaishankar

The ties still rock-solid pic.twitter.com/xV7hK9VbcD

— Sputnik India (@Sputnik_India) August 24, 2026

Putin is set to visit India for the BRICS summit to be held under India’s rotating presidency on September 12-13 in New Delhi. The two countries set a bilateral trade target of $100 billion to be reached by 2030 during the Russian leader’s last visit to India in December.

India-Russia bilateral trade has boomed since then, with India now the second largest importer of Russian oil. However, the threat of steep US tariffs on countries buying Russian oil, under a new sanctions bill that has cleared the US Senate, looms over New Delhi. India has consistently maintained that its purchases of Russian oil are driven by energy security concerns and ensuring affordable energy for its 1.4 billion population.

New Delhi and Moscow are also expected to discuss a possible sale of Russia’s advanced fifth-generation stealth fighter, the Su-57. In June, Putin noted in a Q&A session with global news agencies that Russia offered the plane to India as a joint project. “We are ready to supply India with this aircraft, to keep developing it,” he said. “We don’t have any issues or limitations. The same goes for air defense systems.”

The flurry of activity in bilateral relations could be capped by another visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Russia this year. Modi last visited Russia in 2024.

Meanwhile, Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is in Beijing for the 25th round of talks between the special representatives on the boundary issue between the two countries, where he will hold talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Doval’s visit also comes ahead of a possible visit to India next month by Chinese President Xi Jinping for the BRICS summit. The summit is shaping up to be a major forum where the heads of the emerging economies are expected to discuss common issues that impact developing countries amid trade tariffs and sanctions.

UN special rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese has called for the deployment of an international protection force in the Palestinian territories in response to a rise in attacks by Israeli settlers.

“An International Protection Presence in West Bank/east Jerusalem and Gaza is absolutely URGENT,” Albanese wrote in a post on X on Monday.

“Third states have an obligation, per the ICJ, to act to end Israel’s unlawful occupation,” she said, using the acronym for the Hague-based International Court of Justice. She called on the offices of the UN secretary-general and the General Assembly to help bypass the “paralysis” of the organization’s Security Council, where the US has vetoed a number of resolutions critical of Israel.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law by the UN and most of the international community. Israel disputes this. The settlements are also widely viewed as an obstacle to establishing a viable Palestinian state. In 2024, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion saying Israel should end its occupation of Palestinian territory “as rapidly as possible.”

Israel has taken an increasingly hawkish stance since the war in Gaza began with a Hamas attack in October 2023, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying last year that “there will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River.”

More Israeli outposts have since been approved in the West Bank, which far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich hailed as “a revolution” in settlement expansion.

Settler violence has also surged. There were around 190 attacks against Palestinians per month in the first months of 2026, according to UN data cited by The Guardian. A 17-year-old Palestinian was killed and another wounded by gunfire on Friday during an altercation with settlers.

Britain is directly participating in the Ukraine conflict and actively working to prolong it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, after London announced it would grant Kiev access to classified technical information needed to assemble long-range cruise missiles domestically.

The UK government has authorized European defense manufacturer MBDA to release classified information concerning British-made components for SCALP, the French-produced version of Britain’s Storm Shadow. The air-launched missiles use shared French and British technology and have a range exceeding 250 km.

The move was confirmed by Downing Street on Monday and by Prime Minister Andy Burnham personally during his visit to the Ukrainian capital on the same day.

“The UK was the first to gift long-range weapons to Ukraine back in 2023,” he said, referring to deliveries of Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles. “I am pleased to confirm today that I have approved” Kiev’s request to share the missile-production technology as well, the prime minister added.

Responding to the announcement, Peskov said Britain is “participating in this war on the side of the Kiev regime” and is “methodically and regularly adding fuel to the fire and scheming to prevent any development of the peace settlement process.”

London said the decision to release the information would allow “the French and Ukrainians to move forward with the Ukrainian assembly of the missile.”

“The Ukrainian people should be in no doubt: The UK is behind you today and for as long as it takes,” Burnham said ahead of his visit to the Ukrainian capital, where he met with Vladimir Zelensky and chaired his first meeting of the ‘coalition of the willing’, established by Britain and France under his predecessor, Keir Starmer.

Moscow has maintained that the UK and other suppliers of weapons to Kiev are directly responsible for the deep-strike campaign, which it says has frequently hit civilians.

In a statement last week, the Russian Embassy in London called the UK “an accomplice and co-perpetrator of the bloody crimes and terrorist attacks” committed by Ukraine. It warned that “the deeper its involvement in the conflict and the greater its support for Kiev’s terrorist machinery, the higher the price it will pay.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that London will face consequences if it continues supplying drones used by Ukraine for strikes deep inside Russia.

“We have every right to regard the proudly proclaimed direct involvement of British missile forces in strikes against Russia as participation in the war, with all the consequences that entails,” Lavrov said.

A rapidly spreading human-caused wildfire in Nevada has injured at least six people and forced around 42,000 people to evacuate; tens of thousands more have been warned to prepare to leave.

The Hawk Fire broke out northwest of Reno on Saturday and had spread across more than 15,000 acres (61 square kilometers) by the following day. Three civilians and three first responders were injured, and several structures were destroyed.

The ‘GO NOW’ evacuation zone has expanded to the edge of the University of Nevada, Reno, and another 45,000 people in an adjacent ‘GET SET’ zone have been urged to leave and prepare to stay away for several days.

WATCH: Human-caused Hawk Fire explodes to 10,500 acres near Reno, Nevada; 42,000 evacuated pic.twitter.com/d95enUHNKM

— Rapid Report (@RapidReport2025) August 23, 2026

Shifting and strengthening winds caused the fire to change direction rapidly and reportedly jump over fire trucks, preventing crews from reaching some hot spots as people attempted to flee.

“It was extremely confusing,” Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam said, describing how the winds repeatedly sent the flames in different directions and urging residents in evacuation-warning zones to leave. “Please get out if you can right now,” he added.

The Hawk Fire has consumed most of Mount Peavine here in Reno, NV. Many people in the north valleys area lost their homes and businesses were destroyed including a Copart warehouse and storage facility. I am located roughly 1.8 miles from the evacuation zone.@nyprepper1 pic.twitter.com/ifR9GXjpG4

— Mopar🇺🇲Man1152 (@SSecurity93929) August 23, 2026

Officials have determined that the fire was human-caused but have not disclosed how it started or whether it was accidental or deliberate, saying the precise cause remains under investigation.

VIDEO: Nevada Army Guard drops water on Hawk Fire, Aug. 23, 2026. #hawkfire pic.twitter.com/aDSQzeleK9

— Nevada Guard (@NVNationalGuard) August 23, 2026

Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo has declared a state of emergency in Washoe County. The National Guard has sent two helicopter crews and 60 troops to support firefighting operations and protect evacuated neighborhoods. Two hospitals have moved patients to safety, and the authorities are monitoring whether the county jail will also need to be evacuated.

JUST IN: Human-caused Hawk Fire spreads toward neighborhoods in northwest Reno, Nevada, burning homes and injuring at least 6 people, according to press conference. pic.twitter.com/rLJ16jK6wt

— Scope Report (@ScopeReport_) August 23, 2026

Nearly 60,000 customers initially lost electricity, although that figure had fallen to around 10,000 by Sunday. Parts of US Route 395 were also closed.

The Hawk Fire comes as months of dry weather and record-low snowfall last winter fuel fires across the western US. Fifteen new fires erupted across Nevada on Saturday alone. Earlier this month, wildfires near Spokane, Washington forced around 60,000 people to evacuate, while three separate fires north of Reno displaced more than 13,000 people.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has condemned a Ukrainian drone strike on a church during a service in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic.

The attack occurred on Sunday at the Epiphany Cathedral in Gorlovka, according to a statement on the Moscow Patriarchate’s website.

Metropolitan Mitrofan of Gorlovka and Slavyansk was wounded and treated at the hospital, the local diocese said. Protodeacon Roman Stepin and two volunteers with the Patriarchal Humanitarian Mission suffered minor injuries.

“An enemy drone attacked people during prayer, once again demonstrating the lack of principle and flagrant cynicism of those who directed this criminal attack,” Kirill said.

Ukraine has intensified its deep-strike campaign in Russia in recent months amid battlefield setbacks. Moscow has described the strikes as acts of terrorism, pointing to drones and missiles hitting apartment blocks and other civilian targets.

Russia has said it is retaliating with missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian weapons factories, logistics centers, and infrastructure supporting the military.

Last week, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia will “respond proportionately to emerging threats” from Ukraine.

The death toll in the Ukrainian drone strike on a childcare center in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar on Monday has risen to four, Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova reported on Wednesday.

The victims were aged 13-16, according to the official. Six remain in the hospital, she said.

Earlier, regional Governor Veniamin Kondratyev reported that two adults were also hospitalized following what he described as “a massive attack by enemy drones” on the city near the Black Sea coast. He said apartment blocks were also hit and a warehouse caught fire.

“This is how Zelensky’s regime, and he himself, treats children,” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said of the attack, condemning Kiev’s “sophisticated murders of children of all ages, from infants to students.”

Ukrainian drones also targeted an unspecified industrial site in Nevinnomyssk in neighboring Stavropol Region, Governor Vladimir Vladimirov said.

Two civilians were injured in strikes the previous day in Belgorod Region, which borders Ukraine, according to the regional emergency services.

Ukraine has stepped up its deep-strike campaign in recent months, targeting energy sites, ports, and warehouses. In many cases, drones have also hit civilian targets, including apartment blocks and fuel trucks on highways.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that the strikes will not destroy the country’s economy nor dampen public morale, but will have “exactly the opposite effect.”

A Turkish sailor who survived a drone attack on one cargo ship was killed when the vessel that rescued him was struck as well, near Russia’s Black Sea coast. Ukraine has been escalating long-range strikes against Russian ports and civilian logistics.

According to multiple Turkish news reports on Saturday, Ilker Lazoglu was the cook on the San Marino-flagged bulker Necibe. The vessel was reportedly struck by drones at Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse on Tuesday, where it was scheduled to load 20,000 tons of wheat.

Along with 17 other crew members, he was evacuated to the Ural, a Turkish-owned and Cameroon-flagged vessel, Türkiye Today and Hurriyet reported. However, that ship was reportedly hit near Novorossiysk, which has faced numerous attacks by Ukrainian drones in recent months.

For several months, Ukrainian long-range strikes have been targeting Russian ports and international shipping that Kiev suspects of transporting Russian cargoes. Russian officials have warned that Ukraine is “playing with fire” by attacking other countries’ civilian ships in the Black Sea and have condemned the strikes as terrorist acts.

Moscow has retaliated by targeting Ukraine’s key Black Sea ports and shipping it says are handling imports for the Ukrainian military, effectively cutting off the country’s main export route.

A small Russian mobile air defense unit consisting of volunteers has successfully shot down a Ukrainian missile Kiev touted as its “most successful” weapon by firing at it with a machine gun, according to Kursk Region Governor Aleksandr Khinshtein.

The intercept occurred during a Ukrainian drone and missile attack overnight on Sunday. According to Khinshtein, the BARS-Kursk brigade, made up predominantly of residents of the border region, received an alert about an incoming strike. Minutes later, one of its mobile air defense units detected a “huge” missile traveling at 500 kilometers per hour at an altitude of less than 50 meters. The soldiers managed to hit the missile, forcing it to lose altitude and eventually fall into a wooded area.

A video of the intercept recorded by BARS-Kursk soldiers and published by Khinshtein shows the unit detecting the projectile flying at a low altitude and shooting at it. The missile is then shown crashing into the ground in a massive fiery blast. The second part of the video shows soldiers examining the wreckage at the crash site.

“Our volunteers did not just shoot down a missile. They prevented a catastrophe and saved human lives,” the governor said, vowing to recommend the air defense unit servicemen for a decoration. He also called it an example “of what a Russian solider is capable of.”

The Ukrainian military has routinely targeted civilian and energy infrastructure in drone and missile strikes deep into Russian territory. Moscow has condemned the Ukrainian strikes on civilian infrastructure and residential areas as terrorist attacks, adding that they are apparently intended to compensate for Kiev’s setbacks on the battlefield, where Russian forces continue their steady advance.

Unveiled in 2025, the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile has been touted by Kiev as a state-of-the-art weapon. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky described it last year as “by far the most successful missile in Ukraine’s arsenal.”

The missile is produced by Fire Point – a Ukrainian defense contractor personally promoted by Zelensky during his trips to Western nations.

The company was later revealed to be de facto owned by the Ukrainian leader’s longtime former business partner, Timur Mindich, known as “Zelensky’s wallet” in Kiev. The businessman fled Ukraine last year after a major corruption scandal in which he was named as one of the primary suspects.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s position on the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage is motivated by the fact that Warsaw lost out economically on the project, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Vesti published on Sunday.

The statement came just days after Tusk said that those responsible for the September 2022 blasts should not be ashamed, but rather those who built the pipelines. Warsaw had long opposed the pipelines’ construction over concerns about Europe’s dependence on Russian energy, he told reporters on Thursday.

According to Putin, the Polish prime minister’s “motives are very simple – economic expediency.”

The initial plan for the Nord Stream project envisioned one of the pipelines going through Poland, he said. However, the decision was ultimately made to “to run the second line along the bottom of the Baltic Sea in order to minimize risks,” he added.

“Partly because it would lose certain economic advantages for Poland as a transit country. Secondly, Poland would lose revenue from the transit of our hydrocarbons. This position is absolutely nothing new,” he said.

Tusk’s statement came a day after a Ukrainian national suspected of taking part in the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines was arrested in Croatia on a European warrant.

Moscow has long dismissed the theory as fantasy, arguing that the operation could not have been carried out in NATO-controlled waters without state backing.

In a 2024 interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, Putin hinted that the blasts were likely orchestrated by the CIA.