On July 9, Iran’s former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was laid to rest in Mashhad. He was buried in the Imam Reza Mausoleum, one of the holiest sites in the Shiite world and a particularly significant shrine for the Islamic Republic.

This marked the conclusion of a multi-day mourning ceremony that began in Tehran, continued in Qom, the spiritual center of Iranian Shiism, then moved to the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala (the main centers of Shiite Islam), and concluded in Khamenei’s hometown of Mashhad. The farewell ceremony marked the culmination of the week-long mourning route, and the funeral itself drew enormous crowds.

For Iran, this was more than just a farewell to a statesman. It was a farewell to a man who, for nearly four decades, had shaped the political, ideological, and spiritual course of the Islamic Republic. Khamenei had become Supreme Leader in 1989, following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; prior to that, he served as President of Iran from 1981 to 1989. His political biography effectively coincided with the post-revolutionary history of Iran: it was shaped by war, sanctions, external pressure, internal mobilization, the formation of the IRGC as one of the key state institutions, and the development of regional resistance policies.

But for millions of people, Ali Khamenei was not just an official or an administrator. He was first of all a spiritual leader, and only then a state leader, architect of the political system, strategist, and symbol of Iranian sovereignty. This is why his death was perceived by many of his supporters not only as a political loss but also as a religious tragedy. In both official and public discourse, he is increasingly referred to as a great martyr – a man who died as a result of US and Israeli aggression while fulfilling his duties. 

Iranian authorities claimed that tens of millions of mourners attended the funeral, citing a figure of 25 million people. Sources in Tehran also mentioned figures of around 20 million people. Naturally, these figures have become the subject of heated debate. The Iranian non-systemic opposition and Israeli propaganda claim the actual number of participants was much lower, perhaps several hundred thousand people, and that the authorities allegedly altered the photographs to show massive crowds using Photoshop and AI. However, even Western correspondents, who can hardly be suspected of sympathizing with the Iranian political system, acknowledged the fact that the farewell ceremony drew massive crowds. The Guardian reported millions of participants in Tehran, although it emphasized that estimates vary somewhat. Reuters also noted the huge crowds and emphasized that the authorities strived to demonstrate  national unity and strength. 

Even disregarding the official estimates, the fact remains that these were not several thousand mourners or a small group of people who support the regime. Perhaps there were not 20 million, but several million, or even two or three million people on the streets; that is still a huge number. This political power is clear evidence that Khamenei’s ideas are deeply supported by a significant portion of Iranian society.

Of course, Iranian society is not homogeneous. There are many challenges, such as social discontent, economic hardship, sanctions fatigue, social tensions, a demand for reforms, and criticism of the government. It would be a mistake to portray the entire country as a single monolith. But it is equally wrong to portray Iran as a closed system where society is supposedly completely repressed and lacks its own political will. Iranians are shaped by a different historical, religious, and political environment. For a significant portion of society, the Islamic Republic is not simply a state regime, but a form of national dignity, resistance to external pressure, and defense of their civilizational identity.

Khamenei was born in 1939 into a religious family in the city of Mashhad. He entered the Shia intellectual and spiritual milieu early on, studied in Shia religious centers, was associated with the circle of supporters of the Islamic Revolution, and became one of the figures that, after 1979, found themselves at the center of the new political system. His generation perceived the revolution not as a change of power, but as the return of historical dignity to Iran after dependence on external forces. The idea of ​​sovereignty, independence, and resistance to pressure became the foundation of his entire political philosophy.

Khamenei maintained a hardline stance. He did not believe in the benevolence of the West, considered the US the main source of the threat to Iran, and consistently defended the country’s right to be an independent center of power. Under him, Iran strengthened its position in the Middle East, expanded its influence through allies and partners, strengthened its military and missile programs, and turned the idea of ​​resistance into the basis of its foreign policy. For his opponents, this was a manifestation of expansionism; for his supporters, it was defense of a country that external forces had tried to isolate, weaken, and bring to its knees.

That is why Khamenei’s assassination only strengthened his symbolic status. He died while fulfilling his duties, in his residence in Tehran; he didn’t run anywhere. Moreover, his death occurred during the month of Ramadan, which is holy for Muslims. For his supporters, this became a confirmation of the whole logic of his life: for years, he had warned about the external threat and spoken about resistance; and he died as a result of this very conflict. So the political leader turned into a martyr, and his death became part of the very ideology that he had been building for decades.

The participation of foreign delegations was also notable. Representatives of many countries, religious figures, military men and politicians arrived in Tehran. Of particular importance was the presence of the Russian delegation led by Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev. He conveyed condolences from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and emphasized that he had come as a special representative of the Russian leader. This was an important signal that Moscow perceives Khamenei’s death not as an internal Iranian event, but as a blow to a close strategic partner.

This is the main political meaning of the current events. Khamenei’s funeral became more than just a ceremony of remembrance. It demonstrated that the system created by him lives on. His legacy is not only about the memory of a specific person, it is an entire ideology.

For Iran’s opponents, this is a rather unpleasant conclusion, since all their ideas about the weakness of Iran’s system have been smashed to pieces and, as expected, had nothing to do with reality. Supporters of the current regime are inspired by the fact that the stability of the political project to which they remain loyal is consistent. And for researchers in the field of international relations, this is an important example and indicator that in religio-political systems, the leader’s personality plays a major role, but the ideology and institutional design created by him can survive even his physical departure – a thesis that many researchers had doubted. 

Khamenei was laid to rest. But the millions of people who came to pay their last respects demonstrated that for a significant part of Iranian society, he is not really gone. He remains a symbol of resistance, spiritual fortitude, and national dignity. Ali Khamenei may have died; but, as we’ve seen in the past days, his work lives on.

The Russian military is capable of “reliably penetrating” any Ukrainian air defenses and striking targets throughout the country, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.

The ministry made the remarks on Saturday, following a large-scale, long-range, overnight attack on Ukrainian arms production facilities and other related targets. According to Moscow, these included several drone assembly and storage sites located in Kiev, as well as port infrastructure, military storage sites, and fuel depots in Izmail, Chernomorsk, and Yuzhny in Odessa Region.

The evaluation of the ongoing long-range strike campaign has confirmed that the Russian military is able to “reliably penetrate any anti-aircraft air or missile defense systems provided to [Vladimir] Zelensky by Western sponsors,” the MOD stated.

The troops are capable of “reliably [hitting] any targets throughout Ukraine,” and the geography of the strikes is not limited to “the supposedly best-defended Kiev, where Zelensky has now deployed virtually all available Western missile defense systems,” it stressed.

According to Zelensky, the latest Russian attack involved more than 120 drones and 12 missiles, half of which were ballistic. While “most” of the targets were intercepted, all the ballistic missiles went through, he claimed. In recent weeks, the Ukrainian leadership has repeatedly complained that its ability to fend off Russian ballistic missiles is dwindling, urging the country’s Western sponsors to provide with more interceptor missiles.

“Nothing will help him. He’s like a tick that has burrowed into the flesh of the Ukrainian people that can’t get enough blood,” Zakharova stated.

In recent weeks, Moscow has ramped up long-range attacks on Ukraine’s military industry and dual-use infrastructure. The Russian Defense Ministry maintains the strikes come in response to terrorist attacks by Kiev against Russian civilian infrastructure, which have intensified amid the string of setbacks suffered by the Ukrainian military on the battlefield.

Last week, Moscow announced the liberation of Konstantinovka, a major Donbass city located on the southernmost tip of the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, the last major stronghold under Kiev’s control in the region.

A former executive at Ukraine’s state nuclear operator Energoatom is suspected of laundering more than $500,000, the country’s anti-corruption authorities have announced. The investigation is part of a $100 million corruption scandal at the energy giant, which involves a one-time member of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle, as well as several high-ranking officials.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the country’s energy sector has been heavily reliant on foreign aid.

In a press release on Friday, the Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) announced that they have sent a suspicion notice to a former executive director who was responsible for the physical protection and security of Energoatom facilities, accusing him of laundering more than 30 million hryvnias ($674,000) of illicit proceeds between 2023 and ⁠2025.

The suspect, who has been given the nickname ‘Tenor’, had allegedly made use of cryptocurrency and registered all assets in the name of a personal acquaintance in an effort to cover his tracks. The man, identified by local media as Dmitry Basov, supposedly used the money to purchase real estate in Ukraine and in Bali, as well as two Mercedes and other items.

The probe is part of the ⁠Midas case, which centers on an alleged extortion ring at Energoatom led by businessman Timur Mindich, dubbed “Zelensky’s wallet” by Ukrainian media.

Mindich, however, managed to flee to Israel hours before the authorities could apprehend him.

The corruption scandal sent shockwaves through the Ukrainian government, as the alleged ring also involved former Energy Minister German Galushchenko, his former deputy, and former Deputy Prime Minister Aleksey Chernyshov.

Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, was forced to resign over suspected links to the scheme, and has since been charged in a separate money-laundering case.

In February, Galushchenko, who served as energy minister from 2021 to July 2025, was detained as he attempted to escape to Poland and subsequently charged with money laundering. The former official is suspected of moving tens of millions of dollars to a shell company registered in Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory and a known tax haven, at Mindich’s behest.

Last summer, Zelensky attempted to strip NABU and SAPO of their independent status, but was forced to walk back the controversial decision amid protests and threats of aid suspension. The two anti-corruption agencies were established under Western pressure after the 2014 coup in Kiev.

British police have launched a murder investigation into the death of Ann Widdecombe, a former government minister and spokesperson for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party.

Widdecombe, 78, was found dead with serious injuries at her home in Haytor, on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, on Thursday. The political veteran’s management team announced her passing the next day, saying that they were “absolutely devastated” by what had happened.

The Devon and Cornwall Police said on Friday that there was “no information that this is a politically motivated crime.” Widdecombe’s death is also not being treated as a terrorism-related incident, they added.

A 26-year-old white British man who was arrested on suspicion of murdering the Reform UK spokeswoman on the day of her death has been released and is no longer part of the investigation, police said on Saturday.

“Our priority remains identifying those responsible and ensuring that all available evidence is thoroughly examined,” Assistant Chief Constable Matt Longman said.

After leaving Parliament, Widdecombe gained fame as a contestant on the reality TV shows Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Big Brother.

She actively campaigned for the UK’s departure from the EU, returning to politics in 2019 as a member of the Brexit Party, which was later re-branded as Reform UK. She was also a member of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2020.

For the past three years, Widdecombe served as Reform UK’s immigration and justice spokesperson.

Outgoing Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that her death was “shocking news” and called upon the leaders of the Conservative Party and Reform UK “to urge everybody to come together.” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood called the circumstances of the politician’s passing “extremely distressing.” 

Farage said Widdecombe was “a remarkable, principled woman.” He suggested that her killing may have been a “burglary gone wrong” and described it as “a terrible reflection on modern Britain.” 

Ukraine is unlikely to start producing its own Patriot air defense missiles despite US President Donald Trump’s promise to grant Kiev the relevant license, Reuters has reported, citing informed sources.

During the meeting on the sidelines of the recent NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye on Wednesday, Trump told Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky that “we’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots. That’s pretty cool. This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving them enough.” However, the president maintained that Washington would not supply the in-demand interceptors directly.

Reuters reported on Friday that, according to its sources, it isn’t safe for Ukraine to launch the production of Patriot missiles for as long as the fighting persists within its proclaimed borders.

The new interceptors will likely be manufactured in Germany or another European country, two people familiar with the discussions said.

The production could be shifted to Ukraine only after the conflict with Russia ends, they added.

The US and its allies are experiencing a critical shortage of Patriot missiles due to their heavy use in the Ukraine conflict and the American-Israeli war against Iran. In recent months, Washington had been forced to delay the contracted shipments of the interceptors to some of its customers in Europe and Asia.

Zelensky said in a post on Telegram on Friday that Trump and him had “reached political agreements” on the licenses for the production of the Patriot interceptors in Ukraine. The technical details of the process must now be worked out by the teams from Kiev and Washington, he added.

The Ukrainian leader also claimed that in the coming days Kiev will receive another military aid package from the Americans, which would include an unspecified number of PAC-3 missiles for Patriot systems.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Pekov said on Friday that “as for the Patriot, yes, it is an obvious fact that the US is continuing full-scale deliveries of weaponry and military technologies to Ukraine. We know it.”

“At the same time, however, there’s a certain duality in the US position: unlike the Europeans, the US maintains a desire to facilitate a move toward a peace process,” Peskov stressed.

Warsaw and Kiev may stand on the same side of today’s geopolitical divide, but they remain separated by one of the darkest crimes of the twentieth century. Their dispute over the Volyn massacre has intensified in recent months, turning historical memory into a diplomatic battlefield. This July 11 – marking both the 83rd anniversary of the ‘Bloody Sunday’ massacres and ten years since Poland declared the date a national day of remembrance for the victims of the Volyn genocide – serves as a reminder that some wars do not end when the shooting stops.

The Second World War is usually seen as a confrontation between giant military alliances. However, in reality, many smaller separate conflicts unfolded within this epic war, and the struggle between peoples and countries was often conducted without compromise or mercy. One of the darkest and least-known pages of the Second World War is the Volyn massacre – an ethnic cleansing carried out by pro–Nazi Ukrainian nationalist groups in the Volyn region, which is now almost entirely part of Ukraine.

Volhynia has historically been a border zone. These swampy forests were part of Russia in the Middle Ages and later became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – the Polish state in its heyday. The partitioning of Poland brought Volhynia into the Russian Empire. After the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Russian Civil War, Volhynia was once again part of an independent Poland. In short, this region, although a bit of a backwater, has changed hands often.

By the beginning of the Second World War, it was a good agricultural region with a diverse population. Approximately 70% of the region’s inhabitants were Ukrainians, 16% were Poles, and another 10% were Jews. In the first two decades of Poland’s renewed independence, Ukrainian national organizations were banned in Volhynia, and, most importantly, poverty was a very acute problem. The level of urbanization was extremely low, and there was little good land for peasants in Volhynia. National tensions had already existed, but their roots stemmed from economic problems. The Polish minority was, on average, more prosperous, and the central authorities distributed Volhynia’s best plots of land among Polish veterans.

Naturally, redrawing the borders did not make national tensions disappear. The Polish minority was not happy about this at all, and the Polish government sitting in exile in London was not prepared to give up even an inch of land. The Polish government continued to see the ‘Kresy’ – the disputed territories in western Belarus and Ukraine – as its own territory.

In 1941, the Nazis began a grandiose campaign of conquest against Russia. The beginning of the war was disastrous for the Soviet Union. The Red Army immediately suffered a series of heavy defeats, and the Germans occupied Volhynia within literally one or two weeks.

However, the Nazis’ grip on Volhynia was not that tight. It wasn’t very important to them from a strategic or economic standpoint, so only a few cities were actually held by German forces. Moreover, there were a number of different guerrilla-insurgent groups operating in the countryside. The Polish ‘Home Army’ saw its task as restoring Polish rule. Soviet partisans fought against the Nazis in the interests of their own country. Volhynia was also one of the key centers of activity for the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Although it tried to play an independent role, the OUN initially operated under the patronage of the Nazis and the organization itself was divided into factions.

However, all of the Ukrainian nationalist movements were united in their opposition to Volhynia’s non-Ukrainian populations. The OUN’s policy paper, ‘Instructions for the First Days of the Organization of State Life’, explicitly stated: “National minorities are divided into those friendly and hostile to us.” The latter included “Muscovites, Poles and Jews.” “Friendly” differed from “hostile” only in that “friends… can return to their homeland.” According to this document, “hostile” national minorities were subject to “destruction in the struggle.” This masterpiece of rhetoric was accompanied by the remark: “Our government should be terrible to its opponents. Terror for alien-enemies and their traitors.” In the text that follows, the ethnic cleansing program is described in detail. It is curious that this cannibalistic manifesto was actually compiled before the beginning of the Soviet-German war in May of 1941. Initially, there was a kind of segregation – the anti-Semitism of the Ukrainian nationalists brooked no exceptions, while the Poles planned to destroy “only” the intelligentsia and assimilate the ordinary peasants.

With the outbreak of the war, the nationalists followed the Wehrmacht with calls to destroy “Moscow, Poland, Magyars and Jews”, accompanied by demands that the population obey the OUN and its leader, Stepan Bandera. In fact, nationalist auxiliary units began killing Jews even before the Nazis did. The attitude of the nationalists towards national minorities was generally more vicious and uncompromising than the Germans’, and the range of people subject to unconditional murder was wider. The nationalists even tried to use the Gestapo to organize ethnic cleansing.

However, the honeymoon of the Nazis and the Ukrainian nationalists turned out to be short-lived. The Germans came to see nationalist leader Bandera and his plans to create an independent Ukraine as obstacles to their own plans, which didn’t envision any independent states within the occupied territories of the USSR. Bandera was quickly arrested. The Germans used the nationalists within their own units, and the OUN decided to change course. So as not to play into the hands of Moscow, they did not fight the Nazis. In fact, clashes with the Germans were random and rare. The nationalists operated underground and were mainly engaged in propaganda for quite a long time. They had enough weapons – some were received from the Germans in the summer of 1941, some were retrieved from battlefields, and others were obtained by bribing the occupying forces.

By the end of 1942, it became clear that Germany was losing the war, and the nationalists’ plans changed. They were still planning an armed uprising, but the solution to the “issue of national minorities” was updated again. The attitude towards the Russians softened – now only “activists” were to be destroyed. Jews were only to be deported since they were considered to have “great influence.” But the Poles – the largest national minority in Volhynia – were to be dealt with in the most brutal way: “to evict everyone and destroy those who refuse to leave.”

At the beginning of 1943, the Ukrainian auxiliary police formed by the Nazis began to desert en masse and join the ranks of the OUN. In total, up to 5,000 former policemen went underground. These people had already managed to participate in the extermination of Jews as part of the Holocaust, as well as the murders of Russians and Belarusians. The Nazi occupation of the USSR was insanely cruel. Without exaggeration, the population of the occupied territories spent two to three years inside a meat grinder. In many areas, up to a quarter of the population was killed through executions and village burnings, as well as organized famines and humanitarian catastrophes. Many villages and even small towns were completely massacred. Auxiliary nationalist units were often directly responsible for perpetrating these acts of intimidation and genocide. As is easy to guess, these people did not suffer from an excess of scruples or moral principles.

By April of 1943, Soviet partisans, who were no choirboys themselves after witnessing many atrocities, were horrified to report:

“A hundred members of the national army have been tasked with destroying Poles in Tsuman District. The local population was slaughtered and settlements in Zaulok, Galinovsk, etc. were burned down. On March 29, 18 people were hacked to death in the village of Galinovk.  The rest fled into the forest. Bandera nationalists were led to a Polish doctor by his wife, and they cut off the doctor’s ears and nose. Up to 50 Poles were shot in the village of Pundynki.”

After a short discussion, the leadership of the OUN approved the mass extermination of Poles. The key instigator of this purge was Dmitry Klyachkovsky, aka ‘Klim Savur’, who had previously been arrested for extremism in both Poland and the USSR. Having escaped from a Soviet prison during the Wehrmacht offensive, he now became the architect of the massacre as one of the key commanders of OUN forces.

The attacks were preceded by primitive propaganda campaigns. One of the rioters, Juhim Orlyuk, later told the USSR’s secret police during interrogation:

“In approximately May or June of 1943, two people arrived in the village of Mogilnoye. There was one named Vladimir Volynsky who the villagers called ‘Iron’. He was from the village of Ostrovok, which is about 1 kilometer from the mountains. I didn’t know the other person. They gathered all of Mogilnoye’s Ukrainian residents at the village school and announced that they had been sent by the Ukrainian insurgent army. Next, ‘Iron’ asked those present if they wanted to or were willing to fight the enemy (against whom specifically, he did not say). Those present replied that they were ready. He went on to say that the Germans would lose the war, that a revolution would break out in Germany, that the Red Army would only reach the old border, and that, at that time, the Ukrainian insurgent army, which had a lot of people in it, would rise up, and an independent Ukrainian state would be created.”

Volhynia was not a major area of activity for either Polish or Soviet partisans. The partisan forces in Volhynia were small. The Poles had few weapons, and the Russians were mainly focused on other areas. The Soviet partisan detachments were waging a desperate war against the Germans, and the appearance of a new front was an unexpected problem for them. The Poles created self-defense detachments called plyatsuvki, as well as mobile partisan groups to aid them. Groups of ethnic Poles also operated in Volhynia as part of the Soviet partisan movement. However, all these forces suffered from a severe shortage of weapons and ammunition and were often simply powerless to stop the killers. The Soviet partisans focused mainly on sabotage against German military installations and did not have enough forces or equipment to protect villages. To make matters worse, there was a distinct lack of trust between the Soviet and Polish partisans.

Meanwhile, events were rapidly developing. The incident that kicked off what would later be called the Volyn massacre is considered to be a raid on the village of Paroslya on February 9, 1943. The militants did not waste bullets: Poles were hacked to pieces with axes. A number of villages were dealt with in a similar fashion. In March, the village of Lipniki was destroyed. Among the survivors was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby, who had been accidentally overlooked. The infant, whose grandfather had been stabbed with a bayonet, was found the next morning by chance, lying in the snow among the dead and dying. He would grow up to become the first Polish cosmonaut, Miroslav Germashevsky.

The Nazis used the massacre with truly diabolical ingenuity. Police detachments made up of Polish collaborators who had already killed Ukrainians were brought into Volhynia, so many peasants took the Germans’ atrocities to be revenge by the Poles.

The ethnic cleansing of Volhynia went on for several months, gradually shifting from east to west. The experience the killers had acquired in punitive operations with the Nazi police was not wasted: the massacre was carried out methodically, with the discipline of an army operation. For example, it was characteristic of the Nazis to gather villagers in one building and then burn them alive, and about forty Poles were killed in Guchin in the same manner. A Ukrainian who had hidden a Polish woman was executed along with the Poles. Another common technique was to appear friendly to the Poles at first, so they would not immediately flee, and later gather the victims together in one place under some plausible pretext.

Victims were thoroughly robbed, houses were burned. The murderers tried not only to execute the people but destroy their cultural values as well. After about a hundred Poles had been shot en masse in Poritska, nationalists blew up an 18th-century church with the help of an artillery shell and then set fire to what was left of the building. The commanders did not hesitate to personally participate in the killings. For example, Pyotr Oleinik, aka ‘Aeneas’, who led the OUN forces near Rivne, executed captured Poles himself.

Gender and age were no protection – 438 people were killed in the village of Ostrovki, of whom 246 were children under the age of 14. “The entire Polish population, including infants, was destroyed (cut and chopped up). I personally shot 5 Poles there who were fleeing into the forest,” a captured militant later told Soviet investigators during interrogation about his participation in an attack on another village.

As a rule, the main murder weapons were peasant tools – axes, pitchforks, knives, and hammers. In some cases, places were swept a second time to find people who had managed to hide during the first attack and returned to the ashes. The Poles’ attempts to organize negotiations failed. The Home Army sent Sigmund Rummel, an officer and poet who spoke Ukrainian well, to parlay with the leaders of the OUN. He, as well as the officer and guide accompanying him, were seized and tortured to death.

The peak of the atrocities fell on July 11, 1943, when nationalists ravaged up to a hundred Polish villages at once – villages were cordoned off, after which designated groups entered and carried out reprisals

The killings continued on a smaller scale until the winter of 1944. According to various estimates, from 40,000 to 60,000 Poles were killed in total. Up to 7,000 people escaped by joining Soviet partisan detachments or taking refuge in cities where OUN detachments were not active. In addition to Poles, almost a thousand ‘disloyal’ Ukrainians, more than a thousand Jews, and about 135 Russians were killed. In addition, the forces of the Polish Home Army, as well as pro-German collaborators, killed more than 2,000 Ukrainians.

At the trial, Stelmaschuk tried to dodge the charges, claiming that he had tried to sabotage Klyachkovsky’s order to massacre the Poles. Nevertheless, he was found guilty of murdering 5,000 Poles, sentenced to death, and shot. Pyotr Oleinik, the commander of the OUN forces near Rivne, was shot during a special NKVD operation in February of 1946. Finally, Dmitry Klyachkovsky, the leader and organizer of the massacre, was eliminated thanks to the capture of Stelmaschuk, who revealed his hiding place under interrogation. A large NKVD detachment surrounded and defeated Klim Savura’s detachment, and the executioner himself was mortally wounded during the pursuit.

For modern Ukraine, the Volyn massacre is an inconvenient story. Ukrainian nationalists of the Second World War are considered national heroes, and the fact that these people stained themselves with horrific crimes creates a serious problem – especially since the victims were Poles, and modern Poland is seen as an ally and even a patron of Ukraine. However, this hero worship is unlikely to change anytime soon. Ukraine’s entire public agenda is heavily influenced by nationalists who revere the OUN, so the murderers are destined to remain on a pedestal for now.

Russia has carried out high-precision strikes on Ukrainian military-industrial facilities in Kiev, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has reported.

In a statement released on Saturday, the ministry said Russian forces carried out overnight strikes on the Aerodron facility in Kiev, which manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

The strikes also hit Fanplit facilities, where Fire Point-2 UAVs are assembled and stored. The location had been disguised as a civilian plywood and furniture manufacturing plant, the ministry added.

The MOD also reported strikes on the ports of Izmail, Chernomorsk, and Yuzhny in Odessa Region, describing them as key logistics hubs used by the Ukrainian armed forces. The targets included fuel storage facilities, military cargo warehouses, weapons and equipment storage sites, and port infrastructure used to support Ukrainian military operations.

According to the Defense Ministry, the overnight barrage was carried out in response to terrorist attacks by Kiev against Russian civilian infrastructure.

Kiev has stepped up long-range drone attacks on energy facilities and civilian targets inside Russia amid continued setbacks on the battlefield. Last week, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the liberation of the key Ukrainian stronghold of Konstantinovka in northwestern Donbass after weeks of heavy fighting, saying the advance opened the way toward the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration – the last two major cities in the region still held by Ukrainian forces.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s latest Africa tour is significant – but not because it is a one-of-a-kind event. Quite the opposite – such trips have become routine for Russian diplomacy, which is precisely what makes them meaningful. While the West continues to talk about Russia’s “isolation,” Lavrov’s regular visits to Africa demonstrate the opposite: Moscow has not been left out of international politics and is intensifying engagement with partners in Africa – including African nations, regional associations, and continental structures.

On July 7, Lavrov began his new Africa tour in Ethiopia. The Russian government aircraft landed in Addis Ababa the day before. Lavrov held talks with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos, was received by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and also met with the chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Mahamoud Ali Youssouf. Lavrov’s previous visit to Ethiopia took place in 2022, which means the current trip falls within the established framework of regular political dialogue.

For Ethiopia, one of the key states in the Horn of Africa, regional security and conflict resolution remain important issues. For Russia, Addis Ababa is also important since it’s home to the AU headquarters.

In June, Bankole Adeoye, the AU commissioner for political affairs, peace, and security, visited Moscow; at that time, Lavrov spoke about preparations for the Russia-Africa Summit, expanding Russia’s diplomatic presence on the African continent, and his readiness to facilitate the establishment of an AU representative office in Russia.

Following the consultations between Lavrov and Youssouf, the parties adopted a joint statement on the further development of political dialogue and ties in areas such as security, the economy, food, healthcare, energy, and infrastructure. Crisis zones – such as the Sahel, the African Great Lakes region, the Horn of Africa, Sudan, South Sudan, and Libya – were mentioned separately.

On July 8, the Russian delegation arrived in Niger, where the second ministerial meeting in the Russia-Sahel Alliance format is scheduled in Niamey. The alliance includes Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. The first meeting in this format was held in Moscow in April 2025, and afterwards it was announced that the consultations would become regular.

This direction is particularly important for Moscow: In past years, cooperation with the Sahel countries has been primarily associated with security and military-political interaction, but it is gradually expanding to include diplomatic, economic, and infrastructural aspects.

The main significance of the current tour is that it is not a one-time event. Rather, it is a continuation of Lavrov’s series of Africa trips that started in 2022. In the summer of 2022, Lavrov visited Egypt, the Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Ethiopia. In January 2023, he visited South Africa, Eswatini, Angola, and Eritrea; in February – Mali, Mauritania, and Sudan; in May and June – Kenya, Burundi, Mozambique, and again South Africa; in August 2023, Lavrov made yet another trip to South Africa. In 2024, he embarked on a new tour of West and Central Africa, including Guinea, the Republic of the Congo, Burkina Faso, and Chad. In December 2025, the Second Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum was held in Cairo.

Lavrov’s trip to Ethiopia, Niger, Mozambique, and Burundi demonstrates that Russia’s Africa policy has entered ‘working mode’. It’s not just about summits or loud public statements. Here, we may witness regular diplomacy at work, with its familiar routes, partners, institutional formats, and preparations for the next major event – in this case, the Russia-Africa Summit set to be held in Moscow in October. In fact, the political significance of such trips lies precisely in their routine nature.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook 2026 published in June, India has operationally deployed 12 nuclear warheads for the first time. This marks a significant departure from decades of cautious policy where India strictly stockpiled warheads and delivery systems in separate locations.

The newly deployed warheads are believed to be nested within its nuclear submarines and potentially underground missile silos to shorten reaction times. The assessment highlights that India’s total estimated inventory has risen from 180 warheads last year to 190 currently.

The report claims that this is the first time part of India’s arsenal has been classified as operationally deployed rather than just stockpiled. This shift signals the maturation of India’s sea-based deterrent (such as its Arihant-class submarines) and heightened readiness to counter rapidly expanding arsenals in the region (such as that of China, for instance).

By deploying a small number of warheads (12 out of 190, as per SIPRI) on a ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) and conducting deterrence patrols, India seems to have achieved “continuous at-Sea deterrence,” a military strategy where a country keeps at least one nuclear-armed SSBN continuously patrolling the oceans undetected.

Despite this operational shift in posture, India maintains its foundational No-First-Use (NFU) doctrine. India’s capability is designed purely to deter potential aggressors rather than engage in an arms race.

India faces a uniquely fraught security environment, with two nuclear‑armed neighbors. New Delhi has ongoing territorial disputes and a history of war with both of them. It is therefore important to understand how India’s deployment compares with the nuclear postures of China and Pakistan.

China’s nuclear weapons program

China possesses the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, with an estimated stockpile of over 620 warheads, SIPRI estimates. The program is undergoing a rapid modernization and expansion, shifting from a historical policy of “minimal deterrence” to a robust nuclear triad. China could potentially have at least as many ICBMs as either Russia or the USA by 2030, depending on how it decides to structure its forces. China’s land-based ICBMs include missiles such as the DF-5B and the highly mobile DF-41. Hundreds of new missile silos have been constructed in remote regions to improve the survivability of forces.

The primary purpose of China’s modernization is to ensure a secure “second-strike” capability. Experts report that elements of China’s nuclear forces have moved towards a launch-on-warning posture, meaning they are ready to retaliate while incoming missiles are still in flight rather than waiting for them to detonate. China continues to upgrade its supporting infrastructure, including plutonium production capabilities and advanced explosive testing facilities.

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program

Pakistan possesses an estimated 170 nuclear warheads, making it the sixth-largest nuclear-armed state globally, the SPIRI report shows. Initiated in 1972, its nuclear weapons program was a response to regional tensions with New Delhi. Pakistan, like India, is not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Islamabad’s nuclear strategy is based on “full-spectrum deterrence,” designed primarily to counter conventional military threats. Pakistan, moreover, does not maintain an NFU posture.

Its arsenal is deployed across a nuclear triad of land, air, and sea capabilities. A diverse range of ballistic and cruise missiles, including the Shaheen-III, which has a maximum range of 2,750 kilometers. Dual-capable aircraft such as the F-16 and Mirage III/V, supplemented by air-launched cruise missiles like the Ra’ad are the Air Vector. Submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs) are in development to solidify a robust sea-based second-strike capability. Storage of its nuclear payloads are well spread at different locations. The program’s historical development was notably aided by nuclear technology procurement networks established by metallurgist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

India’s nuclear triad

India’s nuclear triad is a three-pronged military force structure that allows the country to launch nuclear strikes from land, air, and sea. Fully operational since 2018, the triad underpins India’s nuclear doctrine of credible minimum deterrence (CMD) and its NFU policy.

The land leg forms the backbone of India’s strategic deterrence and relies heavily on the indigenous Agni series of surface-to-surface ballistic missiles. Agni-V is an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) with a range exceeding 5,000 km and capable of reaching targets deep within Asia and Europe. It is canister-launched, providing high mobility and quick response times. The Agni-P and Agni-IV are advanced intermediate-range missiles ensuring complete coverage of the immediate region.

The sea leg is the most survivable and secretive part of the triad, ensuring India retains a robust second-strike capability even if land and air bases are destroyed. The fleet consists of indigenous Arihant-class Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN) submarines. Arihant, India’s first indigenous SSBN, was commissioned in 2016 and successfully deployed on deterrence patrols. It is armed with K-15 Sagarika Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs, 750 km range).

In 2024, India commissioned another nuclear submarine, the INS Arighaat, to strengthen the sea-based deterrent. The third SSBN, INS Aridhaman, was quietly commissioned in April 2026. It is equipped to carry the longer-range K-4 SLBMs (3,500 km range), drastically expanding India’s strategic reach from the ocean.

Russia – and before it, the Soviet Union – has been India’s principal external partner in both its conventional and nuclear submarine journey, providing technology, training and long-term lease arrangements that helped lay the foundation for India’s indigenous undersea deterrent.

This partnership began with the lease of INS Chakra I, a Charlie-class nuclear attack submarine, from 1988 to 1991, followed by INS Chakra II, an Akula-class SSN leased from 2012 to 2021. The planned induction of INS Chakra III, another Akula-class submarine under a $3 billion, ten-year lease deal, has been delayed as the vessel undergoes deep modernization in Russia.  

Beyond leasing, Russian assistance played a direct role in shaping India’s Arihant-class submarines, particularly in the development of their pressurized water reactors, where Russian expertise and design support helped India overcome major engineering challenges in naval nuclear propulsion. Russian specialists also trained Indian crews near St. Petersburg and Vladivostok, giving the Indian Navy critical experience in operating nuclear-powered submarines and enabling it to develop both its sea-based nuclear doctrine and its own indigenous SSN program.

Pillars of India’s nuclear doctrine

New Delhi’s nuclear doctrine, formalized and released in 2003, is anchored on two core pillars:  a strict NFU policy and a posture of CMD. It emphasizes civilian command, massive retaliatory strikes, and a commitment to global nuclear disarmament.

India will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against states that do not possess nuclear weapons. However, India explicitly reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of a major attack on India or its forces using biological or chemical weapons.

India maintains a stringent policy of export controls regarding nuclear and missile-related technologies and remains committed to non-proliferation.

Until now, only the five “official” nuclear weapons powers (the US, Russia, China, UK, and France) had “deployed” nuclear weapons. Even as New Delhi’s doctrine remains unchanged on paper, its nuclear posture is quietly shifting towards greater deployment and readiness, driven by new technology, a maturing submarine force, and the pressures of China’s rapid arsenal expansion.

Security of India’s nuclear assets

India’s Strategic Forces Command (SFC) is an integrated tri-service command responsible for the management, administration, and execution of the country’s tactical and strategic nuclear weapons stockpile. Operating under the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA), it ensures operational readiness and implements all nuclear contingency plans. NCA has the ultimate operational control and the authorization to use nuclear weapons lie exclusively with the civilian political leadership. The NCA includes a Political Council, chaired by the prime minister, and an Executive Council, chaired by the national security advisor.

For a long time, India kept the core components of its nuclear weapons and their delivery assemblies separate – one under the Department of Atomic Energy and the other under the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). These “de-mated” weapons were likely stored at five centralized locations rather than at bases housing operational forces. They would be mated and handed over to the Strategic Forces Command only after authorization by the Nuclear Command Authority, for deployment on missiles or aircraft.

This system incorporated multiple layers of security, including authorization codes at each stage, and was designed to work quickly if a nuclear emergency ever arose. But while the arrangement was secure and well-tested, it was less suited to rapid response. That is where the need for mated weapons began to emerge.

A nuclear-powered submarine can remain underwater for extremely long periods, limited mainly by its reactor cycle and food supplies. The warheads it carries are kept mated. Operating hundreds, and often thousands, of kilometers from home, such submarines rely, once submerged, only on the transmission of target data and authorization codes through Very Low Frequency (VLF) systems.

Strengthening nuclear deterrence

Given its no-first-use (NFU) policy, India must ensure that no surprise attack can neutralize its relatively limited arsenal – especially when compared with the thousands of warheads held by the US and Russia, and the hundreds possessed by China. Some analysts argue that it may be time for India to revisit its NFU posture. China, for example, has long maintained an NFU policy on paper, but is now rapidly expanding and modernizing its arsenal. By that logic, survivability depends not just on doctrine but on numbers and capability, and some believe India may ultimately need an arsenal of around 500 warheads.

The sea leg is increasingly becoming the backbone of India’s second-strike capability, with stretched Arihant-class submarines entering service and a much larger S-5 class under development. India has also been testing Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs), which allow a single missile to carry several warheads aimed at different targets, significantly improving its ability to penetrate missile defenses.

To preserve a credible NFU posture in an era of faster and more precise adversary technologies, India is prioritizing redundant, secure communications and peacetime patrols for its naval nuclear platforms. Other advanced systems – such as Fractional Orbital Bombardment Systems (FOBS), hypersonic glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles – remain in the early stages of development. Even so, India is strengthening its nuclear deterrent slowly, but steadily.

Kiev needs to “sober up” to prevent further escalation in the row with Warsaw over the glorification of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said.

Tensions between the neighboring countries, which have been close allies during the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, escalated last month after Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky named one of his country’s commando units after “heroes of the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army).” 

Speaking on Friday, the eve of the National Day of Remembrance, when Poland honors the victims of UPA, Tusk insisted that Kiev must recognize the crimes committed by the UPA if it hopes to mend ties with Warsaw.

“I can once again appeal to all decent, wise, responsible Ukrainians. Remember, this great European community is based on the truth and the truth is an absolutely necessary foundation of reconciliation, and that’s why I hope that everyone on the other side, but also everyone here in Poland, will sober up to restrain these exaggerated emotions,” he said.

The row “has gone too far and is harming both Poland and Ukraine. I have no doubt about it,” the prime minister added.

“The Russians would be happiest if there was some dramatic crisis in Ukrainian-Polish relations,” the prime minister warned.

Poland blames the UPA – an armed wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which fought for Nazi Germany during World War II – for an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Volhynia region between 1943 and 1944 that left at least 100,000 civilians dead. Warsaw recognizes the massacres as a genocide.

Following Zelensky’s move last month, Polish President Karol Nawrocki reacted by stripping him of the country’s highest honor, the Order of the White Eagle, prompting several Ukrainian officials to return their own Polish decorations to Warsaw. Poland also rolled back its decision to transfer its remaining Soviet-era MiG-29 jets to Ukraine and questioned Kiev’s prospects of joining the EU.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that the West, including Poland, raised a “terrorist monster” in Ukraine by arming and funding it, while ignoring its Nazi ideological foundations.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to “destroy” Iran should its government attempt to assassinate him.

The US and Israel killed dozens of senior Iranian officials and military commanders during their bombing campaign, including the country’s longtime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a targeted strike on his compound in Tehran on February 28.

“1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday.

“Orders have already been given, and the U.S. Military is ready, willing, and able, for a one year period of time, subject to extension, to completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran - PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!” he added.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Israel had warned the US about an alleged Iranian plot to kill Trump but provided no further details.

Trump has ramped up his rhetoric against Iran in recent days, labeling its leadership “scum.” He also said he considered the ceasefire with Iran to be “over,” as the US carried out strikes on Iran on Wednesday and Thursday in response to attacks on commercial ships attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned Trump’s “derogatory language” and blamed the US for the renewed escalation. He accused Washington of violating the memorandum of understanding signed last month, saying, “there can only be mutual compliance.”

Russia has condemned the defacing of gravestones at a Soviet World War II military cemetery in the Netherlands.

The war memorial and around 150 gravestones marking the graves of POWs killed by the Nazis were vandalized with red paint in the town of Leusden on Friday.

They were defaced with neo-Nazi, white supremacist and anti-Communist slogans, as well as insults directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.

“There is no justification for such acts of vandalism,” the Russian Embassy in The Hague told RIA Novosti.

Dutch Defense Minister Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius denounced the vandalism as “completely unacceptable.”

“War graves are a final resting place and deserve respect,” she said on X.

Van oorlogsgraven blijf je af. Punt. De bekladding van het Sovjet-ereveld bij voormalig concentratiekamp Amersfoort is volstrekt onacceptabel. Oorlogsgraven zijn een laatste rustplaats en verdienen respect.https://t.co/N8wTbFsBSj pic.twitter.com/qEdrZonUnZ

— Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius (@DefensieMin) July 10, 2026

A total of 865 Soviet soldiers are buried at the cemetery, including 101 POWs who died of starvation or were executed by the Nazis at the nearby Amersfoort concentration camp.

The cemetery in Leusden was previously targeted by vandals in November 2021.

Multiple monuments to Soviet soldiers have been vandalized or demolished across Europe since the Ukraine conflict broke out in February 2022. Russian embassies and consulates have also been targeted by vandals.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the destruction of the memorial “unacceptable for a civilized country.”

A British supermarket chain has rebranded its ‘feminine care’ section after an internal complaint argued the term was not inclusive of transgender and non-binary customers, The Telegraph reported on Friday.

Waitrose will remove sanitary products from its ‘feminine care’ category, saying the label “no longer reflects the product range” because it now also includes incontinence products for men.

The change followed a complaint from an employee who said it was “disappointing” that the category implied the products were “exclusively for women and femininity,” arguing that “not all people who have periods are women.”

“Trans men and some non-binary people have periods,” the employee wrote, adding that “inclusion should never be conditional or performative,” according to internal documents published by gender-critical campaigner and Conservative councillor James Esses.

In an internal response, a Waitrose manager reportedly agreed that the label “does not accurately describe the products within the category” and said the retailer would update it “as soon as possible.”

Esses condemned the move as “disgraceful,” accusing the retailer of “erasing womanhood.” Waitrose, however, insisted the decision reflected changes to its product range rather than identity politics.

She added that menstruation is exclusive to women and girls, something that “will never change, no matter how much irrational noise the trans lobby makes.”

The dispute comes amid a wider debate in Britain over sex-based language and transgender inclusion. Last year, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the legal terms ‘woman’, ‘man’ and ‘sex’ refer to biological sex, prompting public bodies, employers and businesses to review policies on single-sex spaces and terminology such as “people who menstruate.”

The latest row is not Waitrose’s first over gender-related branding. The retailer previously drew criticism after selling a gender-neutral Mother’s Day card reading “Happy You Day,” saying it was designed to be inclusive of transgender mothers and grandmothers.

The US is demanding that Iran publicly declare the strategic Strait of Hormuz fully reopened to navigation and pledge not to attack tankers transiting the waterway, which carries around a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil and LNG trade, several news outlets reported on Friday.

The US and Iran have clashed over differing interpretations of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on June 17 regarding the management of the strait. The two countries traded strikes on Wednesday and Thursday after Washington and the Gulf states blamed Tehran for attacks on three commercial ships.

“We expect the Iranians to say... that every channel in the strait will be open and that it will be toll-free,” a US official told reporters on Friday, according to Axios.

US officials told the media they expected Iran to issue a statement accepting those terms after negotiators meet in Oman on Saturday.

“If it is not their position [tomorrow], it is not gonna be a great day for them,” one official said.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei denied Trump’s claim that Tehran had requested a new round of negotiations. He said any violations of the ceasefire by the US would be met with “reciprocal action.”

Iranian media reported that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will travel to Oman on Saturday to meet regional mediators.

Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Friday that Tehran remained “distrustful of the Americans” and that “the Iranian nation will never submit to oppression.”

Iran closed the strait to most shipping following the US-Israeli attack on February 28. Tehran has since insisted that all vessels comply with its instructions and use designated shipping routes.

Under the MoU, Iran agreed to “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels” for 60 days and to negotiate with Oman over the future administration of the Strait of Hormuz.

EU regulators have accused US tech giant Meta Platforms of failing to protect users of Facebook and Instagram from features they say encourage compulsive use and harm wellbeing. Meta has rejected the allegations. 

The European Commission said on Friday that its investigation found Meta had failed to properly assess the risks posed by features such as autoplay, infinite scroll, push notifications, and highly personalized recommendation systems, particularly for children and other vulnerable users. Regulators said the company did not adequately consider nighttime use by minors or whether Reels and Stories could contribute to excessive engagement. 

The Commission also found Meta’s safeguards insufficient, saying links to mental health resources alone do not adequately reduce the risks. It urged the company to redesign key features, introduce effective screen-time breaks, and make its recommendation systems less engagement-driven. 

Meta rejected the findings, arguing they fail to reflect the measures it has already introduced to protect younger users.

If confirmed, the findings could result in a fine of up to 6% of Meta’s global annual revenue, more than $12 billion based on the company’s reported 2025 revenue. 

The Commission is also investigating whether Meta’s recommendation systems create so-called “rabbit hole” effects by repeatedly directing users toward similar content and exploiting the vulnerabilities of younger users. In a separate preliminary finding in April, regulators concluded the company had failed to do enough to prevent children under 13 from accessing its platforms. 

Iranian mourners in the city of Mashhad have set a giant Lego-style effigy of US President Donald Trump ablaze during a funeral procession for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to local media.

The late Iranian supreme leader was killed in the opening wave of US-Israeli airstrikes on Tehran in late February, alongside several members of his family.

Footage published by Iranian media on Friday shows the Trump effigy suspended from a construction crane before a man sets it on fire. As the figure is engulfed in flames, the crowd chants “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” in Farsi.

The week-long funeral ceremonies began in Tehran last Friday, where Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries paid their respects. Khamenei’s cortege then traveled through several Iranian and Iraqi cities before he was buried in his hometown of Mashhad on Thursday.

Iranian state media said millions attended the ceremonies, many carrying red-and-white flags symbolizing martyrdom and revenge in Shia Islam.

Other posters reportedly placed US Vice President J.D. Vance, US War Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the crosshairs beneath the slogan “There will be blood.”

Speaking at the NATO summit in Ankara on Wednesday, Trump said he “may be gone,” adding that he is Tehran’s “number one target.”

His comments came after a fresh escalation between Washington and Tehran, which saw the US strike dozens of targets in Iran and the Islamic Republic launch retaliatory attacks earlier this week.

During the conflict in March, Iran also waged an online propaganda campaign featuring AI-generated Lego-style videos portraying Trump and Israeli leaders in panic. Several of the clips went viral on social media.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has released newly declassified documents detailing the massacre of Poles by Ukrainian nationalist militias during World War II in what is now western Ukraine.

The release comes as Poland marks its National Day of Remembrance on Saturday honoring the victims of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the armed wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). The ethnic cleansing campaign in the Volhynia region between 1943 and 1944 claimed the lives of at least 100,000 civilians, according to Polish estimates.

Poland recognizes these tragic events as a genocide. Ukraine, however, celebrates the UPA as freedom fighters, a stance that has led to a high-profile diplomatic dispute between the neighboring countries.

The Soviet archival files released by Russia describe the activities of the OUN unit led by Dmytro Kupyak, known by the nom de guerre Kley, who is believed to have been responsible for killing at least 200 Polish and Soviet nationals, as well as burning and looting eight villages.

On May 16, 1944, during a raid on the village of Kupche, Kley’s unit killed residents “solely because they were ethnic Poles,” the files say. On August 17 that year, the nationalists raided the village of Grabovo, where they locked nine women and children in a shed before burning them alive.

The OUN collaborated with Nazi Germany during the early stages of the invasion of the Soviet Union and participated in anti-Jewish pogroms. The UPA was created in 1942 after the OUN split with the Germans. Many UPA members were defectors from Nazi-led units, including its eventual leader, Roman Shukhevich, who had previously served as deputy commander of the Nachtigall Battalion.

Last month, Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky of Poland’s highest honor, the Order of the White Eagle, after Zelensky named one of Ukraine’s commando units after “heroes of the UPA.”

Several Ukrainian officials responded by returning their own Polish decorations to Warsaw.

Last weekend, the Russian authorities announced the complete liberation of the city of Konstantinovka, the battle for which had been raging since the end of last year. 

Why did the battle for this city take so long? Is Konstantinovka really strategically important? And why was so much time and effort spent on capturing it? We explore all this below. 

One of the largest cities in Donbass

In terms of size, Konstantinovka (population 98,000 in 2002 and approximately 70,000 in 2022) is the largest city (not urban agglomeration) captured by the Russian Army since the spring of 2022, i.e., following the liberation of Mariupol. The Pokrovsk-Mirnograd agglomeration is larger (its pre-war population, including the suburbs, was up to 200,000 people), but it consists of two cities with a relatively large and less densely populated area between them. This allowed the Russian Army to capture these cities separately, utilizing the area between them to cut through the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

In Konstantinovka, this was not possible since it is a continuous urban area measuring approximately 6 by 12 km. Konstantinovka has 20,000 buildings, about 1,000 of which are multi-storey. In the conditions of modern warfare, each multi-storey building is transformed into a mini-fortress with a developed underground section. The southern part of the city (around Kosmonavtov Boulevard) with its nine-storey panel buildings is particularly challenging in this regard. 

Outpost of the AFU’s main fortress 

After the retreat of Igor Strelkov’s forces from Slaviansk and Kramatorsk in 2014–2015, these two cities became the AFU’s main hub in Donbass. They housed the ATO headquarters, and powerful fortifications made of steel and concrete were erected there. Konstantinovka was part of the perimeter of this fortress, serving as a kind of outpost: to reach Slaviansk and Kramatorsk, Konstantinovka had to be captured first.

Along with Slaviansk and Kramatorsk, Konstantinovka was also fortified for defense: the basements of multi-storey buildings were converted into strongholds, underground heating mains and cable collector tunnels between them were reinforced, cleared of debris, and underground passages were constructed to connect several buildings into a single network. Essentially, the multi-storey buildings were all connected by underground pathways, and one could quickly move and transport cargo from one point to another. 

Similar work was carried out in the industrial zone; most enterprises had ceased operations back in 2014-2015 and were partially demolished or rebuilt for defense in 2015-2020. Weapons, ammunition, and supply depots were also set up in the industrial zone and near the railway station.

Along the city’s perimeter, outside the urban area, field fortifications were created, such as trenches, dugouts, and field strongholds. The outskirts of Konstantinovka – Ilyinovka, Berestok, Pleshcheyevka station, Predtechino, Stupochki, and Novodmitrovka – were also converted into strongpoints and formed a single firing network. 

All this was done in order to delay the Russian army’s advance toward Slaviansk and Kramatorsk – the AFU’s main defense hub not only in Donbass but in the whole of eastern Ukraine.

Russian ‘pincers’

The example of Konstantinovka clearly demonstrates the assault tactics perfected by the Russian Army since 2023 (the time of battles for Bakhmut, Marinka, and Avdeevka).

First and foremost, the Russian Army engages in battles for the flanks and outskirts of a city. This is the longest and, for an outside observer, rather unremarkable process. Fighters of the South Group of Forces approached Konstantinovka from the east as early as December 2025, when Predtechino, Pleshcheyevka station, and Ivanopolye were captured.

Then, in the spring, Novodmitrovka in the north, and Berestok and Ilyinovka in the south, were captured. All battles were fought by small assault groups; they were supplied either by aerial deliveries or from caches that had been airdropped earlier. The advancing Russian forces benefited from the enemy’s poor battle formations: the depletion of the AFU, even in key directions, has reached such a point that an important stronghold or an entire village is sometimes defended by just a few soldiers stationed there without rotation for months on end.

Neither can the AFU redeploy forces to the suburbs – since if the city is left without infantry reinforcements it will suffer the fate of Pokrovsk, the southern part of which was taken by Russian assault units without a fight on July 30-31, 2025. The endeavor to drive them out was slow, bloody, and unsuccessful. 

Therefore, the capture of the suburbs of Konstantinovka at the end of April 2026 meant that the Ukrainian garrison in the city was doomed. The Russian Army established tight fire control over all roads leading into the city, 24/7 air control, and was able to identify and destroy enemy presence in the city from the air. At this point, Russian troops could just stop and wait. 

The main instrument of war

Wait for what? Inevitable Ukrainian counterattacks. Over two dozen assault operations have already been carried out in Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Dnepropetrovsk regions using the above-mentioned strategy. But every time the ‘Russian pincers’ close in around another city, the AFU attempt to break the encirclement with counterattacks and either bring additional forces into the city or, in the final stages of fighting, withdraw the remnants of the doomed garrison.

With the exception of Kupiansk, the AFU has so far failed to achieve this goal. Not because they’re bad fighters – far from it. However, the Russian General Staff has imposed extremely disadvantageous combat tactics on the Ukrainian command. The AFU lack firepower, they have significantly fewer personnel (especially assault forces), no aerial bombs, virtually no rocket artillery, and so on. Furthermore, they lack the years of experience in assault operations that the Russian Army possesses. 

In short, the Ukrainian forces are virtually incapable of counterattacking. And to defend its position, an army has to carry out constant counterattacks. In battle, in order to stand still, one has to constantly move forward, and that’s something the AFU are almost incapable of doing – or, rather, are capable of only in certain sections of the front.

What is notable is that, compared to the flanks, there was virtually no fighting in the city: Russian assault units infiltrated city blocks in small groups, accumulated forces, achieved local superiority, and with the help of detailed aerial reconnaissance, engaged in clearing operations rather than direct combat. The powerful fortifications, which had been prepared for many years, were of no use since there were no people left to defend them.

We may wonder, why the Ukrainian command waits for the inevitable to happen, time and time again? Why doesn’t it withdraw the garrison from the doomed city and thereby preserve its most capable, experienced, and motivated fighters?

The answer is also quite rational: if they abandon Konstantinovka, the situation will repeat itself in Druzhkovka; if they abandon Druzhkovka, Kramatorsk and Slaviansk will suffer the same fate, and so on. The Russians could quickly get to Kiev like that. 

***

The battles for individual cities may seem unremarkable and repetitive. However, as we see, in these battles, the Russian Army has been able to force Ukrainian forces into a particularly unfavorable style of combat. This is evident both at the tactical level – since the AFU are forced to sacrifice reserves in useless counterattacks, suffering significantly higher losses than the Russian Armed Forces – and at the operational level, since Ukrainian forces are forced to cling to doomed cities to somehow hold the defense. 

All this gives the Russian Army a key strategic advantage: initiative on the battlefield, which leads to the attrition of the enemy and hastens the moment when the AFU will be unable to conduct counterattacks and hold the front line. 

This moment will mark the collapse of the AFU and will determine the outcome of the war.

Russia is experiencing fuel shortages caused by Ukrainian drone strikes on its energy infrastructure, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak has said, adding that the authorities are taking steps to stabilize supplies.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Novak acknowledged “there are problems and there is a deficit [on the fuel market], which is why we are seeing lines [at gas stations].” He said the shortages were caused by some oil refineries being temporarily out of commission for repairs following drone strikes.

The government is strengthening air defenses around refineries, ensuring plants operate at maximum capacity, and sending additional fuel to the hardest-hit regions, Novak said.

He added that a temporary ban on gasoline and diesel exports has been introduced to stabilize the domestic market. The measure is currently set to remain in effect until July 31.

Ukraine has stepped up long-range drone strikes on Russia in recent weeks, targeting oil refineries, gas compression stations, and fuel tankers. The attacks have disrupted fuel supplies and caused localized shortages, particularly in Crimea.

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Kiev aims not only to damage Russia’s economy but also to spread panic among the population. He argued that the effort would fail because “Russia’s energy system has one of the highest resilience margins in the world.”

The Kremlin has said Moscow would intensify strikes on Ukrainian military-related infrastructure in response to what it describes as Ukrainian “terrorist attacks” on Russian civilian facilities.

A passenger was reportedly partially sucked out of a Ryanair Boeing 737 after a window was blown out under unclear circumstances shortly after takeoff.

The incident occurred on Friday aboard flight FR1879 from Greece to Germany operated by Ryanair subsidiary Malta Air. According to multiple media reports, one of the aircraft’s engines malfunctioned, sending debris into the fuselage. A fragment reportedly shattered a cabin window, causing the passenger seated beside it to be partially sucked outside.

The 61-year-old Serbian national suffered bruises and friction burns caused by the freezing air and was hospitalized in shock after the plane landed. Reports said he avoided being pulled from the aircraft because he was wearing his seatbelt, while his wife reportedly grabbed his legs as other passengers helped pull him back inside.

Footage taken shortly after the accident circulating online shows the window fully blown out and partially blocked by a box. The accident reportedly sparked panic onboard with oxygen masks deployed due to depressurization.

Ryanair acknowledged the accident, stating the plane managed to return to the airport safely and a replacement aircraft was arranged for the stranded passengers. The airline did not provide any details on what exactly prompted the window’s failure.

“A Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen on Friday morning returned to Thessaloniki shortly after takeoff when a passenger window dislodged inflight,” the company said.

The publication in The Economist magazine of an article by Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko is, by today’s standards, highly unusual.

Here is a major businessman who continues to operate in Russia, doesn’t set himself against the Russian authorities and is under Western sanctions because of it. However, it would be naive to think that a leading British publication with a clear ideological outlook printed such an article purely out of devotion to pluralism.

Naturally, Melnichenko’s candid reflections on the challenges facing Russia have been presented as evidence of a split in the Russian ruling class, or as a sign of rebellious sentiment among big business, but the real logic of his argument is of little interest to the British audience. Moreover, it’s inconvenient, because it disrupts a neat and comforting picture of the world, and that picture may be the most interesting part of the reaction to his article.

Russia’s business community was formed in the era of globalization and not because Russian entrepreneurs were all desperate to become part of transnational business, but because the collapse and self-dissolution of the Soviet Union coincided with the worldwide spread of liberal globalization. The Russian Federation, carrying out economic reforms in emergency conditions during a profound social and economic crisis, immediately found itself inside that global context.

There was no alternative model on offer, thus the global cosmopolitan economy was treated as the natural order of things and whether one liked it or not, it appeared to embody the famous “end of history” where the global West, with its ideas about what was right, inevitable and modern, had been crowned for an indefinite reign.

It would be too simple to describe this only as malice or greed by the hegemon and nothing personal, as victors have always written the rules and, in this case, the rules weren’t even especially predatory. Globalization did offer opportunities to many, though in measured doses and according to rank, but the main beneficiaries were always supposed to remain those who had created the system.

The erosion of that system began when it became clear that the dividends could also flow to others, above all China. The rollback of liberal globalization wasn’t caused mainly by revisionist powers but driven by those who had designed and built the system, then found themselves unpleasantly surprised by growing competition within it.

The wider history of globalization is a separate subject, but the rapid shift in the global balance of power, rising anger over inequality and political imbalances, and shocks such as the pandemic have all undermined the supposedly correct model of the world economy. The “end of history” has given way to historical infinity and unipolarity hasn’t simply been replaced by multipolarity, but by a far wider range of possible futures.

This has a direct bearing on Melnichenko’s article and on its reception in a British magazine. In the West, the crisis of globalization is now acknowledged, albeit reluctantly, and there is even a growing acceptance that there may be no return to the old order, that the world is not guaranteed to move along the “right” path, and that new methods and strategies are needed.

Meanwhile, the real discussion in Russia about its problems and its uncertain future is taking place in a very different context and with very different aims, and it’s not always uplifting, but it’s also no longer framed by the old assumptions.

Whether Western leaders intended this or not, the punitive measures imposed on Russia since 2022 have transformed the Russian business community. Russian business itself became a target of sweeping Western pressure, while its rights and interests in Western countries largely ceased to be respected and, as a result, the globalized model of activity and consciousness that had taken shape since the end of the last century is simply no longer viable.

This isn’t only a Russian story because the system of no-alternative globalization has failed more broadly, which means the question facing all major economic players is now how to defend their interests and secure development in an increasingly fragmented, though still closely interconnected, world. It won’t be possible to continue as before, but how to act differently remains to be worked out, because the current world system is both highly conflict-ridden and still indivisible and in many respects, there is no historical precedent to follow.

This is what Melnichenko is writing about.

Russian big business has ceased to be globalized, if globalization means integration into a single system with one center of authority. It’s lost any illusion of equality with Western players, if such illusions ever existed. It has not, however, stopped being international and it doesn’t accept isolation. The key point now is reliance on Russia’s own national base, and the expansion and development of that base.

It would be foolish to claim that sanctions and other punitive measures haven’t harmed Russia or created new problems. They have, but they’ve also produced a different core and a different understanding of strategic development interests. After the phase of acute military confrontation, the next stage will begin and it will be no less important, and perhaps more important, with national construction suited to the realities of a future world unlike the one to which we had grown accustomed.

The experience of the 1990s through the 2020s may help Russia understand the situation and avoid repeating some mistakes, though even that’s not guaranteed. But as a practical guide, that experience has largely exhausted itself.

The Soviet legacy has fully faded and the orientation toward the West, with the aim of becoming part of it, has long ceased to be relevant, while orientation toward China, with the risk of becoming an appendage of a very powerful partner, is dangerous and autarky is impossible.

What remains is accelerated self-development in building resilience and self-sufficiency through the diversification of interests and partnerships, rather than isolation. This doesn’t apply only to Russia, and it’s now the approach of almost everyone, but the difference is that each country has a different level of potential.

Russia’s potential is enormous, but it will have to be realized in a different way. That’s what Melnichenko is writing about. What’s more, this isn’t a tactical question, but a strategic one, and the strategy has yet to be worked out.

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

The death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was never going to simply be the change of a political era for Iran. It became an event in which war, religion, national trauma, revolutionary memory, and the ancient culture of Shia mourning all collided at once.

Iran’s supreme leader was killed on February 28, 2026 in a joint US-Israeli strike. The country declared a period of mourning and prepared funeral ceremonies on an extraordinary scale. The farewell stretched across several days and grew far beyond anything resembling a routine state ritual.

The funeral began in Iran, where enormous crowds poured into the streets. Tehran, Qom, Mashhad, and other cities turned into one continuous stage of collective grief. People carried portraits of Khamenei, black flags, religious banners, chanting against the US and Israel. Mass processions and farewells unfolded over days, reaching well beyond the capital into the country’s most sacred religious centers.

What gave the event even greater significance was the decision to carry Khamenei’s coffin into Iraq. The procession first passed through Najaf, one of the great cities of the Shia world and home to the shrine of Imam Ali, the burial place of the first Shia Imam and cousin of the Prophet Mohammed. From there, the mourning continued in Karbala, the city forever bound to the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the third Shia Imam and grandson of Mohammed. This route lifted the farewell to the supreme leader out of national borders and placed it in the shared Shia world, drawing believers from Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bahrain, and beyond.

In sheer scale, these funerals now rank among the largest mourning events in modern history. They are being spoken of as a challenge to the world record for attendance at a single person’s funeral. The officially recognized Guinness record still belongs to the 1969 funeral of Indian politician C. N. Annadurai, where, according to Guinness figures, 15 million people were said to have attended. But if the combined estimates from the days of mourning across Iran and Iraq for Khamenei are ever confirmed, that record may fall.

The scale of the funeral shows that a substantial part of Iranian society never processed Khamenei’s death as just the passing of a national leader. It was the loss of a symbol. For some, he was a religious authority. For others, he embodied the Islamic Republic itself. For others still, he was the man under whom Iran stood for decades against pressure from the US, Israel, and their allies. By extension, the funeral itself was a demonstration of the state’s staying power.

Ali Khamenei was born on April 19, 1939 in Mashhad, one of Iran’s most important religious centers. The city is home to the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth imam in the Shia tradition, which meant that Khamenei’s biography was woven into religious life from the very start. Born into a clerical family, he received a traditional theological education, studying Islamic jurisprudence and religious science in Mashhad and Qom. Qom is the intellectual heart of Shia scholarship and clerical politics in Iran, the very place where many of the ideas that later fueled the Islamic Revolution first took shape.

Khamenei’s youth unfolded under the Shah. Iran at the time was a country modernizing rapidly on the surface while remaining an authoritarian monarchy, dependent on the West and quick to crush its opposition. For religious circles, nationalists, leftists, and much of the intelligentsia, the Shah’s regime had come to represent injustice and foreign control. Khamenei joined those who rallied behind Ruhollah Khomeini. He took part in anti-Shah activities, was arrested more than once, endured years of political pressure, and after the revolution succeeded in 1979, became one of the leading figures of the new state.

His political career from then on was inseparable from the fate of the Islamic Republic. He served as a member of parliament and a figure of the revolutionary elite, then as president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. When Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989, Khamenei became supreme leader. Within Iran’s system, this office is unlike any ordinary head-of-state role. The supreme leader sits above the country’s central institutions, shaping the military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the judiciary, and the strategic direction of both foreign policy and national ideology.

Yet for millions of his supporters, Khamenei was more than a holder of supreme power. He belonged to a generation for whom the revolution was the defining event of a lifetime. That generation understood power as an extension of the struggle for independence. In their eyes, Iran was never meant to be a junior partner of the West but a self-sufficient civilizational force, one capable of pushing back, enduring sanctions, and holding to its own historical path.

Modesty occupied a central place in Khamenei’s public image. His supporters pointed again and again to the fact that he avoided luxury, refused to build any cult of secular wealth around himself, shunned ostentation, and kept to an austere religious style. His manner of speaking, his clothing, the plainness of his office, his fondness for Persian poetry, his constant return to theological texts, his repeated invocations of the history of resistance – all of it reinforced the image of a man from the old revolutionary school. For religious Iranians, this mattered enormously. In the Shia tradition, a spiritual leader is expected not only to govern but to demonstrate personal restraint.

Attitudes toward Khamenei within Iranian society were never uniform, of course. In the major cities, among the young, the educated middle class, and more secular segments of society, there was real fatigue – with ideological control, economic hardship, restrictions, and the sheer rigidity of the state. But it would be a mistake to treat these segments as though they spoke for the whole country. Iranian society is layered – there is an Iran of big cities, universities, social media, and secular culture. And there is another Iran – of villages, small towns, religious families, mosques, pilgrimage, wartime memory, and deep respect for the clergy. For that considerable portion of society, Khamenei remained a figure of continuity, faith, and national resistance.

The Western reaction to the scale of the funeral revealed a very limited grasp of Iranian political culture. US President Donald Trump, in an interview with Axios, admitted he was caught off guard by the sight of Iranians weeping at the funeral, since he assumed that people hated Khamenei. He went on to suggest that the tears might have been fake. This is basically how most Western powers see Iran – fixating on protest, discontent, and the perspective of exiles, blind to the religious depth and national feeling running through a large part of Iranian society.

Shia Islam cannot be understood apart from the memory of martyrdom. At its center stands the tragedy of Imam Hussein, killed at Karbala in the year 680. For Shia Muslims, this is a living memory – of truth struggling against violence, loyalty against betrayal, the few against overwhelming force. Every year, during the month of Muharram and the commemoration of Ashura, that memory is relived. So the death of a leader killed by an outside strike slots naturally into the ongoing story of martyrdom and resistance carried within the Shia faith.

A lesson for the US and Israel

The funeral made one thing unmistakably clear: Iranian political culture does not tolerate outside interference. Iranians argue with their own government all the time – they criticize officials, rage against the economy, chafe under social restrictions, condemn corruption and the closed nature of the political system. But an attack from outside tends to reset that internal balance. It pushes even sharply critical citizens to reframe what is happening, not as a dispute between society and state, but as a confrontation between Iran and an external enemy.

Even the ongoing escalation and renewed US strikes are unlikely to change much here. Iran can be weakened by sanctions, its infrastructure can be damaged, individual military sites can be destroyed, its political system can be pushed toward instability – but finishing off Iran through military force is simply not on the table. Its historical roots run too deep, its memory of resistance is too strong, and the idea of defending sovereignty against outside pressure is too firmly embedded in Iranian society.

More than that, it is becoming increasingly clear that the most zealous advocates of all-out war with Iran are after something beyond negotiating a settlement with Tehran or preventing it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. It’s increasingly evident that they want to break the civilizational foundation of Iran itself, dismantle its culture of resistance, strip the country of its historical agency, and turn it from an independent center of power into a puppet.

This is why the US-Israeli war with Iran looks like a clash of civilizations. On one side, a project of forced regional reordering through pressure and destruction. On the other, an ancient civilization for which statehood, faith, the memory of martyrdom, and resistance to outside dictates have long been part of its national identity.

NATO members should give US President Donald Trump a “timeout” for the rest of his tenure, reducing public exposure and joint endeavors to a bare minimum while working on bolstering their own military capabilities, retired US Navy Admiral and Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis has suggested.

Stavridis, who often shares his views on international affairs with the media, floated the idea in an opinion piece published by Bloomberg on Friday in the aftermath of the NATO summit in Türkiye.

The event yielded mixed results. Trump once again berated members of the bloc over their reluctance to participate in the US-Israeli attack on Iran and reiterated his desire to seize Greenland from Denmark, while denigrating NATO countries for “never being there for us.” At the end of the summit, however, the US leader appeared to soften his rhetoric, talking about “love in that room” and praising NATO chief Mark Rutte as a “unifier.”

While the bloc is “probably not” seeing its “last days” now, the “fundamentals between Washington and the rest of the alliance are bad and unlikely to improve anytime soon,” Stavridis argued. He urged the bloc to reduce the frequency of its meetings and probably not to hold another summit within the next two years altogether to avoid vexing Trump, adding that “day-to-day committee work” could “easily” be paused as well.

The bloc’s members should use the time for other endeavors, namely, continue raising their military spending, he suggested. The European members of NATO should also “keep developing a credible defense industrial base” to be able to produce a bulk of hardware on their own to “create a military balance between both sides of the Atlantic,” Stavridis said.

The European members of the bloc could take some steps to please the US as well, namely sending a mission to the Persian Gulf for demining and escorting merchant traffic, the retired commander suggested. Given the lack of unity on the matter, the mission could be set up by willing individual members rather than the bloc as a whole. A similar approach should be taken regarding the Ukraine conflict, with European members putting their “efforts on behalf of Ukraine purely into EU channels, not NATO’s,” Stavridis stated.

Northern Irish loyalists have burned a replica mosque atop a bonfire before police could intervene to dismantle the scene. The incident, which took place four weeks after devastating race riots in Belfast, has been condemned by human rights groups.

A Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) spokesperson said that a “significant and complex policing operation” to dismantle the “hate display” was underway by the time the bonfire in Moygashel, around 50 kilometers west of Belfast, was lit. The tower of shipping pallets, adorned with anti-Islam flags, was set ablaze on Thursday night.

The bonfire was originally due to be lit on the eve of July 12, when Northern Ireland’s Protestant loyalists – who wish to remain part of the United Kingdom – celebrate the victory of Protestant King William III over Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Unionists marking the 12th with bonfires typically burn Irish tricolors and other images of Catholicism and Irish nationalism. In recent years, however, the Moygashel bonfire included effigies of migrants in small boats last year, and a replica police car in 2024.

Moygashel bonfire had to be lit tonight as the PSNI wanted to protect the mosque at all cost

Moygashel 1 PSNI 0@danwootton pic.twitter.com/pkNcUM0aWe

— Sarah White (@advancesarah) July 9, 2026

Four weeks before the bonfire, loyalist gangs ransacked immigrant houses and asylum centers across Belfast, in retaliation for the attempted beheading of a Northern Irish man by a Sudanese migrant. Northern Ireland’s Catholic republicans – who want Northern Ireland to leave the UK and join the Republic of Ireland – did not take part in the riots, largely due to their own neighborhoods also being targeted for decades by loyalist paramilitaries.

“This vile display is a blatant attempt to stir up anti-Muslim hatred and intimidate local families,” Amnesty International said. “The placing of an effigy of a mosque on top of a bonfire amounts to incitement to hatred directed at real people who live, work and raise families in Northern Ireland.”

Despite non-European migrants making up less than 3% of Northern Ireland’s population, their presence further erodes the already waning demographic power of the territory’s Protestants. According to a 2021 census, Catholics now outnumber Protestants by 45.7% to 43.48%, a significant shift from the 48% to 45% Protestant majority in 2011.

As such, loyalist leaders were reluctant to outright condemn the bonfire. Democratic Unionist Party spokesman Gregory Campbell called the burning of the mock-up mosque “regrettable,” but added that his voters have “genuine concerns” about immigration and “radical Islam.”

Australia will return three ancient artefacts stolen from temples in South India, the country’s prime minister announced Friday.

In a return gesture, an Indian museum will return the remains of a First Nations ancestor it holds to Australia.

The repatriations were announced during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s just-concluded visit to Australia.

The three antiquities housed in the National Gallery of Australia are being returned after police in the southern state of Tamil Nadu established that they had been removed from temples there and trafficked overseas.

One of them is the stone image of Shanmukha, the six-headed form of the god Karttikeya, known differently as Murugan, Skanda, and Subramanya. It was carved during the period of the Cholas, a 9th century south-Indian maritime empire that stretched up to present day Bali.

Return Of Iconic Indian Treasures Siphoned Off By Colonial Powers Is 'A Great Uplift' Both 'Spiritually & Emotionally,' Art Enthusiast @Jaimadaan_ tells RT India Presenter @osamashaab pic.twitter.com/tcvkrhYOw0

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) July 10, 2026

The other two items are a ceremonial metal trident, crowned with a figure of the goddess Bhadrakali; and a stone sculpture of Nandi, the sacred bull of the god Shiva.

Tamil Nadu police said in a statement that the artefacts were being repatriated under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty and will be handed over to the temples from where they were stolen.

The skull of the First Nations ancestor in the Government Museum in Chennai was received in 1935 when India was under British colonial rule; and it had sent a skull of an Indian male to Australia in return. Such arrangements were common among colonial territories.

Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made it a mission to reverse the cultural conquest of colonial British and other Western powers, who plundered India’s treasures for centuries with impunity. The Indian government has made it a diplomatic priority to bring back antiquities stolen or looted from India as it pursues its nationalist agenda – “history belongs to its geography.”

Israel’s military has confirmed that a viral photo showing a semi-naked and blindfolded Palestinian man bound to an iron rod is authentic. The photo triggered an uproar on social media, with rights groups arguing that the image corroborates years of testimony on torture inside Israeli detention facilities in Gaza.

The disturbing photo was shared on a now-deleted social media account in late June with the Hebrew-language caption “good morning” and was brought to wider attention by a Palestinian activist under the nickname Tamer.

He claimed that the man had been kidnapped by soldiers from the ‘Netzah Yehuda’ battalion in Gaza. While the photo surfaced in late June, the incident got the media spotlight only this week.

The picture shows the man lying face down on a military cot, blindfolded and stripped to his underwear, his hands bound behind his back and an iron rod strapped to his body from foot to neck. The reason why the Palestinian had been detained is unclear.

WARNING: DISTURBING PHOTO

In a statement to RT, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the photo’s authenticity. “The incident does not align with IDF values and regulations. An inquiry is underway, and those involved will be dealt with in accordance with the findings,” the IDF said.

Sari Bashi of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel said that holding and photographing the man semi-naked broke international law, adding that “there is no security justification for holding a detainee in his underwear” while sharing sexualized images online “is a form of sexual violence and also a war crime.”

After the photo went viral, at least two mothers came forward claiming the bound man as their son. One of the women, Rana Abu Nasser, identified the man as her son Osama, saying that he had been seized with his one-year-old son in March near the Israeli-imposed demarcation line in Gaza.

Israel has faced accusations of genocide and human rights abuses against Palestinians for years. Last month, a UN commission accused Israeli forces of targeting and killing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, saying that more than 20,000 children had been killed and 44,000 injured since October 2023.

Germany should stop the war it is waging against Russia by arming Ukraine instead of urging Moscow to end the conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. She was responding to remarks by a German Embassy staffer about fuel shortages in Russia caused by Ukrainian drone strikes on civilian energy infrastructure.

On Monday, Lena Hillermeier, the second secretary at the German Embassy in Moscow, posted a video on the mission’s Telegram channel filmed near a Moscow gas station. Speaking in Russian, she claimed officials in the Kremlin “are discussing ways to overcome the current fuel deficits,” with “sales restrictions, imports from abroad, [and] the strengthening of air defenses” reportedly among the options under consideration.

“We have a much easier idea – stop the aggressive war against Ukraine,” the diplomat added.

Responding on her Telegram channel on Thursday, Zakharova said Moscow agreed with the German diplomat’s proposal, but with one important qualification.

“It is high time Berlin put an end to the aggressive war [it is waging against Russia] by proxy of the Kiev regime,” she wrote.

“For the time being, concerned German diplomats would be advised to use public transport, where they can also learn how WWII ended and who the Banderites [followers of Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera] are,” Zakharova concluded.

Speaking on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said “it is abundantly clear that the adversary is seeking to damage our economy, but above all to create an atmosphere of anxiety in society.”

“This goal is impossible to achieve,” he stated, adding that “Russia’s energy system has one of the highest resilience margins in the world.” Putin also urged officials to work more closely with energy companies to eliminate local fuel shortages.

Moscow has accused Kiev of carrying out “terrorist attacks” and has pledged systematic retaliatory strikes against military-related infrastructure across Ukraine.

Global oil demand is on track to post its first annual decline since the Covid-19 pandemic as the US-Iran war has severely disrupted Middle Eastern oil production and exports, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.

The Middle East conflict, triggered by the US-Israeli bombing campaign on Iran in late February, has slashed Gulf oil production and exports, prompting the largest-ever emergency stock release by IEA member countries.

While exports have gradually resumed, production and inventories remain below pre-war levels. The lingering effects of the war, including disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, have cut fuel demand by driving up prices, straining supplies, and weighing on economic activity.

Drug-driving has become Britain’s biggest road safety threat, overtaking drunk-driving for the first time, a recent study suggests, fueling criticism of outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his government’s handling of the issue.

It is illegal in the UK to drive while impaired by legal or illegal drugs, or with specified levels of certain controlled substances in the bloodstream. Convicted drug-drivers face a driving ban of at least one year, a fine, and up to six months in prison.

According to figures obtained by the advocacy group IAM RoadSmart from the Department for Transport’s (DfT) Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), 30,707 drivers were convicted of drug-driving in 2025, up 28% from 23,981 in 2022. Over the same period, drunk-driving convictions fell 17% to 29,981.

According to a Telegraph report earlier this year, drugs have overtaken alcohol as a factor in fatal road crashes.

Campaigners accuse Starmer’s government of ignoring what they describe as a growing drug-driving crisis. While ministers recently launched a consultation on lowering the legal drunk-driving limit in England and Wales, they have not taken similar action to tackle the rise in drug-driving.

“It’s becoming clear that the UK is mired in a drug-driving epidemic, to the point where it may now be more of a threat on our streets than drink-driving,” IAM RoadSmart policy director Nicholas Lyes said. He urged the government to give police the power to suspend licenses after failed roadside drug tests and to establish a national drug-driver rehabilitation program.

The findings add to a growing list of political failings for Starmer, whose government has come under fire on multiple fronts during his less than two years in office. After leading Labour to a landslide victory in the 2024 election on promises of restoring stability after a string of short-lived Conservative prime ministers, Starmer has become associated with tax hikes, welfare cuts, political scandals, and a controversial foreign policy. Critics also accuse him of focusing on international affairs while neglecting problems at home.

A US mercenary awaiting trial in an Indian jail has asked a Delhi court to make a long list of special food items available for him, complaining that his current meals are “spicy and oily.” 

Matthew Aaron VanDyke was arrested by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) along with six Ukrainian mercenaries in March. The group are now in Delhi’s Tihar jail as the NIA probes their activities in India and neighboring Myanmar.

VanDyke filed a request at a Delhi court this week, saying regular consumption of the “spicy and oily” prison meals had adversely affected his health, and demanded special facilities to cook his own food. He said his inability to consume the food provided in the jail had led him to go on what he described as “a hunger strike.”

The US national has asked for food items, including chicken, red meat, seafood, uncooked noodles, pasta, uncooked rice, potatoes, onions, beans, spices, vegetables, olive oil, toned milk, bread, butter and bottled water. He has also requested a stove, pots, and a plastic chopper.

The diet for pre-trial detainees at Tihar jail follows a prescribed menu, with fixed quantities of cereals, pulses, and vegetables. They are not entitled to demand food from outside or have meals prepared according to their personal preferences.

VanDyke is the founder of Sons of Liberty International, which provides military training in conflict zones, the Times of India reported. He has been involved in conflict zones in the past, including fighting with Libyan rebels in 2011, it said.

Hugo Broos has confirmed his departure as head coach of South Africa’s national football team after leading Bafana Bafana to their first FIFA World Cup knockout-stage appearance, but said he could remain involved in another role.

The 74-year-old leaves his post as the longest-serving manager in Bafana history after taking the reins in June 2021, a highly successful five-year tenure that culminated in South Africa famously reaching the FIFA World Cup knockout stages for the first time.

Broos had repeatedly stated that the 2026 showpiece in North America would mark the definitive end of his dugout career, but his comments following Bafana’s heroic tournament run had left some lingering uncertainty over whether he could extend his stay.

“Will I continue as a coach after all? No, it is irreversible!” Broos declared.

”If they need me for something else, perhaps in scouting, that is something else. But football is no longer going to be a part of my life 24 hours a day.”

Broos revealed that he has already held initial discussions with South African Football Association (SAFA) president Danny Jordaan, who is eager for the Belgian to remain closely involved with the national team setup in a high-level advisory capacity.

”I have already had a conversation with the chairman of the South African federation. He would like to keep me, but in a different role, as an advisor or something like that,” Broos said.

“I will return at the end of July to say a final farewell; I am curious to see what he will propose to me.”

Whilst elite coaching may now be behind him, Broos joked that his wife has already made it clear retirement should not mean spending all of his newfound spare time around the house.

”Suppose I have to be in South Africa for a few weeks every two months: why not? Better that than being a nuisance at home because I have nothing to do.”

First published by IOL

A suspected Ebola patient has been placed in the same facility in Equatorial Guinea where migrants deported from the US are being held, a human rights coalition said on Thursday, warning of potential health risks at the detention center.

The coalition, which includes the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA), the Pan African Lawyers Union, EG Justice, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta and the Global Strategic Litigation Council, said detainees reported that medical personnel wearing protective equipment brought the suspected patient to the hotel complex in Malabo.

The group said those being held at the facility were not provided with masks, disinfectants or other protective supplies for several days after the patient’s arrival.

The reports come amid an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where at least 600 people have died.

“When the government agreed to accept people deported as part of the Trump Administration mass deportation policy, they triggered a duty to safeguard their rights,” Beatrice Njeri, regional litigator for Africa at the Global Strategic Litigation Council said.

The deportations are part of a removal policy pursued by the administration of President Donald Trump that allows migrants, some of whom the US Homeland Security has labeled “barbaric criminals,” to be sent to countries where they have no ties.

The arrangement has faced legal challenges and criticism from rights groups, including in Ghana, Uganda and Eswatini.

On Thursday, the coalition of human rights lawyers and advocacy groups said its clients in Equatorial Guinea are being held in “arbitrary detention,” adding that the “denial of adequate medical care and possible exposure to highly contagious disease constitute grave violations of international human rights law.”

The German government will introduce an energy levy to fund the construction of a national gas reserve. German industry, which is already struggling with soaring energy costs, will bear the brunt of the levy.

Germany’s Ministry of Economic Affairs confirmed this week that it will build a strategic gas reserve equivalent to 10% of the country’s storage capacity – two weeks of wintertime usage – in order to guarantee supplies if imports are cut off. The reserve will be filled over 2027 and 2028, and will cost €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion) to establish, and up to €310 million per year to maintain, according to Bloomberg. 

The reserve will not be funded by Germany’s federal budget, but by consumer levies. For households, this will translate to a €42 rise in energy bills, according to comparison site Verivox. For heavy industrial users, the levy could amount to millions of euros, Bloomberg reported.

Germany’s industrial energy costs are already the third-highest in the world, behind the UK and Japan. Once Europe’s industrial powerhouse, Germany abandoned cheap Russian gas imports in 2022, and combined with the phaseout of nuclear power in favor of renewables, this embargo has decimated the country’s industrial output.

Industry spokespeople have warned that additional levies will only hasten Germany’s deindustrialization. “Greater security of supply is a good thing – but making industry foot the bill for it is not,” German Chemical Industry Association Director Wolfgang Grosse Entrup told Bloomberg.

Before Germany’s self-imposed Russian energy embargo, Russia supplied 55% of the country’s natural gas imports. Germany now sources its gas from Norway (44%), the Netherlands (24%) and Belgium (21%), with American liquefied natural gas (LNG) accounting for most of the remainder. 

LNG prices almost doubled earlier this year when a fifth of the world’s supply was taken offline due to Iranian retaliatory strikes on Qatari energy infrastructure and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Without Russian imports to fall back on, the German government began discussing a strategic gas reserve several months ago, Bloomberg reported.

President Donald Trump has told Vladimir Zelensky that the US is willing to grant Ukraine a license to produce Patriot missile interceptors – one of the few weapons in Kiev’s foreign-sourced arsenal capable of shooting down state-of-the art Russian missiles.

“We’ll give them the right to make Patriots,” Trump said, seated beside Zelensky at the NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye, on Wednesday. “This way he can’t complain that we’re not giving him enough. I said, ‘Make them yourself,’” Trump added. He called the undertaking complex but voiced hope that Kiev would work it out quickly.

While significant on paper, the pledge sparked a lot of skepticism among defense analysts who pointed to numerous technical, legal, and security hurdles, while dismissing it as a mostly symbolic gesture or even a political trap for Zelensky.

What regulatory approvals does the license require?

While announcing the offer, Trump admitted he had not yet discussed the plan with Lockheed Martin or RTX – the two main companies that actually build the Patriot system. The defense firms haven’t commented on the issue either.

However, even if the companies were wholeheartedly willing to help meet Trump’s pledge, any transfer of Patriot production technology falls under strict US export-control laws and congressional oversight. The Pentagon, State Department, and Ukraine would also have to agree on what exactly Kiev would be permitted to build, where, and under what kind of oversight.

According to the US-based magazine Responsible Statecraft, the licensing venture “would create substantial risks to US national security by making it easier for competitors to get access to sensitive information.”

What other countries have Patriot licenses?

Of all US allies and partners across the globe, only two – Germany and Japan – are licensed to produce Patriot missiles, and their example serves as a cautionary tale of the hurdles Ukraine faces.

Germany’s example is even more telling: the US granted Berlin the Patriot license in 2022 after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. Four years later, it still has not built a single missile, while factory construction only started in late 2024.

What industrial issues does Patriot production face?

Even if every legal and political hurdle were cleared overnight, the production setup is incredibly difficult. In a post on Facebook, Ukrainian defense expert and economist Oleg Belinsky said that any plans to start production within a few months “crash into the laws of physics and mathematics.”

The hardest part of the missile, according to Belinsky, is not its electronics but its solid-fuel engine. Dozens of components have to be blended in exact proportions, then vacuum-treated to remove microscopic air bubbles, before being consolidated for weeks under strict temperature and humidity control. The finished charge is then X-rayed for the smallest internal cracks.

If even a single parameter is off, the missile is scrapped because even a microscopic crack can make the fuel burn too fast and cause the engine to explode on launch. Producing components pure enough to meet that standard requires an entire chemical industry that Ukraine does not currently have, Belinsky said.

While noting the difficulty of creating solid-fuel engines, Bloomberg also pointed to challenges linked to building small steering motors, which enable the Patriot interceptor to maneuver effectively in the thin upper atmosphere.

“Production is already constrained by existing supply-chain bottlenecks,” Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, told Bloomberg. “Even if Ukraine builds a production factory, it still needs to build the network of suppliers. That is a significant defense industrial base challenge.”

Is the Patriot license a political ploy by Trump?

The overture of the US president – who has been reluctant to finance Ukraine – to Zelensky looks like a “cruel offer” that “seems interesting, but is less interesting than it seems,” Tiago Andre Lopes, an assistant professor of International Relations at the Law Faculty at Lusiada University, told CNN Portugal.

He argued that Trump’s real purpose was to shift blame onto Kiev: if Ukraine fails to produce missiles despite holding the license, Washington can say the Patriot shortfall is Kiev’s fault, not its own.

“In six months or a year, when the Ukrainians say they don’t have Patriots, Trump will respond, ‘no, I gave you the license; why aren’t you producing them?’ Lopes said.

“From the point of view of altering the status quo in the war in Ukraine, in the short and medium term, this doesn’t change a thing”: “It’s not money, it’s not defensive capacity, it’s not offensive capacity, it doesn’t change anything.” 

Agostinho Costa, a military expert at CNN Portugal, also noted that the offer in no way heralds a change in the Trump administration’s stance on the Ukraine conflict: “The European Union pays, the US supplies, Ukraine executes.” 

How will Russia respond to a Patriot license?

Western military experts in unison argued that even if Ukraine were to somehow weather all technological challenges, any Patriot facility on Ukrainian soil would become a top priority target for Russian strikes the moment it broke ground. Russia has consistently targeted Ukraine’s defense facilities, including a plant producing elements of the Flamingo cruise missiles.

George Beebe, director of the grand strategy program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told The Guardian that Russia would attack the facility “as soon as the first cornerstone is laid,” forcing Kiev to divert existing batteries to guard the site. He also warned that the US should understand that granting the license to Ukraine “is very likely to expose Patriot technology to Russian intelligence collection.”

Commenting on Trump’s announcement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian authorities “know quite well what should be done,” stressing that Moscow would do “whatever it takes” to defend its interests.

Bottom line

The production of Patriot missiles in Ukraine faces a litany of challenges, some simply tough while others nearly insurmountable. Both US and Ukrainian officials have so far remained silent on how they are planning to address them.

No manufacturer has been briefed, no legal framework drafted, no site chosen. Experts across the spectrum agree that the idea will do nothing to address Ukraine’s immediate needs and would likely sink under the weight of technological and security challenges.

India has cleared a joint venture between Chinese smartphone maker Vivo and Indian original equipment manufacturer Dixon Technologies, signaling New Delhi’s cautious willingness to allow deeper economic integration with its neighbor in critical areas after a deadly border clash in 2020 froze ties.

The approval, which was revealed this week in a stock market filing by Noida-based Dixon, allows the company to set up a smartphone manufacturing plant with Vivo, the top phone brand in India by shipment volume. Dixon will hold a 51% stake in the joint venture.

It also comes on the heels of India’s Finance Ministry allowing four Chinese power equipment makers with factories in India to take part in government tenders for critical power projects.

Power-equipment makers TBEA Energy, Nanjing Electric India, New Northeast Electric India, and Taikai Electric (India) were exempted from rules that require entities from countries sharing a land border with India to register with Indian authorities to bid for certain government contracts.

India expects peak power demand of 300 gigawatts next year as data centers, AI adoption, and EV usage grows.

Investments by such entities in India had long been regulated by a pandemic-era rule which required them to seek mandatory government approval for investments in strategic and critical sectors. Initially notified to prevent opportunistic takeover of Indian businesses, it remained in force after the Galwan clash when the Chinese and Indian militaries skirmished along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.

“We have a very good collaborative approach with China,” the executive vice chairman of the India-China Trade Center in Delhi, Vijay K. Mishra, told RT TV. He noted that India and China have a complementary economic relationship, with India sourcing technology and components for electronics, pharmaceuticals, and infrastructure sectors.

“India is always cautious while taking any FDI… these are applicable to all countries, not only China,” he said.

India’s approach appears to be one that will allow Chinese firms to participate under conditions that strengthen domestic manufacturing, deepen localization, and maintain Indian control over strategic assets, the Economic Times said.

China has successfully recovered the first stage of one of its space rockets for the first time, in a major technological milestone.

The test was conducted on Friday during the maiden flight of the two-stage Long March 10B rocket, which launched from the Hainan space center in southern China. The booster was caught by a recovery platform off the coast around six minutes after liftoff.

The technology is intended to reduce launch costs by allowing expensive equipment to be reused, serving the same purpose as systems developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Unlike the landing methods used by the Falcon 9 and Starship programs, the Chinese system uses a net structure. The design provides a wider margin for engine-control precision during the final recovery phase and helps absorb the booster’s remaining kinetic energy.

The Long March 10B is a commercially oriented addition to the family of rockets that is being developed for China’s lunar program and Tiangong space station missions.

Scaled down stage cable catch test. Via weibo / Vony7 pic.twitter.com/Xh9BY1TSEa

— Ace of Razgriz (@raz_liu) April 16, 2026

Its first stage is powered by seven YF-100K engines using refined kerosene and liquid oxygen, while the upper stage uses a methane-liquid oxygen engine. The rocket can carry up to 16 tons into low-Earth orbit and delivered a satellite during its maiden flight.

Bangladesh’s former prime minister, who is in self-imposed exile in India after her ouster in an uprising, says she could be killed in her country, where she plans to surrender before a court in December.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and members of her Awami League party will surrender when they return from India, she told Reuters late Thursday. The 78-year-old was the South Asian nation’s longest serving leader.

“They may arrest me on my return, they may even kill me,” Hasina said in a telephone interview with the news agency.

She vowed to return to Bangladesh this year in an interview last month.

Sheikh Hasina Says She'll Prove 'Farcical' 🇧🇩 Courts Wrong

The former PM insists that the legal proceedings against her will expose what she calls a politically motivated case.

She is accused of suppressing dissent and weakening democracy, which she denies.

"Once proceedings… https://t.co/z2E388fqR6 pic.twitter.com/Gm6LF7UWj8

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) July 10, 2026

After Hasina fled to India, Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) handed down a death sentence for her in absentia for alleged crimes against humanity during a crackdown on the student-led uprising. She has denied the charges.

“I have to go,” she said in the interview, adding that members of her party are being subjected to “tremendous repression” in Bangladesh.

“If death comes, I want it to come on my own soil, where my parents are buried and where their blood was shed.”

Hasina’s father was the founding leader of the Bangladesh liberation movement. He was known as the ‘father of the nation’ before the interim government of Muhammad Yunus, which took charge after Hasina’s ouster, removed all references of the kind to him.

Moscow is ready to assist Mozambique in combating the terrorist threat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday.

Speaking after talks with Mozambican President Daniel Chapo in Maputo, Lavrov stated that combating terrorism would be one of the “priority areas” of the strategic partnership between the two countries.

“Russia stands ready to respond positively to requests from our Mozambican friends regarding assistance that we can provide in eliminating the terrorist threat that persists in the north of the country,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov and Chapo also discussed ways to expand trade and economic and investment cooperation. Both sides agreed to prepare proposals for joint projects ahead of the next meeting of the Russia-Mozambique Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation, scheduled for this autumn.

Later on Thursday, Lavrov held talks with Mozambique’s foreign minister, Maria Lucas.

Lucas welcomed Russia’s commitment, thanking Moscow for its assistance following devastating floods in January. The assistance, sent on the instructions of President Putin, included 29 tons of food supplies, tents, blankets, and other essential items transported aboard an Emergencies Ministry Il-76 aircraft.

She also thanked Russia for providing scholarships to Mozambican students, including those studying police specialties, and welcomed Moscow’s readiness to increase the number of scholarships. 

Lucas said the sides had identified priority areas for future cooperation ahead of the September meeting of the joint commission, including energy, agriculture, digitalization, innovation, transport, and logistics. She also expressed appreciation for Russia’s support during the African state’s tenure as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and military intelligence chief Kirill Budanov “personally cleared” the killing of a woman suspected in last week’s Monaco bombing attack, former Ukrainian diplomat Andrey Telizhenko has told RT.   

Telizhenko suggested on Thursday that “the orders were given by the office of the Zelensky regime within Budanov’s quarters, and Zelensky basically gave a green light for this to happen.”  

The remarks came days after Ukrainian authorities detained a serving military intelligence (HUR) officer and a former law enforcement officer over the killing of Anastasia Berezovskaya, the main suspect in the Monaco car bombing that seriously wounded Ukrainian businessman Vadim Yermolaev. Prosecutors said the HUR officer initially confessed to the murder before changing his testimony, while investigators said Berezovskaya had been in contact with him before the attack and was later found buried outside Kiev with a gunshot wound to the head.  

The alleged operation, he argued, was intended to shift the blame for the Monaco bombing. “Everybody’s being set up by somebody higher up. This is how the system works,” he said.   

Telizhenko further stated that European governments bear responsibility because “they financed this” and were helping Ukraine carry out attacks “not just in Russia, but all over the globe now.”

Watch RT’s full interview below:

The NATO summit held in Türkiye this week proved “humiliating” for Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

Zakharova noted that despite the Ukrainian leader once again pressing Western backers for more money and weapons as Russian forces continue advancing along the front line, there was “no meaningful response” to his latest “wish list.”

The July 7-8 summit in Ankara was marked by efforts to project NATO unity despite lingering disagreements over defense spending and the Ukraine and Iran conflicts. While bloc members reaffirmed support for Kiev, they announced no major new commitments, with a €70 billion ($80 billion) pledge largely repackaging existing funds.

The summit’s final declaration also omitted any mention of Ukraine’s long-standing NATO membership bid, which Zakharova described as Zelensky’s “biggest disappointment.”

US President Donald Trump said on the sidelines of the summit that while Washington could grant Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot air defense missiles, which Kiev has long demanded, it would not supply the systems directly. No other NATO member announced new military aid.

Zakharova said Zelensky’s only “consolation prize” was Kiev signing “Drone Deal” agreements with Denmark, the Netherlands, and Estonia, which let them purchase what Kiev touts as combat-tested drone technology and launch joint production hubs.

Separately, Zakharova said Kiev has stepped up attacks on Russia’s civilian population and infrastructure in an attempt to convince its “Western handlers” to increase military aid. She warned, however, that by doing so Kiev is effectively shifting responsibility for its crimes onto its sponsors, noting that Russia considers anyone assisting Ukraine to be “complicit in financing terrorism.”

Ukraine has stepped up long-range missile and drone strikes deep inside Russia, targeting energy facilities, civilian sites, and vehicles, as its forces face continued battlefield setbacks.

RT has become the first international partner of the unified television channel of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), following the signing of a cooperation agreement with Tafouk TV.

RT French Director Natalia Lebedeva and Tafouk TV General Manager Salif Sanogo signed a memorandum of understanding on Thursday on the sidelines of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to Niger.

“The signing took place in the presence of Lavrov and his counterparts from Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso,” according to a statement by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Under the agreement, the two broadcasters will exchange content and expertise and jointly cover major developments in Russia and the three AES member states, the statement said.

The creation of a joint television channel comes as AES members move to reshape their media landscape. Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have suspended several foreign outlets in recent years, including RFI, France 24, the BBC, and VOA, accusing them of biased reporting, spreading false information, and undermining national security.

Russian media organizations have expanded their reach in Africa in recent years, with RT and Sputnik in particular developing partnerships with local broadcasters, despite being banned in several Western countries over accusations that they spread ‘misinformation’.

African media figures, including Gregoire Ndjaka, the head of the African Union of Broadcasting, have argued that greater cooperation with Russian outlets can help expand the range of voices covering the continent. Last month, Emeka Mba, the CEO of Nigeria’s Afia TV, told RT that stronger Russia-Africa media partnerships would allow audiences to access stories from different perspectives and move beyond narratives that have been filtered through external sources.

People suspected of taking part in an anti-draft riot in Lviv, Ukraine were apparently intimidated into apologizing on camera, according to disturbing videos shared by military-linked activists.

The unrest in the western Ukrainian city occurred Wednesday, when dozens of people attacked a draft patrol that allegedly abused a potential recruit. The footage suggests that extrajudicial measures were subsequently used to suppress discontent.

One video that went viral on Thursday shows a visibly shaken young man on the verge of tears admitting to wrongdoing and saying he would accept any punishment. It appears to have been filmed in a secluded location and was released by a serving military officer following a “disciplinary conversation” with the alleged rioter.

Another video published by a military veteran shows a group of young men being forced to shout “glory to the TCK” and apologize. Ukrainian military offices that enforce compulsory conscription are known as Territorial Centers of Recruitment and Social Support (TCK).

The veteran wrote that Lviv will not be allowed to become the “planet of the apes.” He suggested that the harsher parts of the “disciplinary conversation” could not be posted because Facebook would censor them, and threatened “more terrifying things” for those who played a more active role in the disturbance. He added that legal proceedings could follow if officials decide to pursue them.

The activist compared the unrest in Lviv with the events in Donbass in 2014, when local residents attempted to stop armored vehicles with their bare hands while protesting the armed coup in Kiev. The new government in Kiev sought to suppress the opposition with military force, triggering a civil war that claimed tens of thousands of lives before escalating into a full-scale conflict with Russia in 2022.

An earlier video circulated on Lviv social media shows people wearing police uniforms and civilian clothing detaining suspected rioters.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has condemned those who have resisted the draft in Lviv and pledged that the Interior Ministry will deal with them.

Far-right Ukrainian nationalist groups played a key role in the 2014 coup and the subsequent crackdown in Donbass. Many of their volunteers were later incorporated into Ukrainian military and law enforcement structures and reportedly retain significant political influence despite their radical ideology receiving little support in elections.

According to Ukrainian media reports, some TCK offices employ civilian assistants to assault recruits who resist conscription.

Russian security officers have seized 13 Ukrainian AI-powered drones allegedly smuggled into the country by Kiev’s military intelligence agency for an attack on a military airfield, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Friday.

The FSB said the planned target was an airfield in Russia’s Rostov Region, where the Ukrainian military intelligence service (HUR) allegedly sought to damage assets and kill personnel.

Each aircraft was designed to carry an improvised explosive device with a yield equivalent to more than 1 kg of TNT and was equipped with an AI-based targeting system intended to overcome electronic countermeasures, according to the FSB.

The man recruited to carry out the attack alerted Russian law enforcement and cooperated with the investigation, allowing FSB officers to deceive the HUR into delivering the drones and transferring an advance payment equal to 20% of the promised fee. His voluntary assistance exempts him from criminal liability, the agency said.

Evidence found during forensic analysis of the drones suggests that their AI model was trained at Ukraine’s State Aviation Museum at Zhuliany Airport in Kiev, the FSB said.

A cruise ship chartered for an LGBTQ-themed voyage has been denied entry to Egypt after being barred from planned stops in Türkiye earlier this week. Organizers have been forced to change the itinerary for a second time, media outlets have reported, citing the cruise operator. 

The Virgin Voyages-operated Scarlet Lady departed on July 5 on a ten-day ‘Athens to Venice’ sailing organized by US-based LGBTQ cruise company Atlantis Events, carrying around 2,000 passengers. Alexandria was added to the itinerary after Turkish authorities blocked scheduled calls at Istanbul and the port city of Kusadasi, where the vessel had been due to dock on July 7. 

According to The Guardian and The Washington Post, passengers were informed early on Thursday that the Alexandria stop had also been canceled as organizers searched for an alternative port. The visit had included excursions to Cairo and the Egyptian Museum. 

Atlantis Events CEO Rich Campbell said Egyptian authorities withdrew permission to dock at the last minute, calling the move “really unheard of” and “strange and sad.” He added that around 1,200 shore excursions had already been booked through local operators. 

Campbell said Türkiye’s decision marked the first time in Atlantis Events’ 36-year history that one of its chartered cruises had been denied entry by a country. He noted that the company had operated 13 cruises to Türkiye over the past 25 years without incident and that efforts involving the US Embassy failed to reverse the decision. 

The Scarlet Lady has since been rerouted to Chania on the Greek island of Crete for a Friday port call before continuing to Montenegro on Sunday.

Moscow no longer believes the West is genuinely interested in negotiating an end to the Ukraine conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking at a news conference with Mozambican Foreign Minister Maria Manuela Lucas in Maputo, Lavrov accused the West of “imitating a willingness to negotiate while openly issuing ultimatums to Russia.”

He argued that although the West has been calling for talks, it has spent more than a decade undermining every attempt to reach a peaceful resolution between Russia and Ukraine.

“In 2022, Russia and Ukraine had already reached a negotiated settlement. It was undermined by the very same West, openly and publicly,” Lavrov said.

“We will no longer believe the West when it claims to want negotiated solutions. Our reserve of goodwill and hope has been exhausted once and for all.”

Russia insists that the conflict has its roots in the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev and subsequent attempts by the new Ukrainian government to suppress the rebellion in Donbass by force.

Ukraine later failed to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, which were intended to reintegrate the breakaway regions into Ukraine by granting them broad autonomy through comprehensive political reform.

According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, during peace talks in Istanbul in 2022, Ukrainian negotiators initially agreed to drop plans to join NATO in favor of neutrality and to limit the country’s armed forces, but later walked away from the negotiations under pressure from then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

While Johnson denied that he sabotaged the talks, he acknowledged in a 2024 interview with the Wall Street Journal that he had “thought that any deal with Putin was going to be pretty sordid.”

Former US Undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland similarly said in 2024 that Washington advised Ukraine to not agree to Russia’s terms in Istanbul.

US-mediated negotiations have also stalled in recent months as President Donald Trump has focused on the war with Iran. Russia has said it is ready to resume the talks at any time, provided that they are focused on addressing the “root causes” of the conflict, including Ukraine’s plans to join NATO.

Waymo has remotely turned two teenage joyriders over to police in California after the camera-equipped robotaxi allegedly caught them drinking alcohol and firing a toy gun from the vehicle.

Waymo operates fully autonomous ride-hailing services in several US cities. Its robotaxis are equipped with interior and exterior cameras. According to the company, cabin cameras are used to help keep vehicles clean, recover lost property, assist in emergencies and, in urgent situations, allow support staff to access a live video feed.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, the San Mateo Police Department said officers had detained two 15-year-olds after Waymo reported they were “drinking and shooting from the vehicle.”

After alerting police, Waymo remotely steered the robotaxi into a parking lot, where officers surrounded the vehicle and took the teenagers into custody. Video released by the department shows several officers, some carrying rifles, approaching and searching the car.

Police later determined the suspected weapon was an Orbeez toy gun that fires water-absorbent polymer beads. The department warned that toy, water and BB guns can easily be mistaken for real firearms, creating potentially dangerous situations for both the public and those carrying them.

Moroccan football fans clashed with police in London on Thursday night after their team’s 2-0 loss to France in the World Cup quarterfinals.

Officers with shields and batons were deployed to Edgware Road to control the unruly crowd as fans taunted police and threw bottles and other projectiles.

According to The Sun, one officer was injured and taken to the hospital. A video from the scene appears to show police officers attending to a colleague lying on the ground while several ambulances are parked nearby.

Moroccans fans Morocco after losing to France in round of 8 riot in London Edgware Road one police officer down got rushed to hospital I hope he survived , police officers got chased by Moroccans in London riots pic.twitter.com/N9TAWgt9G0

— Zonjy (@zonjy_) July 10, 2026

One police officer down got hit on his head Moroccans Morocco fans riot in London Edgware Road pic.twitter.com/XZVwhipLSX

— Zonjy (@zonjy_) July 10, 2026

Another video appears to show a crowd chasing a group of police officers while throwing projectiles.

Police officers got chased by Moroccans fans Morocco after losing to France in round of 8 riot in London Edgware Road one police officer down got rushed to hospital I hope he survived pic.twitter.com/TjlrB1KMHH

— Zonjy (@zonjy_) July 10, 2026

France defeated Morocco at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, with Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele each scoring once.

The World Cup is being jointly hosted by the US, Canada, and Mexico. England will face Norway in a quarterfinals match on July 11.

Germany has recorded its highest number of corporate bankruptcies in more than two decades, with nearly 5,000 companies filing for insolvency in the second quarter of 2026, according to the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).

A total of 4,996 companies filed for insolvency in April-June, up 9% from the previous quarter and marking the highest second-quarter figure since 2005, the institute said in a report published on Thursday.

The increase spanned almost all major sectors, including construction, real estate, trade, hospitality, and services, affecting around 45,500 jobs.

In June alone, 1,702 companies filed for insolvency, 20% more than a year earlier and 80% above the pre-pandemic average for the month.

Steffen Muller, head of insolvency research at IWH, said corporate failures remained at an “exceptionally high level.”

Germany, the EU’s largest economy, has faced mounting pressure from high energy costs since phasing out Russian oil and gas imports following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. The strain has been compounded by a recent spike in crude prices triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran, adding to pressure on the industrial powerhouse.

The German economy contracted in 2023 and 2024, marking its first back-to-back annual decline in more than two decades, and is projected to grow by just 0.5% this year. Official data shows corporate insolvencies have risen sharply in recent years, increasing by more than 22% in both 2023 and 2024.

Utah prosecutors presented a letter in court that they said contains Tyler Robinson’s confession to the murder of conservative American activist and organizer Charlie Kirk.

Kirk, a co-founder of the nonprofit Turning Point USA, was killed by a sniper’s bullet while speaking at Utah Valley University in September 2025. Robinson, who is charged with the murder, has not entered a plea.

At a hearing on Thursday, prosecutors showed a screenshot of a note allegedly written by Robinson to his roommate and romantic partner, Lance Twiggs, who also went by the name Luna.

“Luna, If you are reading this per my text, then I am so sorry. I left the house this morning on a mission and sent an auto-text. I’m likely dead or facing a lengthy prison sentence,” the note read.

It continued: “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it… I wish we could have lived in a world where this was not necessary.”

Prosecutors also showed text messages allegedly exchanged between Robinson and Twiggs immediately after the murder.

In video testimony played in court, Twiggs claimed that Robinson admitted to killing Kirk and “said he wishes he hadn’t done it.”

According to family members and media reports, Robinson became radicalized and mentioned Kirk in conversations before the shooting. The unfired rounds recovered from the rifle reportedly bore inscriptions referencing internet memes and the phrase “Hey, fascist! Catch!”

Kirk’s murder prompted debate over incitement and heated political rhetoric amid an upswing in attacks on politicians and other public figures in the US.

President Donald Trump blamed “radical left lunatics” for the activist’s death, while his opponents argue that Trump himself contributed to the toxic political climate.

Kirk’s widow, Erika, has called for greater transparency regarding evidence presented in the case. Her lawyer, Jeffrey Neiman, said the family has been denied “their ability to meaningfully observe the preliminary hearing.”

US liquefied natural gas exporters are cashing in on the Iran war as the supplies have been disrupted and prices driven higher, a new regulatory filing shows.   

Venture Global, the second-largest US LNG supplier, reported a 69% jump in its average liquefaction fee in the second quarter, according to a filing posted on Wednesday.  

The Middle East conflict, triggered by the US-Israeli bombing campaign on Iran in late February, has choked off supplies from Qatar, which accounts for roughly a fifth of global LNG exports, creating a supply gap US producers are well placed to fill. Washington has moved to replace lost Qatari cargoes after Iranian strikes crippled the Ras Laffan hub in March, helping push US exports to record highs. Asian spot prices more than doubled in the week after the initial attacks, while European prices remain nearly 50% above pre-war levels. The EU has been particularly exposed to the disruption after replacing much of its Russian pipeline gas with costly US LNG.  

The increase came amid the war-related disruption of LNG flows in the Middle East. Venture Global has greater exposure to the spot market than many of its US rivals, which sell a larger share of their LNG under long-term contracts. Spot cargoes allow exporters to benefit more quickly from spikes in global prices. 

Calcasieu Pass, the company’s first export terminal, entered commercial production in 2022 and helped establish Venture Global as one of the largest LNG exporters in the US.

Venture Global is not the only beneficiary. Analysts also point to US LNG major Cheniere Energy as another winner from the conflict, as uncertainty in the Strait of Hormuz continues to drive global gas prices higher.

Russian troops have rescued a family trapped in the city of Konstantinovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), which was recently liberated from Ukrainian forces after months of intense fighting.

The DPR, a largely Russian-speaking region in Donbass, broke away from Ukraine shortly after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. The region later voted to become part of Russia in a referendum held in September 2022. Ukraine, however, continued to control parts of the DPR after 2014.

On Friday, Moscow announced the capture of the city at the southernmost edge of the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, the last major Ukrainian stronghold in the DPR. Russian troops are conducting mop-up operations and clearing mines as fighting continues around Konstantinovka. Drones from both sides continue to fly over streets lined with heavily damaged buildings.

The drone dropped a walkie-talkie to the family of four, after which the soldiers guided them to safety while monitoring them from above.

“It was so epic. At dusk, we went out holding the placard. A drone flew past, looked at us, signaled, and flew away. Then we heard over the radio: ‘Hello, this is the Army of the Russian Federation. Are you ready to go? A little bird will guide you out,’” one of the rescued women said.

Watch the full video below:

A ceasefire with Russia would be the “worst-case scenario” for Ukraine, threatening the country’s statehood, the head of Vladimir Zelensky’s favorite arms manufacturer, Fire Point, has said.

Denis Shtilerman made the remarks in an interview with Ukrainian outlet LIGAnet published on Wednesday. The company, which has recently been embroiled in a number of corruption scandals, stands to profit from the conflict. Shtilerman argued that the fighting should continue regardless, insisting that a truce with Russia would leave Ukraine in an even worse position.

He also questioned whether Kiev’s Western backers would honor any security commitments made as part of a ceasefire.

“Look, if a truce is reached, it would – most regrettably – be the worst-case scenario for our state. We must remember how the US and other countries treat their obligations,” Shtilerman said. “I am talking about international agreements in which they guarantee the territorial integrity and independence of other states. And what do we see? Nothing.”

Shtilerman also said Kiev would be abandoned and forgotten by its backers if a ceasefire is reached – echoing Russian officials who have warned that Ukraine is only useful for the West as a tool against Russia.

Fire Point, which originally operated as a film scouting agency owned by Zelensky’s associates, has emerged as a ‘miracle’ player in Ukraine’s defense sector, producing an array of long-range drones and missiles used to strike deep into Russia. The company has been actively promoted by the Ukrainian leader during his regular overseas trips and has reportedly secured contracts worth up to $1 billion in a matter of months.

The image of the company has been damaged by the corruption scandal related to Zelensky’s inner circle and his former close associate Timur Mindich, the central figure in an alleged $100 million corruption scheme in the energy sector. Surveillance recordings recently published in Ukrainian media suggest Mindich effectively controlled Fire Point while enjoying preferential treatment from then-Defense Minister Rustem Umerov.

When NATO’s 36th summit opened at the Bestepe Presidential Complex on July 7, the official agenda read like every other alliance gathering of the past few years: defense spending targets, support for Ukraine, industrial capacity, adaptation to new threats. But for the host nation, the meeting was never only about the communiqué. It was a stage, and Türkiye had spent months building the set.

The guest list alone signaled the stakes. Alongside the leaders of all 32 member states, Ankara welcomed US President Donald Trump, South Korea’s Lee Jae-myung, European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. On the sidelines, ministers met with partners from the Gulf and from Australia, Japan and New Zealand. The final declaration reaffirmed what NATO calls its ironclad commitment to collective defense under Article 5, and allies pledged roughly €70 billion – about $80 billion – in military equipment, assistance and training for Ukraine in 2026.

None of that, however, was the story that dominated coverage coming out of Ankara. The story was Türkiye itself – a NATO member that has spent years being treated as the alliance’s most complicated partner, suddenly recast as the country without which the summit might not have happened at all.

The man who kept Trump in the room

Trump arrived in Türkiye fresh from weeks of public friction with European allies. He had already dismissed Madrid as a “terrible partner in NATO,” called Germany’s defense budget “ridiculous,” and told reporters that when Europeans declined to join the war on Iran, he didn’t want their money – he wanted their “loyalty.” Chancellor Friedrich Merz pushed back, insisting Germany was making the greatest defense effort in its history, but the mood going into Ankara was combative.

And then there was the line that reframed the entire summit. Trump told reporters he might not have shown up at all had the meeting not been hosted by his “friend” Erdogan – a leader he described as very strong. It was a remarkable thing for a sitting US president to say about a NATO gathering: that his attendance hinged not on the alliance as a whole, but on the man running the host country. Securing Trump’s actual presence at the annual gathering of 32 leaders had reportedly become, for many diplomats, the summit’s central task – and Ankara delivered it.

In a moment when Washington’s relations with several European capitals were strained, Türkiye offered something most allies could not: a red-carpet welcome, a personal rapport, and a venue where the American president felt, by his own account, genuinely wanted.

A bridge to Damascus, built through Ankara

Türkiye’s role as connective tissue extended beyond the Trump-Erdogan relationship into the Middle East. On the sidelines of the summit, Trump held a widely covered meeting with Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa – a former Nusra Front commander who once had a bounty on his head – and told reporters he expected to remove Syria from Washington’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. “I think I will. Why wouldn’t I?” he said, adding that Syria had been “stabilized” under al-Sharaa’s leadership.

Türkiye has been, in the words of Middle East analysts, at the helm of al-Sharaa’s rise since the fall of Bashar Assad in December 2024, and Trump himself credited Erdogan with helping build the bridge between Washington and Damascus. For a country whose security agenda is dominated by the war-scarred Syrian border, Kurdish militias, refugee flows and the reconstruction of a neighboring state, hosting the US-Syria contact at a NATO summit was an opportunity to present itself simultaneously as a European ally and as the indispensable interpreter of Middle Eastern politics for Washington – two roles that, until recently, rarely reinforced each other so evidently.

Even the most concrete outcome of the summit was something that happened between the US and Türkiye. In a meeting at Erdogan’s palace, Trump announced that Washington would lift the sanctions imposed on Ankara since 2020 over its purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defense system – sanctions that had also pushed Türkiye out of the F-35 fighter jet program. “We’re going to be taking the sanctions off,” Trump told reporters, adding that his secretary of state and Treasury secretary were handling the details. Pressed on whether Washington still worried about Russia gleaning secrets from the S-400 sitting alongside a stealth jet, he waved the concern away.

Why Türkiye is useful to NATO

Türkiye’s newfound significance as a NATO member did not come out of the blue. The country has spent recent years expanding its defense-industrial base and its footprint as a weapons exporter, including combat drones that have shaped conflicts far beyond its borders – a trend allies increasingly cite when describing Ankara’s value on NATO’s southeastern flank. Analysts framed this year’s summit as being less about new commitments than about implementation. Ozgur Unluhisarcikli of the German Marshall Fund noted that after allies agreed at last year’s Hague summit to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP, the Ankara meeting was meant to focus on how to translate that spending into actual military capability.

Türkiye’s pitch to the alliance has always rested on a kind of paradox: that its independent streak – talking to Moscow, operating in Syria, sparring publicly with Israel over Gaza – makes it more useful to NATO, not less. The Ankara summit gave that argument its clearest demonstration yet. NATO needed the American president in the room, and Trump wanted a friendly stage; Erdogan supplied both, while extracting a promise on sanctions and an opening on fighter jets in return.

Carnegie’s Alper Coskun captured the shift succinctly, suggesting Washington would find in Türkiye “an increasingly willing actor” ready to pursue policy more closely aligned with the US across the wider Middle East. That is precisely the reputation Ankara has been cultivating – not a difficult ally to be managed, but a necessary one to be courted.

Türkiye was not the only participant that needed the Ankara summit to succeed – perhaps not even the one that needed it the most. European NATO members, wary of an unpredictable American president and short on tools to keep him engaged, needed Türkiye’s hosting, its rapport with Trump, and its channels into Damascus and Moscow just as much. In an important sense, the bloc – and its European members above all – came to Ankara not to extend an invitation, but to ask for help.

In the end, whether or not the F-35s ever land in Turkish hangars, Ankara had already secured the thing it wanted most from the week: proof that it can be criticized, but no longer ignored.

Veteran French politician Marine Le Pen is the early favorite to win France’s presidential election next year after an appeals court ruled her eligible to run, opinion polls suggest.

Le Pen, the longtime figurehead of the right-wing National Rally (RN), reached the presidential runoff in 2017 and 2022 and was widely seen as a leading contender to succeed President Emmanuel Macron. Her 2027 bid was thrown into doubt last year after she was convicted of using EU funds intended for parliamentary aides to pay party staff in France. She was sentenced to four years in prison, fined, and barred from holding public office for five years.

On Tuesday, an appeals court upheld the conviction but reduced the ban, clearing the way for her to run in 2027. Le Pen denies any wrongdoing.

”I am innocent,” she told TF1 after the ruling, confirming that she would seek the presidency and naming her top lieutenant, Jordan Bardella, as her preferred prime minister.

Ifop put her first-round support at 36%, with no rival above 19%. Harris Interactive gave her 35%.

In a runoff against former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, Harris Interactive placed Le Pen at 49%, while Ifop projected her winning with 54%. Against Gabriel Attal, another former prime minister and likely candidate for Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, both polls put her at 55%. They also showed her defeating left-wing France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Melenchon by a wide margin.

The surveys suggest Le Pen has largely caught up with Bardella, whom she previously named as RN’s fallback presidential candidate after her conviction. Bardella has endorsed her decision to run, effectively ending speculation about his own potential bid.

Budget disputes have triggered repeated no-confidence motions and the resignation of several prime ministers, while the deadlock has prompted major rating agencies to downgrade France’s credit rating. 

French investigators have again summoned Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov for questioning as the criminal investigation into the messaging platform nears its second year with no resolution in sight.

Durov spent around six hours being questioned at the Paris Judicial Tribunal on Wednesday, local media reported, citing law enforcement sources. It marked the fourth time the tech entrepreneur has been interrogated as part of the ongoing investigation.

His legal team confirmed the questioning to AFP, saying that “almost two years after the indictment of Pavel Durov, there is still no evidence to establish the validity of the charges.”

“The only change since Durov’s detention in France is that French authorities have started properly drafting requests to Telegram,” the social media platform said in a separate statement.

The legal troubles in France started for Durov in August 2024, when he was arrested at a Paris airport and indicted on a dozen assorted charges. Durov was originally banned from leaving the country, yet the travel restrictions imposed over the case were ultimately lifted.

Durov has denied any wrongdoing, branding the arrest and the charge “absurd” while accusing the country’s authorities of staging an attack on free speech. The entrepreneur has repeatedly criticized Paris for its policies over the past two years, calling it out for cracking down on social media networks beyond Telegram. 

Back in May, he voiced his support for Elon Musk’s X, which has been under investigation over alleged unlawful data harvesting and other offenses. At the time, Durov claimed that the French government has been doing “the very things” it had accused the social media platform of, suggesting that the impending “major political shift in 2027 will expose their misdeeds” and Paris is now scrambling to silence “free speech platforms” to mitigate the potential damage.

India is no longer shy about its aspirations as a rising power, which is causing unease among many global powers, a top anchor told RT India.

Western media reporting portrays India in a particular way, Asia News International (ANI) editor Smita Prakash told RT India in an exclusive interview.

Regarding India’s aspirations as a rising global power, she said, “We are no longer shy about it. When I began my career 36 years ago, we were shy about it. We were embarrassed about it. We were told again and again that we are a third-world country.”

“Today, I don’t see Indians apologetic about wanting to be a growing power. So everybody in the world feels threatened by a country that wants to be a growing power,” she told Runjhun Sharma in the latest episode of India, Russia and the World.

India is the world’s fourth largest economy by GDP and the International Monetary Fund said in a report this week that it remains the fastest-growing major economy despite the macroeconomic headwinds.

The West has created groupings to convey a false impression of egalitarianism, she said, naming the G20 as an example. “We want these developing countries. We want to hear your story. We want to be part of your economy too… But no, nobody likes a growing India.” 

Foreign media outlets “are likely to get the India story wrong” as they base their perception of the country on isolated incidents, Prakash said.

She noted that budgets have shrunk for foreign media outlets. “Unless you travel on the ground and cover it, you’re not covering news,” she said, adding that there are “layers and layers” for a vast country like India.

“But you don’t want to see that manufacturing sector. You don’t want to see that there is a growth story. You want to only see that India is ripe for revolution because the youth are disaffected, because cheating is happening during the medical entrance exam,” she said, referring to the recent leak of questions for a national medical entrance test.

OSCE Secretary-General Feridun Sinirlioglu offered to help oust the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC), in a phone call with Russian pranksters posing as Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

In recent years, Pashinyan has cracked down on the clergy, with several senior bishops placed in custody on corruption and political interference charges. The feud between the Western-leaning prime minister and the AAC intensified after the clergy expressed support for the opposition.

In a phone call earlier this week, Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus told Sinirlioglu, a Turkish national, that the Armenian government wants the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to help oust the AAC head, Catholicos Karekin II.

The pranksters told the OSCE secretary general that the organization’s “assistance would be the trump card and help oust the Armenian patriarch as well as change the religion” in the country, as quoted by Russian media.

Vovan and Lexus, posing as Pashinyan, specifically asked for the OSCE’s backing in case there was a backlash from the opposition.

“Alright, I will do all I can,” Sinirlioglu reportedly said in response.

Created at the height of the Cold War in 1975, the OSCE comprises 57 member states, including Russia, the US, Canada, and most European and Central Asian nations. While the organization professes to promote security and cooperation, Moscow has in recent years accused it of being hijacked by its NATO and EU members to advance Western agendas.

The Armenian Investigative Committee stated at the time that the arrests had been made as part of an investigation into alleged abuse of power. Weeks earlier, Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan was sentenced to two years in prison on charges of coup incitement – a case the AAC cleric characterized as politically motivated.

Last month, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) alleged that the EU was pressuring the Armenian government to expel the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) from the country as a prerequisite to potential EU integration.

Russia and Armenia have historically maintained close political, economic and cultural ties. However, under Pashinyan, the country has increasingly adopted a pro-Western stance. Yerevan has accused Moscow of failing to stop its neighbor Azerbaijan from reclaiming the Nagorno-Karabakh region through military force in September 2023.

Russian officials have, in turn, noted that it was Pashinyan himself who had recognized Baku’s sovereignty over the disputed territory. The Kremlin has also warned that by severing ties with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union in favor of hypothetical EU integration, Armenia would have to forgo the “concrete dividends” afforded by the single market.

The Armenian opposition has, in turn, pointed the finger squarely at Pashinyan over the defeat in the conflict with Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan’s government has responded by prosecuting a number of opposition figures and members of the clergy.

Last month, Pashinyan’s pro-EU ruling party, Civil Contract, came out on top in hotly contested parliamentary elections, securing over 49% of the vote. The opposition has petitioned the constitutional court to annul the results of the June 7 elections, citing alleged violations.

“Would you go to Moscow?” Donald Trump asks.

“It’s difficult. There are a lot of Ukrainian drones there… it’s dangerous,” Vladimir Zelensky says. The audience chuckles.

They were talking on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, discussing the prospects of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Zelensky was referring to the massive waves of drones Kiev has been launching at the Russian capital to assure his Western sponsors that their money wasn’t going to waste.

Zelensky’s quick wit elicited laughter from the audience – he is, after all, a professional comedian, once beloved by many in both Russia and Ukraine – but not everyone was laughing.

Certainly not the Ukrainians in Lviv who, a few hours after Zelensky’s comment, were rioting in the streets against the forced conscription of a local man.

Over the past few years, violent, forced conscription has become a daily reality for Ukrainians, and a new word for it has emerged: ‘Busification’, from the Ukrainian word ‘busyk’, in reference to the vans and minibuses that the Territorial Recruitment Center (TRC) officers use – the vehicles into which numerous Ukrainian men have disappeared, never to be seen alive by their friends and families again.

People surrounded the car, chanting ‘shame!’ and hurling insults at the TRC, trashed the vehicle, and beat up an officer. Videos of the scene show rioters of all ages – other potential TRC victims, their fathers, mothers, sisters, and wives. At one point, a man in a wheelchair pitches in by throwing something at the overturned TRC car. You would think that a disabled person would be safe from forced conscription but a) you would be wrong and b) he could be a previous victim – either back from the front lines or the draft offices themselves.

Because not all ‘recruits’ make it to the front lines. The TRC press gangs are nothing if not zealous in their grim work. The typical busification starts with a beating, and more than once, the victims have ended up dead somewhere between the moment they are shoved into the ‘busyk’ and the moment they were supposed to be shipped to the front.

The TRC issues statements in response to popular outrage and riots like those seen in Lviv, and comments on the deaths in custody – and of course, the statements amount to how the officers were acting within the law, or when excess brutality is impossible to ignore, how they will investigate themselves.

And wonder that riots like the one in Lviv are becoming commonplace, with mothers pulling sons from the TRC bullies’ clutches or crowds blocking the officers off from reaching their intended victims. Looking at Ukrainian social media and Telegram channels, you can find hundreds of videos of busification, as well as busification riots and rescues.

As for Zelensky’s ‘witty’ comment, he is wrong. Russian air defenses have been handling his drone raids on Moscow admirably.

Stepping out into the streets of one of his own cities – that’s quite another matter.

India and Russia must de-dollarize to boost bilateral trade as the countries roll out mechanisms to achieve the targeted $100 billion by 2030, a key Russian official told RT India.

Russia is developing a mechanism to expand payments and settlements in local currencies with partner countries such as India, Moscow’s trade representative to India, Zlata Antusheva, explained.

“It is extremely important to create an independent system with the use of local currencies,” she noted, pointing out that most of the payments between Russia and India are now “made in local currencies.”

Antusheva said that three Russian banks – Sberbank, Gazprom Bank, and VTB Bank – have operations in India. Alfa Bank, the biggest private bank in Russia, is likely to set up shop in the country soon.

Russia and China have essentially eliminated the use of Western currencies in bilateral trade.

🇷🇺🤝🇮🇳 Sberbank Rolls Out ‘10-Minute Cross-Border Transaction Mechanism’ as Trading in National Currencies Accelerate - Zlata Antusheva, Lead of Govt Relations, Finance Sector, Trade Representative of Russia in India

‘Most part of our deals are happening in national currencies… https://t.co/ulGxnoCShw pic.twitter.com/9qVg5yDL6H

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) July 8, 2026

“Our main goal is to de-dollarize and to focus on development of our own currencies, of course, after some time, not only (at) bilateral level but at the regional level, at the BRICS level,” she asserted.

Moscow is seeking to create a more useful mechanism to make life easier for businesses, she continued, citing Sberbank, where businesses can now make a financial transaction in only 10 minutes.

Antusheva stressed the need for sovereign infrastructure to ensure technology independence, aligning with India’s self-reliance policy.

An India-Russia AI Cybersecurity Center of Excellence is also in the works, she noted, adding that it can connect the “AI ecosystem between the two countries, and then take it to the other BRICS nations.”

South Africa has processed between 47,000 and 50,000 migrants for deportation and voluntary repatriation at a temporary center near the Zimbabwe border, the provincial Department of Home Affairs has said.

Hundreds of foreign nationals continue to arrive at the Musina facility in Limpopo as the authorities carry out removals and assisted returns through the Beitbridge Port of Entry, officials said. The increase follows the closure of the Durban Repatriation Centre and comes amid growing calls by anti-migrant organizations for undocumented immigrants to leave South Africa.

Some foreign nationals have been deported or have voluntarily returned to countries including Mozambique and Malawi as tensions over illegal immigration continue to rise.

”You know that we started with massive numbers, but the figures have now scaled down. Yesterday, we managed to process 1,675 people and, by the end of business, everyone who was at the facility had been moved,” he told the public broadcaster.

”But you must understand that this remains a moving target. As we process people, others continue to come forward and, wherever they are in the nine provinces, they are brought here.”

Matsaung said that on Thursday morning there were between 1,500 and 2,000 migrants at the facility awaiting processing. He said the number of migrants processed by the department continued to increase.

”We are pleased with the journey we have traveled, from where we started to where we are today. Since we started in KwaZulu-Natal and continued at this repatriation center, we are now moving between 47,000 and 50,000 people processed,” Matsaung said.

”From there, fingerprints are taken. The biometric checks identify people already in the system, but we are also taking fingerprints as part of our digitisation process,” Matsaung said.

He added the digitized biometric records would help authorities identify individuals who return to South Africa after being deported. ”As and when some of these people who have been declared undesirable return, the system will be able to pick them up through their fingerprints.

”Biometrics is the way to go, and that is how we are enhancing technology to make our work easier and to ensure that we can identify people with ease through the biometric system,” he concluded.

First published by IOL

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has ordered an investigation into how an alleged fictitious government agency was established within the presidency with about $950,000 allocated in the 2026 budget.

The probe will examine the activities of the purported Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), which Tinubu’s office said was never established by the Nigerian government and had no legal basis or presidential approval.

In a statement on Tuesday, the presidency said that the PFIPC was reportedly operated by Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, who presented himself as its director-general using forged documents. The agency obtained office space in Abuja, opened bank accounts, and held meetings with government officials and foreign representatives before the case emerged.

Tinubu has directed the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to investigate the case and submit a comprehensive report within 30 days.

Adeyemi has gone into hiding and police have launched a manhunt for him on suspicion of forgery, impersonation, and related offenses. He was previously arrested in October 2025 after security agencies began investigating suspected forged appointment documents linked to the purported PFIPC.

Adeyemi has denied the allegations, saying that the PFIPC was a legitimate agency established in 2024 to attract foreign investment and promote Nigeria as a destination for investors. He told local outlet Premium Times last Thursday that he was duly appointed to lead the council and had an appointment letter, but declined to provide further details, citing the ongoing court case. Speaking from an undisclosed location, he said he was not safe and was taking precautions.

“You know the government we have. They are just playing a defense mechanism to shut me up. My organization was set up in 2024,” he said, according to Premium Times.

The Czech Republic remains skeptical about NATO’s strategy of continued military support for Ukraine, to which it does not contribute financially, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said as he left the bloc leaders’ summit in Ankara, Türkiye on Wednesday.

Babis’ party won last year’s election on a nationalist platform that included reversing the Ukraine aid policy championed by his predecessor, Petr Fiala, and urging a diplomatic resolution of the conflict with Russia instead.

The declaration approved by NATO leaders in Ankara this week highlighted a pledge of €70 billion ($80 billion) in military equipment, assistance and training for Ukraine in 2026, with a similar amount expected the following year. The money is not a new package, but rather past commitments, including the European Union’s “loan” approved in April. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia opted out of the mechanism.

Babis said the Czech Republic intended to reach the required NATO level of 2% of GDP level for military spending next year, but also needed money for healthcare, raising police salaries, and other domestic priorities.

Kremlin calls US backing of Ukrainian escalation delusional

Ukraine is seeking additional Western funding to ramp up long-range kamikaze drone attacks on Russian oil refineries, tankers and other targets. During a US-Ukrainian meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed the escalation “creates the space to negotiate the end of this war,” with President Donald Trump endorsing his reasoning.

Czech coalition strained by aid payment

The aid issue caused tensions in the Czech ruling coalition just before the summit, after Foreign Minister Petr Macinka announced the transfer of an unspecified sum to PURL, a NATO fund through which European members pay for American weapons intended for Kiev.

Parliament speaker Tomio Okamura, a vocal critic of Ukraine, blasted the move for going against the coalition agreement, but Babis sided with Macinka, saying the money had been allocated by the Fiala government and could not be returned to the budget. The prime minister said the one-off small contribution to purchase interceptor drones was preferable to a direct transfer to the Ukrainian government.

New cancer cases are projected to nearly double worldwide by 2050, with the disease expected to affect more than 90% of the global population in some way, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

In a report released on Wednesday, the agency said cancer remains the world’s second-leading cause of death after cardiovascular disease, claiming more than 26,000 lives daily. It estimates there are currently nearly 10 million deaths and 20.6 million new cases annually, warning that without urgent action the latest figure will rise to 35 million by 2050. One in five people is expected to develop cancer during their lifetime, with lung cancer remaining its deadliest form.

Despite rapid advances in treatment, the WHO says survival increasingly depends on where patients live and their financial circumstances. Five-year survival for breast and childhood cancers exceeds 85% in high-income countries but falls below 45% in low-income nations, it estimates.

The agency estimates that, if current trends continue, cancer will affect 92% of people worldwide at some point in their lives by 2050, either through their own diagnosis or that of a close relative. The WHO urged governments, international organizations, and the private sector to adopt a “people-centered” approach by integrating cancer services from prevention to diagnosis and treatment into universal health coverage, strengthening support for patients and caregivers, and ensuring research and innovation expand access to treatment.

The US, UK, Cuba, and China are also pursuing cancer vaccine development through approved treatments, clinical trials or personalized mRNA platforms.

On July 8, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov landed in Niamey for the second round of ministerial consultations between Moscow and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). This meeting, bringing together Russia, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, fits into a tectonic shift already underway on the continent. Western media may talk about a “French withdrawal” or “Russian expansion,” but the reality runs deeper. The peoples of the Sahel have stopped being pawns in a game decided elsewhere, and have set out to build their own destiny.

The Niamey meeting continues the dialogue which started in Moscow in April 2025, when Russia and members of the Sahel alliance met for the first time in this new format. Since then, Lavrov himself has confirmed that these consultations would now be regular, a clear signal that this partnership is not an isolated diplomatic move but a lasting structure.

This trip to Ethiopia was no accident. It also aimed to bring the AES closer to the African Union, at a time when relations between the pan-African institution and the three transitional governments in Bamako, Niamey, and Ouagadougou remain difficult. In doing so, Russia appears as a facilitator of African sovereignty in every dimension – diplomacy, energy, and security.

A partnership, not a tutelage

What fundamentally sets the Russian approach apart from that of the former colonial powers is the nature of the relationship on offer. For decades, Western powers drained the continent’s resources, leaving behind dependency and instability, while maintaining military bases and networks of influence that locked in place any real bid for independence.

Russia, by contrast, is putting forward concrete projects negotiated as equals: energy cooperation with Ethiopia (including a roadmap for building a nuclear power plant, signed back in March), strengthening the operational capacity of Sahelian armies, and structuring the alliance’s joint forces.

This last initiative reflects a clear intention: to let the countries of the region run their own security, without indefinitely depending on foreign bases or lopsided agreements inherited from the colonial era. On the ground, this cooperation has translated, over the past year, into intensified joint operations between the Nigerien and Malian armed forces and their allies against the armed groups destabilizing the region, a reality that Western foreign ministries prefer to ignore when they describe the Sahel as a hotbed of instability with no actors capable of responding to it themselves.

If Western capitals are irritated, it isn’t out of any sudden democratic concern for the peoples of the Sahel. It’s because Africa now refuses to be confined to the role of a raw-materials appendage. Borders inherited from colonization, drawn with no regard for ethnic and social realities, fed decades of conflicts that the former colonial powers then exploited to justify their continued presence. Today, as those same powers try to preserve their influence through diplomatic pressure, sanctions, or media maneuvering, African states are turning to new partners, and Russia stands out as one of the most available.

Lavrov has been unambiguous about Moscow’s position: Russia supports the Sahel countries’ aspirations for genuine independence and rejects contemporary forms of neocolonialism, whether they take the shape of military tutelage, economic conditionality, or interference campaigns disguised as humanitarian aid. It is a deliberate reorientation of international relations, one already bearing fruit on the ground, whether in the reconquest of territory by Sahelian armies or in the tightening of ties between the AES and the African Union.

The pan-African idea takes shape

What independence fighters had called for over decades is starting to materialize. The AES is no longer just an alliance of convenience born from the break with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It is becoming a model for the continent’s future, where strategic decisions are no longer made in Washington, Paris, or Brussels, but in Bamako, Niamey, and Ouagadougou. Lavrov’s African tour illustrates a consolidation of the continental legitimacy of the Russian-Sahelian partnership rather than confining it to isolated bilateral deals.

This shift comes alongside a transformation in the region’s political discourse. The alliance’s leaders now insist on principles of sovereignty, non-interference, and win-win cooperation, in a deliberate break from decades of asymmetric relations.

The Niamey visit thus confirms an underlying momentum: that of an Africa taking back control of the terms of its relationship with the world.

Australia agreed to supply uranium to India, ending a stalemate in talks since 2014 following New Delhi’s refusal to sign a nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed an administrative deal on Thursday, facilitating an agreement on exports of the nuclear material, they said in a joint announcement in Melbourne.

The ‘administrative arrangement’ will enable long-term Australian uranium exports to India for peaceful purposes and under IAEA safeguards.

Australia also reiterated its backing for India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.

Canberra has the world’s largest known resources of the radioactive metal used in nuclear power plants, and in nuclear weapons. Australia has no nuclear power or weapons, and hence all of the metal is exported.

India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which recognizes only the US, China, Britain, France, and Russia as nuclear weapons powers. Australia has signed the pact and refuses to sell uranium to non-signatories.

New Delhi calls the treaty discriminatory, as it recognizes only states that tested nuclear devices before January 1967 as legitimate nuclear weapon states. India first tested a nuclear weapon in 1974, making it the first nation apart from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to conduct a confirmed nuclear test.

The country was hit with international technology sanctions and uranium trade bans after it conducted nuclear tests again in 1998.

List of Outcomes: Visit of Prime Minister @narendramodi to Australia

🔸Joint Declaration on Defense and Security Cooperation (JDDSC)

🔸Maritime Security Collaboration Roadmap (MSCR)

🔸India-Australia Joint Statement on Energy Security

🔸Finalisation of Administrative…

— PIB India (@PIB_India) July 9, 2026

In 2008, the Nuclear Suppliers Group of countries, which includes the US, granted a waiver allowing India to buy uranium from its members, opening up New Delhi’s path to pursue bilateral pacts to get the material. It inked such a deal with Canada in March.

Australia had opposed selling uranium to India until it signs the Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it eased that stance in 2014, when Canberra agreed to allow exports subject to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and “separation of the Indian civilian and military nuclear programs.”

The administrative agreement signed on Thursday is seen as removing the obstacles to starting uranium supplies, helping India achieve its clean energy goals.

New Delhi seeks to generate 100 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2047 – enough to power nearly 60 million homes a year in a country with a population of 1.4 billion.

Though the South Asian nation has doubled its installed nuclear power capacity in the last decade, nuclear still accounts for a mere 3% of its power generation.

Modi, who is on a three-day trip to Australia, also launched a dedicated critical minerals corridor.

The countries pledged greater defense and security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, “reflecting a step change in the depth and ambition” of the bilateral ties, apart from the Australia-India Partnership on Cyber, Critical Technologies and Supply Chains (AI-PACTS).

Ukrainian special services pressured a Russian man with a criminal record into participating in an attempted drone-bomb assassination of a senior military officer in Moscow Region, the Federal Security Service (FSB) has said.

The suspect, who is in his late 40s, moved to Dnepr, Ukraine, after serving a prison term in Russia for theft and robbery in the 2000s, the agency said on Thursday. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) allegedly recruited him in February by threatening to prosecute his wife.

The suspect received training in sabotage operations before traveling to Russia via Moldova and Armenia. Once there, he rented an apartment and began surveilling the home of the intended target.

His Ukrainian handler allegedly concluded that the best way to carry out the assassination would be to use a small drone armed with an improvised explosive device and shielded from electronic countermeasures.

The man was instructed to recover the IED in Krasnodar Region and then travel to Kiev to be trained in piloting that type of aircraft. In a purported recording of a conversation, the Ukrainian handler said “our foreign friends” had helped design the weapon and would teach the suspect how to use it.

The FSB said its officers arrested the man after he obtained a vacuum-sealed drone payload containing 600 grams of explosive material. The suspect had also allegedly purchased a fake beard and mustache as a disguise.

Last month, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky announced a 40-day campaign targeting Russia with long-range kamikaze drone attacks and clandestine missions.

On the eve of this week’s NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye, the bloc released a report titled ‘Defense Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014-2025)’.

On the surface, the report shows a staggering increase in the level of defense spending by several NATO members over the course of the previous decade, with Lithuania leading the way with an increase of some 777%. In aggregate, NATO members, in seeking to meet the 2% GDP threshold for defense spending set by the US a decade ago, has seen a $1.364 trillion increase in the money invested in the militaries of the respective members over the past decade.

That’s a lot of money.

Two questions emerge from this data: First (and foremost), has this increase led to any qualitative or quantitative advantage on the part of NATO over Russia? And second, can NATO members sustain this kind of growth in defense expenditures over the course of the next decade?

It must be understood that the NATO of 2014 was very much an empty shell when it came to meaningful projection of military power. Over-reliant upon the US for its core defense needs since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO had become a shadow of its former self, a far cry from the cutting-edge military organization that had been built up in the decade of the 1980s.

The reality is that despite the massive increase in defense spending, NATO’s military capabilities were not advanced in any meaningful fashion over the course of the past decade. This has become evident as NATO has, in the past few years, discussed the potential of deploying military forces on Ukrainian soil as part of any peacekeeping arrangement, should the Russia-Ukraine conflict reach a negotiated conclusion. It became obvious that the ‘big three’ European powers (France, the UK, and Germany) lacked any meaningful ability to project sustainable military power of any appreciable strength into Ukraine.

Most of NATO defense expenditure has been in the form of sustaining an aging, decrepit system out of touch with the reality of modern conflict. And to the degree modernization has taken place, it has simply replaced an aging equipment set within a legacy system tied down in Cold War-era doctrine with a newer equipment set still hamstrung by tactics and operational theory ill-suited for the modern battlefield.

Germany’s ill-fated decision to create a one-off fund of €100 billion ($114 billion) in 2022 to help revive a flagging Bundeswehr stands as a case in point regarding the efficacy of much of NATO’s defense spending over the course of the past decade – by 2025 the fund had run out, with little or nothing to show for it.

€100 billion down the drain, and the Bundeswehr as broken and decrepit as ever.

There isn’t a single national military inside NATO, including the US, that can prevail on a modern battlefield with an enemy of the quality of Russia. Ukraine has fielded the most capable non-Russian military in Europe today, and its forces are being bled white in the kind of war of attrition NATO forces could never survive.

In short, the $1.34 trillion that NATO has spent in increased defense expenditures since 2014 has left the bloc treading water. NATO’s task is to build and sustain a modern military capable of fighting a modern enemy, such as Russia.

In this, NATO has failed.

The next question is can NATO spend its way out of its current predicament?

On paper, the answer is a heavily caveated ‘yes’.

NATO has found itself engaged in a proxy war with Russia that compels it to divert valuable military resources – fiscal and material – to Ukraine, which has become a giant furnace which consumes all that is fed into it without advancing the problem favorably vis-à-vis Russia.

But money doesn’t grow on trees, and at the end of the day the NATO appetite for war will far outstrip the ability of its constituent membership to pay the bill. Military industrial capacity is lacking across the board, and the costs associated with fixing this deficit are prohibitively high.

So, too, are the costs associated with the kind of massive military expansions being considered by nations such as Germany, which seeks to triple the size of its armed forces by 2029.

Even if the money were available for such an endeavor, the public appetite for supporting and sustaining this kind of expanded military infrastructure is lacking. The more Germany – and by extension, Western Europe – pours into defense, the more alienated society becomes, creating domestic political problems for those seeking massive increases in defense spending.

While Russia cannot afford to remain stagnant in the face of increased NATO defense expenditures, especially when such increases are tied to increasingly bellicose statements about the potential for war between Russia and NATO in the coming years, the fact is the NATO defense expenditure phenomenon is a self-containing problem, meaning the bloc’s ability to continue defense expenditures at the present rate of growth will more than likely lead to the political and economic collapse of the individuals and political parties which currently advocate in support of such policies.

All Russia really needs to do is keep the Ukrainian furnace burning, and NATO will consume itself.

An RT employee was detained and interrogated after arriving in the UK from Russia several days ago under the country’s counterterrorism laws.

James Scott said he traveled to Manchester to visit friends and family and watch World Cup matches when he was stopped by the border authorities and questioned for two and a half hours.

Speaking publicly for the first time after leaving the UK, Scott said the authorities seized his electronic devices, returning them several days later, and that he remains under investigation, which he called “ridiculous” and “absurd.”

Scott is the second RT journalist to be detained by the British authorities. Last year, Steve Sweeney, the head of RT’s Lebanon bureau, was briefly detained by counterterrorism officers at London Heathrow Airport and extensively questioned about his work for the Russian broadcaster.

Watch Scott describe his experience below.

US President Donald Trump has warned he could be assassinated by Iran, claiming that Tehran considers him its “number one target.” His comments came as a tentative ceasefire between Washington and Tehran collapsed, with fighting flaring up anew around the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump made the remarks at a NATO summit in Ankara on Wednesday, after the US struck dozens of Iranian targets in retaliation for alleged attacks on oil tankers in the strait. While the US military accused Tehran of “unwarranted aggression,” Iranian media, citing government sources, said that one of the tankers had ignored warnings, stressing that Iran should approve all passages.

Following the attacks, Trump branded the Iranian leadership “scum”, “sick,” and “cuckoo,” declared the ceasefire “over,” and called continued negotiations “a waste of time.”

The US president noted, “I may be gone, too, because I’m their number one target.” “That’s the way they act,” he added, claiming that he is doing “what’s right for the country”.

At the time, Tehran rejected the accusations as “completely baseless” and dismissed them as “a malicious conspiracy orchestrated by Zionist and anti-Iranian circles, aimed at further complicating the issues between the US and Iran.”

However, Iran has repeatedly vowed “harsh retaliation” against Trump and other US officials involved in the January 2020 drone strike that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) General Qasem Soleimani.

Over the past several years, Trump has been targeted in several assassination attempts. He was hit in the ear by a bullet fired by Thomas Matthew Crooks at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, an attack that killed one rally-goer before Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper. Two months later, a man was arrested after being spotted with a rifle near Trump’s golf course in Florida.

In April 2026, Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were rushed from the Washington Hilton after gunfire broke out at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. The suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, was later charged with attempting to assassinate the president.

Russia and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) have agreed to expand military cooperation, with Moscow pledging further support to strengthen the operational capabilities of the group’s armed forces. The move comes amid ongoing terrorist attacks in the region allegedly linked to foreign actors, including France and Ukraine.

The commitment was made during the second ministerial meeting between Russia and the AES – made up of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso – held in Niamey on Wednesday to deepen the “excellent” ties between Moscow and the Sahel states, according to a joint statement.

Russia and the AES claimed that external state actors were involved in the attacks, as well as what they described as economic and media “terrorism” in the region. The statement mentioned “alleged collusion between Ukraine, France, other countries” and terrorist groups operating in the Sahel.

The ministers also acknowledged the efforts of troops from AES member states in repelling terrorist attacks, as well as the contribution of Russia’s African Corps to counterterrorism operations in the Sahel.

The AES was formally established in September 2023 as a mutual defense and cooperation pact by Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger to jointly combat a jihadist insurgency that has gripped the region since 2012. The three military-led states have severed defense ties with France, expelled French troops, and repeatedly accused Paris of sponsoring terrorism in the Sahel. They have since turned to Russia for security support, describing it as a reliable partner.

According to the joint statement issued following the meeting in Niamey on Wednesday, officials said AES-Russia relations have evolved into a partnership based on “mutual respect, sovereign equality of states, non-interference in internal affairs, and reciprocal interests.”

China has accused Anthropic’s AI coding tool Claude Code of containing “security backdoor vulnerabilities” capable of transmitting sensitive user information without consent, warning the mechanism poses a “serious security risk.”

Claude Code, developed by the US startup with close ties to the Pentagon, is an AI-powered coding assistant that helps developers write, edit, debug, and understand code using natural-language prompts. Because it runs inside a developer’s terminal rather than a browser, it can access source code and other files the user chooses to share.

In a risk advisory issued on Wednesday, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s (MIIT) cybersecurity threat platform NVDB said it had identified a potential security risk in several recent Claude Code versions. According to NVDB, they contain a “built-in monitoring mechanism” that automatically transmits users’ geographic location, identity identifiers, and other sensitive data to remote servers without consent.

It also called for tighter controls on outbound network access for development tools and stronger traffic monitoring to prevent unauthorized data transmission.

Anthropic has not publicly responded to the advisory.

China’s relationship with Anthropic has been contentious. While the company prohibits Chinese firms and their foreign affiliates from using Claude under regional and national security restrictions, reports say Chinese researchers and engineers continue to access it via overseas proxies. Since February, Anthropic has accused Alibaba and several other Chinese AI labs of illegally “distilling” its models to train competing systems.

The advisory followed claims posted on Reddit last week that Anthropic had secretly “embedded spyware in Claude Code” to identify users illegally accessing the service from China.

Hi, this is an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation.

The team has landed stronger mitigations since then and we’ve actually been meaning to take this down for a while. We merged the…

— Thariq (@trq212) June 30, 2026

Anthropic employee Thariq responded on X that the code was part of an “experiment” launched “to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation,” adding that the company planned to remove the mechanism in the July 2 release.

During the US war on Iran, the software reportedly identified an elementary school in Minab as a target. A subsequent US strike killed nearly 160 people, but Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argued that the use of Claude did not violate the company’s “red lines,” claiming “a human made that final call.”

A Russian woman in her mid-20s has been accused of terrorism and treason after knowingly taking part in a conspiracy to assassinate a senior military official in Moscow, the Federal Security Service (FSB) reported on Thursday.

The suspect was allegedly driven to work for the Ukrainian special services by a romantic relationship with a Ukrainian man, who investigators believe feigned feelings for the young woman in order to recruit her into Kiev’s service.

She said that since contacting her online flame in 2024, she carried out several missions. These allegedly included collecting IP addresses of public WiFi routers in St. Petersburg and surveilling the car of a person she was told was guilty of war crimes and marked for assassination.

Her final task before being evacuated to Ukraine was to rent an apartment in the Russian capital, which she did in March. She placed cameras there that Ukrainian agents used for remote surveillance of the target and stockpiled supplies that the intended assassin would have used after her departure from Russia. The FSB said she was arrested before she could fly to Türkiye.

The agency claimed that the thwarted assassination plot was part of a series of attacks that Ukrainian special services were planning “with direct involvement of Western handlers.” The planned attacks on military infrastructure, a defense plant, and Defense Ministry employees would have been “unprecedented in scale and severity of threat,” the FSB said.

Berezovskaya was allegedly killed by her handlers, one of whom is a military intelligence officer, after returning to Ukraine, the national police reported this week. Kiev claims that the Ukrainian agent went rogue. Moscow said the incident in Monaco demonstrates the terrorist nature of the “Kiev regime.”

An angry crowd attacked and overturned a vehicle carrying draft officers in western Ukraine on Wednesday evening after a press-gang detained a man on the street.

The riot in the city of Lviv is the latest case of spontaneous protests against the ‘busification’ campaign, in which draft officers ambush military-age men in public places and send them to the front line in the conflict with Russia, often using violence against those who resist.

A video from the scene shows protesters accosting the officers before rocking the vehicle and chanting “Shame!”

The regional enlistment office said in a statement that the confrontation began after draft officers and police stopped a man for a routine document check and discovered that he was in violation of unspecified enlistment laws. The man was taken into custody and referred for a medical examination.

Shortly after the detention, an “aggressive” mob blocked a vehicle carrying another group of draft officers at the same location and caused “significant damage” to it, officials said.

Lviv Region Governor Maksim Kozitsky said the rioters should be “identified and brought to justice.” He added that the regional enlistment office would also investigate the actions of the officers. “There is no place for lawlessness,” he wrote on Telegram.

Dmitry Lubinets, Ukraine’s top human rights official, recently requested an investigation into the case of a recruit who died last month in Lviv Region a day after being drafted. According to the man’s family, the authorities failed to notify them of his death for nearly two weeks, and his body showed signs of violence, including multiple bruises.

Instagram’s latest update makes reels, videos, and photos from public profiles available to Meta AI by default, allowing the company’s AI tools to generate content using them unless creators opt out.

On Tuesday, Meta rolled out its new Muse Image model, entering a market dominated by image generators such as OpenAI’s GPT Image, Google Gemini, and Midjourney. The tool launched integrated into Instagram, with users automatically enrolled in its AI features.

“If your account is public, anyone on Instagram can reuse all or part of your reels, feed videos, and photos shared after reuse became available,” Instagram says on its Help Center page. “In addition, people may be able to create content with your Instagram content using AI features at Meta.”

Minors with public accounts will only have their content made available in this way to people they follow, according to Instagram. Users also will not be notified if someone creates content using Meta AI with their public photos or videos, the company says.

These default settings can be turned off in the Sharing and Reuse section of an Instagram profile.

Meta’s opt-out approach mirrors practices used by other tech companies, including Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, which enable certain AI features by default while allowing users to opt out.

It comes as AI-generated content, including deepfakes, is driving a growing share of scams that cost Americans tens of billions of dollars each year, according to new research from Gallup.

Americans lost an estimated $68 billion to scams last year, or around $186 million per day, the polling firm said in a survey published last week. Around 12% of victims said their cases involved AI or a deepfake, although the actual figure may be significantly higher, according to Gallup.

The US could grant Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot anti-aircraft missiles, President Donald Trump has said during a meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Türkiye. He maintained, however, that Washington would not supply the missiles directly.

Ukraine has been heavily dependent on weapons from its Western backers throughout most of its conflict with Russia, which is now in its fifth year. Zelensky has repeatedly blamed the West for arms shortages and delays in deliveries, while constantly demanding more aid, including Patriot missiles, saying Ukraine does not have enough interceptors to counter Russian airstrikes.

“We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots. That’s pretty cool. This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving them enough,” Trump told Zelensky during a meeting in Ankara on Wednesday.

“It’s a defensive weapon, which I like better than an offensive weapon,” Trump added.

The US burned through its arsenal of interceptors during the war with Iran, with an estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) suggesting that the Pentagon used nearly half of its available Patriot missiles by April.

“We have Patriots, but we don’t have that many. We need them for ourselves too,” Trump said in response to a question on whether the US would send the missiles directly. He added that Ukraine could set up production “pretty quickly.”

Russia has warned that continued deliveries of Western arms make NATO members de facto participants in the conflict and risk triggering an all-out war.

In March, the Russian Defense Ministry published what it said are the addresses of companies involved in producing drone components for Ukraine on European territory. The ministry warned that European leaders are “dragging their countries into a war with Russia.”

Assembly lines for Patriot missiles in Ukraine would likely become high-priority targets for Russia. On Wednesday, the Defense Ministry announced strikes on several military sites across Ukraine, including a Samsung Ukraine facility it said was manufacturing components for FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has hit back at US President Donald Trump after he called Iran’s leadership “scum” and “violent people.”

The spat came as the US resumed strikes in Iran in the most serious flare-up of hostilities since the countries signed a preliminary peace framework last month.

“Addressing the Civilized and Courageous Nation of Iran with derogatory language does not diminish its Greatness,” Araghchi wrote on X on Wednesday evening.

“Iranians are known for their civility, culture, and strong moral values. We do not answer vulgarity with vulgarity, but with action: fearlessly and with great valor,” he added.

Although the diplomat did not mention Trump by name, Iranian state broadcaster Press TV said he was responding to comments the US president made earlier that day during a NATO summit in Türkiye.

“I don’t want to deal with them any more. They’re scum,” Trump said. “They’re led by sick people and they’re vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”

The US struck targets in Iran for the second consecutive night on Thursday in what Trump called “retribution” for attacks on commercial ships attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran said the renewed attacks violated the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on June 17 and vowed to retaliate.

Although Tehran has not officially admitted responsibility for the attacks on three tankers earlier this week, Iranian media cited officials as saying that the targeted ships attempted to cross the Strait of Hormuz without authorization.

The US and Iran have clashed over the interpretation of the MoU. Under the deal, Tehran agreed to “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels” through the Strait of Hormuz. At the same time, Iran and Oman were to begin negotiations to “define the future administration and maritime services” in the waterway. Tehran has repeatedly insisted that it has the right to regulate traffic and collect tolls.

The US carried out strikes in southern Iran for the second night in a row on Thursday after President Donald Trump said the fragile ceasefire was effectively over.

Hostilities resumed after the US and its Arab allies in the region blamed Iran for attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

In a statement on X, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said US forces were “conducting additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.”

“The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway,” CENTCOM said.

At the direction of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command forces have started conducting additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent…

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 8, 2026

Iranian media reported explosions along the southern coast, including in the port cities of Bushehr, Chabahar, and Konarak, as well as on Lavan Island. At least two blasts were recorded near the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Fars News Agency reported. 

A video posted on social media appears to show a strike in Chabahar, where Iranian media reported that a maritime control tower had been targeted.

According to Iranian state broadcaster IRIB, the attack on Chabahar, the country’s largest port, also damaged Imam Ali Hospital and severed major power lines. Electricity has since been partially restored. 

The strikes reportedly caused a large fire in Bushehr.

CENTCOM later reported additional strikes, saying US forces struck around 90 Iranian military targets, including air defense systems, missile and drone storage sites, as well as other targets on Iran’s coastline.

The attacks came during weeklong funeral processions for Iran’s longtime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who was killed during the first wave of the US-Israeli bombing campaign on February 28. Massive crowds attended events across Iran and neighboring Iraq.

Trump issued a warning to Iran shortly after the strikes began. “This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” he wrote on Truth Social.

Several hours earlier, the president declared that the ceasefire with Iran was effectively over. “I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them any more. They’re scum,” he told reporters during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Türkiye.

Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed “severe punishment” for the US strikes. 

The Iranian military later announced retaliatory strikes on US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned “the aggressive attacks carried out by the US terrorist army,” saying some of the strikes targeted two bridges, which “unquestionably constitutes a gross war crime.”

It also stated that the attacks were carried out “under the false pretext” of responding to alleged incidents involving several ships that sailed through the Strait of Hormuz in violation of Iranian regulations.

The US and Iran have clashed over the interpretation of the memorandum of understanding they signed on June 17. Under the deal, Iran agreed to “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels” through the Strait of Hormuz. At the same time, Iran and Oman were to begin negotiations to “define the future administration and maritime services” in the waterway. Iran has repeatedly insisted that it has the right to regulate traffic and collect tolls.

Despite US attempts to sabotage and manipulate the event, the UN General Assembly has followed the request of the Cuban delegation to debate the “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”

While this debate has been an annual event since 1992, this year its backdrop is particularly grim, as Washington has greatly escalated its longstanding economic warfare campaign against Havana. At the same time, the US has also threatened a military attack, which may or may not have been delayed by the US defeat in the war against Iran.

But the Cuba debate at the UN also needs to be put in a much larger context: A quarter of a millennium after its founding and about four decades after the end of the last century’s Cold War in the late 1980s, the American empire is declining.

Two recent failed US wars have made that much clear. Under President Donald Trump, the US has scaled down – though not entirely abandoned – its commitment to the Western proxy war against Russia via Ukraine, leaving the expensive and cruel meat grinder to NATO-EU Europeans too shortsighted to know when to quit and too cynical to care what they do to ordinary Ukrainians.

The reasons for this relative yet significant American disengagement have little to do with Trump’s personal – and volatile – attitude toward Russia, or for that matter, Ukraine. The US establishment has simply recognized that the initial aims of the Western proxy war cannot be achieved: Moscow has not been defeated or geopolitically degraded; regime change has not occurred.

America’s unipolar moment, inasmuch as it ever was real, has long been over, as John Mearsheimer – a rare voice of reason in the US – recently explained to the European Parliament. Meanwhile, a multipolar world has already emerged, even if it will keep evolving for a long time and is very unlikely to ever correspond to the utopian fantasy of perfect international equality some may dream about. Real-world multipolarity is vastly preferable to American unipolarity, but it will be a global balance of great powers, or at best, a concert of such powers.

Yet there is a paradox to American decline: While the vast majority of humanity sharing a planet with its biggest rogue state urgently needs the US to lose its extraordinary and catastrophically malignant power, the process will not be fun. On the contrary, the declining US is and will be for quite a while even more aggressive, unpredictable, and dangerous than before. Unlike the former Soviet Union, which went down with historically unusual self-restraint, the American empire is likely to wreak ever more havoc on its way down to the rubbish heap of history.

Next to, for instance, Gaza and Venezuela, one place where you can see this US escalation in action is Cuba. Indeed, Cuba is a particularly pronounced example: Under an unforgiving and criminal American embargo for almost two-thirds of a century, the Caribbean island nation of around 10 million people has recently been subjected to an even fiercer and constantly escalating regime of sanctions and blockade, based on an absurd executive order issued by Trump at the end of January.

Cutting off its oil supplies in particular – a viciously inhumane strategy facilitated by the US assault on Venezuela half a year ago – Washington has been clear that its aim is brutal coercion: Either Cuba submits and becomes, in essence, a US protectorate like post-Maduro-kidnapping Venezuela or its people will continue to suffer under a lethal blockade. By now, Cuba has been hit by its third total nationwide blackout since the beginning of the year, while severe power cuts are already a constant part of everyday life.

Cubans also suffer from a breakdown of their agriculture and food distribution systems, both heavily affected by the energy blockade: No gasoline or diesel means no agricultural machinery and no transport; no power means no cooling chains, for instance. Harvests are rotting in the fields; farmers are forced to leave their farms. Meanwhile, the health sector is impoverished and paralyzed. Around 100,000 Cubans cannot receive necessary treatment; 11,000 children cannot have surgeries they need.

While exact figures are impossible to come by, there is no doubt that Washington’s merciless economic warfare against Cuba is producing mass casualties. This is, after all, what US sanctions and blockades have always done. A recent study in The Lancet concluded that these US measures are associated with around 564,000 excess deaths per year.

On average, this is comparable to the annual death toll from direct armed conflict. Keep in mind that the Lancet figure is a low count, since the study only includes the effects of unilateral US sanctions. In Cuba, it is already clear that child mortality has doubled. The scales are still different, but as in the Gaza genocide, which the US has in effect been co-perpetrating with Israel, children are a special category of victims.

And all of this while Cuba does not even have the natural resources that made Venezuela a target of American greed. And despite Havana’s courageous solidarity with Palestine, unlike Iran, Cuba is not in a position to stymie America’s ally from hell, Israel.

As the NATO summit in Ankara has demonstrated, NATO-EU Europe is only doubling down on its obsequious submission to Washington. Where Europe could render the world an invaluable service by helping deter the declining yet hyper-aggressive US, the opposite is happening: Europe is also to blame for America’s continually escalating crimes since its unflagging support – AKA ‘burden shifting’ – frees US resources so it can do its worst.

But for the rest of the world, Cuba – small as it may be – is an urgent warning: While the American empire is declining and falling, we must learn to stand together to contain and, if necessary, fight its global aggression. We are very far from this strategy. That’s a pity because humanity’s survival may well require it.

One of Ukraine’s biggest shipping companies has been plagued by decades-long corruption and mismanagement to the point where it began losing market share and assets even under highly favorable conditions, the Kiev Independent reports.

The Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company (UDP), a state-owned enterprise that operates cargo transportation along the Danube River and carries out shipbuilding and repairs, has been reporting poor performance figures and losses over the past years, even though the river itself turned into a major export route for Ukrainian grain and iron during the conflict with Moscow, according to the Kiev Independent.

According to a letter written in May by a UDP supervisory board member, Benoit Pleska, addressed to the Ukrainian parliament and obtained by the Kiev Independent, the company reported a collapse of over 62% of its freight division and a decrease in its Danube freight market share from 3.11% to 1.1% from 2020 to 2024, even though the market itself grew by more than 19% over the same period.

“Such a divergence cannot reasonably be explained by external circumstances,” Pleska wrote. He also attributed the slide to “structural managerial failure,” as well as “corruption that has plagued the company’s assets for decades, systematically destroying the UDP fleet.” He requested a parliamentary probe into the issue.

The parliament’s transportation and infrastructure committee responded to the letter in June by calling its contents a source of “of significant current concern [that] undoubtedly requires a hearing and detailed review,” Kiev Independent reported, without specifying if any action was taken.

According to the outlet, the company’s management had elicited suspicion in the past. In 2017, 32 UDP vessels were allegedly lost in an embezzlement scheme causing damages of nearly $2 million. The Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities opened a probe, but the case is still pending.

In 2020, the company’s former director, Aleksey Khomyakov, was investigated over a suspicious attempt to transfer dozens of UDP vessels to another company based in Hungary. This investigation has not produced any tangible results as of July 2026 either, according to Kiev Independent.

The scandal also led to the resignation of Zelensky’s former chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, due to allegations of involvement. He was later briefly arrested in a separate money laundering case before being released on approximately $3.2 million bail in May.

In June, the Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities announced that they uncovered another Energoatom graft scheme involving the alleged theft of at least $3.8 million in public funds that was also linked to Mindich.

Russia has long accused Ukraine and the EU of being linked by “unified corruption chains,” claiming that a significant portion of the Western aid to Kiev – financed by taxpayers – is embezzled and kicked back to Ukraine’s supporters.

The US has charged the imprisoned head of an Indian crime syndicate and his ‘North American deputy’ with ordering a hit on a Khalistan separatist leader in Canada in 2023.

The federal indictment is a blow to Canada as it previously accused Indian intelligence agencies of playing a role in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, plunging relations between Ottawa and New Delhi into a crisis.

The indictment alleges that Bishnoi and Satinderjeet Singh ordered the shooting of Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey, British Columbia on June 18, 2023.

In May, 2024, Canadian police arrested and charged four Indian nationals over shooting.

The assassination triggered a diplomatic crisis after then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Canadian authorities were “actively pursuing credible allegations” linking Indian government agents to the murder. New Delhi rejected the claim as absurd.

Canadian police accused Indian intelligence agencies of using Bishnoi gang members to carry out killings and violent intimidation of supporters of the Khalistan Movement, which seeks to carve out an independent state for Sikhs in India’s Punjab.

New Delhi has denied the charges and accused Ottawa of ignoring extradition requests for Bishnoi gang members. The US indictment charging Bishnoi and Singh does not mention any role of the Indian government in the murder plot, Reuters reported.

The indictment says Bishnoi, who is in a Delhi jail, directed the operation from there using smuggled cellphones. Bishnoi has also been charged with providing a co-conspirator with a photograph and multiple addresses of Nijjar to facilitate the killing.

Singh allegedly directed the North American operations of the criminal group, named as the ‘Lawrence Bishnoi Organized Crime Group’. The FBI announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to Singh’s arrest.

Hours after the US indictment, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said there is “no evidence to suggest” that Indian officials were linked to the killing. “Nothing has come out to link the Indian government,” RCMP Deputy Commissioner Lisa Moreland told Canadian public broadcaster CBC News.

The row led to the mutual expulsions of top diplomats in 2024.

India and Canada agreed to reset bilateral ties after years of tensions in June last year, after Trudeau resigned following low approval ratings and mounting pressure from within his party. In September, Canada designated the Bishnoi gang as a ‘terrorist entity’.

Bilateral ties between Ottawa and New Delhi received a boost when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney visited India in February. He also initiated talks on a trade deal, which is expected to be completed by November.

Carney’s stance has drawn the ire of some Sikh groups. They have accused Ottawa of failing to hold India accountable to safeguard Sikh Canadians from “foreign interference and transnational repression.”

Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure will neither destabilize the country’s economy nor create public panic, President Vladimir Putin has said during a meeting with government officials on Wednesday.

Ukraine has stepped up mid- and long-range strikes on targets deep inside Russia, hitting oil refineries, gas compression stations, civilian infrastructure, and vehicles, including those traveling between mainland Russia and Crimea. The attacks have disrupted logistics, affected local fuel supplies, and caused numerous civilian casualties.

“It is abundantly clear that the adversary is seeking to damage our economy, but above all to create an atmosphere of anxiety in the society. We understand that this goal is impossible to achieve,” Putin said during a virtual meeting.

”Russia’s energy system has one of the highest resilience margins in the world,” he added, urging officials to work more closely with energy companies to swiftly address any local fuel shortages.

Moscow has accused Ukraine of carrying out “terrorist attacks” and vowed systematic retaliatory strikes on military-linked infrastructure across Ukraine, including in Kiev. This week, Russian forces launched a large-scale drone and missile barrage, targeting arms production and maintenance facilities, fuel depots, and military airfields.

Russia remains the Alliance of Sahel States’ (AES) “main partner” in combating terrorism, Niger’s Foreign Minister Bakary Yaou Sangare said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the second ministerial meeting between Russia and the AES in Niamey, Sangare said that the AES were satisfied with the implementation of their previous agreements, particularly in the defense sector, where several accords had strengthened the capabilities of AES armed forces in the fight against terrorism.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow and the Alliance share a common vision of a multipolar world order and oppose “neo-colonial practices” imposed by Western countries. He added that the Alliance had made significant progress in regional integration and in building a new security architecture.

Speaking about diplomatic missions, Lavrov noted Russia had completed its presence across the Alliance with the opening of its embassy in Niger.

The AES was established in 2023 by the governments of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger following a series of coups across the Sahel. The three military-led governments have cut defense ties with France, accusing their former colonial power of failing to contain the deadly jihadist insurgency devastating the Sahel and have expanded security ties with Russia.

In April, Russian military instructors and personnel from the Africa Corps, a Russian Defense Ministry unit deployed in Mali, provided air support to help Malian forces prevent the militants from seizing key sites, including the presidential palace in Bamako, officials said.

Beyond defense, AES members are also seeking closer cooperation with Moscow in other sectors, including civil nuclear energy. In February, Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore told RT that cooperation with Russia’s Rosatom was underway under a signed memorandum and that Burkinabe students were already training in Russia.

UK police drew batons amid a clash with enraged locals at a protest in Glasgow, Scotland on Tuesday, as officers evacuated two men accused of being involved in a rape away from the furious crowd.

The protesters gathered outside an apartment block in the city’s East End over concerns that someone living in the building posed a public risk, according to the Glasgow Times.

Videos from the protest show the police pushing scores of angry locals aside as they lead two young men out of the building and into a police van while the men try to cover their faces.

The crowd is heard chanting “Beast! Beast! Beast!” In Scottish slang, the word refers to a rapist or child molester.

When one protester rushed at one of the men and struck at him, the police drew their batons and shouted “get back” at the crowd.

A 50-year-old was charged in connection with a police assault after the incident, a police spokesperson said in a statement cited by the media.

Jebril Abdelrahman, 19, was charged with rape and Denison Charles, 20, was charged with assault at Glasgow Sheriff Court, the Scottish Sun reported on Wednesday.

Abdelrahman, who The Sun said is from Glasgow, was reportedly remanded in custody. Local social media accounts, including British anti-immigration activist Tommy Robinson, however, referred to him as a migrant.

Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform party has made significant advances in recent months, winning more than 1,452 seats in local elections across England in May amid Labour’s sinking popularity. Growing anger over immigration has stoked protests and riots across the UK in recent years, inflamed by a series of high-profile violent crimes and sexual assault cases involving migrants and asylum seekers.

The European Parliament has rebuked Kiev over its decision to rename an elite military unit after World War II-era Nazi collaborators, a move that has fueled a weeks-long diplomatic row with Poland.

Militants from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the armed wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), killed at least 100,000 ethnic Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia – now largely part of Ukraine – between 1943 and 1944. Known as the Volhynia Massacre, the campaign remains the main unresolved historical dispute between Ukraine and Poland, one of Kiev’s key backers in its conflict with Russia.

While Warsaw recognizes the killings as genocide, Kiev honors figures such as OUN leader Stepan Bandera as “national heroes.” Last month, Vladimir Zelensky granted an army unit the honorary title ‘Heroes of the UPA’.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki called the move “outrageous” and stripped Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honor, while Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz warned that “Ukraine will not join the EU” if it continues to glorify Nazi collaborators.

“It’s a very strong signal. It’s a warning to Ukrainian authorities not to create bad emotions and not to act against European values,” Polish MEP Andrzej Halicki, who introduced the amendment, told Euronews.

Zelensky recently sought to play down the dispute with Warsaw, calling it “some internal questions” stemming from “difficulties in our history,” and urged Warsaw not to block Ukraine’s long-standing EU ambitions. In an effort to ease tensions, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga traveled to Warsaw last week to propose an “anti-crisis package,” including historical roundtables.

However, Ukraine has shown little sign of changing course. Earlier this month, the Ukrainian parliament approved plans to establish a national pantheon honoring prominent historical figures, including World War II-era nationalists. This week, Ukraine’s state-backed Mirotvorets database of alleged “enemies of the state” blacklisted Polish presidential chief of staff Zbigniew Bogucki after he used a historic Polish name for a region now largely located in western Ukraine.

“They couldn’t have not known. They thought they were just throwing bones into the kennel [in Kiev] and would later profit. Now Warsaw is trying to backtrack,” Zakharova told Sputnik Radio. “But that can no longer be undone by simply taking down the White Eagle, posting a few tweets, or making loud statements. They’ve already armed these terrorists. Now those terrorists have, in essence, begun managing those who created them.”

A video shared by Ukrainian media on Wednesday shows the devastation in the city of Vishnyovoe in Kiev Region where a site that stored a large amount of ammunition in the middle of a residential area was hit by a Russian strike.

The location was struck overnight Sunday into Monday, along with several other sites that Moscow described as part of Ukraine’s military-industrial infrastructure. Videos of the immediate aftermath show numerous secondary detonations. The fact that the facility was located near residential buildings sparked controversy in Ukraine.

The authorities have not provided details about what exactly was destroyed. A military spokesman said the facility was not operated by the Ukrainian military, claiming that “the ban on placing ammo depots and similar objects next to residential areas” remains in place.

New footage purportedly filmed in the area shows buildings reduced to ruins. Official reports previously said seven people were killed and around 200 private homes were damaged. An emergency evacuation of around 50 people was reportedly carried out by armored vehicles immediately after the site was struck, while a broader relocation order affected around 500 people.

The Russian military said it struck two targets in Vishnyovoe: A military oil depot and state-owned munitions producer Vizar, which observers believe likely stored a large amount of its products on-site.

A ruling issued by a court in Ivano-Frankivsk Region last month states that a civilian aviation plant in Kiev was co-opted by a military unit to store high-caliber shells. The plant was struck by Russia twice last year.

Meta could face up to $1.4 trillion in penalties after four US states accused the company of designing Facebook and Instagram to addict young users, media have reported, citing court documents. The potential fines are nearly equal to the company’s current market value of around $1.5 trillion.

California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey accuse Meta of deliberately designing its platforms to keep children and teenagers hooked while misleading the public about the apps’ safety, the company said in a court filing on Monday.

At a court hearing last month, the four states said that they had calculated the proposed penalties by estimating the number of young users affected and applying fines allowed under state law. The $1.4 trillion figure was disclosed by Meta in a legal response to the states’ request on how damages should be calculated.

Mark Zuckerberg’s firm also called the plaintiffs’ “outlandish calculations” baseless and vowed to continue fighting the lawsuit.

A California Attorney General’s Office spokesperson defended the case, saying it alleges that Meta “has prioritized profits over the safety of kids and fueled the mental health crisis we see impacting a generation of American children.” The office said it looked forward to “holding Meta fully accountable.”

Meta is also facing lawsuits from 29 other states that are not part of the $1.4 trillion penalty claim. Most accuse the company of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting children’s data without parental consent. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will hear those claims alongside the four-state case in August, while a separate lawsuit brought by another 14 states is scheduled for February 2027.

Violence has escalated in South Sudan’s oil-rich Jonglei State after a county commissioner was assassinated during an attack blamed on opposition forces, officials in the East African nation said on Monday.

James Kueth Makuach, the government-appointed commissioner of Akobo County, was killed on Sunday when fighters from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition (SPLA-IO) attacked Walgak, a remote area in Akobo West, according to government and opposition officials.

Makuach had previously been aligned with the opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO) before defecting in April to President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). His appointment by the government deepened tensions in Akobo, a strategic opposition stronghold where the 2018 peace agreement assigns the county commissioner’s post to Riek Machar’s party.

Opposition-appointed Akobo governor John Wiyual Lul said that SPLA-IO fighters briefly seized the area before withdrawing after national forces arrived from the nearby town of Waat.

The fighting has left an unknown number of people dead, with senior military personnel reportedly among the casualties, including army Gen. Chuol Pathol and another officer, Gai Makuach Pan.

South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011 but has remained volatile after a five-year civil war erupted in 2013 over a feud between Kiir and Machar. The two leaders signed a power-sharing deal in 2018, but tensions have escalated since Machar was detained on treason charges last year.

On Monday, the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission, which monitors the implementation of South Sudan’s peace deal, warned that the renewed fighting threatens the ceasefire and civilian safety.

The latest clashes come days after the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) withdrew peacekeepers from its temporary base in Akobo, following months of deployment to protect civilians.

Last month, the South Sudanese National Elections Commission announced that the country would hold its first general election on December 22, after repeatedly missing previous voting deadlines.

Ukrainian drones have targeted a compressor station that forms part of the Blue Stream natural gas pipeline supplying Russian gas to Türkiye, Gazprom said on Wednesday, adding that the attack failed to disrupt deliveries.

According to the Russian energy giant, the Krasnodarskaya pumping station in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Region was targeted in a drone attack early on the morning of July 7, in an attempt to disrupt gas supplies to Türkiye.

Gazprom added that emergency measures taken by personnel prevented any interruption to gas flows through the pipeline, while repair work is underway to fix the damage caused by the attack.

The strike comes as Kiev has intensified long-range drone attacks targeting energy facilities and civilian sites inside Russia amid continued setbacks on the battlefield in recent months. Last week, the Russian Defense Ministry reported the capture of the key Ukrainian stronghold of Konstantinovka, which opens the way towards the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, the last two remaining cities held by Kiev in Donbass.

Commenting on the latest strike, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia is taking the maximum possible measures to minimize the threat of Ukrainian terrorist attacks against the global energy system. Peskov also expressed hope that Türkiye and other countries would use their influence to dissuade Kiev from carrying out such attacks.

Moscow has said it will respond to Kiev’s actions with “systematic and consistent strikes” on Ukraine’s military infrastructure. According to the Defense Ministry, Russian forces carried out more precision strikes on Ukrainian military-industrial facilities in Kiev in the early hours of Wednesday.

A Ukrainian drone has struck a passenger bus in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region, setting the vehicle ablaze, Governor Evgeny Balitsky has said, adding that all 11 people on board escaped unharmed.

In a post on Telegram, Balitsky said that the attack took place on a road in the Primorsky district on the Black Sea coast, noting that all passengers and two drivers had been evacuated safely. He described the attack as a “targeted strike on a scheduled passenger bus with civilians on board”, “a gross violation of international humanitarian law,” and “another war crime by the rabid Kiev terrorists.”

Rodion Miroshnik, who leads the Russian Foreign Ministry mission responsible for tracking Kiev’s war crimes, suggested that the “terrorist acts” are aimed at intimidating the local population and undermining connectivity in the region.

Ukraine has ramped up long- and mid-range drone strikes into Russia, with many now targeting not only critical infrastructure and civilian buildings, but also all types of vehicles, including those moving between mainland Russia and Crimea.

Last month, a Ukrainian drone hit a bus carrying a Belarusian youth football team in the same region, killing the coach’s wife and injuring several passengers, including children.

India is planning an upgrade of its Russian-made tanks and armored vehicles at an estimated cost of $7.85 billion, according to media reports citing army sources.

The orders cover life-cycle enhancement of the Indian Army’s T-72 and T-90 tanks, infantry combat vehicles (BMPs), and Armored Recovery Vehicles (ARVs).

As per plan, 790 T-72 tanks, 200 T-90 tanks, and 230 armored recovery vehicles – crucial for the recovery and repair of tanks on the battlefield – will undergo restoration over five years.

The restoration program aims to bring the platforms to a constant operational readiness capability and extend their lifespan.

State-backed Armoured Vehicles Nigam Ltd (AVNL) is due to execute the upgrade plan. AVNL reportedly completed restoration of two T-72 tanks as a pilot project earlier this year.

The decision comes in the wake of state-backed defense undertakings repeatedly pushing for long-term orders as a prerequisite for investing in capacity, technology, and supply chains, Hindu Business Line reported. The five-year span of orders is a reported departure from the previous short-term procurement model.

India, which clashed with nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan last year, has undertaken a massive drive to modernize its armed forces.

Earlier this month, New Delhi approved a tranche of arms purchases worth $5.5 billion as part of the effort. In March, India approved the purchase of defense equipment worth $25 billion, including Russian‑made S‑400 air defense missile systems, various types of aircraft, and artillery systems.

The Indian Defense Ministry said the March approvals included additional Russian S‑400 Triumf systems, transport aircraft to replace the country’s ageing fleet of Soviet‑era An‑32 and Il‑76 planes, and various artillery systems.

NATO leaders have reconvened in Ankara for the second and final day of the US-led military bloc’s annual summit, with efforts to project unity overshadowed by persistent disagreements over defense spending, as well as the Russia-Ukraine and Iran conflicts.

The first day was dominated by US President Donald Trump’s sharp criticism of European allies for failing to shoulder a greater share of the military burden and for not backing Washington during its confrontation with Iran. Trump also renewed his demand for US control of Greenland, while NATO members unveiled new multibillion-dollar defense procurement agreements intended to strengthen the bloc’s military capabilities and answer longstanding calls for higher spending.

Ukraine remains high on the agenda as Vladimir Zelensky seeks additional military support from Western backers, while leaders attempt to keep the focus on the bloc’s long-term rearmament plans.

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Last week’s bombing in Monaco is neither the first nor the last “bloody bite” inflicted by “Kiev regime terrorism” on its Western sponsors, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

In an interview with Sputnik Radio on Wednesday, Zakharova said Ukraine’s backers are now facing the consequences of supporting a leadership driven by Nazi ideology – a policy Moscow has long warned against.

Ukrainian-born millionaire Vadim Ermolaev, now a Cypriot citizen, his partner, and son were injured in Monaco last week when a backpack bomb exploded outside a residential building.

Ukrainian investigators said the main suspect, Ukrainian national Anastasia Berezovskaya, who was later found dead, had communicated with two men before the blast, including a serving officer in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) who later confessed to killing her with an accomplice.

Zakharova said the incident showed that Ukrainian terrorism has spread far beyond its borders.

“[The West] got what they sowed and what we warned them about. That terrorist monster raised and fed by the collective West has reached them,” she said.

Zakharova said the bombing should not be viewed in isolation but as part of a broader pattern of “Kiev regime terrorism,” citing the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions. While court proceedings continue against a Ukrainian suspect who allegedly led a sabotage group to blow up the pipelines, Moscow maintains the operation was orchestrated by the authorities in Kiev and Western intelligence.

Zakharova accused Western governments of ignoring the ideological foundations of Ukraine’s leadership while continuing to arm Kiev.

“They draw their ideology from the ideas and philosophy of Nazism,” she said, arguing that Western governments failed to recognize the significance of the World War II-era nationalist figures now openly honored in Ukraine. “They see some torches and think nothing of it – just a kind of Ukrainian-style Halloween... They armed these terrorists with their own weapons. Now those terrorists have… in essence, begun managing those who created them.”

“They thought they were just throwing bones into the kennel [in Kiev] and would later profit... Is this the last bloody bite the West will receive from those it nurtured? Of course not,” she warned.

Moscow has accused Ukraine of carrying out terrorist attacks both inside Russia and abroad. Kiev has intensified drone strikes on Russian civilian and energy infrastructure in recent months amid continued setbacks on the battlefield. One of the deadliest recent attacks was the May 22 strike on a college dormitory in Starobelsk, which killed 21 people – mostly teenage girls. Moscow has since vowed “systematic and consistent strikes” on Ukrainian military infrastructure and “decision-making centers” in response to Kiev’s terrorist attacks.

Europe is “playing with fire” as it assists Ukraine in strikes deep into Russia, RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan has said, warning Kiev’s Western backers that Moscow may have no other choice other than to respond with force.

In a lengthy interview with Die Weltwoche's Roger Koeppel on Wednesday, Simonyan said, “it is not Ukraine that is bringing the war to Moscow” but rather Europe, as Kiev is incapable of conducting attacks without foreign aid and intelligence.

Simonyan warned that Moscow’s patience is running thin as drones, missiles, flight disruptions, and fuel shortages increasingly affect civilians in Russia.

“People are afraid to sleep at night… Where is the limit of this hardship, when the people will say, ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin], we have to respond! I don’t know, but I think it is very close. Very close. Right now, you are playing with fire.”

Bulgaria is unable to provide any more weapons and military equipment to Ukraine, Prime Minister Rumen Radev has said, reaffirming his government’s decision to halt further arms deliveries to Kiev.

Speaking on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye, on Wednesday, Radev said Bulgaria would continue supporting Ukraine financially “within its capabilities, without affecting social spending,” while ruling out further deliveries from the country’s military stockpiles.

“We have exhausted our ability to provide military support. I mean weapons and ammunition from the warehouses of the Bulgarian Armed Forces. We provided 13 packages; we don’t have anything else to supply to Ukraine,” Radev told reporters. He added that Sofia could still offer technical assistance by repairing military equipment.

Radev was not the only NATO leader to acknowledge limits on military aid. Dutch Defense Minister Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius said on Tuesday the Netherlands had also reached the limit of what it could provide directly from its own military stockpiles.

The comments contrasted with Vladimir Zelensky’s appeals at the Ankara summit for NATO members to provide more air defense systems and interceptor missiles.

Radev’s remarks reaffirm a policy announced last month by Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov, who said Bulgaria would stop supplying weapons because the conflict could not be resolved on the battlefield.

Under the previous government, Bulgaria became one of Kiev’s largest suppliers of Soviet-standard weapons and ammunition. According to officials, Bulgarian shells accounted for roughly one-third of the ammunition used by Ukraine during the first year of the conflict.

Radev, whose Progressive Bulgaria party won the parliamentary election in April, has long opposed Brussels’ approach to the Ukraine conflict. As president between 2022 and 2025, he criticized sanctions on Russian energy, blocked a proposal to send Bulgarian armored vehicles to Kiev, and repeatedly called for a negotiated settlement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Zelensky could end the conflict with Russia in a single day by ordering Ukrainian troops to withdraw from Donbass.

There’s a real love-triangle dynamic playing out right now between the US, Türkiye, and Israel.

Donald Trump is going out of his way to be seen embracing Recep Tayyip Erdogan, talking up sanctions relief and reopening the door on F-35 fighter jets and engines for Türkiye’s homegrown KAAN program.

At the same time, Benjamin Netanyahu is working overtime to protect Israel’s privileged position in US Middle East policy, warning anyone who’ll listen that handing Türkiye advanced weapons systems would upend the regional balance of power.

Ankara as the turning point

While in Ankara for the NATO summit, Trump announced that Washington would lift the sanctions imposed on Türkiye after its purchase of Russian S-400 missile systems – sanctions that have hung over the relationship for years. He said it standing next to Erdogan, which made it sound like a gift. Trump added that he doesn’t like sanctioning friends, and that ties with Türkiye are, in his words, better than they’ve ever been.

Just as notable was the return of F-35 talk. Trump didn’t promise delivery, simply saying it is something the US “will look at.” That’s a long way from a commitment, but it’s also the first time in years an American president has floated the idea publicly and warmly rather than treating it as a closed door. Erdogan, for his part, wasn’t shy about reminding everyone that Washington once promised Türkiye five of the jets, and said he trusts that Trump keeps his word.

Trump also made clear, in tone if not always in substance, that his relationship with Erdogan matters more to him than a lot of the usual alliance etiquette. He talked about the chemistry between them, called Türkiye more loyal than some countries Washington has counted on for support, and effectively held Ankara up as a contrast to America’s European NATO partners – several of whom he’s clearly lost patience with. He said NATO treated the US poorly during the conflict with Iran, and suggested he might have skipped the summit entirely if it hadn’t been held in Türkiye.

Türkiye as a mediator – and an irritant for Israel

None of this warmth is purely personal chemistry. Türkiye has made itself genuinely useful to Washington in ways that matter strategically. Ankara – alongside Qatar, Egypt, and the US – became part of the architecture holding the ceasefire in Gaza and the subsequent political track together. When negotiations stalled, Trump turned to Erdogan specifically, counting on Türkiye’s leverage over Hamas. Turkish officials reportedly worked to convince Hamas that the ceasefire carried both regional and American guarantees, including Trump’s personal word.

That’s exactly the kind of role that cements Türkiye’s status as the leading Sunni regional power – and exactly the kind of role that keeps Netanyahu up at night. From West Jerusalem’s vantage point, Türkiye isn’t a neutral broker. It’s a state that criticizes Israel openly and often, champions the Palestinian cause, and is now angling for real influence in Gaza, Syria, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Against that backdrop, the F-35 and KAAN questions may start looking more like an existential one for Israeli defense planners.

Netanyahu didn’t dance around the issue. In an interview with Fox News, he said flatly that Türkiye shouldn’t be given F-35s or engines for its fighter programs, because doing so would break the regional balance of power – a balance he says depends on Israeli air superiority backed by an American presence in the region. He went further, accusing Erdogan of hostile rhetoric toward Israel and describing Türkiye’s leadership as a regime infected by Muslim Brotherhood ideology – strong words, deliberately chosen.

For Trump, Türkiye’s role in Gaza is an argument in favor of getting closer to Ankara. For Israel, it’s a source of genuine alarm. There’s a real fear in West Jerusalem that in trying to lock down the end of active fighting in Gaza and push forward some kind of postwar governance framework, Washington is effectively handing Türkiye a seat at the table on Palestine – something Ankara has been shut out of for a long time.

The price of the Iran war

Trump and Netanyahu’s relationship has visibly cooled in recent months, even if both men do their best to keep up appearances. Netanyahu told CNN that he and Trump may have separate disagreements over Iran, but remain aligned on the issues that matter most. That’s the polished facade. Underneath it is real, accumulating frustration in Washington.

The war against Iran, which began on February 28 with joint US-Israeli strikes, has turned into a genuine political liability for Trump. The Pew Research Center found that 61% of Americans disapproved of how Trump handled the Iran conflict, while 40% said the operation has made the US less safe over the long term. Those aren’t the kind of numbers a president shrugs off, especially heading into a difficult political stretch.

There’s a perception taking hold inside the US that Trump got pulled into this war under Israeli influence. Whether that is an accurate account of how decisions actually got made or not, the perception itself functions as a political fact. And the more this war costs Trump with American voters, the more sharply he reacts to anything Netanyahu does that complicates his effort to sell himself as the guy who ended a war rather than started one.

Israel, for its part, has made clear it doesn’t consider itself bound by agreements that limit its freedom of action against Hezbollah and Iran. From Washington’s side, that looks like an attempt to trap Trump in an open-ended conflict just as he’s trying to find the exit. So the negative view of Israel’s conduct in Lebanon is tangled up with Trump’s own political survival instincts.

Why Washington hasn’t chosen Ankara – yet

Even so, Trump’s personal warmth toward Erdogan doesn’t add up to a wholesale US pivot away from Israel toward Türkiye. There are several hard structural reasons for that, and none of them are going away soon.

First, the F-35 isn’t a gift the president can just hand out. It’s governed by law, by Congress, and by the US export-control system. Current US legislation doesn’t allow Türkiye back into the F-35 program while it still owns the S-400 system. One option being floated involves transferring the Russian systems to a third country, but that’s a proposal, not a resolved deal – and these things have a way of staying unresolved for years.

Second, congressional Democrats have long had a strained relationship with Türkiye’s government. Even the comparatively simple F110 engine deal ran into pushback – Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks raised objections and demanded the administration explain its reasoning, saying it hadn’t even bothered to justify the decision. If a straightforward engine sale generates that kind of friction, an F-35 deal will face something far tougher.

There’s also a pattern worth remembering: Trump’s big arms-deal announcements don’t always turn into big arms deals. During his first term, he announced a $110 billion weapons package for Saudi Arabia that, in practice, mostly stayed on paper. At the time it was described as more of a declaration than a completed agreement, and American reporting later showed that only a fraction of the announced sums ever translated into actual contracts.

Even if Trump genuinely wants to reward Erdogan politically, the pro-Israel lobby, Congress, the Pentagon, existing legal restrictions, and the push to preserve Israeli military superiority will all slow the process down. That’s why Ankara is far more likely to get its KAAN engines quickly than to get back into the F-35 program at all. One is a relatively easy concession while the other is a legislative and political minefield.

There’s a pattern here that goes beyond Türkiye specifically. Trump has made a habit throughout this term of treating personal rapport as a substitute for policy – floating major concessions in the glow of a good meeting, then watching the machinery of American government slow-walk them into something much smaller. It happened, in part, with Saudi Arabia during his first term. There’s no obvious reason Türkiye would be the exception, especially on an issue as legally and politically loaded as fifth-generation fighter jets. The gap between what Trump says in a room with Erdogan and what actually clears Congress, the Pentagon, and the export-control bureaucracy tends to be wide, and it tends to stay wide for years, not months.

Trump genuinely is warmer toward Erdogan right now than he is toward several of America’s traditional allies, and he genuinely is frustrated with how Israel has handled itself in Lebanon, Gaza, and the broader Iran file. Both of those things are true and worth taking seriously. But US Middle East policy has never run purely on the emotional temperature of one president, and it isn’t about to start now. What’s visible right now is a flirtation between Washington and Ankara – public and strategically useful to both sides. What isn’t visible is any sign that Washington’s long-standing commitment to Israel has been called off. It’s far too early to say America has chosen Türkiye over Israel. Washington is trying, as it often does, to keep both relationships alive at once, extracting what it can from each without formally downgrading either – and the real tension, when it finally surfaces, will show up not in summit speeches or warm handshakes, but in what Congress actually lets through.

The EU has “gone a bit crazy” over the alleged threat from Russia, RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan has said, adding that Moscow “has not laid a finger on Europe” despite years of Western arms shipments to Ukraine.

In a lengthy interview with Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche, Simonyan said Kiev’s Western backers are actively trying to “destroy Russia,” while no Russian missile, tank, or military aircraft has entered other European countries in five years amid the Ukraine conflict.

“How many European rockets, tanks, and planes have flown, driven, and arrived in Russia all this time?” Simonyan asked. “After that, you ask about our responsibility [in the stand-off with the West]?”

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE.

Oil prices have surged as tensions between the US and Iran flared again, raising fresh concerns over supply disruptions in the Middle East after Washington reinstated pressure on Tehran and resumed military strikes.

The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Tuesday revoked a two-month sanctions relief license for Iranian oil following reports of attacks on commercial tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. US forces also carried out a new wave of strikes against targets inside Iran overnight into Wednesday.

September Brent crude futures rose as much as 6% on Wednesday from the previous close to $78.53 per barrel, while August WTI crude futures climbed 5.91% to $74.6 per barrel.

Washington and Tehran reached a two-month ceasefire agreement on June 18, intended to create conditions for negotiations on a broader settlement between the two countries.

The US has accused Iran of violating the ceasefire and threatening maritime security through attacks on commercial shipping, prompting what officials Washington described as a military response.

Iranian state broadcaster IRIB reported a series of explosions overnight, saying seven blasts were recorded near the village of Taherui in Sirik County and another six near the city of Qeshm.

According to the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), an unidentified projectile struck a tanker off the coast of Oman, causing a fire on board. The WSJ reported that one of the damaged vessels may have been the Al Rekayyat, a tanker owned by Qatar’s Nakilat. The vessel reportedly sustained damage near its engine room, while all crew members remained safe. Axios said the targeted ships suffered only limited damage.

On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump told journalists that the ceasefire between Washington and Tehran was no longer in effect. Trump said he would not prevent US diplomats from holding talks but did not believe they would produce any results.

The US decision to brand Brazil’s two biggest criminal groups as terrorist organizations could serve as a pretext for military intervention, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry has warned.

Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira issued the warning in a letter sent to Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies last week, responding to lawmakers’ questions about Washington’s decision to designate the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV) as terrorist organizations, CNN Brazil reported on Tuesday.

The US added the gangs to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) on June 5, placing them in the same legal category as groups such as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).

Addressing lawmakers, Vieira argued that Washington’s existing designation of the gangs as ‘transnational criminal organizations’ already allows broad cooperation with Brazil in combating organized crime, making the FTO listing unnecessary.

“Such application can occur with a wide degree of discretion... with serious possibilities of implications for Brazilian citizens in financial, immigration, and criminal matters. Finally, there is the possibility of the use of military force by the United States on Brazilian territory,” CNN Brazil cited the Foreign Ministry as saying.

The designation will “not bring concrete benefits” to US-Brazil cooperation in combating organized crime, it added. Vieira stressed that the US acted unilaterally and did not formally notify Brasilia, meaning Brazil had no official communication to respond to.

“CV and PCC are two of the most violent criminal organizations in Brazil... Their influence and illicit networks extend far beyond Brazil’s borders, across our region, and into our country,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in May, adding that the Trump administration would use “all available tools” to disrupt “violent narcoterrorists.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva later described Maduro’s capture as the first direct US military attack on South America in more than 200 years of independence, warning that the same practice is now spreading across Latin America and the Caribbean.

A couple made a miraculous escape from a landslide during a devastating spell of torrential monsoon rains that claimed four lives in a mountainous district in India’s southern state.

Four people were killed and nine others injured after a landslide in Kerala’s Wayanad on Tuesday, authorities said. The landslide hit a tunneling site, trapping several workers there.

Search and rescue efforts continued, officials said, adding six people are reportedly missing. The death toll is likely to rise.

A man and woman escaped certain death after a tanker lorry that got caught in the debris flow pushed them back nearly a quarter of a mile to a petrol station, while also partly shielding them from the mud and rocks. When the tanker slid to a stop, the muddied couple got up and walked off.

CCTV footage from the incident near the gas station has since gone viral.

Kerala: Couple covered in mud escapes landslide in Wayanad, says 'God got us back'.

Recounting the incident, the woman said, "I got scared seeing the mud rushing towards us. We couldn't do anything. I somehow escaped with my husband. I have pain in my hands now."

“The lorry was… pic.twitter.com/a74shERKo4

— News Arena India (@NewsArenaIndia) July 7, 2026

A red alert has been sounded in the region. Two of the nine people admitted to a hospital were later released, while seven continue to undergo treatment.

In 2024, a deadly landslide killed nearly 400 and left thousands homeless in the mountainous district in Kerala, a South Indian trijunction bordering the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Tuesday’s landslide occurred only a few kilometers from one of the sites devastated in 2024.

The authorities have begun evacuating nearby areas as rain continues to lash the region.

Heavy rainfall linked to climate change and unplanned construction in geographically fragile areas is cited as the key reason for frequent natural calamities in India’s hilly regions.

The Indian Meteorological Department’s latest forecast predicts below-normal monsoon rainfall in the country in July.

Russia and Ethiopia have reaffirmed the “strategic” nature of their relationship following high-level talks in Addis Ababa, the Russian Foreign Ministry has reported, saying the meetings reinforced the long-standing friendship between the two nations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos in Addis Ababa on Tuesday. 

Following the meeting, Abiy wrote on X that it was “a pleasure” to receive Lavrov and his delegation, adding that their discussions focused on bilateral relations and “exploring new opportunities for cooperation.”

It was a pleasure to meet with Mr. Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and his delegation this evening, during which our discussions focused on bilateral relations and exploring new opportunities for cooperation. pic.twitter.com/HG2l5QARsc

— Abiy Ahmed Ali 🇪🇹 (@AbiyAhmedAli) July 7, 2026

The talks focused on expanding cooperation in a range of areas, with Moscow and Addis Ababa agreeing to promote direct business contacts and support joint projects in energy, transport infrastructure, digital technologies and telecommunications, information security, and agricultural production, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Earlier in Addis Ababa, Lavrov also held consultations with African Union Commission (AUC) Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf.

The minister arrived in Addis Ababa on Monday, kicking off his latest tour of Africa with a working visit to the Ethiopian capital. His previous trip to the country took place in July 2022.

Russia and Ethiopia have maintained diplomatic relations since 1943. The two countries have steadily expanded cooperation in recent years.