A small but vocal group of activists claiming to represent Russia’s many ethnic minorities has been courting Western support for what they call the country’s “decolonization.”

Ukrainian and Western officials have helped the activists gain platforms in the EU, the Council of Europe and the UN.

Some of their claims, including the portrayal of Russia, home to roughly 200 ethnic groups, as Europe’s last colonial empire, have been echoed by French President Emmanuel Macron and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

One such group, the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum, has published a map depicting Russia divided into 40 independent states.

In his latest report, RT’s Igor Zhdanov examines the activists’ ties to Ukraine and questions their claims to represent communities inside Russia.

Among those featured is Pavel Sulyandziga, who left Russia in 2017 after coming under suspicion of embezzling more than $100,000 in funds donated to support indigenous culture in one of the country’s northern regions.

Watch the full report here:

Rioters who rampaged through Frankfurt following Gen Z protests on Saturday night were predominantly from migrant backgrounds, according to Roman Poseck, interior minister of the German state of Hesse.

Authorities said on Sunday that 54 people had been arrested after mobs ransacked shops in Germany’s financial capital and attacked police with bottles, stones and incendiary devices. More than 100 officers were injured, while 17 businesses were damaged, five of which were looted.

Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Poseck said he was “shocked” by the scale of the violence, adding that police had faced between 1,000 and 1,500 rioters. Those arrested were aged between 13 and 29, he said. Most were German citizens.

“In Frankfurt, an enormous wave of violence erupted involving left-wing extremists and violence-prone young people, most of them with migrant backgrounds,” the minister said.

“This group of perpetrators was predominantly made up of people with migrant backgrounds. And we must address that as well. There must be no false taboos here.”

Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt also accused “violent left-wing groups and troublemakers from migrant communities” of hijacking initially peaceful demonstrations, according to Bild.

Immigration and crime have long been contentious issues in Germany, amid discontent over the rising cost of living and widespread dissatisfaction with Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), the second-largest party in the Bundestag, finished first in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in September, marking its first victories in those two states.

An October poll by Forsa found that 87% of Germans were dissatisfied with Merz’s performance, while just 11% were satisfied. The survey also showed that 61% of supporters of his own CDU/CSU alliance were unhappy with his leadership.

The riots in Frankfurt coincided with a broader wave of protests across Europe over rising living costs, housing shortages, and deteriorating public services. In France, demonstrators clashed with police in Paris during protests against government policies, while Spain and Italy have also seen demonstrations over housing costs, wages, and economic pressures.

Ukraine’s government-backed mobile air alert app sent out false warnings of nuclear and chemical attacks on Sunday night, Ukrainian media reported.

At around 11pm, the Air Alert app sent notifications urging residents to seek shelter due to a “radiation threat” and a “chemical attack.” It also warned of “street battles” in Kiev.

According to screenshots shared by Ukrainian media, one of the messages read in Russian: “Don’t worry, Oreshnik is coming,” referring to Russia’s nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile.

The Ukrainian Air Force urged residents to rely only on official sources. “The Air Alert app may have been compromised by hostile actors. There is no radiation threat!” it said in a brief statement on Telegram.

Ukraine’s Digital Transformation Ministry later confirmed that the app had been temporarily disabled following a suspected cyberattack.

Although Mash described the hackers as Russian, the group has not previously been linked to any known cyberattacks. Moscow has consistently denied allegations of involvement in such operations.

About three hours later, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said its mobile app had also been hacked and used to send “false information” to users. The ministry said it was working to restore normal operations.

The incident came days after an apparent glitch in Kiev’s automated air alert system on October 26, when air raid warnings were issued and canceled several times within just five minutes. Officials blamed a “technical malfunction” and apologized for the disruption.

Ukraine has stepped up requests for additional air defense interceptors from the US and its European partners in recent months as its own defenses have struggled to counter Russian missile barrages and jet-powered drones.

Relations with Washington have become strained, however, as Kiev has refused to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries, which US President Donald Trump has blamed for soaring fuel prices, and criticized his decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports.

Ukraine was also caught off guard by sudden disruptions to Starlink and Starshield satellite services widely used by its military, which officials in Kiev linked to US efforts to pressure Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.

Acting Bulgarian President Iliana Iotova, backed by the country’s EU-critical government, is projected to defeat pro-Western candidate Andrey Gyurov in the presidential runoff, according to exit polls.

Initial exit polls put Iotova, a critic of military aid to Ukraine, at 50–52% of the vote, compared with 43–44% for Gyurov, a former caretaker prime minister. 

Iotova thanked voters as well as Prime Minister Rumen Radev and his Progressive Bulgaria party for their support.

“Their vote means a lot, because we will listen to what they have told us,” Iotova said, according to BTA.

“I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Progressive Bulgaria. Mr Radev, we would not have succeeded without you,” she added.

Radev, who took office in May, halted weapons deliveries to Ukraine and withdrew Bulgaria from the so-called coalition of the willing, a group of countries led by Britain and France that have pledged to help provide security guarantees for Ukraine following a potential peace agreement with Russia.

Gyurov, meanwhile, has backed closer security cooperation with Kiev and argued that Russia must end its military offensive before peace negotiations can advance. He accused Moscow of threatening European security while ruling out sending Bulgarian troops to Ukraine.

The elections took place after multiple cargo vessels were struck by drones off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast and several aerial drones entered Bulgarian airspace, incidents Radev described as “absolutely unacceptable.”

Bulgaria summoned a Russian envoy last month following attacks on two commercial ships, one of which sank. Sofia also summoned a Ukrainian envoy in August after a drone exploded near the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline, a major energy route linking Russia and the Balkans through Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria. The Bulgarian military said the UAV was likely a Ukrainian-made Maya decoy drone.

A federal judge has ordered the administration of US President Donald Trump to stop intimidating election officials, who refuse to follow its instructions on handling ballots during the midterms on November 3.

In July, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent letters to all 50 states warning that election officers, who would knowingly allow non-citizens to take part in the vote, could face criminal liability. Last month, the agency contacted the counties in California demanding them to identify the illegal aliens on the lists of registered voters or face potential legal action.

On Friday, US District Judge Trina Thompson, who is based in California, ruled that the Trump administration was operating outside of its constitutional authority and likely violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits “attempting to intimidate, threaten or coerce” officials, facilitating the election process.

“Although Defendants claim that their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by non-citizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters,” she argued.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed just a day earlier by labor unions and other groups, who blamed the Trump administration for interfering in the administration of the midterms.

Later on Saturday, the Department of Justice challenged Thompson’s decision at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California.

A DOJ spokesperson said in a statement that “the judge issued an order against the federal government without even waiting to hear from the US, while in other cases the Department’s own urgent election claims are delayed by judges until after Election Day.”

On Friday, the Trump administration lost an appeal against an earlier decision by another federal judge, who denied the DOJ’s request for California to block more that 20,000 ballots from alleged non-citizens, arguing that it “violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections.”

Yemen has claimed its army has been able to stop an advance by Houthi militants in the southwest of the country.

The hostilities between Yemen and its coalition allies and the Iranian-backed Ansar Allah movement escalated in September when the Shiite group seized the strategically important Red Sea port cities of Mocha and Dhubab as well as Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Houthis have since also encircled the country’s third-largest city, Taiz, with forces loyal to the internationally recognized government trapped inside.

According to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, which allegedly has close ties to the Saudi royal family, the Houthis mounted an offensive along the border between Lahij and Taiz governorates on Friday.

However, Saudi-backed troops reportedly pushed back the advancing militants, with airstrikes and artillery fire disrupting the Houthis’ supply lines, and staged a counteroffensive.

Fighting has also continued around the besieged city of Taiz.

Conflicting reports have been coming in regarding the situation in the north of Yemen over the weekend.

On Saturday, the internationally recognized government announced that its troops had recaptured positions in the northern governorate of al-Jawf, which borders Saudi Arabia. The Houthis, in turn, said that they had thwarted advances in the same governorate, as well as in neighboring Marib.

In a statement posted on X last Saturday, the Shiite group’s spokesman, Yahya Saree, stressed that the Houthis were conducting such attacks in retaliation for Saudi airstrikes on Yemen.
Ansar Allah’s representative warned that strikes on Saudi territory would continue until Riyadh ended its “aggression” and lifted a blockade it had imposed on the neighboring country.

After the Houthis seized large stretches of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and territory around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in September, government troops mounted a counteroffensive, claiming to have recaptured key positions near the vital shipping route connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

Meanwhile, Riyadh has stepped up its air support, intensifying strikes on Houthi-held territory.

Yemen has remained locked in a civil war since 2014, with the situation further aggravated by a Saudi-led intervention launched the following year. Large-scale fighting largely subsided following a UN-brokered truce in 2022 but flared up again in July after Saudi-backed government forces struck the Houthi-held Sanaa Airport.

Serbia will need to sanction Russia in order to eventually join the EU, European Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has said.

The Brussels official spelled out that condition just days after Serbia’s opposition Student List movement secured 52.5% of the vote in the snap parliamentary election, defeating former Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. While conceding defeat, Vucic warned of renewed EU pressure on Belgrade to impose economic restrictions on Moscow, which he had consistently refused to do citing key trading and cultural ties.

In an interview with Polish broadcaster TVP World on Tuesday, Kos was asked if it was possible for Serbia to become an EU member if it also refrained from slapping curbs on Moscow. Brussels has introduced 22 sanctions packages against Russia since February 2022.

She replied by saying the EU demands “strategic alignment” from possible new EU members as part of its pre-accession review.

However, Kos stressed that “we haven’t started yet to talk to the new [Serbian] government. So, first, they will have to have a new government and then we’ll see how we’ll be able to move in this field or not.”

There is currently no certainty on Student List’s agenda regarding Russia sanctions. One of its representatives, university professor Jovo Bakic, told RT Balkan earlier this week that the movement’s members “respect Russia both as a great power and as our historically important partner and, in many cases, protector.” Any restrictions imposed by “small Serbia” would have little effect on Moscow, but would be “symbolically very bad” for Belgrade, Bakic argued.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Moscow hoped to maintain mutually beneficial relations with Serbia under the Student List leadership. “As you know, it takes two to tango,” he added.

Previously, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed the “heavy-handed, unscrupulous manner,” in which the EU has tried to drive a wedge between Moscow and Belgrade.

Making Serbia join the sanctions against Russia “is not merely a political gesture… It means that Serbia would effectively be shooting itself in the foot by ceasing to receive supplies of our energy and by being unable to sell its own goods to us,” she insisted.

An estimated $2 trillion in market value was wiped from the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 during October as investors grow increasingly skeptical that enormous spending on artificial intelligence will ever pay off.

On Friday, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.9% in its biggest one-day fall since June. Over the whole month, the Nasdaq shed about 5.2%, its worst showing since March 2025, while the S&P 500 slipped 1.2%, and the Dow – which includes many traditional businesses – still finished October up 1.5%.

Among the hardest-hit companies was Google owner Alphabet, whose shares plunged 12.6% on Thursday in its worst day on record. The slump was triggered by its earnings showing slower growth in search advertising, its core business.

Amazon reported negative free cash flow of $42.4 billion over the preceding 12 months, largely due to AI investments, with its shares falling 1.4% on Friday. Chipmaker Intel came out worse, plunging 28.6%, its worst day since 1974, after forecasting weaker profits amid trouble in its PC and manufacturing businesses.
Nvidia – which produces powerful chips used to train and run AI systems – slipped 4.2%, becoming the biggest drag on the S&P 500, while rival AMD dropped 10.9%.

Enormous spending on AI and data centers has become a staple of US tech giants in recent years. Together, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet are projected to spend more than $700 billion on data centers, computing equipment and other long-term investments in 2026 alone, and much of it is AI-related.

According to various estimates, global AI-related investment is valued at between $900 billion and $2.7 trillion dollars this year, depending on the methodology. Companies are also borrowing more to finance expansion, fueling concerns among investors.

Market analysts meanwhile warn of further near-term losses. Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett expects weakness until mid-November, while Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson says the S&P 500 could fall even further within weeks before recovering by year-end.

Other major tests for the US market are the midterm elections on Tuesday, which could reshape AI regulation, as well as quarterly results from Apple, Nvidia, AMD and Palantir, and Friday’s jobs report.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has accused his political opponents of receiving support from an “army of Russian bots” amid an escalating constitutional crisis in Warsaw. The pro-EU leader offered no proof for his claim, which came after a government-backed judge moved to oust two key officials supported by his rival, right-wing President Karol Nawrocki, from the Constitutional Tribunal, triggering public outrage.

Unrest erupted on Friday when Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, a judge elected by Tusk’s governing majority, ordered the suspension of Constitutional Tribunal President Bogdan Swieczkowski and his deputy Bartlomiej Sochanski, both linked to the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party. The tribunal’s existing leadership rejected the suspensions, declaring that all those participating in the attempted takeover “are committing the crime of a coup d’état.”

The development triggered street protests around the court building and a heavy police deployment. Nawrocki, who canceled a planned trip to Senegal, personally pushed his way into the tribunal to confront Korwin-Piotrowska and her allies, telling them that “you are not judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.”

“Is it greed, stupidity or treason?” Tusk asked, claiming that the opposition was receiving support from “pro-Russian forces worldwide.”

Moscow has repeatedly said it does not interfere in other countries’ domestic affairs. While Russian officials have yet to respond to Tusk’s allegation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in July denied that Russia was responsible for cyberattacks on Polish energy infrastructure.

Responding to Tusk’s address, the president’s chief of staff, Zbigniew Bogucki, called the prime minister a “pathological liar” and accused him of setting Poland ablaze while pretending to extinguish the fire. “It’s hard to find a single word, expression, or sentence that would be true, that would reflect the actual or legal reality,” he added.

Tusk’s accusation comes after several Western media outlets, anti-Russia hawks, and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky propagated the claim that Kiev’s drone strikes, which damaged several data centers operated by Russian technology giant Yandex, crippled alleged Russian bot networks supporting Western right-wing movements, including Germany’s AfD and US President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.

However, several independent investigations by cybersecurity and research firms quickly debunked the narrative. Experts in particular pointed out that one viral graph supposedly showing a collapse in AfD-related activity was found to contain fabricated or unverifiable figures.

Commenting on the chaos, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev described it as a “constitutional coup.” He suggested that “Brussels’ protégé Tusk” was persecuting PiS conservatives over the latter’s hostility toward Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. Medvedev concluded by sarcastically invoking an old schoolyard joke, saying, “And these are the people who scold my brother and me for picking our noses.”

A federal judge has permanently dismissed US President Donald Trump’s $10 billion amended defamation case against the Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch over a report about his letter to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In July 2025, the WSJ published an article describing a sexually suggestive note, which Trump allegedly presented to the disgraced financier for his 50th birthday in 2003. It reportedly appeared in a book of congratulatory letters put together by Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for her participation in Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme.

The note, which, among other things, said: “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret,” contained several lines of typed text framed by a hand-drawn outline of what looks to be a nude woman. A signature resembling the one used by Trump appeared in the area where the figure’s pelvic region might be.

Trump’s initial defamation case against the Wall Street Journal and Murdoch’s News Corp., which owns the outlet, was rejected by US District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami in April. However, he allowed the president’s team to fix the legal defects that he had identified and file another complaint.

On Saturday, the same judge threw out Trump’s second attempt to sue the WSJ and Murdoch, saying that “as with his first attempt, he has failed” to prove that the defendants acted with actual malice when they reported on the birthday card.

Gayles disagreed with Trump’s lawyers, who argued that the outlet should have dropped the story as soon as the president denied his involvement with Epstein. “That is not what the actual malice standard requires and runs afoul of the First Amendment,” he wrote in a 20-page ruling.

A spokesperson for the WSJ’s publisher, Dow Jones & Co., said in a statement that it’s “pleased with the court’s decision.”

The representative of Trump’s legal team insisted that “the president will continue to hold those who mislead the American People with Fake News and smears accountable for their actions.” A source told CBS News that the ruling by Gayles will likely be appealed.

Trump has repeatedly denied having been friendly with Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. However, the US president’s name is mentioned on at least 3,000 occasions in a massive trove of files related to the investigation of Epstein’s case, which had been released by the US Department of Justice last year.

US President Donald Trump spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday morning, checking in amid preparations for possible strikes on Iran, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing people familiar with the call.

According to the WSJ, Trump had earlier held another meeting with senior military commanders at the White House to discuss options for resuming major combat operations. Over the past few weeks, multiple media outlets have reported that the US could resume strikes on Iran after the November 3 midterm elections.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran, warning of “another little Epic Fury” if Tehran fails to meet his peace terms. US officials have reportedly warned Arab allies hosting American military bases to prepare for a short but intense operation.

Asked at a Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Saturday night whether he expected to “go back to war with Iran” in the coming weeks, Trump replied: “Let’s say I did – would I tell you? I can’t tell you this.”

According to a Jerusalem Post report published on Saturday, the US and Israel have already drawn up plans for renewed military action, but Trump is unlikely to order strikes before Tuesday’s vote unless intelligence indicates preparations for a surprise attack.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that Trump had not decided whether to launch new strikes against Iran but preferred a diplomatic solution. His remarks came as Iranian negotiators met Qatari mediators in Doha following more than 12 hours of discussions in Tehran on Friday. A source familiar with the talks told Reuters that diplomacy was being coordinated through regular contacts with Washington.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran had reviewed a letter from US Vice President J.D. Vance aimed at reopening negotiations, describing the initiative as a “positive step.”

Meanwhile, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei ordered the armed forces to prepare for “an immediate and effective response, without geographical restriction” if the country is attacked again, according to a statement released by his office on Saturday.

Despite India’s increased defense spending, robust government support for domestic arms and military technology manufacturers, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal focus on the development of the military-industrial complex, experts warn that the Indian Air Force faces a critical squadron decline that may influence its ability to counter potential adversaries. 

This paradox stems from India’s procurement policies, which do not prioritize the acquisition of advanced aircraft for the air force. Apparently, segments of India’s business elite and military leadership, possibly influenced by Western companies, are lobbying for contracts that offer questionable benefits to the country’s armed forces. 

While India’s geopolitical and military rivals (China and Pakistan) invest in cutting-edge technology – such as the fifth-generation J-20 and J-35 multi-role fighters – India continues to acquire fourth-generation aircraft like the Rafale and Tejas fighters. However, such aircraft cannot address modern combat challenges or threats effectively.

The situation looks even more dire considering that the Rafale and Tejas fighters are not superior to the Su-30MKI, the primary fighter in service with the Indian Air Force, and may even fall short when it comes to certain tactical specifications. The Su-30MKI boasts significant advantages in speed, maneuverability, payload capacity, and operational range.

This raises a crucial question: why are substantial financial resources from the Indian budget allocated for the purchase of expensive aircraft (Rafale fighters cost about €160 million each) directly from the French private firm Dassault Aviation, when the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) offers the option to procure Su-30MKI aircraft assembled under license from Russia at a considerably lower cost?

Real threats

Clearly, the rivalry between Pakistan (and China, which stands behind it) and India is not going to fade anytime soon. In fact, competition will likely intensify in the foreseeable future. A critical factor in preventing the most dangerous scenarios lies in maintaining a balance of military capabilities and defense potential between the opposing sides. So, what does the power balance look like today?

Armed with highly effective long-range air-to-air weapons, Pakistan and China’s stealthy fifth-generation fighters will be able to launch missile attacks without being detected by Indian Air Force radar systems. Under such circumstances, India’s military aviation could face a devastating defeat, leading to humiliation and a prolonged recovery process. This is inevitable, since fifth-generation fighters surpass fourth-generation aircraft.

The strategy of overwhelming the enemy with sheer numbers and concentrating an extensive air force over specific combat zones, is fundamentally flawed: no number of Rafale or Tejas fighters can match the combat capabilities of J-20 and J-35 aircraft.

The air forces of Pakistan and China possess cutting-edge technologies like stealth capabilities, advanced radar systems capable of covertly tracking opponents, and long-range missiles that significantly outdistance those in the arsenals of Rafale and Tejas fighters.

However, if the Indian Air Force were to acquire Su-57E fighters, equipped with stealth technology, the modern N-036 Byelka radar, long-range RVV-BD missiles, and other state-of-the-art munitions, India’s ability to confront its neighbors in the above-mentioned scenarios would change dramatically.

Why Russia?

For over 70 years, Soviet and Russian aviation technology has been in service with the Indian military, demonstrating remarkable efficiency and reliability. Russia has proven to be a dependable partner in military-technical cooperation.

The ongoing modernization of the Pakistani Air Force and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force with advanced aircraft has prompted India to take decisive actions to restore parity and the balance of power. Given the current circumstances, a swift acquisition of 50 Su-57E fighters from Russia under a fast-track mechanism, along with plans for licensed production of an additional 450 units in India, seems like the most prudent course of action. This could involve the latest two-seat variant, the Su-57D. Over the next few decades, such a project would effectively address the challenges and threats that India faces. 

More than just a prototype

The Su-57 fighter jet has already entered service with the Russian Air Force and has participated in combat operations. 

India contributed to the development of the fighter that served as the basis for the Su-57. In 2010, the Indian Ministry of Defense initiated the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) program to create an indigenous fifth-generation fighter. However, after more than 15 years, this program has yet to reach the flight testing stage. Serial production is not likely to commence before 2035. 

Moreover, advanced Russian technologies transferred to India under a licensing agreement will assist Indian specialists in refining and successfully implementing several national projects, including the AMCA.

Unlike American F-35s – which have struggled to maintain supersonic speeds in sustained cruise mode –  the Su-57 meets all the criteria expected of a fifth-generation fighter.

For New Delhi, the Su-57 offers multiple advantages, especially since it was designed at the same bureau that developed the Su-30MKI – the Indian Air Force’s primary combat aircraft as of 2026. This continuity provides valuable benefits in terms of operational procedures, maintenance, repair, and logistical support, leveraging existing airfield, storage, and training infrastructures.

Indigenous programs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi highly supports India’s national defense industry initiatives. He made history as the first prime minister of India to fly in the cockpit of a supersonic fighter jet.

Professional pilots who have flown the Tejas aircraft praise its performance, noting it surpasses the MiG-21, which the Tejas was designed to replace under the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) program that began in 1983. However, the mission was not fulfilled; the project has faced significant delays, and by the time the Tejas was deployed in 2015, the vast majority of the 874 MiG-21s acquired by the Indian Air Force between 1963 and 1987 had already been retired due to wear and tear. Instead of 20 squadrons of MiG aircraft, by 2026, the Indian Air Force had just two Tejas squadrons consisting of 30 single-seat and six two-seat models. Field tests are being conducted to identify and rectify issues on aircraft from the initial production batch.

Like many Indian projects, Tejas is plagued by delays which result in technological obsolescence by the time of production. Consequently, the substantial financial investments in such programs fail to deliver the expected returns or strengthen India’s defense capabilities.

Indian manufacturers also developed a naval version of the Tejas. Testing began in 2020 aboard the INS Vikramaditya aircraft carrier (built by Russia under Project 11430) and continued three years later on the indigenously constructed INS Vikrant. The compact design of the Tejas offers advantages for hangar storage; however, with a standard combat load, it can only operate within a few hundred miles. During combat operations, the carrier would need to approach the target closer, increasing the risk of retaliatory strikes from the enemy.

After conducting evaluations, the Indian Navy concluded that such an aircraft was not suitable for carrier operations. The official reason for rejecting the LCA-Navy was its low thrust-to-weight ratio, which prevented full utilization of the aircraft’s potential when taking off from an aircraft carrier. In response to requests from Indian industry, further tests were conducted on an upgraded version, but its performance still fell short of naval requirements.

Coming to terms with the LCA-Navy’s inability to meet expectations, Indian aerospace engineers proposed a completely new aircraft – the Twin Engine Deck Based Fighter (TEDBF), which bears a striking resemblance to the French Rafale-M. This move signifies a concession by the creators and advocates of the Tejas, acknowledging their defeat in the competition for carrier aviation. Work on the TEDBF began in 2020. The prototype’s first flight is scheduled for 2032 and serial production is anticipated in 2038.

Meanwhile, last year, the People’s Liberation Army Navy received its third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, equipped with fifth-generation J-35 fighters. Construction has also begun on the fourth Type 004 aircraft carrier. It will likely have a displacement of around 100,000 tons and accommodate an air wing of 100 aircraft, including the J-35.

Dependence on the US

In coordination with the main contractor, Indian industry continues Tejas Mark IA testing, which started in spring 2022. Without waiting for these trials to conclude, the Indian Air Force has placed two successive orders totaling 141 single-seat and 41 two-seat aircraft, scheduled for delivery between 2027 and 2032. Production will take place at two facilities in Bangalore and Nasik.

Following this, production of the Tejas Mark II is expected to commence. The first test flight has faced multiple delays and is now expected no earlier than 2028. While no firm order has been placed for this new model, the Air Force leadership hopes to eventually have 18 squadrons of Tejas aircraft, including 10 Mark II variant squadrons. 

The idea to direct resources into producing fourth-generation fighters for the next decade seems imprudent, given that China has mastered mass production of fifth-generation aircraft and is set to begin transitioning to sixth-generation models in the coming years. Deliveries of Chinese J-35 fifth-generation fighters to Pakistan are underway, while existing JF-17s are being upgraded with systems and munitions developed for the J-35.

Negotiations for a licensed production agreement for the F414 engine have been challenging, largely because Washington is reluctant to share advanced General Electric technologies developed with Pentagon funding. The US is only willing to share some of the technology, omitting the most sensitive components.

The reluctance to fully share F414 engine technology can be explained by one factor: Washington seeks to maintain leverage over New Delhi by controlling the pace of the licensed production of engines for India’s frontline air force.

The second most costly imported component is the onboard radar system. Development of an indigenous MMR radar was halted due to unsatisfactory test results, leading to a preference for foreign alternatives. The prototype aircraft utilized the Ericsson-Ferranti PS-05 radar, originally designed for the Swedish JAS-39 Gripen. Delays in the LCA program rendered the PS-05 obsolete, resulting in its discontinuation. It has since been replaced by the EL/M-2032, which now equips Mark I variants.

Recently, Elta proposed the EL/M-2052 with an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar configuration. The manufacturer promises to refine it by the time Mark IA aircraft (formed in 2015) are delivered to the air force, projected for late this year or early next year. Various publications have diligently presented Israeli radars as a “temporary solution” for the Tejas program, but as seen with General Electric engines, “temporary” solutions often end up being used much longer than expected.

Strategic decision-making

The practical implementation of the LCA program has resulted in yet another fourth-generation supersonic fighter jet emerging on the global stage. However, the Tejas does not surpass its foreign counterparts. Technically, the Tejas Mark I barely matches the Chinese FC-1, which was adopted by the Pakistan Air Force as the JF-17 in 2007. At best, the Tejas Mark II might reach the level of the JF-17 Block III (with AESA, operational since 2023) and the J-10CE, which Pakistani pilots effectively utilized to fend off an Indian airstrike in May 2025.

Consequently, the Tejas cannot be viewed as a viable alternative to the Su-57E. Continuing the LCA program in its current form hampers the decision-making process, since the program competes for budget resources. Moreover, there’s another contender for state funding – the AMCA, with its first flight planned for 2034 and serial production slated for 2036.

In selecting a fifth-generation fighter program, decision-makers in India will need to consider numerous factors and criteria that can sometimes be conflicting and contradictory. Among these is the inherent bias towards domestic projects (i.e. AMCA, LCA, etc.), even if they may not be technically or technologically superior compared to the best foreign alternatives.

The desire to produce everything domestically is understandable, but there are many compelling arguments in favor of purchasing the best foreign technologies or producing them under license. The advanced Su-57E, a premier frontline fighter, is one of such example. For India, Russia remains a reliable partner as decades of effective military-technical collaboration have proven.

Multiple shops were looted in Frankfurt, Germany’s financial capital, on Saturday night as nationwide protests under the slogan “Gen Z takes charge” descended into violence.

Although organizers urged demonstrators to remain peaceful during protests against the rising cost of living and in support of greater social spending, groups of rioters pelted police with stones, bottles and pyrotechnics.

Videos from the scene show rioters rampaging through the streets, smashing windows and ransacking stores. 

Rioters also broke into a gun shop and stole weapons, two of which were later recovered by police.

More than 30 people were detained after police deployed tactical units, water cannons and armored vehicles in the city center.

⚡ #AHORA | En Alemania, saqueos y actos de vandalismo obligaron a la policía a cerrar una importante calle peatonal en el centro de Frankfurt. https://t.co/0h2RG7swdU

— Mundo en Conflicto 🌎 (@MundoEConflicto) October 31, 2026

Boris Rhein, minister-president of the German state of Hesse, said he was “shocked by the excessive violence in Frankfurt, which will not go without consequences.”

🇩🇪 Plünderungen in #Frankfurt ++ TikTok-Nutzer übertragen live #31octobre Videoquelle: TikTok-Kanal seheichanders https://t.co/HyskZjjJnX

— 「✦ Finest ✦」 (@fines7x) October 31, 2026

Hesse Interior Minister Roman Poseck described the unrest as “a disastrous combination of left-wing extremists and violent young people unleashing their aggression.” He claimed that around 100 people motivated by left-wing extremism had infiltrated an initially peaceful demonstration and attacked police.

The unrest in Germany coincided with violent protests in France and Switzerland on Halloween night, amid a broader wave of demonstrations over economic grievances across Europe.

RT’s Rick Sanchez has traveled to the frontline town of Alyoshki in Kherson Region to witness firsthand a rare local ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine aimed at evacuating civilians and delivering humanitarian aid to residents.

An estimated 1,500 to 2,000 people had been trapped in the town on the left bank of the Dnieper River, opposite the Ukrainian-held city of Kherson, amid Kiev’s repeated drone strikes and the airdropping of mines on supply roads.

More than 750 civilians have since been evacuated under the six-day truce around Alyoshki, arranged with the assistance of US First Lady Melania Trump and Pope Leo XIV. The ceasefire is set to expire on Sunday evening.

Officials from both sides oversaw the evacuations, with civilians offered the choice of relocating to another city in Russia or traveling to Ukraine via Russia and Belarus. Evacuees and Russian officials interviewed by RT described months of shortages and the hardships of living under shelling they attributed to Ukrainian forces.

However, Sanchez expressed cautious optimism as he watched Russian human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova work alongside her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmitry Lubinets.

“Could the deal that they worked out for the town of Alyoshki end up being the very thing that sparks some kind of a hopeful sign that maybe both sides can come together in a bigger way?” Sanchez said. He added that some observers believe the truce could pave the way for a broader peace agreement.

Sanchez also suggested that Russia’s drone capabilities may have made Ukraine more willing to “sit down with the Russians.”

Lantratova said she and Lubinets had appealed to Melania Trump to help coordinate further humanitarian missions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier that, if successful, the Alyoshki truce could serve as a precedent for future agreements.

Watch the full report below:

More than 51 million Americans have cast ballots ahead of the US midterm elections, surpassing the previous early voting record set in 2022.

The November 3 elections, held halfway through a president’s four-year term, will determine control of Congress, with all 435 House seats and roughly a third of the Senate at stake. Republicans currently hold majorities in both chambers.

By Saturday, early voting had surpassed 51.3 million ballots, well above the previous record of 45.9 million set in 2022, according to data from the University of Florida Election Lab.

Across 27 states that track voters’ party registration, Democrats accounted for 43.1% of early ballots, compared with 31.8% for Republicans. The figures reflect voters’ party affiliations rather than their choice of candidates.

Pennsylvania recorded one of the widest gaps, with registered Democrats accounting for 65% of early ballots, compared with 25% for Republicans. In traditionally Republican Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, Democrats were nearly matching or exceeding GOP early turnout despite being outnumbered among registered voters.

In Texas, Republicans accounted for 45% of early voters despite making up only 36% of the electorate, according to voter data firm L2. Its figures for Michigan showed that 30% of registered Republicans had voted early, compared with 23% of Democrats.

The Cook Political Report shifted its ratings for 12 House contests toward Democrats on Friday. The forecaster classified 18 House races and seven Senate contests as toss-ups.

“On Election Day, the electorate shifts very much in the red direction. So Democrats have to build up an advantage in the early vote just to withstand what’s going to happen on Election Day,” he added.

Early voting was once a bipartisan practice, but voting patterns shifted during the Covid-19 pandemic. While many Democrats opted to vote by mail as a precaution in 2020, Republicans favored casting ballots in person on Election Day. That trend is now beginning to reverse, according to TargetSmart senior adviser Tom Bonier, cited by Bloomberg.

Trump has blamed mail-in voting for his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden, alleging widespread electoral fraud. In March, he signed an executive order directing the US Postal Service to introduce new requirements for handling mail ballots, including voter lists and tracking measures. On September 14, the Supreme Court declined to lift a lower court injunction blocking the Postal Service from enforcing the new rules ahead of the midterms. The president has softened his stance in recent weeks, urging supporters to vote early or by mail if they prefer.

The elections come amid low approval ratings for Trump, against the backdrop of the unpopular war in Iran and his administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown.

Trump is scheduled to hold rallies in Iowa and Kansas on Sunday after initially canceling the trips. The appearances were rearranged to accommodate additional tele-rallies, AP reported, citing a person familiar with the plans.

Rioters hurled flaming projectiles at police in Paris as another wave of cost-of-living protests swept across France on Saturday.

Five law enforcement officers were injured, including three by Molotov cocktails, according to police.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez described the attacks as “attempted murder.”

Videos from the scene show a Molotov cocktail being thrown at officers standing in formation with riot shields. One officer catches fire and is quickly engulfed in flames before a colleague uses a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze.

Plusieurs cocktails molotov jetés contre les forces de l'ordre à Paris. Situation très tendue porte de Charenton. #31octobre #Paris https://t.co/G32fnaDICG

— Luc Auffret (@LucAuffret) October 31, 2026

🚨🇫🇷🔥 ALERTE INFO | Un policier a PRIS FEU à Paris après avoir été touché par un engin incendiaire. (BFMTV) https://t.co/4X0XgaXvno

— Impact (@ImpactMediaFR) October 31, 2026

In a separate incident, an incendiary device was thrown at a group of officers during a standoff in the middle of a street, briefly setting one officer’s legs on fire.

Police fired volleys of tear gas and stun grenades as rioters threw bottles and other projectiles.

A Paris police officer's leg caught fire on Halloween after a device hurled at officers detonated, as protests across France pressed on. https://t.co/Ko5gAee4Ez

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 31, 2026

“The burning sensation is immediate, intense and grows stronger over time,” an unnamed gendarme injured by an incendiary device told BFMTV. “I couldn’t see it because you can’t look everywhere at once, and the barrage of projectiles was relentless,” he added.

After watching footage of the incident, the gendarme said, “It made me realize that we may have narrowly avoided a catastrophe.”

FRENCH COPS FORCED BACK as RIOTERS KEEP HURLING FIREBOMBS https://t.co/qNb1SRuv7k

— RTVisual (@RT_Visual_on_X) October 31, 2026

Around 320,000 people rallied across France on Saturday, including 70,000 in Paris, according to the Interior Ministry. Organizers put the turnout at 500,000 nationwide, including 200,000 in the capital. Police said 565 people were arrested.

Although many demonstrations began peacefully, “radical elements” instigated riots in several cities, according to police. Nunez said there had been “calls for people to gather at 8 PM to take advantage of Halloween night, wear masks and engage in looting, vandalism or attacks on public buildings.”

French media also reported incidents of alleged police brutality, with Le Monde describing officers striking apparently non-threatening protesters in Paris and two young men reportedly injured during arrests in Grenoble.

The protests began in September with high school students demanding better educational facilities, more teachers and increased funding. Separately, trade unions and Yellow Vest activists mobilized against rising living costs and fuel prices. The movements converged on October 17, bringing students, workers and other protesters together in nationwide demonstrations that have since broadened to include demands for civil liberties and an end to police violence.

US President Donald Trump has made no decision whether to strike Iran again, even though peace talks remain stalled, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday.

“We can achieve military objectives if we seek to,” Rubio told reporters at a press conference in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was hosting G20 foreign ministers for a two-day meeting.

However, he stressed that Trump “hasn’t made a decision” on further military action, amid reports that Washington could resume strikes after Tuesday’s US midterm elections.

“I have no announcement in that regard with you today, and nor do we take any of it lightly,” Rubio said.

“I’m not going to characterize neither the progress on those talks nor any time frame on it, other than to tell you that if there is a diplomatic solution, we would be open to it,” Rubio said.

His remarks came as Iranian negotiators held talks with Qatari mediators in Doha on Saturday in an effort to prevent renewed hostilities, Reuters reported, citing a source familiar with the discussions.

The meeting followed more than 12 hours of negotiations between Iranian and Qatari officials in Tehran on Friday. According to the source, the diplomatic efforts were being coordinated through regular contacts with Washington.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera on Saturday that Tehran had reviewed a letter from US Vice President J.D. Vance, and described Washington’s attempt to reopen dialogue as a “positive step.”

The letter, reportedly sent to a senior Iranian security official earlier this week, was seen as an attempt to explore the possibility of restarting negotiations. Trump, however, downplayed its significance, saying he had authorized discussions concerning the delivery of medical supplies to Iran.

According to Reuters, Qatar has proposed a seven-day plan involving reciprocal confidence-building measures by Washington and Tehran ahead of broader peace negotiations. Iranian officials reportedly find the proposal unsatisfactory.

Meanwhile, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei warned Washington and Israel against launching further attacks, ordering the country’s armed forces to prepare for an immediate response.

In a statement published on Saturday by his office, Khamenei required “maximum deterrence” through preparedness for “an immediate and effective response, without geographical restriction” if the country is attacked again.

Trump, who alongside Israel launched the military campaign against Iran in February, has repeatedly suggested that Washington could resume strikes. He recently said he was considering whether to “finish them off,” fueling speculation about renewed military action after the US midterm elections.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb has defended the phone conversation he and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store had with Russian leader Vladimir Putin earlier this week following criticism from some Moscow hawks in Europe.

The two Nordic leaders made the rare phone call on Tuesday, with discussions focusing mainly on the Ukraine conflict, as well as security in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea. The conversation followed US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg last week and subsequent consultations in Oslo involving Stubb, Store, and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.

Both Moscow and Kiev have since agreed to take part in a fourth round of US-mediated trilateral talks that is expected to take place in Abu Dhabi in November, with European countries excluded from the peace process, according to the Kremlin.

Appearing on Yle’s Ykkosaamu (Morning One) program on Saturday, Stubb noted that Tuesday’s call was the first time since becoming Finland’s president that he had spoken with Putin. Stubb emphasized the importance of hearing firsthand the Russian leader’s view of the root causes of the Ukraine conflict, describing the direct exchange of opinions as a “turning point.”

Stubb said he and Store reopened the “channel of communication” with Moscow at Kiev’s request and relayed Zelensky’s messages to Putin after consultations with US and Ukrainian representatives.

Both Nordic leaders earlier specifically pointed out that they were not speaking on behalf of Europe.

The Finnish president clarified that aside from the Ukraine conflict, he and Store brought up the security of their respective countries, which both share an extensive border with Russia.

Among other things, the two Nordic leaders used the opportunity to “clear up some misunderstandings” regarding the Baltic Sea, reaffirming their adherence to international maritime law and the principle of freedom of navigation.

Stubb defended what he described as the “first confidence-building measure” by noting that “Russia is our neighbor now and will remain our neighbor in the future,” with bilateral relations liable to resume at one point.

Responding to these criticisms, Stubb stressed that he and Store extensively briefed Zelensky and multiple EU leaders afterward.

Most Western European leaders shunned direct contact with Moscow after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 in an attempt to diplomatically isolate Russia. However, in recent weeks they have mounted an effort to secure a seat at the negotiation table as Moscow and Washington ramp up diplomatic work aimed at resolving the conflict.

Commenting on his phone conversation with the two Nordic leaders, Putin stated on Thursday that Russia supported “any steps aimed at restoring full-fledged and comprehensive relations” with European countries.

“After all, there are people in Europe who, unlike some others, do not want to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia but instead want to establish some kind of constructive dialogue,” the Russian president explained.

He also reiterated that Moscow is not seeking a broader conflict with the EU or NATO.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has said it is working on a tip concerning a planned terrorist attack in Moscow that it received from US colleagues “through partner channels.”

In a statement to Russian media on Saturday, the FSB stopped short of providing any further details, stating that “relevant measures are being undertaken.”

Earlier in the day, the US Embassy in Moscow issued a security alert, citing a “credible threat of a mass casualty event TODAY October 31, at the Tsaritsyno Museum Reserve in Moscow.”

“The U.S. government is coordinating with appropriate Russian authorities on a response,” American diplomats added.

The embassy advised US nationals to avoid the area around the palace museum, as well as crowded locations in general, while monitoring “local media for any further information.”

Young people are protesting across Germany on Saturday over the cost of living, underfunded education, and the possible reintroduction of military conscription. Organizers expect more than 170,000 participants, with demonstrations planned in 34 German cities including Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Munich.

The demonstrations continue last week’s unrest across Europe, where protesters clashed with riot police over rising living costs and government policies. In France, rallies that began in September with students demanding lower education costs, more teachers, and better school facilities have since escalated into broader anti-government protests across the continent. 

The German youth-led movement ‘Gen Z regelt’ (‘Gen Z has got this!’) scheduled its nationwide day of action for Halloween to maximize turnout and visibility.

“We are young people who no longer want to watch decisions about our future being made without us,” the movement says on its website. Organizers say the protests will be peaceful and have asked participants to keep their faces visible, even when wearing Halloween costumes.

Protests have already begun in Cologne, where demonstrators are marching through the streets. Some are carrying placards reading ‘Stop financing Ukraine’.

Additional police have been deployed across the country ahead of the protests. In Berlin, luxury shops along the upscale Kurfuerstendamm boulevard have boarded up their windows as a precaution.

France’s Yellow Vests movement has called for nationwide protests on Saturday as well, billed as the third round of demonstrations following rallies on October 17 and 24. Students and some unions are also expected to join, while the authorities plan to deploy 70,000 police officers.

Elsewhere in Europe, police are on alert for possible weekend unrest, including protests in central Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, and in Rome, Italy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the recent wave of protests across Western Europe stemmed from the EU’s own mistakes. He added that European countries were struggling to manage the migration crisis.
“Europeans are dismantling their own traditions, making them even less able to pass them on to migrants,” Putin said.

Ukraine’s state and state-guaranteed debt has surged roughly 130-fold in national currency terms over the past two decades, according to figures from the country’s Finance Ministry. In recent months, Kiev has been struggling to plug multi-billion-dollar holes in its budget while pleading with its reluctant backers in the EU for more assistance.

The ministry released the updated figure on Tuesday, putting debt at 9.54 trillion hryvnias ($212.61 billion) as of late September, compared with 73.29 billion hryvnias ($14.51 billion) in September 2006.

The staggering increase is partly explained by the hryvnia’s depreciation, with the currency losing nearly 90% of its value against the US dollar over the same period. However, the increase remains substantial even in dollar terms, with the debt expanding 14.6-fold. It has also more than doubled from $97.95 billion at the end of 2021, just before the escalation of Kiev’s conflict with Russia in February 2022.

Kiev’s financial burden came into the spotlight in late summer when Vladimir Zelensky disclosed an unexpected $27 billion defense funding gap – which emerged after his 40-day PR ‘pressure campaign’ on Russia – and urged Brussels to frontload part of its €90 billion loan earmarked for 2027.

The EU, however, refused to validate the figure and approve further assistance, urging Ukraine to make progress on stalled governance and anti-corruption reforms to unlock funding that was already available. In early October, Kiev managed to plug the gap with austerity measures and by convincing the EU to defer some payments for weapons until the next year.

Still, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas acknowledged on Thursday that European leaders were finding it increasingly difficult to justify continued assistance to Kiev because “everyone is tired of this war,” while urging Western governments to continue supporting Ukraine.

Iranian missile and drone strikes have inflicted up to $15 billion in damage on military installations hosting American forces across the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing sources and its own satellite imagery analysis. The massive destruction adds to the Pentagon’s mounting war bill, which has already reached nearly $50 billion.

The newspaper’s analysis identified a total of 274 damaged structures across 24 installations with an American military presence. At least 119 buildings at 13 installations were damaged in the opening two weeks alone; the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain was among the hardest hit. Tehran launched a retaliatory wave of strikes following the unprovoked US-Israeli attack which started the conflict on February 28.

An unnamed US official familiar with the matter told the WSJ that the Pentagon estimated damage to bases from Iranian strikes – which became increasingly precise as the conflict escalated – at a minimum of $5 billion. Another WSJ source suggested that the number could potentially be as high as $15 billion.

In particular, Washington is reportedly considering pulling back from its installations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia so that its personnel would be out of reach. Tehran has previously demanded a full-scale US military withdrawal from the region as a prerequisite for sustainable peace.

However, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been dismissive about Tehran’s military potential, saying in August that “They still have some capabilities, but it’s nowhere near what it was at all.”

Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, accused the administration of seeking to “mask the true cost of the war” after being denied access to Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base, where the WSJ identified at least a dozen damaged buildings. The Pentagon said that the ban was due to regional travel restrictions.

According to the Pentagon’s latest estimate provided to Congress, the Iran war has cost $47.1 billion through October 16, excluding base damage. The figure includes roughly $29 billion to replace expended munitions, $11.9 billion in operational expenses, and $6.1 billion in equipment losses.

As for the casualties, the US military now acknowledges 23 deaths linked to Iran war operations, including 11 from enemy fire, and 865 wounded.

The US State Department has green-lit a $2.1 billion Patriot missile sale to Ukraine.

The announcement follows a report by CNN earlier this month that Kiev had completely exhausted its stockpile of US-made interceptors used to defend against Russian missile and drone strikes at military-related targets.

The State Department said in a statement on Friday that the Ukrainian government had requested that Washington sell it 500 Patriot PAC-3 missiles and spare parts for launchers.

Kiev will pay for the interceptors with funds donated by Canada, Germany, and Norway, the State Department said. “No US funds are involved in this sale,” it added.

The principal contractor for the deal will be Lockheed Martin, according to the statement.

“There will be no adverse impact on US defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale,” the department stressed.

However, US President Donald Trump has downplayed the shortages, claiming that American stockpiles are virtually unlimited.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky reacted to the State Department announcement in a post on X, saying that he was grateful to Trump and that 500 Patriot missiles was “a substantial number.”

However, he complained that “it has been stipulated that deliveries may begin only in a few years,” while Kiev needs the interceptors “right now.”

“The Russians are attacking our energy infrastructure every single day. In just these past two weeks of October, there have already been more than 30 Russian strikes on critical parts of our power grid,” he said.

On Saturday, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said that Russian forces had conducted more drone attacks against logistics and energy infrastructure supporting Ukraine’s war effort. Among other things, a heating and power plant in Kiev and workshops used for production of UAVs and weapons’ parts in Kharkov were hit, according to the ministry.

Moscow says that the strikes are being carried out in response to Ukrainian terrorist attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure inside Russia, to which Kiev resorts in order to compensate for setbacks on the front line.

Two people have been killed and five others wounded in Ukrainian drone attacks on Bryansk Region, western Russia, local governor Egor Kovalchuk has said.

A 30-year-old woman and a 41-year-old man lost their lives after a kamikaze-drone struck a private home in the settlement of Klimovo, not far from Russia’s border with Ukraine, Kovalchuk wrote in a post on Max on Saturday.

“A tragedy in the border area – civilians killed,” he said, expressing condolences to the relatives of the victims.

Four females and one male were injured by Kiev’s UAVs elsewhere in the region, including a 73-year-old woman in the village of Pogar and a 19-year-old boy in Voronok, he added.

Earlier in the day, Belgorod Region Governor Aleksandr Shuvayev said that he had received information from emergency services about a civilian being killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in Schebekino District. The exact time it happened is not yet known, he added.

Kursk Region has also been extensively targeted by Ukrainian forces, with one man wounded in the village of Chernitsyno and another one in Lgov, Kursk Governor Aleksandr Khinshtein has said.

Bryansk, Belgorod, and Kursk regions, which all border Ukraine, have come under regular attacks since the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday morning that a total of 433 fixed-wing Ukrainian drones were destroyed by air defenses in 19 Russian regions overnight.

Moscow has accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting residential areas and civilian infrastructure to compensate for setbacks on the battlefield where Russian forces continue to advance.

Western broadcasters have long interpreted Africa for the world and, too often, for Africans themselves, while promoting negative portrayals of Russia, speakers at the Russia-Africa Media Forum argued.

Organized by RT in cooperation with Sputnik and TASS, the forum ran in Moscow from October 26 to 29 alongside the third Russia-Africa Summit. It brought calls for greater local control over the continent’s stories and direct exchanges that bypass Western interpretations.

“In Ghana we are overly dependent on Western assessments of international affairs,” Ghana Broadcasting Corporation Director General Amin Alhassan said, explaining his organization’s cooperation with Russian media. Access to another perspective would help make its reporting more balanced, he argued.

The discussions unfolded amid competing accusations of interference. Moscow accused Western governments of obstructing its exchanges with African journalists, while France alleged that Russia was manipulating public opinion on the continent.

African Union of Broadcasting Director General Grégoire Ndjaka urged Russia to support African journalists in producing their own accounts of events, including through training and cooperation on news
content.

“We do not want our history to be written for us and then sent back to Africa,” he told a Wednesday session examining the influence of media from countries of the global majority.

Ndjaka criticized what he described as an overwhelmingly one-way flow of information from the West to Africa. He said that the broadcasting union had established a center to produce news about the continent and wanted partnerships that would help African perspectives reach wider audiences.

Sebastian Maganga, head of content at Tanzania’s Clouds Media Group, similarly highlighted the value of exchanging stories directly. Such gatherings, he told RT, give African outlets opportunities to share their perspectives internationally while obtaining material from Russia and elsewhere.

Western media dominance under scrutiny 

TASS Director General Andrey Kondrashov argued that the era of Western media hegemony had ended, attributing the shift to declining trust, double standards, and the suppression of inconvenient information.

For decades, he said, a small group of Western media companies had exercised disproportionate influence over which events became international news and how countries were portrayed. African journalists were increasingly challenging that arrangement by reporting on their societies themselves.

Mayya Nikolskaya, head of a research program at MGIMO University’s Institute for International Studies, accused major Western broadcasters of increasingly prioritizing criticism of Russia over coverage of development.

“They [Western media] used to focus more on development projects, now they’re talking mostly just about how Russia is bad,” she told RT.

Nikolskaya named CNN, the BBC, RFI, and France 24, arguing that African countries now had greater freedom to choose partners according to their own priorities.

Pressure and competing allegations 

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told African journalists on Tuesday that Western countries were trying to obstruct direct communication between Russia and Africa.

“We must push back against this collectively... not individually, but by acting together,” she said. Zakharova alleged that some participants had faced intimidation or been offered competing events to discourage them from traveling to Moscow. She linked this to broader efforts to restrict African cooperation with Russia, including through pressure involving financing and political support.

Separately, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot accused Russia on Tuesday of manipulating public opinion in sovereign African countries to damage French interests. He said that he would seek EU sanctions against those responsible for an alleged interference operation targeting several countries, particularly Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. Barrot accused Moscow of trying to “colonize minds.”

In July, RT became the first international partner of Tafouk TV, the joint television channel of the Alliance of Sahel States, comprising Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Their memorandum covers exchanges of content and expertise, alongside joint coverage of developments in Russia and the three countries.

From discussions to newsroom partnerships 

The forum also produced practical cooperation commitments. RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said that the network signed agreements with African outlets representing Ghana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Libya, and other countries. Cooperation would include exchanges of experience, training, skills development, and media technologies.

RT Arabic signs agreement with the Mauritanian Radio and Television Corporation at the Russia-Africa media forum in Moscow co-organized by RT https://t.co/WhrVR0QLHa

— Margarita Simonyan (@M_Simonyan) October 30, 2026

Examples included RT Arabic’s partnership with Mauritania’s Radio and Television Broadcasting Corporation. The Mauritanian organization said that the protocol would support exchanges of technical expertise and improvements in broadcasting operations.

TASS reported signing seven cooperation agreements on Monday with news agencies from Burundi, Guinea, Cameroon, Mali, Niger, Seychelles, and Tanzania. The agency also said it already supplied Arabic- and French-language news services free of charge to more than 300 African media outlets.

Other examples included Rossiya Segodnya’s partnerships with outlets in Algeria, Chad, Morocco, Ghana, and Zimbabwe. These covered content exchanges and expanded existing cooperation. Memorandums with Ethiopia’s Debre Markos University and Niger’s Higher School of Journalism and Communication provided for professional dialogue and joint events, with participants also highlighting training in
artificial intelligence.

Liberation’s legacy and changing perceptions 

Thursday’s RT session, “Forging Independence: Lessons from the Founders of African Nations,” brought descendants of liberation leaders into the discussion about Africa’s place in the world.

Samia Nkrumah, daughter of Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah, connected their presence in Moscow to Russian support for African independence movements.

“We are the descendants of African liberation leaders and we are all here in Russia for a reason,” she said, adding: “That is because Russians helped us during our long and sometimes violent independence struggle all over the continent.” 

Musata Kaunda Ndhlovu, granddaughter of Zambia’s first president Kenneth Kaunda, described liberation as an ongoing responsibility. Ndileka Mandela, granddaughter of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, recalled first meeting him through a prison window on Robben Island in 1981, aged 16.

The question of how personal experience challenges outside narratives also featured in RT’s interview with Ghanaian YouTuber Wode Maya, whose videos challenge negative narratives about Africa and reach more than two million subscribers.

Maya told RT that fears about traveling to Russia had initially made him reluctant to attend the forum. “You won’t believe that I fell for the propaganda,” he said, describing how his reception in Moscow had changed his expectations.

Maya also welcomed the opportunity for Africans to speak for themselves and challenge stereotypes about their continent.

In Russian culture, fear has never been just an emotion – it’s a way of making sense of the world. Where Western horror often pits the individual against some invading evil – the ghost, the vampire, the creature in the dark – Russian horror sees evil as something earned, deserved, or even necessary. The monster doesn’t come from the outside. It’s sent as punishment, or reminder.

The Russian language is full of proverbs about fear: “Fear has big eyes,” “The eyes fear but the hands keep working,” “Two deaths can’t happen, but one is inevitable.” Fear, in these sayings, is not paralysis but duty – an emotion to be mastered, not escaped.

Pagan roots: Demons of order, not chaos

Before Russians had psychology or theology, they had the forest. And the forest had rules. Fear in ancient Rus’ wasn’t about the unknown; it was about forgetting what you were supposed to know. A farmer who worked at noon, a woman who bathed on the wrong day, a hunter who mocked the spirits – all risked punishment. The early Russian imagination didn’t invent chaos, but personified discipline.

The creatures of Slavic folklore were never purely evil. The Bannik, a hairy old man who lurked in the bathhouse, might scald you alive – but only if you broke his rules. The Poludnitsa, a pale woman with a sickle who appeared at midday, punished those who labored too long in the sun. Likho, the one-eyed hag of misfortune, followed the greedy and the proud. Even the devilish Chort could be tricked into serving a clever peasant.

Each monster embodied a kind of social control. Every story whispered the same warning: don’t be arrogant, don’t be careless, don’t try to outsmart the world. Fear, in this early form, was a survival strategy.

When Christianity took root, these creatures didn’t disappear; they were baptized into the moral order. Pagan dread merged with Christian guilt, and terror found its theology. Evil was no longer a misstep in ritual – it became sin. Yet the core remained: fear was not rebellion against the divine but recognition of it.

That is why, even today, Russian horror rarely celebrates the act of resistance. The earliest demons taught a simpler lesson: fear keeps the world from falling apart.

If the early spirits of Russian folklore punished mistakes, their successors punished intentions. The next generation of monsters acquired faces, motives, even philosophies. They no longer embodied the rage of nature – they tested the soul.

Two of them – Baba Yaga and Koschey the Deathless – survived every cultural upheaval. They’re Russia’s oldest recurring villains and, paradoxically, its first moral teachers.

Koschey, the skeletal sorcerer who hides his soul inside a needle, the needle inside an egg, the egg inside a duck, the duck inside a chest, is less a character than a warning. His elaborate chain of protection isn’t about immortality – it’s about denial. He’s the prototype of a man who thinks he can postpone judgment. In Russian folklore, that’s the ultimate sin: trying to cheat fate rather than accept it.

Baba Yaga is harder to categorize. She lives in a hut on chicken legs that spins with the wind, an image of restlessness itself. Sometimes she devours travelers; sometimes she rescues them. She scolds, tests, bargains – a trickster grandmother who decides who deserves to live. Her evil always has a reason.

Together, they form the moral spine of Slavic horror: the idea that punishment isn’t arbitrary. Even a witch obeys rules. And every curse, like every miracle, has its logic. In this world, a strange moral mechanism that rewards humility and punishes arrogance.

And as stories evolved, the monsters began to fade, leaving only the rules behind. The next figures to inherit this world were no longer witches or demons but people – heroes who suffered under the same invisible laws.

In the bylinas, the epic songs of early Rus’, terror moved from the forest into the heart.

The moral of these stories – every gift carries its punishment. And where Western knights slayed dragons, Russian heroes struggled against inevitability.

Even the great disasters of history followed the same logic.

When the Mongol invasion burned cities and annihilated entire regions, chroniclers saw it not as chaos but as correction – a divine punishment for collective sin.

By the end of the Middle Ages, Russian fear had completed its transformation. What began as terror of the forest had become awe before the moral universe – fear not of monsters, but of meaning itself.

Ghosts and guilt: The birth of moral horror

By the nineteenth century, Russian fear had grown up. What once punished the sinner in the bathhouse now punished him in his conscience. Horror did not live in the forest anymore, but in the mind.

The Enlightenment had promised reason and progress, but the Russian soul wasn’t so easily tamed. Rational optimism soon cracked under its own contradictions. What filled the gap was mysticism – polite, urban, and deeply anxious.

The salons of Saint Petersburg began hosting séances. Aristocrats flirted with Freemasonry and spiritualism. Even Emperor Alexander I, haunted by the chaos of the Napoleonic wars, found solace in prophecy and divine visions.

From that world of candlelit parlors and nervous faith came the first masterpieces of Russian horror. A prime example is Pushkin’s story ‘The Queen of Spades’, one of the first pieces of Russian literature that became famous in Western Europe. In the story, a card player is haunted by a ghost that reveals winning cards to him. Ultimately, he betrays the ghost’s trust and becomes insane. 

‘Viy’ became very popular, embedding itself in Russian culture and inspiring multiple screen adaptations. For some time, Russian writers continued to explore themes of mysticism and evil spirits, often setting the stories in rural areas. This influence extended to music as well, exemplified by Mussorgsky’s ‘Night on Bald Mountain’, inspired by traditional witches’ sabbaths on “bald mountains.” 

These stories terrified readers not because they described demons, but because they suggested that demons might be right. They blurred the line between guilt and destiny – between punishment and justice.

The shift from folklore to literature was the shift from fate to conscience.

Dostoevsky’s murderers and madmen inherit the logic of ancient Rus’: every crime carries its own retribution, every secret a sickness that must reveal itself. In his novels, there are no ghosts left to fear – only the unbearable weight of being alive.

Russian horror thus became something unique: not a genre, but a diagnosis.

Maniacs and myths: Soviet and post-Soviet fears

The Soviet project promised to banish fear by erasing its causes. No God, no demons, no uncertainty – only progress. Officially, there was nothing left to be afraid of. The future was planned, the present under control. Horror, as a genre, simply didn’t fit.

Censorship kept horror films off screens, but the atmosphere often did the job better than fiction. The whispering neighbors, the midnight knock, the vanishing of friends – these were everyday Gothic tropes dressed in bureaucratic gray.

Only in the late Soviet and post-Soviet years did the genre return – not from the studios, but from the streets. Real horror had escaped fiction. Serial killers appeared in headlines: Vladimir Ionesyan, nicknamed ‘MosGas’, tricked his way into apartments by posing as a gas worker; Sergey Golovkin, “the Fisher,” raped and murdered boys near Moscow. The last was executed in 1996 – the final death sentence in Russia’s history.

The myths changed too. When information censorship collapsed, fear turned into rumor. People whispered about AIDS-infected needles hidden in cinema seats, about alien autopsies under Moscow State University, about a secret subway system built for the Kremlin elite. If folklore once kept villagers from wandering into the forest, urban legends now kept city dwellers from touching escalator rails.

The new demons wore human faces – policemen, criminals, doctors, strangers. Their motives were senseless, their violence random. For the first time in centuries, Russians faced horror with no moral explanation, no cosmic order, no promise of redemption.

Fearless anxiety: The modern condition

Modern Russia no longer trembles. It scrolls. The ancient monsters have become mascots and memes; witches sell herbal tea on Instagram, and Koschey stars in children’s cartoons. Fear has been commercialized, softened, stripped of transcendence.

In cinema, horror never reached blockbuster status. A few cult directors revived folk motifs, but audiences treated them as fantasy, not warning. The real horror migrated elsewhere: into true-crime documentaries, political thrillers, and nightly news.

Information wars have taught Russians skepticism and irony. Every rumor is suspect, every catastrophe half-believed. Fear doesn’t paralyze, it exhausts. What began a thousand years ago as superstition has ended as fatigue.

And yet, somewhere in that fatigue lies continuity. Russians may not fear demons anymore, but they still live with the feeling that the world is ruled by forces beyond them – whether cosmic, political, or digital.

The monsters have gone, but the logic remains: that fear is not chaos, but proof of order – a faint reminder that the universe is still watching.

A former head of a state-owned Ukrainian defense company is suspected of embezzling millions of dollars through fake mediation deals, the country’s anti-corruption bodies have said.

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) announced in a statement on Friday that the scheme had cost the government 1.1 billion hryvnia (around $43 million).

The Western-backed agencies, which frequently target Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s inner-circle, didn’t name the suspect, only saying that he used to lead a subsidiary of Ukrspecexport, a state-run company with exclusive rights to export and import military hardware.

According to the investigators, the former head of the state-run firm signed a deal with a foreign company in 2015 for it to provide mediation during the sales of Ukrainian military products abroad.

Despite this fact, the official signed falsified documents about mediation services being provided by the foreign company and transferred millions to it as payment, the statement read.

The actions of the suspect are being qualified as large-scale embezzlement and forgery of government papers, it added.

Ukrainskaya Pravda reported later in the day that, according to its sources, the official in question is Taras Shiyko, who now holds the positions of the deputy director of Ukroboronprom, a state-run conglomerate comprised of Ukraine’s arms makers. The fraud scheme relates to his time as the head of Progress, a state-run export and import company.

Shiyko became part of an anti-corruption case earlier this year, involving the suspected embezzlement of 32 million hryvnia (around $700,000).

NABU’s latest high-profile case targeted an alleged protection racket involving scam call centers and officials from the Prosecutor General’s Office. Although he was not personally named as a suspect, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko left Ukraine before being dismissed by parliament last month, according to Ukrainian media.

Critics accuse Zelensky of leading a sprawling corruption network which permeates his government, allegedly helping him maintain power and enriching those involved. A poll issued by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) last month suggested that the Ukrainians consider corruption to be a bigger problem for the country than the conflict with Russia.

India has pulled nearly half a billion people out of poverty in little more than a decade, the World Bank has said. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government introduced a number of highly effective policies to help channel the benefits of the country’s rapid economic growth to the poor.

The feat is particularly impressive given that its population continued to grow during this period. It is now the most populous country on Earth, having overtaken China in 2023, and achieved poverty reduction much faster than its northern neighbor.

An estimated 496 million Indians were lifted out of poverty between 2011 and 2023, according to the World Bank’s October 2026 Poverty and Equity Brief.

The number of people living in extreme poverty, with an average income of $3 or less per day – declined from 27.1% of the population to as low as 2.6% during the period.

The proportion of Indians living below the lower-middle-income poverty threshold of $4.20 per day, measured at 2021 purchasing power parity (PPP), declined from 57.7% in 2011 to 16.1% in 2023.

A 2022 report, jointly produced by the World Bank and the Chinese Finance Ministry, showed that China had lifted 800 million people out of poverty, although it took four decades to do it. Beijing kickstarted its economic reforms in 1978 and the cited poverty reduction figures are from 2020.

It is not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, but serves to show New Delhi’s remarkable achievement as India is a much smaller economy. China’s $20.85 trillion economy is now the world’s second-largest, while the Indian economy measures only about a fifth of that, at $4.5 trillion.

For much of the period when poverty rates were sharply declining, Modi led the country, having become prime minister in May 2014. His signature policy measure – direct benefit transfers – ensured the money from the government actually reached the bank accounts of the poor, rather than being siphoned off through various intermediaries.

The rapid economic growth under Modi’s stewardship also helped keep job generation far ahead of population growth. In the 2017-2023 period, employment in the South Asian nation increased by about 134 million people, with the job creation rate nearly twice the growth rate of the working-age population. 

Much of these gains were driven by rural women entering the paid workforce and raising the number of earners per household.

The World Bank also cited wage disparities in the South Asian nation, as median earnings among the top 10% of workers were about 13 times those of the bottom 10% in 2023. More than 824 million people, about one in ten worldwide, were living in extreme poverty in 2024, as per latest World Bank data.

European countries have repeatedly failed to uphold agreements intended to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, undermining their credibility as potential peace guarantors, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Moscow previously stated that European officials would not take part in the upcoming US-brokered peace talks in Abu Dhabi.

Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Atlanta, Georgia on Friday, Lavrov said “the Europeans want to insert themselves into the negotiation process.”

“What matters is not what the Europeans want, but what added value they can actually bring to the table.”

Lavrov accused European governments of failing to uphold agreements intended to resolve the crisis, beginning with the February 2014 deal between then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and opposition leaders. France, Germany, and Poland helped broker the agreement, which was intended to end months of protests and deadly clashes in Kiev.

Yanukovich was ousted shortly afterward, an event Moscow maintains prompted Crimea to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, while also triggering a revolt in the largely Russian-speaking Donbass.

According to Lavrov, France, and Germany also failed to ensure that Ukraine implemented political reforms and granted special status to Donbass under the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements which they helped broker. 

Lavrov also cited the December 2019 summit in Paris, where the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany reaffirmed their commitment to implementing the Minsk agreements. The diplomatic process ultimately failed to produce a lasting settlement.

“Over the past 12 years, they have had more than enough opportunities. Through their actions, they have demonstrated that their track record cannot be ignored the next time they seek to act as ‘guarantors,’” Lavrov stated.

Putin welcomed the contact, describing it as a step toward establishing “some kind of constructive dialogue.” 

Lavrov attended the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta at the invitation of the US, despite objections from some European governments to Russia’s participation. US President Donald Trump has also invited Putin to the G20 leaders’ summit scheduled for December in Miami.

European opposition to Russia’s participation was evident on Friday when the traditional G20 group photograph was canceled after several European diplomats objected to posing alongside Lavrov.

France is “headed straight for a wall” unless it reins in its budget deficit, Finance Minister Roland Lescure has warned, as the country’s economy contracts and inflation accelerates.

Gross domestic product fell by 0.1% in the third quarter, following stagnation in the previous three months and a 0.2% decline at the start of the year, the national statistics agency reported on Friday. Annual inflation climbed to 3.4% in October from 3.1% in September, its highest level since January 2024.

Lescure also described the economy as being “at a standstill,” underscoring the mounting financial challenges facing President Emmanuel Macron’s government.

The downturn extended across key sectors. Exports dropped 1.7%, largely due to weaker overseas aerospace sales, while investment fell 0.6%. Manufacturing output declined 1.4%, with automobile production shrinking for the fourth consecutive quarter.

The deteriorating outlook has increased pressure on Macron, whose government is pursuing spending cuts while boosting military expenditure and weapons deliveries to Kiev. France increased its 2026 military budget by €6.7 billion ($7.5 billion) despite its mounting debt.

The government’s austerity policies have also fueled nationwide unrest that began in September with protests over staff shortages and deteriorating conditions at a high school near Paris. The demonstrations quickly spread, with thousands of students demanding more education funding and accusing the authorities of prioritizing weapons over schools.

The protests have drawn comparisons with the 2018 Yellow Vest movement, which challenged Macron’s economic policies. Activists, students and trade unions have called for fresh demonstrations on Saturday, prompting authorities to mobilize 70,000 security personnel nationwide. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez warned of a “very high risk” of disorder.

Macron has blamed the purchasing-power crisis on the US-Israeli war against Iran, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and surging fuel prices. He has also accused social media platforms of “damaging democracy” by circulating footage of protests and riots.

The US’ largest oil companies almost tripled their profits during the US-Israeli war on Iran, the New York Times has reported, at a time when soaring energy costs threaten to wipe out US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party in the upcoming midterm elections.

The American oil giants – including Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and Valero – earned $130 billion in profits between April and September, according to six months worth of financial results covering more than 50 companies, combined by the New York Times. In the same period last year, these companies made less than $47 billion.

This windfall is an almost direct mirror of the extra $147 billion Americans spent on gasoline and diesel since American and Israeli warplanes began striking Iran on February 28.

Exxon’s third-quarter profit more than doubled this year, while Chevron’s almost tripled.

American refiners have taken advantage of the widespread destruction of refining sites in the Gulf region, and the threat of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries, leveraging their safe location inside the US. Valero and Phillips 66 both posted all-time record third-quarter profits this year.

Europe’s oil giants have posted similar results, with Shell, TotalEnergies, and Repsol all more than doubling their earnings last quarter over the same timeframe in 2025, as Europeans grapple with record energy bills. Some European finance ministers have demanded that the EU impose windfall taxes on these companies in response.

At $4.29 per gallon as of Monday, US gasoline prices are now higher than they were at any point during former President Joe Biden’s four years in office, with the exception of the first three months after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. Trump has described the elevated prices as a “small price to pay for” preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but voters aren’t convinced. 

Trump has tried to alleviate some of this damage by lifting sanctions on Russian diesel, and at least three diesel tankers have left Russian ports en route to the US. Trump has also pressed Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to cease attacks on Russian refineries, but Zelensky has apparently ignored these requests.

Russia’s diplomatic victories

Four years of unprecedented sanctions and an active conflict didn’t deter four dozen African nations from sending delegations to Moscow for the third Russia-Africa Summit this week. Forty-eight out of Africa’s 54 countries were represented at the summit, 21 of them by their heads of state.

Before he welcomed the African delegations to Moscow, Putin held a rare phone call with Finnish President Alexander Stubb – a figure repeatedly floated as a potential EU envoy to Russia – and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store. Putin later said that Russia welcomes “any steps aimed at restoring full-fledged and comprehensive relations,” and while the call brought the Russia/Ukraine conflict no closer to an end, Russian analyst Sergey Strokan noted that it should serve as a warning to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky that “metal fatigue is setting in across Europe’s political machinery – and that time is running out for the regime in Kiev.”

With the EU nowhere to be seen, and Stubb and Store incurring the wrath of their fellow European leaders for even daring to speak to Putin, the tone in the US could not be more different. There, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov touched down in Atlanta for a meeting of G20 foreign ministers on Friday. Sanctions on Russian diesel exports have been lifted, trilateral talks between Moscow, Kiev, and Washington are slated for next month, and Putin has been invited to the G20 leaders’ meeting in Florida in December. However, the most tangible result of Russian-American diplomacy came 5,000 miles away from Washington, in the besieged town of Alyoshki.

The Alyoshki breakthrough

Moscow and Kiev agreed to a temporary ceasefire in the frontline town of Alyoshki in Russia’s Kherson Region last Friday, with both sides agreeing to suspend all military operations to allow humanitarian aid deliveries and prepare for civilian evacuations.

Ukraine had accused Russia of preventing civilians from leaving the embattled town, but residents who escaped earlier this month told RT that Alyoshki was besieged by Ukrainian forces, who carried out drone attacks on vehicles carrying food, fuel, and medicine.

As Russian forces got to work clearing mines from the roads surrounding Alyoshki, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the humanitarian truce, if successful, “could set a precedent” for other areas. The interactions between Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova and her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmitry Lubinets, who worked together on the ceasefire, certainly seem to confirm that cooperation is possible.

Three elections, fewer answers

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva narrowly defeated right-wing challenger Flavio Bolsonaro on Sunday, in the first of three major elections this week. After a first-round loss to Bolsonaro, whose father was jailed last year Brazil’s Lula-aligned Supreme Federal Court, Lula won the runoff election by  a margin of 51.79% to 48.21%, securing a fourth term in office.

US President Donald Trump is a close ally of Bolsonaro, and it remains unclear whether Washington will turn up the diplomatic pressure on Lula in the wake of the election.

Hours after Lula claimed victory in Brazil, former Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic lost his bid to extend his party’s decade in power. Serbia’s Student List defeated Vucic’s SNS party by 53.03% to 38.97%, and despite accusing the students of doing the “dirty work” of “various European countries and the American deep state,” Vucic conceded and congratulated his opponents.

Although the Student List entered politics as an outgrowth of youth-led protests, its base is broader than similar pro-Western movements in the region. Student List representative Jovo Bakic told RT that his party will not sever relations with Russia or impose sanctions on Moscow, while representative Radomir Saicic has promised to negotiate long-term gas contracts with Russia. 

However, the Student List has not yet chosen a candidate for prime minister, and Vucic has claimed that the party will walk back these promises in the coming months. 

Enter the Arabs. Israel’s Arab parties almost doubled their representation in parliament, and are now in a position to play kingmakers – if only Netanyahu’s opponents would work with them. This outcome is highly unlikely, and as RT Middle East correspondent Elizabeth Blade reported, the only certainty is that somebody will be left feeling betrayed.

Spain’s train tragedy

The collision of two high-speed trains near the Spanish city of Toledo on Wednesday was the country’s deadliest railway disaster in more than a decade. At least 69 people were killed and 179 injured when a high-speed Renfe AVE train struck a stationary Iryo train on the Madrid–Seville line.

The crash happened at a time of political crisis in Spain, after weeks of anti-government protests over housing and inflation. While the circumstances are still being investigated, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is already bearing the brunt of public anger, with the right-wing Vox party blaming Sanchez and the left-wing Frente Amplio coalition demanding political accountability.

Fires were set outside the Spanish Transport Ministry in Madrid on Wednesday night, at a protest organized by the far-right Falange and Revuelta groups. “How many more people have to die before we throw these murderers and traitors out of our institutions?” Falange spokesman Federico Campanero said in a speech.

La manifestación frente al ministerio de transportes exigiendo la dimisión de Óscar Puente se calienta. La gente está hasta los cojones. https://t.co/KGcoYNeIjU

— Capitán General de los Tercios (@capTercio) October 28, 2026

Ursula von der Leyen’s Canadian debacle

Instead, she picked a fight with the EU’s largest member states – France, Germany, and Italy – by insisting that Canada will become an “associate member” of the European Union. Although the term “associate member” is a legal fiction, the French, Germans, and Italians had insisted that she swap it out for “ever closer association.”

Von der Leyen, as her subordinates have repeatedly complained to the press, is not the type to listen.

Star Wars becomes reality

In space, not even Elon Musk’s Starlink network is safe from Israel’s sprawling spy-tech sector. RT has covered the activities of private spies in depth in our ‘Wired for War’ series, and this week it emerged that an Israeli advertising company targeted Starlink users in more than 200 countries with pop-up ads that allowed multiple Israeli spyware companies to plant surveillance software on their devices without their knowledge. The company was the largest purchaser of advertising space targeting Starlink users in more than 100 countries, with the leaderboard – Palestine, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and South Sudan – suggesting that its clients were more interested in picking targets than customers. 

Finally, the following video is not taken from an upcoming Star Wars movie, but from Antarctica, where footage of Russia’s revamped Vostok Station went viral this week. Built in 1954, the “sci-fi fortress” received a futuristic makeover in 2024, and now sits on stilts above the snow, 1,500km inland on Antarctica and operating in temperatures as low as -89C.

RT has more fascinating details on the Metal Gear Solid-style complex here, and for more on the coming week’s top stories as they happen – including the pivotal midterm elections in the US – keep an eye on our home page. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s presence at a G20 meeting in the US has angered European diplomats, with several reportedly threatening to boycott a group photo. Top German diplomat Johann Wadephul objected to being photographed alongside Lavrov, but ended up in the same frame as him.

Lavrov arrived in Atlanta, Georgia on Friday for the two-day gathering, which precedes the G20 leaders’ summit scheduled for mid-December in Florida.

US President Donald Trump has expressed hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend the summit, although Moscow has yet to decide whether to accept the invitation, according to the Kremlin.

Lavrov’s presence at the ministerial meeting has proved particularly contentious for several European delegations, which have opposed Washington’s decision to invite Russian officials.

“There will be no family photo featuring our European partners together with Mr. Lavrov,” Wadephul told reporters, insisting that “we must avoid sending the wrong visual signals.”

According to several media outlets, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio eventually scrapped the traditional group photo after European foreign ministers reportedly refused to stand alongside Lavrov and threatened to walk out.

However, the German minister was unable to avoid appearing in the same frame as his Russian counterpart.

A photograph of the G20’s first plenary session, published Friday on X by DW correspondent Benjamin Alvarez, shows Wadephul casting a sidelong glance at Lavrov.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul looks over to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, during the first plenary session of the G20 Foreign Ministers's Meeting in Atlanta. pic.twitter.com/Z01xQmpO7A

— Benjamin Alvarez (@BenjAlvarez1) October 30, 2026

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova seized on the image, suggesting in a Telegram post that Western journalists disregarded the German diplomat’s objections by capturing the two ministers together.

Zakharova also pointed out that Wadephul himself requested a last-minute meeting with Lavrov on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly just a month earlier.

The encounter was their first since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Lavrov later described the discussion as disappointing, saying his German counterpart merely repeated Berlin’s familiar anti-Russian positions.

The dispute in Atlanta follows earlier European objections to Washington’s decision to restore Russian participation in G20 gatherings.

“We like getting along with everybody. One of the reasons I’m so successful, I get along with everybody,” the US president said at the time.

Lavrov last attended a G20 ministerial meeting in September 2025, on the sidelines of the 80th UN General Assembly in New York. Despite Western efforts to isolate Moscow diplomatically, he has maintained an active international schedule, including official visits to countries across Africa and Asia.

The latest gathering also comes ahead of a fourth round of US-mediated trilateral negotiations involving Russia, Ukraine, and the US expected next month.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday that European representatives would be excluded from the talks despite their efforts to secure a seat at the negotiating table.

The longstanding power struggle between Poland’s right-wing, Euroskeptic president and its pro-EU government over control of the country’s top court escalated dramatically on Friday night as riot police surrounded the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw.

The latest stand-off was triggered by Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, a judge backed by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government, who ordered the suspension of the Constitutional Tribunal’s president, Bogdan Swieczkowski, and vice president, Bartlomiej Sochanski.

Police were deployed as an announcement of their suspensions appeared on the court’s website, from which their profiles were reportedly removed.

Shortly afterward, the tribunal’s official X account claimed that its website had been subjected to an “unlawful takeover” and insisted that both officials remained in their posts. “All persons participating in these actions are committing the crime of a coup d’état,” the account stated.

Piotrowska meanwhile assumed the role of acting head of the tribunal, citing her seniority as a judge. However, the court’s existing leadership disputes her authority and maintains that Swieczkowski remains its president.

Protesters gathered outside the court building, denouncing what they described as an attack on the tribunal by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

🇵🇱 Thousands of Poles are now gathered in front of the Constitutional Tribunal building in Warsaw, which has been occupied by police sent by Donald Tusk's government. Opposition figures are describing Tusk's actions as an attempted coup. https://t.co/NcqYhJeeCl

— Europa.com (@europa) October 30, 2026

“We are deeply saddened that Donald Tusk is taking us back several decades, reducing us to a second-class country,” Patryk Jaki, a PiS member of the European Parliament, said.

“Why is Donald Tusk doing this? His main reason is the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling that Polish law takes precedence over European law,” he added, according to Onet.

According to the Polish Press Agency (PAP), Swieczkowski entered the tribunal’s grounds after his supporters cut through a gate lock with a circular saw. He subsequently left the grounds and called for calm.

Police, meanwhile, established an additional security cordon outside the courthouse. Three people were detained for climbing over the fence.

Ślusarz na polecenie Bogdana Święczkowskiego przecina policyjne zasieki barykadujące Trybunał Konstytucyjny. https://t.co/8Inu9cXDGa

— Pan_komentator (@PanP23929) October 30, 2026

Police said they had deployed officers following requests from the prosecutor general and Korwin-Piotrowska. The requests cited possible threats to judges and staff and the risk of public disorder. Police denied entering the court building, saying their operations were confined to its grounds and surrounding public areas.

Tusk defended what he described as efforts to restore the rule of law following the previous government led by the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party. “After years of lawlessness under PiS, this is a difficult, sometimes painful process that requires decisive action. There is no other way,” he wrote on X.

President Karol Nawrocki cut short a planned trip to Senegal and turned his plane around to return to Poland amid the escalating crisis.

After landing in Warsaw, Nawrocki held an emergency meeting with Zbigniew Kapinski, the head of Poland’s Supreme Court. After midnight, Nawrocki arrived at the tribunal, physically pushing his way past judges standing in the doorway, according to video footage on social media. There, he confronted both Piotrowska and her fellow coalition-backed appointees Krystian Markiewicz and Maciej Berek, telling them “you are not judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.”

In a statement later, he said that “the constitutional order of the Republic of Poland was violated and a constitutional body of state was forcibly seized” while urging parliamentary consultations to restore order.

What caused Poland’s constitutional crisis?

The bitter dispute dates back to 2015, when the outgoing parliament, controlled by the pro-EU Civic Platform (PO), appointed five Constitutional Tribunal judges shortly before losing power. While the court subsequently ruled that only two out of five appointments were invalid, the EU-skeptic PiS government replaced all five.

During its eight years in power, PiS introduced sweeping judicial reforms and brought public broadcasters under tighter government control, triggering mass protests. The EU has also repeatedly criticized the party’s judicial reforms, accusing it of undermining judicial independence, while PiS defended them as necessary to strengthen Poland’s sovereignty and accused Brussels of interfering in the country’s internal affairs.

How do Poland’s rival camps differ?

Law and Justice (PiS), led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski and which supports Nawrocki, is a nationalist-conservative party emphasizing Catholic traditions, family values, and national sovereignty. Its electoral strongholds have characteristically included rural areas and smaller towns. The party is skeptical of deeper EU integration and frequently clashes with Brussels, although it has not formally sought to withdraw from the bloc.

Civic Coalition, led by Tusk, is a centrist, liberal-conservative and strongly pro-EU alliance, with its electoral base concentrated in major cities. Tusk previously served as president of the European Council from 2014 to 2019. His current government also includes centrist and left-wing allies.

Both camps are strongly pro-NATO and pro-US, but Nawrocki is closely aligned with US President Donald Trump, who endorsed his presidential bid; Tusk is connected to the EU bureaucracy.

Both sides have supported Ukraine in its fight against Russia, but Nawrocki has taken a tougher line on Ukrainian refugees’ welfare benefits and demanded that Kiev stop honoring nationalist paramilitaries who collaborated with Nazi Germany during the early stages of the invasion of the Soviet Union and took part in massacres of Polish civilians in what is now western Ukraine.

On the contrary, Tusk has adopted a more conciliatory approach, emphasizing the importance of continued support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

This concludes our live coverage of the events in Warsaw.

Russian and Ukrainian humanitarian teams have begun delivering aid and evacuating civilians from the frontline town of Alyoshki under a temporary ceasefire brokered with the help of US First Lady Melania Trump.

Residents of the town in Russia’s Kherson Region have faced months of severe shortages, with Ukrainian drone attacks and mines disrupting supply routes, according to Russian officials and evacuees interviewed by RT.

Where is Alyoshki?

Alyoshki lies on the left bank of the Dnieper River, opposite the Ukrainian-held city of Kherson. It has been under Russian control since 2022 and is part of Russia’s Kherson Region, which Ukraine continues to claim.

The nearby Antonovsky Bridge, once a key crossing between the two cities, was put out of action in 2022. The river has since formed part of the front line separating Russian and Ukrainian forces.

The humanitarian mission is using land routes into Alyoshki, which Russian military engineers have been clearing of mines and unexploded ordnance.

Why was a humanitarian ceasefire needed?

Russian authorities estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 civilians remained in Alyoshki before the operation, including elderly residents and children. Food, medicine, drinking water and fuel have been scarce, while damaged utilities have deprived residents of basic services.

Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo has accused Ukrainian forces of attacking supply vehicles and remotely mining access roads. Russian Foreign Ministry envoy Rodion Miroshnik described the situation as a “medieval blockade using modern methods.”

What have residents told RT?

“There’s nothing to eat. No medicine. Drones are constantly hovering above you,” one evacuee said. He described residents being unable to step outside without encountering drones and recalled three supply vehicles being destroyed in succession in the spring, leaving people to survive on vegetables grown in their gardens.

Others recounted receiving food, water and fuel from Russian soldiers and volunteers.

One woman said her husband was killed by a mine while collecting potatoes. She described how Russian troops guided her to safety using drones and a radio during a five-hour journey to a hospital.

Another resident, whose husband was killed in a Ukrainian attack, described houses being “blown away” during bombardments. Another evacuee noted that the people of Alyoshki were treated by Ukraine as “scum” and “traitors.” 

Who negotiated the agreement?

The humanitarian crisis was raised during an October 9 telephone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump. The two leaders agreed to establish direct contact between Russian human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova and Melania Trump’s office.

Subsequent negotiations secured a temporary pause in fighting around Alyoshki, with the US first lady and Pope Leo XIV helping advance the initiative.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has credited Melania Trump with coordinating the effort, linking her involvement to earlier work reuniting children separated from their families during the conflict.

Is the EU involved?

The EU has played no role in negotiating or carrying out the mission. The operation has instead relied on direct Russian-Ukrainian coordination, US mediation and logistical support from Belarus.

Who is leading the humanitarian teams?

Lantratova and her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmitry Lubinets, have coordinated the practical arrangements and are taking part in the mission.

Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev has also participated in contacts and public announcements related to the operation.

Belarus has provided logistical assistance, with delegations from both countries traveling through the Belarusian city of Gomel before proceeding toward Alyoshki.

How long does the ceasefire last?

The truce took effect at 4am Moscow time on October 27 and is due to expire at 10:59pm on November 1. It covers the humanitarian mission and the routes used to bring in supplies and evacuate residents.

On Friday, Melania Trump said the ceasefire had held for 80 hours, allowing Russian and Ukrainian teams to deliver aid and prepare civilian evacuations.

Lantratova confirmed that both sides were honoring their commitments, reporting no violations.

What is happening on the ground?

Aid distribution and the boarding of evacuation buses were underway on Friday, according to Lantratova.

The humanitarian convoy includes 25 buses and vehicles carrying food, medicine, drinking water, hygiene supplies and fuel for generators.

Residents are free to stay or leave, with evacuation options available for those wishing to travel deeper into Russia or to Ukrainian-held territory.

Those remaining in Alyoshki are receiving essential supplies, Lantratova said. Some have chosen not to leave because they want to remain in their homes or care for relatives.

What did securing the routes involve?

Military engineers had to clear mines and unexploded ordnance before humanitarian vehicles could enter Alyoshki.

The Russian Defense Ministry released footage of remotely operated mine-clearing equipment and said many of the explosives discovered along the routes had been dropped by Ukrainian drones.

The operation has already claimed a life. The ministry confirmed that Sergeant Andrey Vedernikov of the 98th Guards Airborne Division was killed on October 28 while clearing a road leading into the town.

According to the ministry, he was fatally wounded by a drone-laid explosive device equipped with a proximity sensor.

Could the operation be repeated?

Although the agreement applies only to Alyoshki, Peskov has suggested it could serve as a model for future humanitarian missions.

He said a successful truce “could set a precedent,” opening the way for similar ceasefires in other areas of the conflict zone.

Russia and African countries have agreed to deepen economic cooperation, strengthen political coordination, and push for reforms of global institutions, Russian President Vladimir Putin and African Union chair Evariste Ndayishimiye said in a joint press statement on Thursday.

Speaking at the conclusion of the third Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow, the two leaders outlined the results of the October 28–29 gathering, which brought together senior delegations from 48 African countries, including 21 led by heads of state.

Turning political solidarity into economic cooperation

Ndayishimiye said African countries are seeking to diversify their international partnerships and strengthen their sovereignty, with Russia playing a role in accelerating economic development and regional integration.

Speaking about the summit’s three-year action plan, he said that the leaders “outlined priorities, financing mechanisms, implementation schedules and areas of responsibility, and set dates by which expect to see results.”

The African Union chair called for greater Russian investment to help African countries create added value locally. He also stressed that African youth expected tangible results, including more scholarships, reliable energy supplies, and digital solutions.

Putin said Russia-Africa trade currently stood at $27 billion but remained well below its potential, and called to double it.

The Russian president noted national currencies, including the ruble, now accounted for 85% of settlements in commercial transactions between Russia and African countries.

Reducing technological dependence

Ndayishimiye called for reducing Africa’s technological dependence. He stressed the summit had adopted a separate declaration on artificial intelligence, advocating equitable international cooperation with a central role for the United Nations.

Putin said Russia and African countries had signed agreements aimed at introducing Russian digital solutions, including AI-based technologies, in African economies and public administration.

Africa must choose its own partners

Asked whether Africa risked becoming an arena for competition between major powers, Putin rejected the suggestion that Moscow viewed African countries as objects of geopolitical rivalry.

“We have not pursued any colonial policies. It is the opposite: we helped them to liberate themselves from the neo-colonial yoke,” he stated.

Ndayishimiye similarly stressed that African nations were no longer in a position where outside powers could determine their partnerships.

Putin backed permanent African representation on the UN Security Council. “I am absolutely convinced that Africa must be represented there on a permanent basis, including in the Security Council,” he said.

Ndayishimiye reaffirmed Africa’s position on UN reform, while calling for greater representation in global financial institutions and closer cooperation with BRICS.

Strengthening security and humanitarian cooperation

Putin said Russia would continue consultations with parties involved in African conflicts and expressed hope that Moscow’s diplomatic efforts could help prevent further escalation.

He also pledged to expand cooperation in healthcare and education, including medicine supplies, mobile laboratories, and training for African students.

Russia’s epidemic-control assistance program for African countries has been extended through 2029, Putin said, adding that African partners supported expanding Russian university branches and educational centers on the continent.

Moscow Declaration sets out common political positions

The 101-point declaration, adopted in Moscow on October 29, is divided into five sections covering political and legal cooperation, security, economic ties, humanitarian cooperation, and environmental protection and climate issues. Here are its key points.

• Maritime security: Oppose the unjustified detention, seizure or arrest of civilian vessels, including African-flagged ships, in violation of international law. The document warns that such actions against commercial vessels turn maritime trade into “a tool of economic and political pressure.”
• Sanctions: Oppose unilateral coercive measures that violate international law, including measures imposed outside the UN Security Council, and strengthen coordination to reduce their impact on trade, energy, healthcare and food security.
• Sovereign assets: Oppose the freezing and attempted confiscation of sovereign assets, as well as political and economic coercion against sovereign states.
• Colonial reparations: Pursue legal mechanisms to assess and compensate for damage inflicted on African countries during the colonial era, alongside efforts to complete the continent’s decolonization.

A humanitarian mission in the frontline town of Alyoshki in Kherson Region, Russia has delivered essential supplies and helped civilians evacuate under a temporary ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev.

More than 1,000 residents have chosen to stay despite years of shelling, drone attacks, and severe shortages, RT correspondent Murad Gazdiev reports from the scene.

Many of those remaining are elderly. Some wanted to evacuate but feared they would be turned away after losing their identity documents when their homes were destroyed. Others refuse to leave behind their pets and livestock, even as they struggle to find enough food.

“Despite what they’ve been through, the shortages, the violence, the bombing, most of them... a little over a thousand, are choosing to stay,” Gazdiev says.

The evacuation and delivery of humanitarian aid are taking place under a temporary ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev, coordinated with the involvement of US First Lady Melania Trump. Russian and Ukrainian human rights commissioners are overseeing the operation.

Russian human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova told RT that a family with seven children and their pets, who had remained in Alyoshki, had been evacuated to safety.

“We were deeply concerned for their lives and wellbeing. Ultimately, the decision was made to move them to a safe location. For now, that place is Skadovsk,” she said.

Watch the exclusive report from Alyoshki below.

Humanitarian mission completed

Everyone wishing to leave Alyoshki was given the opportunity to do so, including those who had not registered in advance, according to Lantratova. A separate vehicle was also arranged to evacuate pets.

More than 50 doctors and paramedics took part in the mission, which delivered food, medicine, hygiene supplies and fuel to residents. The humanitarian ceasefire was fully observed, the commissioner said.

The Russian and Ukrainian human rights commissioners also jointly appealed to Melania Trump to coordinate similar humanitarian missions on a regular basis, Lantratova said.

Melania Trump wrote on X that the humanitarian convoy had prepared to safely evacuate more than 750 residents who had voluntarily chosen to leave Alyoshki. “Our priority: saving lives,” she said, adding that the convoy and safe passage routes had been agreed upon by “Russian and Ukrainian leaders.”

Speaking at the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Moscow on October 27, President Vladimir Putin warned that excluding Russia from global gas markets would raise costs for consumers. He also revealed discussions with potential American partners for exploring cooperation in Arctic gas development. This is happening even as restrictions on Russian energy projects remain in place. 

Putin’s remarks come amid continued disruption to LNG supplies. QatarEnergy has extended the suspension of certain deliveries into December, while India’s LNG import bill rose 23% to $8.5 billion during April-September, despite volumes increasing by just 4.4%.

For import-dependent economies such as India, the question is whether prospective Arctic cooperation could eventually expand supply options, or whether sanctions, pricing and transportation constraints will keep that possibility beyond commercial reach.

Arctic gas cooperation meets commercial reality

Russia’s interest in Arctic cooperation extends beyond developing its vast gas reserves. Following Putin’s October 27 remarks, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak clarified that discussions with Washington concerned potential joint development of gas fields and LNG liquefaction facilities, including opportunities involving Russian infrastructure.

Russia and the US compete for LNG buyers, yet Arctic development could give their energy companies reasons to work together. Russia could find opportunities to deploy its Arctic expertise and attract investment, while American developers could benefit from technology and infrastructure suited to challenging northern conditions.

Yet commercial interest alone cannot overcome the obstacles facing Arctic LNG development. Washington sanctioned Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project in November 2023, subsequently extending restrictions to companies and vessels involved in supplying equipment and transporting LNG from the project.

In September, the Novatek-led Arctic LNG 2 project sought approximately $1 billion in damages from South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean in an arbitration dispute over cancelled contracts for specialized ice-class LNG carriers, highlighting the shipping complications facing Russian Arctic gas development.

The regulatory environment remains equally complicated. On October 16, President Donald Trump waived sanctions and tariffs under the Graham Act, but the decision did not automatically remove restrictions imposed separately on Russian LNG projects.

Beyond regulatory approvals, Arctic operations depend on a limited fleet of specialized carriers capable of navigating ice-covered waters. Seasonal conditions further restrict their deployment, making transportation capacity a critical consideration for new projects.

India’s LNG security faces an Arctic test

India’s response to recent LNG disruptions offers an indication of how importing economies may approach future supply arrangements. According to Kpler data for the month of October, the US, Oman and Nigeria accounted for 68% of India’s LNG imports between March and September, against 25% a year earlier. Qatar’s share fell sharply before shipments began recovering this month.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects India’s LNG requirements could reach 64 billion cubic metres annually by 2030, with the gap between contracted supplies and projected demand widening after 2028.

That gap could influence how Indian importers negotiate their next generation of LNG contracts. Long-term agreements offer greater supply certainty, while shorter commitments provide flexibility when demand or prices change. The balance between them will become increasingly important as India seeks to expand natural gas consumption.

Transport economics add another dimension. Analysis by Reuters in May estimated that shipping LNG from Russia’s Yamal project to India’s Kochi terminal via the Northern Sea Route could cost approximately $3.80 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), compared with $2.60-$2.70 through the Suez Canal using transshipment facilities at Murmansk.

In August, the Indian authorities announced plans for a joint Russia–India pilot voyage along the Northern Sea Route in 2027, alongside a bilateral cooperation agreement that is being negotiated. In September, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov confirmed these plans, stating in the future, Russian-Indian shipments along the NSR could reach 5 million tons annually.

The proposed voyage could help establish whether the NSR offers practical advantages for India-bound cargoes. For LNG, however, that assessment would require more than a successful transit, including evidence of year-round operating reliability and the costs of deploying specialised vessels.

Asia’s LNG market confronts a new supply equation

China offers an early indication of how Arctic LNG is entering Asian markets despite Western restrictions. According to S&P Global Energy, Chinese imports of Russian LNG increased nearly 25% during January-July 2026, supported partly by discounted Arctic LNG 2 cargoes. Reuters reported in June that Beijing was preparing a second receiving terminal for the sanctioned project’s shipments.

Yet stronger imports do not necessarily signal sustained demand growth. The IEA reported that Asian spot LNG prices averaged $17.50/MMBtu in the second quarter, up 45% year-on-year, and projected a 0.5%  decline in regional gas consumption during 2026 as higher prices encouraged fuel switching and reduced industrial demand.

China’s experience contrasts with that of other Asian importers. On October 1, Britain exempted certain Russian LNG shipments to Japan and South Korea from its sanctions restrictions until March 2028, but only for Sakhalin-2 supplies under existing contracts. India, meanwhile, declined an offer of sanctioned Russian LNG in May, according to Reuters, while remaining open to permitted cargoes. These differences show how sanctions compliance and contractual commitments can shape Asian buyers’ access to Russian gas, regardless of the availability of additional supplies.

Prospective US-Russia cooperation could bring additional Arctic gas into international trade, but new production alone would not redraw global LNG supply patterns. For India and other importing economies, the larger question is whether future projects can offer access on terms that improve their existing procurement choices. The Arctic’s next commercial breakthrough may depend as much on reaching buyers as on producing gas.

Dockworkers across five continents have launched a coordinated anti-war strike, targeting Israeli arms shipments, US military cargo, and the growing militarization of civilian ports.

Organizers say more than 25 unions are mobilizing across 113 ports in 22 countries and regions on Friday in an unprecedented international action. The campaign includes 24-hour strikes, shorter walkouts, blockades, and solidarity rallies.

Major European ports joining the action include Genoa, Marseille, Le Havre, Hamburg, Valencia, Barcelona, and Piraeus. Beyond Europe, protests are planned at Tangier Med in Morocco, Nhava Sheva and Chennai in India, and Oakland and San Francisco in the US, with further actions across Türkiye, Cyprus, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Portugal, Brazil, Mexico, and Australia.
France’s CGT Ports et Docks has called 24-hour strikes across 24 ports, while Italy’s USB has declared a nationwide general strike, with protests in more than 40 cities. Unions in Germany, Greece, Spain, India, and the US are also taking part.

Dockworkers at the port of Piraeus, Greece, walked off the job as part of a global day of action, with protesters in more than 100 ports worldwide striking against the arms trade with Israel.

Follow: https://t.co/oa9JV4ikYQ pic.twitter.com/Cwp7yrRx5Y

— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) October 30, 2026

Dockworkers at Piraeus, Greece’s largest port, were among the first to join the action, with a three-hour stoppage scheduled from 08:00 to 11:00 GMT. Other Greek maritime unions announced 24-hour strikes affecting seven ports, threatening ferry services to the country’s islands.

Dockworkers across 21 major ports in Europe and the Mediterranean shut down operations in a coordinated day of action. Under the call “Port Workers Do Not Work for War,”

They blocked arms shipments and demanded a full trade and arms embargo on Israel. pic.twitter.com/43Srp1pYE5

— The Resonance (@Partisan_12) February 7, 2026

Videos of demonstrations and gatherings at other ports have emerged online, although the full extent of the disruption to shipping operations remains unclear as actions are taking place at different times.

The unions demand a halt to weapons, ammunition, military equipment, and troop shipments through commercial ports, targeting both Israeli and US military supply chains. They also oppose turning civilian ports into military hubs and diverting public funds into rearmament while workers face stagnant wages, job insecurity, and worsening conditions.

Protesters gather outside Tilbury Docks in the UK, urging dockworkers to join an international mobilisation involving over 100 ports in solidarity with Palestine and against arms shipments to Israel. pic.twitter.com/7fulNOmU82

— IP VOICES (@ipvoices1) October 30, 2026

“From planes to tanks, guns to bullets, explosives to ammunition, uniforms to boots, our ports have become replenishing and forwarding bases for war and genocide,” the organizers said at a press conference on October 15 in Rome.

🇵🇸⚓Hoy están llamados a huelga estibadores de más de 100 puertos de todo el mundo contra el comercio de armas y el genocidio

No se trabaja para la guerra ni gobiernos cómplices con el sionismo. La lucha internacionalista es la vía para parar el genocidio pic.twitter.com/T6WjH6YplC pic.twitter.com/lZpdF7pjLN

— IZAR (@IZAR_Rev) October 30, 2026

The unions accused governments and shipping companies of keeping military supply routes open despite the Gaza ceasefire announced over a year ago, which they say has been rendered largely meaningless by continued Israeli strikes.

Is it the first strike of this kind?

Dockworkers have challenged military shipments for years, though resistance was largely scattered and localized. Since 2019, workers in Italy, Greece, Morocco, and France have staged sporadic blockades and stoppages, targeting arms shipments to Israel, US bases, and other conflict zones.

The movement gained momentum in late 2025 after Israel intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla, a 40-plus-vessel convoy attempting to deliver aid to blockaded Gaza. Hundreds of activists were detained, sparking strikes and port blockades across Europe. The flotilla campaign also pledged to join the action on Friday with “coordinated, strategic actions on the water.”

100+ PORTS. WORLDWIDE. NO MORE WEAPONS.

On October 30th, dockworkers, seafarers, students and communities in more than 100 ports around the world are standing together to say one thing: NO MORE WEAPONS.

War doesn’t run itself. It runs on our hands loading the cargo, and on our… pic.twitter.com/DTd74mKDPd

— Global Sumud Flotilla (@gbsumudflotilla) October 23, 2026

International coordination intensified in February, when dockworkers at more than 20 ports across seven countries staged their first joint day of action, reportedly stopping five suspect ships.

ANTWERP 🇧🇪 “We do not want our poets to be used for the transit of weapons.”

Members of Bond van Bedienden, Technici en Kaderleden (BBTK) have joined today’s historic international day of action to say: Dockworkers do not work for war. pic.twitter.com/Dhqyzjv6IN

— Progressive International (@ProgIntl) October 30, 2026

In May, dockworkers’ unions from France, Greece, Italy, Türkiye, Morocco, and Spain’s Basque Country adopted the Istanbul Declaration, in which they pledged to block military cargo and troop shipments to war zones, including those supporting Israel and US military operations. The agreement laid the groundwork for Friday’s global strike.

Five Ukrainian military recruitment officials have been arrested on suspicion of abducting and torturing men to force them into military service, the State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) has announced.

According to investigators, the officials rounded up men on the streets of a small town in western Ukraine’s Chernovtsy Region and forcibly took them to a recruitment center, where they were beaten, threatened, and subjected to further abuse.

One victim was allegedly shot in the leg and forced to extract the bullet himself after officers denied him medical care.

In another case, recruitment officers allegedly stalked and abducted a war veteran over a personal dispute.

Investigators also uncovered a bribery scheme in which recruitment officials allegedly extorted over $6,000 in exchange for a detainee’s release.

Kiev has struggled with manpower shortages due to heavy battlefield losses in the conflict with Russia, widespread draft evasion, and desertion. The government has tightened mobilization laws and resorted to heavy-handed enforcement to replenish its depleted military ranks.

Earlier this month, the DBR charged a draft officer in Lviv with beating a handcuffed recruit to death. The suspect received a non-custodial sentence for bribery just weeks earlier. In April, investigators referred another case to court involving a conscript who died after being beaten and subjected to electric shocks while being transported. His commanding officer also faced charges for failing to intervene.

Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, Dmitry Lubinets, has accused military recruitment officers of routinely violating citizens’ constitutional rights. Earlier this month, he said the authorities opened 39 criminal investigations over alleged abuses in just one month, but no court verdicts were issued in cases of illegal detention and forced transportation to recruitment centers.

Hackers have swiped at least $2.6 million in user funds from predictive market platform Polymarket that allows people to wager on real-world events, including elections and military action. The company was forced to briefly pause trading on its international exchange, promising to reimburse all affected users.

In an X post on Thursday, a Polymarket-related account said that the company had “identified & fixed an issue impacting our international platform.”

“We have temporarily halted trading,” the statement read, adding that the breach occurred after “one of our 3rd party providers was compromised.”

The hack only affected Polymarket’s flagship platform, although Polymarket US, which operates independently as a federally regulated financial exchange, was spared. 

Several media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, reported that the third-party provider that Polymarket referred to was DebugBear - a UK-based performance-monitoring platform.

DebugBear wrote on X on Thursday afternoon that it was “aware of a security incident,” advising clients using its RUM product to “remove the embed code from your website.”

According to Business Today, citing blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps, as many as 700 Polymarket accounts were affected, with users reporting unauthorized withdrawals and sudden balance liquidations.

The breach coincided with a major cyberattack at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, that saw intruders steal an estimated $6.3 billion.

In recent years, Polymarket, along with its major rival, Kalshi, have been at the center of multiple scandals, involving insider trading by American officials and military personnel, with several US states also accusing them of sidestepping gambling laws.

Last week, the Associated Press reported that US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had issued a directive specifically warning service members against using classified material to bet on prediction markets.

Earlier this year, US Army Green Beret Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke was arrested and charged with illegally profiting from advance knowledge of the January operation to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Prosecutors alleged that the defendant had placed more than $32,500 in Polymarket bets, mostly on January 2, hours before the US attack on Caracas. Van Dyke allegedly raked in $400,000 by betting on Maduro’s removal from power.

The man pleaded not guilty.

Newly created Polymarket accounts also placed suspiciously timed bets shortly before US President Donald Trump announced an April US-Iran ceasefire, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits. The White House subsequently warned staff against trading on confidential information.

In late August, Trump’s long-time teleprompter operator, Gabriel Perez, was ordered to pay $65,000 to settle a case related to his “unlawful” prediction-market trading about the president’s speeches.

The White House aide was also required to give up $107,000 in ill-gotten profits from his wagers on Kalshi, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said at the time.

RT, which broadcasts in Africa in English, French, and Arabic, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Communications and Media of the Central African Republic (CAR), represented by Minister Evariste Ngamana.

Additionally, RT signed a cooperation memorandum with one of Nigeria’s leading television channels, TVC News. This agreement envisions deepening the partnership through the exchange of content and experiences, as well as joint coverage of significant international events. Further agreements were also established with the state broadcasting corporations of Ghana, Tanzania, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, as well as with the Ethiopian FANA Media Corporation and the Ethiopian News Agency.

Furthermore, the RT Arabic channel signed a cooperation memorandum with LANA, one of the oldest state news agencies in Libya; Sudan National Television, among the oldest television broadcasters in the Arab world and Africa; Mauritanian Sahara Media Group; and the Mauritanian broadcasting company.

The “Russia-Africa” media forum, organized by RT in collaboration with the Sputnik and TASS news agencies, gathered over 200 participants from 46 African countries, including political figures and leading experts from the regional media community.

The global RT television news network includes news channels in English, Arabic, Spanish, German, Serbian, and French, as well as the RTD documentary channel in Russian and English. RT also operates online portals in ten languages and the global multimedia agency RUPTLY, which supplies exclusive content to broadcasters worldwide. RT is available 24/7 to more than 950 million viewers in over 100 countries.

Africa is one of the key regions for RT’s operations. The channel is expanding its partnership network with new media corporations and enhancing cooperation with existing partners. Currently, RT has eight bureaus across Africa. Additionally, RT conducts training programs for African journalists and co-hosted the African Media Awards ceremony in Ethiopia in 2025, which is the largest media event of the year for the continent.

I’m trying to spend a few weeks back in Canada for some peace and quiet from the usual European drama. Just my luck that Queen Ursula would follow me here, circus and all.

She hadn’t even landed in Montreal for the EU-Canada Summit, and already everyone around me was saying that Canada’s “associate membership” had been canceled. They’d heard that countries like France and Germany objected to the idea, even as Von der Leyen was saddling up her broom for a trip across the Atlantic.

Someone even asked me if that meant that we’re now kicked out of Eurovision. I had to explain that the title never existed in the first place. EU treaties refer only to association agreements. It’s just the usual sort of branding that von der Leyen, the unelected EU chief executive, likes to roll out, much like her endless riffs about unity, as though dissent weren’t an actual virtue in a functioning democracy. 

Or like the way she talks a good game about sticking it to Russia while simultaneously celebrating the €977 million spent this winter alone on gas purchases for Ukraine – much of which comes from Russia via Hungary and Slovakia. The EU writes cheques to Kiev. Kiev pays Hungary and Slovakia, who then pay Moscow.

Those middlemen exist mainly so that Queen Ursula can maintain a certain public image while engaging in more practical considerations behind the scenes, albeit at considerably greater expense to the European taxpayer.

But von der Leyen had already landed in Canada and continued promoting the “associate membership” label, smiling as Carney, sitting beside her, subsequently echoed the term. 

Of course, all that the mental midgets are going to take away from this whole event is the intrigue over whether or not Canada is joining the EU. Spoiler alert: it isn’t. And never will. It’s not even legally possible. But this idiotic intrigue is distracting from the details of what lurks underneath, which could amount to a whole lot of iron-fisting through velvet gloves.

Turns out someone had already leaked a draft statement on these future relations to Politico, dated September 22, 2026. Cut out the diplomatic fluff and here’s what you’re left with.

Both sides are clearly looking for new markets as they diversify trade away from the US. Great. But it seems rather stupid for the EU to be begging Canada for its natural resources – gas, metals and minerals – while simultaneously slapping on carbon tariffs that get downloaded onto European citizens and companies. What’s the point of trying to bring prices down by increasing supply if you’re just going to top up the cost anyway.

You jokers also killed off your own nuclear industries, only to realize (a bit late) that perhaps it was preferable to having to resort to coal, before subsequently reviving it as the future of clean energy. So maybe you’re not exactly the best people to be doing commie-style central planning.

It also sounds like they’ve roped Canada into their scheme to skim Russian cash from its Western-held assets to pimp themselves out under the pretext of Ukraine’s defence and their own, then just hope that Russia’s ultimately cool with that so they don’t have to stick their own taxpayers either the final bill.

Perhaps the most troubling part is the Orwellian digital cooperation section of the agreement, which aims to “advance cooperation on artificial intelligence security and sovereignty, trusted data flows and digital governance and to align emerging AI and digital regulatory frameworks through associated country status for Canada.”

Does this mean Canadians get to have Queen Ursula block their bank accounts now, too, since we’ll all be connected and harmonized inside one giant digital panopticon? Or worse, some AI bot? It’s hardly reassuring that Carney’s government has just appealed the federal court decision condemning his predecessor Justin Trudeau’s government for unconstitutionally invoking the Emergencies Act, which allowed it to block the bank accounts of Covid-era anti-mandate Freedom Convoy participants without a court order – all for the crime of honking too loudly. Nor is it reassuring that Canada and the EU have already signed an agreement on digital “trust services” involving things like government-controlled digital identity wallets.

One honk too many, one wrong opinion on some social media platform linked to the online ID system that they’re all ushering in – ostensibly under the pretext of adults needing to prove that they aren’t children requiring protection from online pedos – and there goes your whole life with the flip of a switch. It’s not like Queen Ursula’s European Commission isn’t already doing that with sanctions and asset freezes, in the absence of due process, for those whose views it qualifies as “propaganda.”

And if this is what they mean by an alliance for the future, then Canadians – the average citizens of this country – need full and open debate over the fine print before anyone signs us up.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is holding a series of bilateral meetings with African leaders at the Kremlin on Friday, following the third Russia-Africa Summit.

The talks involve African heads of state, including from Sudan, Madagascar, Ghana, Mali, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Eritrea, as well as the prime minister of Togo.

The meetings follow the two-day summit, held in Moscow on October 28-29, which focused on expanding trade, investment, energy, security, and humanitarian cooperation between Russia and African nations.

Burhan also offered Russian investors access to Sudan’s gold and copper deposits.

Putin presented a roadmap for bilateral cooperation and said Russia-Sudan trade had more than doubled in 2025, rising by a further 25% in January-August 2026.

Addressing the ongoing conflict in Sudan, Putin reiterated Moscow’s support for a political settlement and proposed discussing additional steps Russia could take to help resolve the crisis. 

In a separate meeting with Madagascar President Michael Randrianirina, Putin highlighted expanding educational ties, noting that around 5,000 Malagasy students have studied in Russia and that MGIMO University signed a cooperation memorandum with Madagascar’s Foreign Ministry in June.

Putin also welcomed the Russian Orthodox Church’s recognition as a legal entity in Madagascar in April, noting that it has more than 1,500 parishioners on the island.

Randrianirina called for stronger practical cooperation and urged Moscow to accelerate work on debt conversion.

During talks with Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, Putin said bilateral trade had grown by 6% between January and August. He added that Ghana ranks 12th among Russia’s African trading partners. The Russian leader also praised Ghana’s independent foreign policy and its opposition to neocolonialism, thanking Accra for its support for Russian resolutions at the UN.

Mahama expressed interest in expanding economic and investment cooperation with Moscow. The leader praised Russia for having “always stood by Africa” during the struggle against apartheid and for supporting the continent during the Covid-19 pandemic through supplies of Sputnik V vaccines.

At a meeting with Mali’s transitional president, Assimi Goita, Putin said Russia had increased its scholarship quota for Malian students to 300 places for the 2026-27 academic year, citing growing interest in Russian education and language studies. He added that six Russian language and cultural centers are operating in the West African country.

During the summit, Putin also held at least nine more bilateral meetings with other African leaders, including the presidents of Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Namibia, the Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and Kenya, as well as Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Libya’s Presidential Council Chairman Mohamed al-Menfi.

European gas prices could more than double as depleted reserves threaten winter supplies, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller has warned.

Wholesale prices have already reached their highest level in nearly four years, briefly exceeding €97 ($108) per megawatt-hour on Monday. December gas futures climbed another 3.1% on Friday to around $1,164 per thousand cubic meters, according to London’s Intercontinental Exchange.

Miller pointed to unusually low gas reserves across the EU, noting that Germany, the bloc’s largest consumer, has filled just 61.6% of its underground storage capacity.

”Given the series of historic record lows Europeans have set in filling underground gas storage facilities [...] we can expect gas prices in Europe to peak at $2,500 per thousand cubic meters in the event of a cold winter,” he said.

The US-Israeli war on Iran has further strained supplies, disrupting shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, which previously handled around a fifth of global LNG trade. Deliveries remain roughly 80% below pre-conflict levels.

EU gas storage facilities were 74.62% full as of October 25, well below seasonal averages, with some member states already drawing on reserves as temperatures fall.

Germany has been particularly hard hit. Gas tariffs for new household customers have jumped 55% this year, according to comparison website Verivox. High energy costs have forced some European fertilizer, chemical, and steel producers to cut output, Reuters reported.

Despite mounting supply concerns, Brussels is pressing ahead with plans to eliminate Russian gas imports. Long-term LNG deliveries are set to be banned from January 2027, with remaining pipeline supplies scheduled to end later that year.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned the EU’s energy policy as “suicidal.” Russian presidential investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev argued last week that restoring economic cooperation with Russia “will be inevitable.”

NATO’s aggressive eastward expansion was one of the key reasons for the initiation of the military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. This is supported by RT’s findings about a drone production cluster established by NATO-affiliated enterprises near Riga. 

The Baltic states had become a hub for developing combat drones as early as 2020. According to RT’s findings, companies in Latvia generated €283 million in revenue from producing UAVs, robotics, and military aerospace systems in 2022-2025 alone. More than half of that revenue came from companies with foreign investment. The two largest factories are under US and Israeli ownership, while another is partly Ukrainian-owned. Several factories form a single industrial cluster near Riga. Experts say this suggests Latvia was preparing for a conflict with Russia well in advance.

Presently, we will focus on eight UAV production factories in Latvia that are backed by foreign investments. RT uncovered the details about these companies in financial reports, aided by the G8 OSINT team that advises the Russian Defense Ministry.

According to the data, the companies collectively earned €282.98 million from 2022 to 2025. 

The bulk of the revenue came from three companies: Redwire Defense Tech Riga (€131.4 million), Belss (€77.7 million), and Brasa Defense Systems (€46.7 million). The following companies contributed lesser amounts: Origin Robotics (€10.6 million), Eraser ( €6.04 million), LV-Teh (€5.98 million), Atlas Aerospace (€3.52 million), and Natrix (€0.98 million).

The Drone Coalition, which also includes the UK, was established in 2024 at Latvia’s initiative. The aim is to collaboratively supply Ukraine with drones. Collective commitments reached €600 million, and the coalition’s fund raised €1.8 billion from investors in 2024. Since then, over 100,000 drones have already been delivered to Ukraine.

Drones abound in quiet Marupe

The heart of Latvia’s drone assembly industry is located in Marupe, a suburb of Riga. Just a couple of kilometers from the international airport, five companies form a bustling UAV production cluster: Belss, its subsidiary Eraser, Brasa Defense Systems, Origin Robotics, and Redwire Defense Tech Riga.

At the center of this cluster lies SIRIN Park Marupe, a logistics hub situated near the runway. This is where Redwire Defense Tech, the industry leader in terms of revenue, is located. The company produces Penguin drones. Since 2022, they have delivered around 250 to 300 drones to Ukraine. Smaller models start at around $20,000, while some modifications can reach up to $70,000 each. The facility employs 279 people.

Nearby, at 26 Dzirnieku Street, there is Origin Robotics, which has around 60 employees. They specialize in building BEAK portable strike drones and BLAZE autonomous drone interceptors. Both models are used in Ukraine and are also part of Latvia’s military arsenal. By the end of November 2026, Origin Robotics aims to complete the development of a cargo drone system designed for precise automated delivery of cargo (i.e. explosives). In simple terms, the Latvians plan to equip quadcopters with guided mini-munitions.

Further on, in the direction of Riga, there is Brasa Defense, which occupies around 6,000 square meters of warehouse and office space at 16 Plienciema Street. They manufacture UNHUMAN ground robotic platforms designed to support infantry on the battlefield.

Located furthest from the airport, Belss operates in Ezisi Industrial Park. It is the largest defense communications integrator in Latvia (operating since 1994). The company formerly focused on secure military communications but pivoted in 2023 to develop its own line of UAVs. By 2024, they were supplying thousands of modular military drones to Ukraine. In June 2024, Belss spun off its drone division into a separate subsidiary named Eraser.

There are no doubts as to who is the primary consumer of Belss products: Latvian and Ukrainian flags are proudly displayed at the entrance. A satellite view reveals a private runway just 100 meters from the fence, used for testing equipment.

The other production facilities are located in Riga, but the difference isn’t critical since Marupe is very close to Riga. The area is home to the NATRIX, LV-Teh, and AeroVictory Baltic factories. The latter is a Baltic subsidiary of a Ukrainian company that has relocated UAV production to Latvia and has yet to submit financial reports.

Also registered in Riga is Atlas Aerospace – a company with Ukrainian roots and Israeli ownership – producing reconnaissance drones like the AtlasPRO, Atlas UAVs, and AtlasTETHER tethered systems. These devices are supplied to Ukraine and NATO countries. The company has 43 official employees. 

The choice of location is strategic, according to specialists from the G8 group. In addition to proximity to the airport, a railway runs through Marupe that will soon connect with tracks leading to Ukraine via Moldova.

The father of ‘Penguins’ in the service of NATO 

Latvia has its own key figure uniting several companies backed by American and European capital: Konstantins Popiks, a serial entrepreneur in the military industry. He was introduced to aeromodeling as a child and even represented Latvia in aeromodeling competitions. After enrolling at the University of Liverpool in 2005, he graduated in 2009 with a Master’s degree in aerospace engineering.

The Penguin reconnaissance drone and its combat versions, which are in service with the Latvian military and are being sold in large quantities to Ukraine, originated as Popiks’ student project. Upon returning to his homeland, he founded UAV Factory, which produces Penguin drones. Within ten years, the company reached the international level, and in 2021, it attracted an investor from the US: AE Industrial Partners. By 2022, Popiks departed, and the factory changed ownership and rebranded as Edge Autonomy.

In June 2025, the facility announced plans to double its production footprint, enabling it to produce up to ten heavy fixed-wing UAVs per month. According to documents, there were 270 employees at the time, and the company had contracts with the Latvian Defense Ministry.

In 2025, Edge Autonomy Holdings signed a merger agreement, becoming a subsidiary of American company Redwire Corp. By March 2026, it was rebranded as Redwire Defense Tech Riga, emerging as the leading company in the sector by revenue. Its reported income of €131.4 million accounts for nearly half of the total UAV sector earnings.

This defense contract not only brought Popiks fame but also significant wealth. As RT discovered, he resides in an upscale neighborhood of Jurmala (Kapu Street), where he owns a small castle. The property is surrounded by tall Baltic pines, with the Riga seashore and a beach just beyond the backyard. The property borders the Gulf of Riga. 

After selling the factory, Popiks established another company – Origin Robotics. Funds from European investors began flowing in. In 2025, Belgium’s defense minister signed a €50 million contract with the company for the procurement of BLAZE drone interceptors. Currently, Origin is experiencing remarkable growth. Revenues soared from 2023 to 2025, reaching €10.6 million.

Under the wing of the IDF

Among the entrepreneurs in this cluster is Ivan Tolchinsky, an Israeli citizen of Ukrainian descent. Born in Gorlovka, Donetsk Region, he moved to Israel at the age of 10. As an adult, he served in the special forces and took part in combat operations in Lebanon. For around five years, he worked as an engineer in Israel’s aerospace industry and spent a year in China studying mass electronics production.

In 2015, Tolchinsky relocated to Latvia, where he co-founded Atlas Dynamics with Igor Zhidanov, a fellow native of Gorlovka. Zhidanov is a seasoned engineer with 35 years of experience and holds three world records in aeromodeling. He had his own club back in Gorlovka, which Tolchinsky was also a part of.

In interviews with Latvian and Ukrainian media, Tolchinsky revealed that his production facility produces over 300 Atlas drones per month – which, he says, is five times more than in previous years. He doesn’t conceal his collaboration with the Ukrainian Armed Forces. “We have a direct contract with the Ministry of Defense, which we’ve already fulfilled. Now we are working towards another contract,” he told Ukrainian journalists.

A few years before the conflict, in 2020, Tolchinsky established a subsidiary in Ireland called Atlas Dynamics UK. Originally registered at a residential address in Moreton-on-Lugg, Herefordshire, it soon changed its legal address. 

The company had Israeli roots, as indicated by its founding documents drafted in Hebrew and English by a notary from Israel.

In the 2020s, Atlas Dynamics was rebranded as Atlas Aerospace SIA. In November 2025, Tolchinsky sold the company to Israel’s Xtend Reality Expansion Ltd – a company focused on creating FPV drones for entertainment and gaming prior to its collaboration with the IDF.

Russia is identified as the main adversary

Latvian UAV factories do not publicly mention contracts with Ukraine in their annual reports. Some only mention that Ukraine is among their clients, without disclosing what portion of their profits comes from supplying Kiev.

One thing is clear: Nearly all the above-mentioned companies receive investments from the Latvian Defense Ministry and EU agencies. This is part of measures to enhance defense capabilities, with Russia identified as the chief adversary.

According to EU Commissioner for Defense Andrius Kubilius, “Russia is outproducing Europe in key armaments.” This has been cited as a reason for increased defense spending, which is reflected in official documents.

According to reports reviewed by RT, one of the main sources of funding for SIA Belss is the European Defense Fund (EDF). In 2024-2025, the fund allocated €470,800 to the company under the European Extended Mine Countermeasures program, aimed at developing demining technologies. Earlier, RT reported on how the EU channels military expenditures through the guise of ‘humanitarian’ demining initiatives.

Even before 2022, Latvia’s drone sector was already experiencing rapid growth and consolidation. LV-Teh has been operating since 2020, while Brasa Defense Systems officially became a separate entity on September 13, 2021. Origin Robotics was registered on January 31, 2022 – just weeks before the start of the Ukraine conflict. 

Belss has been in business since 1994, but significantly expanded its capabilities in 2022 and 2023. UAV Factory, known for its Penguin drones, was founded in 2009, and Atlas Aerospace emerged in 2015. 

Only three new companies appeared after the start of hostilities: Natrix in February 2024, Eraser in June 2024, and AeroVictory Baltic (a company with direct Ukrainian roots) in February 2026.

In one of the reports, RT uncovered evidence of Latvia’s preparations for the conflict. In December 2021, just two months before the start of hostilities, the Latvian Defense Ministry allocated €88,000 to Belss for upgrading British infantry fighting vehicles in service with the Latvian army. This included installing automatic fire control systems on turrets, allowing operators to engage targets without exposing themselves, thereby enhancing crew survival on the modern battlefield, which is increasingly dominated by drones. This suggests that Latvians were gearing up for drone warfare well before the start of the conflict.

Long before the events of 2014 and 2022, a coalition of three countries with a firm anti-Russia stance formed in the Baltics, Vadim Avva, a Russian writer and political scientist born in Daugavpils, Latvia, says.

“The statehood of the Baltic nations led to the establishment of three sparsely-populated forts along [Russia’s] northwestern borders; their primary function is to support expanding NATO military bases and other infrastructure clearly being prepared for an operation to invade and occupy the territories of Russia and Belarus,” Avva says.

A launchpad for hatred

Avva recalled a viral video in which Estonian teenagers were asked which country should be erased from the world map, and many named Russia. He notes that during World War II, the national bourgeoisie of Latvia and Estonia “became a foundation for Latvian and Estonian SS legions,” and today, local schools are named after Lithuanian collaborators with Nazi Germany. He explains that the oppression of the Russian-speaking population in these regions began in the late 19th century and only intensified with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“What has returned to the Baltics is not just bourgeois nationalism; it’s a blend of bourgeois Nazism and ‘brown’ [ultra-right] emigration,” Avva says. “What fate could befall this territory after the establishment of property monopoly and political monopoly and the welcoming back of the descendants of fascist collaborators? Obviously, it could only become a military launchpad.”

Latvian UAVs are occasionally identified and shot down by Russian drone interceptors. However, their share among the various models used by Ukraine remains small, according to a drone operator with the call sign ‘Baks’, who neutralizes enemy drones approaching Russian borders. 

“Ukrainians definitely try out everything produced by the Balts and purchase a lot of their equipment, but it’s a question of scale and quantity. We don’t have much information on the BLAZE and BEAK models, but there is some info on ‘Penguins’ – our colleagues at Rubicon [Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies] managed to take down a few. The number of downed UAVs directly relates to their quantity. Compared to the Shark, Leleka, and other [Ukrainian drones], Latvian models represent a mere fraction [of the deployed drones].”

It’s not just Penguin drones that are being targeted, however, but their manufacturers as well. Redwire Defense Tech Riga, the company producing these drones, relocated to Sirin Park after their previous facility in Marupe unexpectedly burned down.  

Similar incidents often occur at European companies that supply drones to Ukraine. In August 2026 alone, there were several incidents: A production facility belonging to Polish arms maker WB Electronics caught fire at the end of August; an explosion rocked the KNDS Ammo plant near Rome on August 13; and on August 15, unknown arsonists set fire to the building of Estonian military robotics manufacturer Milrem Robotics, which RT wrote about in the first part of its investigation.

Delegations from 48 African countries, including 21 leaders, gathered in Moscow for the third Russia-Africa Summit under the motto “For Peace, Security and Development.” The gathering concluded on Thursday with a final declaration and a new cooperation plan. Organizers reported 146 documents signed across the Summit and its accompanying economic, humanitarian and media forums, comprising 92 agreements and 54 memorandums.

More than 3,500 participants from 74 countries attended, including over 1,200 business representatives from around 630 companies.The forum hosted more than 40 sessions.

Bilateral talks continued on Friday, with the day’s lineup including the leaders of Sudan, Madagascar, Ghana, Mali, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, DR Congo, and Eritrea, as well as Togo’s prime minister.

The October 28-29 summit capped four days of events, beginning with Monday’s media forum and including Tuesday’s separate gas exporters’ summit. Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told RT that Western governments had tried to discourage African leaders from attending.

An overnight Ukrainian drone attack also prompted temporary restrictions at three Moscow airports before Thursday’s proceedings. Mayor Sergey Sobyanin reported 231 drones destroyed on the approaches to the capital. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov questioned the timing during an international gathering and praised air defenses.

Here are the main outcomes and key moments.

A framework through 2029

Putin and Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye, the African Union chair, co-chaired Wednesday's and Thursday’s proceedings. Leaders addressed a plenary session in Kremlin before continuing over a working breakfast.

The political declaration backed greater African representation in international institutions, opposed unlawful unilateral sanctions, and supported efforts to address colonial-era damage. It also called for South Africa’s full G20 participation to be restored, following its exclusion from meetings under the US presidency. Pretoria remains a member.

At their closing press conference, Putin emphasized the potential for further cooperation, while Ndayishimiye pressed for measurable benefits. Another summit will follow, with its date and location to be agreed.

Partnership: ‘Africa has not come to ask for aid’

Russia and Africa are “natural allies in building a multipolar, genuinely democratic world order,” Putin told the plenary. He backed stronger African representation in global decision-making and described Russian businesses as partners investing in host countries rather than pursuing colonial exploitation.

African leaders also stressed that cooperation should strengthen their ability to make independent decisions and develop their economies.

Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi made a similar distinction. “Diversifying our partnerships is not about choosing sides: it is about strengthening our freedom of decision-making in the service of our populations,” he said.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa highlighted the need to turn agreements into action while processing more minerals domestically. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi presented his country’s cooperation with Russia, including the El Dabaa nuclear plant and planned Suez Canal industrial zone, as a model for wider partnerships.

Russia also signed several documents to deepen cooperation with African regional organizations. These included memorandums with the East African Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat, alongside an action plan with the African Union Commission.

Sergey Lavrov met counterparts from 41 African states.

Ghanaian Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said Lavrov pledged support for Accra’s application for BRICS partner status and would seek consensus among founding members.

Peskov said Putin presented country-specific cooperation roadmaps during bilateral meetings. Putin also highlighted expanding diplomatic representation: eight Russian embassies have opened in Africa since 2023, bringing the total to 48. Six trade missions cover 16 countries, while Botswana, Seychelles, and Togo plan embassies in Moscow.

Financing and nuclear cooperation

Signings included a Wednesday memorandum between Russia’s development institution VEB.RF and BCID-AES, the joint investment bank serving Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, to identify and assess development and integration projects.

Rosatom also signed a peaceful nuclear cooperation memorandum with Togo, establishing working groups to examine potential projects and training. Floating nuclear power units are among the possibilities.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sought priority for nuclear cooperation, including financing, engineering training and medical isotopes. A roadmap for Ethiopia’s first nuclear plant was signed in March, Rosatom chief Aleksey Likhachev said in an interview published Friday. Site-selection preparations are underway. Burundi expressed interest in small modular reactors. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi highlighted El Dabaa and the planned Russian industrial zone near the Suez Canal as examples of bilateral cooperation.

Trade and technology at Gostiny Dvor

Wednesday’s Economic and Humanitarian Forum at Gostiny Dvor in the Russian capital set much of the practical agenda. Putin proposed at least doubling Russia-Africa trade to more than $50 billion. On Thursday, he reported that the ruble accounted for up to 85% of commercial transactions between the two sides.

Putin and African leaders toured the “Platform for Sovereign Development” exhibition, showcasing energy, healthcare, agricultural, and digital technologies.

Elsewhere, Kenyan President William Ruto visited Sberbank’s smart city development and highlighted potential AI cooperation in healthcare and education.

Gas diplomacy alongside the summit

Tuesday’s eighth Gas Exporting Countries Forum summit adopted its own Moscow Declaration, separate from the Russia-Africa documents. It reaffirmed sovereign rights over gas resources and supported supply security, investment, and a balanced transition toward lower-carbon energy.

At Monday’s ministerial meeting, Russian Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilev promoted a proposed gas bank for long-term infrastructure financing, including in Africa. The initiative remained under discussion.

The Russia-Africa Media Forum ran from Monday to Thursday, organized by RT alongside Sputnik and TASS. Organizers welcomed more than 200 participants from 46 African countries for discussions on reporting, professional cooperation, and media sovereignty. 

The forum also produced several media partnerships. These included Ethiopia’s Fana renewing its agreement with RT and Libya’s national news agency signing with RT Arabic. Rossiya Segodnya concluded partnerships with outlets in Algeria, Chad, Morocco, Ghana, and Zimbabwe, as well as Ethiopia’s Debre Markos University and Niger’s Higher School of Journalism and Communication.

RT’s Thursday session, “Forging Independence: Lessons from the Founders of African Nations,” featured descendants of African liberation leaders. Samia Nkrumah, daughter of Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah, credited Russian support during Africa’s independence struggles, saying, “We are all here in Russia for a reason.” Ndileka Mandela, granddaughter of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, recalled first meeting him through a prison window on Robben Island in 1981, aged 16: “I touched the window on one side and he touched on the other.”

Education and healthcare commitments

Putin extended Russia’s epidemic-control assistance program for Africa through 2029.

Eight countries have received 15 mobile laboratories, and around 450 African specialists have been trained under the program, he said.

Among the healthcare agreements was a five-year memorandum with DR Congo covering training, research, maternal and child health, nuclear medicine, and digital healthcare.

Nearly 40,000 Africans study at Russian universities, up 50% since 2020, according to Putin. Government-funded scholarship places have nearly tripled over that period, reaching 5,500 for 2026-2027. Announced initiatives include ten centers helping African applicants enter Russian universities and vocational training programs.

Andrey Maslov, director of HSE University’s Center for African Studies, told RT that extended visits by African leaders and their separate business programs showed political ties with Moscow are gaining practical substance.

A helicopter crash in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand has killed all six people on board, including the pilot, officials said on Friday.

The helicopter owned by Trans Bharat Aviation Private Limited, with the call sign VT-HCX, was heading from Badrinath in Chamoli district to Dehradun when contact with it was lost at around 1:15 PM IST. It crashed into a hillside, local officials said.

“We have received the unfortunate news of a helicopter crash near Chayee village, close to Joshimath,” Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami posted on X. Joshimath is a sacred hill town in the Garhwal Himalayas.

Indian Army and local rescue teams were rushed to the scene of the crash. The Chamoli district administration later confirmed the deaths of all on board the chopper.

The five passengers on board the chopper were from the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The pilot, Capt. Himanshu Sabharwal, was from Delhi, reports said.

Heavy rains and poor visibility have been reported in the area, which is under an “orange” alert issued by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). The IMD has forecast thunderstorms, hail, and gusty winds accompanied by heavy rainfall in many areas of the Himalayan state bordering China and Nepal.

The pilgrim site of Badrinath, from where the chopper took off, is part of the Char Dham pilgrimage route along with Kedarnath, Gangotri, and Yamunotri. Pilgrims take chopper rides to avoid difficult mountain treks on the route.

Aviation authorities have boosted inspections and imposed flight curbs following a spate of mishaps in the hill state’s pilgrim routes.

Seven people were killed in a helicopter crash involving pilgrims near Kedarnath in June last year, and a similar number of casualties were reported in another crash on the same pilgrimage route in October, 2022.

British screen legend Patrick Stewart, who portrayed Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and a powerful KGB chief before finding global fame as Captain Picard in Star Trek and Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men, has died aged 86.

Stewart passed away at his Los Angeles home on Wednesday after battling Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia, his representatives confirmed on Thursday. His family said he spent his final days surrounded by loved ones following “a brief and poignant journey” with the illnesses.

Born in Yorkshire in 1940, Stewart built his reputation on the British stage, spending decades performing Shakespeare and joining the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1960s.

Five years later, Stewart took on one of his most intriguing Cold War roles. He played Karla, the formidable Soviet intelligence chief and principal rival of British spy George Smiley, portrayed by Alec Guinness, in the BBC adaptation of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979).

Stewart returned as Karla in Smiley’s People (1982), another adaptation of le Carré’s espionage novels. Despite his character’s central role in the intelligence struggle between Moscow and London, Stewart delivered the entire performance without uttering a single word.

The actor’s career took a dramatic turn in 1987 when he landed the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The series propelled Stewart to international stardom, spawning several films and a later spin-off centered on his character.

He went on to portray the wheelchair-bound telepath Professor Charles Xavier in the blockbuster X-Men franchise, sharing the screen with longtime friend Ian McKellen.

Stewart was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2010 for his services to drama.

His death prompted tributes from across the entertainment industry, with fellow Star Trek actor William Shatner remembering him as “a friend, a colleague, and a magnificent actor.”

The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has reluctantly accepted this week’s ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturning its exclusion of Russian teams from international competitions.

The ban was challenged at the Lausanne-based court by the Russian Ice Hockey Federation (RIHF) in August, after the IIHF resisted a broader trend toward readmitting Russian and Belarusian competitors in July.

The IIHF said on Friday that it respected CAS' authority and would comply with its ruling, but maintained that the restrictions on Russian teams were “necessary to protect the safety and security of all participants and safeguard the integrity of its competitions” – an argument the court found was not supported by sufficient evidence. The federation also complained that the decision carried “significant practical implications” for upcoming championships.

Russian and Belarusian athletes were barred from competitions organized by numerous international federations following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Over the following years, arguments that the exclusions were politically motivated and inherently discriminatory increasingly gained traction.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which wields considerable influence over international sports, withdrew its recommendations restricting Russian participation in July, clearing the way for athletes and teams to return.

The IIHF was among several federations that maintained restrictions, alongside track and field governing body World Athletics, the International Biathlon Union (IBU), and football authorities FIFA and UEFA. Other organizations retained partial exclusions, including requirements that Russian and Belarusian athletes compete without displaying their national symbols.

Efforts to prevent Russian athletes from participating in international competitions have continued, with supporters of Ukraine resorting to visa restrictions, public ostracism, and other measures, sometimes at a cost to themselves.

Earlier this year, Estonia and Poland lost the right to host European fencing and weightlifting championships, respectively, after refusing to guarantee entry to Russian competitors. Both decisions preceded the IOC’s July policy change.

This month, the Netherlands denied entry visas to three prominent Russian gymnasts, prompting Moscow to demand that the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam be stripped of their status as an Olympic qualifying event.

The Pentagon has privately urged the Baltic NATO states to rein in their increasingly aggressive war of words against Russia, warning that the rhetoric is undermining European security, Reuters reported on Friday, citing sources. The reported rebuke comes as the US intensifies its diplomatic push to settle the Ukraine conflict through negotiations with Moscow.

The message was delivered by Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, a key figure in an ongoing review of US troop levels in Europe, who advised a Baltic official against “poking” Moscow, four people familiar with the matter told the agency. Among the nations that received the warning were Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia – countries that have been more hawkish on Russia than most of their NATO counterparts.

“We are helping you. The Americans are there,” one European official told Reuters, describing Washington’s message. “Just don’t be loud. Don’t make noise.” The Pentagon also reportedly urged an Estonian delegation to be “measured” in its public communications. It is unclear whether other NATO nations received a similar warning.

Meanwhile, Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze went so far as to accuse Russia of “state-sponsored terrorism” over an explosives-laden drone discovered at Germany’s Leipzig airport.

The reported Pentagon intervention comes amid US President Donald Trump’s renewed diplomatic overtures to Moscow. Following an October 9 call with Putin, Washington temporarily eased sanctions to allow Russian diesel shipments to the US and global markets, with Trump suggesting the move would alleviate pressure on American truckers and farmers.

US envoy Steve Witkoff subsequently met Putin in St. Petersburg to discuss new Ukraine peace proposals, with Moscow agreeing in principle to restart trilateral talks with Washington and Kiev in November.

Trump’s deal with Putin triggered backlash from Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, who denounced it as a “weak decision,” prompting the US president to suggest that Zelensky should be ousted to open the path to peace. Some of Ukraine’s EU backers have also sounded the alarm over the US-Russia agreement, describing it as risky and undermining NATO unity.

A wave of protests fueled by toxic haze from massive wildfires continues in Indonesia, with thousands of demonstrators rallying in central Jakarta last week.

Anti-government demonstrations began earlier this month, around the second anniversary of President Prabowo Subianto’s inauguration.

Anger over the government’s handling of the wildfire crisis, described as the worst in more than a decade and linked to widespread respiratory illnesses, has compounded discontent over the rising cost of living, perceived corruption and other grievances.

Protesters are demanding that the government declare a national emergency, a step officials have argued is unnecessary because sufficient resources have already been allocated to tackle the situation. The administration says it has deployed an additional 70,000 firefighting personnel. Combined with improving weather conditions, the effort has helped reduce air pollution in affected parts of Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, according to officials.

Scientists say extreme heat and an intensifying El Nino phenomenon in the Pacific have made Indonesia’s forests and peatlands particularly vulnerable to fires this year. The government has also alleged that some of the fires may have been deliberately started and has launched investigations.

Watch RT’s Indra Marpaung report from Jakarta.

People who were evacuated from Alyoshki in Kherson Region, Russia told RT of hunger, relentless Ukrainian drone attacks, and homes being destroyed, describing how Russian soldiers brought supplies and helped them escape.

The frontline town, across the Dnieper River from Ukrainian-held Kherson, has been largely cut off from essential supplies for months. Evacuees described the targeting and destruction of vehicles carrying food and the threat of drones making even a few minutes outdoors dangerous.

“There’s nothing to eat. No medicine. Drones are constantly hovering above you,” one resident said, adding that people could barely step outside for a cigarette before another drone appeared.

He said three vehicles attempted to bring supplies in the spring. “They blew up the first one, then the second, then the third. So they wouldn’t let us get anything in.” People had to rely on vegetables from their gardens, he said, with no vehicles able to reach them.

Another evacuee, Sergey, described living without running water, electricity, and gas after flooding devastated the area. Russian soldiers and volunteers brought supplies. “That’s how we survived,” he said.

For some, escape followed the loss of family members. One woman said her husband died after encountering mines while cycling to collect potatoes. Russian troops guided her to safety using drones and a radio during a five-hour journey from her village to a hospital.

Another woman, whose husband was killed in a Ukrainian attack, described repeated bombardments that forced her to move out of her damaged home and shelter in an adjoining kitchen.

“Houses were just being blown away,” she said. Russian soldiers supplied food, drinks, and gas as residents struggled to survive.

One evacuee said Ukrainian forces were responsible for the attacks, while Russian soldiers evacuated them.

“Ukraine believes that we are traitors, that we are scum. We just want to live a normal life, a regular life,” he said, noting that soldiers shared cigarettes, canned meat, grains, and offered further help.

A convoy carrying food, medicine, drinking water, hygiene supplies, and fuel for generators arrived in the town on Friday. The operation also provides the opportunity for those who wish to leave to evacuate.

Russian officials accused Ukrainian forces of obstructing deliveries and evacuations by targeting access roads and scattering mines from drones. Russian military engineers have been clearing the routes to allow the humanitarian convoy through.

Ukraine, emboldened by continued European support, is ignoring US President Donald Trump’s calls to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov has said.

Three Russian oil refineries and a gas chemical complex were targeted in overnight attacks on Friday, according to Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak.

Commenting on the latest attacks, Ushakov told journalist Pavel Zarubin that Kiev had once again defied Trump. “I would even say they are simply ignoring him,” he added.

According to Novak, one of the targeted facilities sustained minor damage, but Russian air defenses largely repelled the attacks. Samara Region Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said on Friday that two people involved in dealing with the aftermath of the drone strikes had been killed, while several others were injured.

Trump has repeatedly demanded that Kiev stop targeting Russian oil refineries, accusing it of worsening the global fuel crisis and driving up prices for American consumers and farmers – a sensitive issue ahead of the November 3 US midterms. Vladimir Zelensky rejected the criticism, calling Trump’s claims “totally false.”

Ushakov suggested that Kiev was emboldened by continued European support. “They would hardly have dared to do this on their own,” he said.

Moscow agreed in principle to a fourth round of trilateral talks with the US and Ukraine following last week’s meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US special envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg. The negotiations could take place in Abu Dhabi in November, with European countries not invited, according to the Kremlin.

Ukraine’s European backers have been excluded from all three rounds of trilateral negotiations so far and have increasingly sought direct participation in the peace process. Moscow has accused the EU of acting as the principal side arming Ukraine and prolonging the conflict.

Tankers carrying Russian diesel have been dispatched to the US under an agreement reached between Putin and Trump following their October 9 phone call. Washington temporarily waived sanctions on Russian fuel imports to facilitate the deliveries.

The Armenian Parliament erupted into an all-out brawl, with ruling-party and opposition lawmakers trading punches and hurling chairs as deepening political divisions spill into violence.

The confrontation broke out on Thursday after MP Taron Chakhoyan, from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s ruling Civil Contract party, launched personal attacks against the family of Narek Karapetyan, the head of the opposition Strong Armenia faction, during a debate over the party’s election campaign.

Opposition lawmakers approached the podium, triggering a scuffle that rapidly descended into a mass brawl. Footage from the chamber shows Deputy Speaker Vahagn Aleksanyan, a ruling-party member, throwing a chair at opposition MPs. Lawmakers also reportedly wielded bottles, and one deputy was knocked to the floor.

At least one opposition MP suffered a bloody nose, and another had his clothes torn, according to local media. The session was eventually suspended, but clashes reportedly continued in the corridors before security personnel intervened.

Pashinyan blamed the opposition, defending his party’s lawmakers and describing their response as “proportionate and appropriate.”

“If anyone thinks they can lay a hand on a member of parliament and hit them, we will simply break that hand. If necessary, we will break it with a chair,” the prime minister said.

The parliament is no stranger to fistfights – the clash on Thursday is reportedly the third this month. The incident comes amid an increasingly bitter struggle between Pashinyan’s government and its opponents following June’s disputed parliamentary elections.

Post-election power struggle

Pashinyan’s pro-EU Civil Contract party won a decisive victory in the elections in June, which was viewed as a referendum on Armenia’s geopolitical future. Two opposition blocs – billionaire Samvel Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia and former President Robert Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance – entered parliament, while Prosperous Armenia narrowly missed out, helping Pashinyan retain a constitutional majority.

The opposition has rejected the election results, alleging widespread vote-rigging and pressure on public-sector employees and military personnel. Pashinyan has escalated his attacks on his rivals, calling them “criminal oligarchs” who serve foreign interests. He claimed that the newly elected opposition emerged through “absolutely illegal actions” and threatened to bar them from political activity.

Opposition figures condemned the moves as a political crackdown, citing criminal cases against prominent rivals and plans to nationalize Strong Armenia founder Samvel Karapetyan’s electricity distribution network. They also accuse the West of giving Pashinyan free rein to suppress dissent in exchange for his anti-Russia pivot.

The rift deepened in August with the unprecedented criminal prosecution of the church’s supreme leader, Catholicos Karekin II. Opposition and church figures denounced the case as part of a broader crackdown on dissent.

India will build an additional eight next-generation stealth warships at a cost of $4 billion for its navy, as part of a fleet expansion powered by a domestic shipbuilding program.

The Cabinet Committee on Security, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the project on Wednesday, ANI news agency reported, citing senior government officials. Contracts with two state-owned shipyards are expected to be signed in the coming days.

India plans to expand its navy to more than 200 ships by 2035, Navy chief Admiral Dinesh K. Tripathi said in February. Forty-two vessels have already been ordered, while another 78 ships and submarines have received preliminary procurement approval, Vice Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Ajay Kochhar said earlier this month.

Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers, based in the eastern port city of Kolkata, is expected to build five of the new vessels. Goa Shipyard Limited on the western coast will construct the remaining three. The first warship is targeted for delivery in 2030, with efforts under way to accelerate construction, reports said.

$4BN Fleet Push: Centre Greenlights 8 Next-Gen Stealth Warships For Navy 🇮🇳💪 The Cabinet Committee on Security has cleared a landmark ₹40,000-crore project to construct eight Next-Generation Corvettes (NGCs), featuring an all-new indigenous stealth profile, 2,000-tonne displacement, and top speeds of 30 knots. (ET) The contract is expected to be signed with state-owned GRSE and Goa Shipyard Limited in the coming days, according to government officials quoted by ANI.

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) October 30, 2026

Each warship is expected to displace around 2,000 tons and reach speeds of 30 knots. They will feature a new stealth design developed by the Indian Navy, and sport more than 70% indigenous content, India Today reported.

Indian exports are set to cross $1 trillion in the 2026-27 financial year, government Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran has said.

The South Asian nation’s cumulative exports, including goods and services, totaled $476.20 billion in the April-September period, government data showed.

“We are on track to exceed or even achieve $1 trillion exports this year,” he said, pointing to the 13.84% growth recorded in the first half of the fiscal, from the year-ago period.

India’s total exports in the financial year ended March was 863.1 billion, with merchandize exports reaching 441.8 billion, and services exports at $421.3 billion.

To compare, China’s goods exports alone stood at $3.77 trillion in 2025, while overall US exports, including services, came in at $3.43 trillion.

Achieving the ambitious export targets would, however, require New Delhi to strengthen its manufacturing amid geopolitical tensions and supply-chain disruptions.

Sectors that received robust federal government backing should help deliver strong export numbers and provide the country with the ability to compete on import prices, the government’s chief economist said.

India is on course to exceed $1 trillion in exports in 2026-27, according to Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran. He described 2025-26 as a critical economic inflection point for India — comparable to 1991 in significance, not in crisis terms — after years of global supply-side shocks from the pandemic, the Ukrainian conflict, and tensions in the Gulf. https://t.co/hpFV5iIYKE

— Sputnik India (@Sputnik_India) October 29, 2026

“We have to insist on quid pro quo from the industry in terms of export competitiveness, and/or import parity,” he said.

Nageswaran also advocated setting up reservoirs of essential commodities as a way to deal with supply chain issues.

The South Asian nation clocked real GDP growth of 7.8% in the first quarter of 2026-27, making it one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world.

The US remained India’s largest export destination in the first-half of the fiscal year, with exports of $50.81 billion, up from $45.82 billion a year ago despite the tariff uncertainties and continuing negotiations over a trade deal.

Serbia’s incoming leadership plans to hold talks with Russia to negotiate a long-term natural gas supply agreement, prominent Student List candidate Radomir Saicic has said.

The student-backed movement, which defeated the coalition of longtime Serbian leader Aleksandar Vucic in a parliamentary election this month, previously indicated that Belgrade would not join Western sanctions against Moscow.

Vucic himself, however, has warned that the Student List would renege on its position, while some high-profile members of the movement have suggested that Serbia’s relations with Russia could be reconsidered.

The Student List secured around 52.5% of the vote in Sunday’s snap election. The movement emerged from mass protests triggered by the November 2024 collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad, which killed 16 people and sparked widespread accusations of government corruption.

Speaking to Serbian weekly NIN in an interview published on Wednesday, Saicic, a founding signatory of the Student List who is reportedly viewed as a possible prime minister, outlined ties with Russia as one of the incoming government’s priorities.

Saicic also previously reaffirmed the movement’s opposition to sanctions against Russia over Ukraine despite pressure from the EU, stressing that “problems should be resolved through dialogue, negotiations, and agreements, not sanctions.”

At the same time, Ilija Srdanovic, another prominent member of the movement, delivered a different message, signaling in an interview with US-funded RFE/RL that all options remain on the table, saying that “there will certainly be a dialogue within our society.”

Russia is Serbia’s dominant natural gas supplier, accounting for up to 90% of its imports in 2025, with most deliveries arriving through the TurkStream pipeline via Türkiye and Bulgaria. However, the two countries have yet to negotiate a new long-term gas contract since their previous three-year agreement expired in May 2025, relying instead on successive short-term extensions. The current gas agreement is valid until December 31.

The overall talks have been complicated by the uncertainty over the fate of NIS, which operates Serbia’s only oil refinery and faces US sanctions over its majority Russian ownership. Hungarian energy company MOL has been negotiating to acquire the Russian stake, while Washington has issued temporary waivers to keep the company operating.

Moscow said that long-term contracts were complicated by EU energy policies, Serbia’s European integration ambitions, and uncertainty over gas transit through Bulgaria. Nevertheless, Russia has repeatedly stressed it is open to supplying gas to any interested European customers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Vucic discussed energy cooperation and NIS in late September before the elections, with the Serbian leader saying at the time he was confident that Russian gas deliveries would continue at favorable prices – €318 ($356) per 1,000 cubic meters, compared with a European market benchmark of more than €800.

A Russian bomb disposal specialist and another person have been killed while clearing the way for a US-backed Russian-Ukrainian humanitarian mission.

The fatalities in Russia’s Kherson Region were reported on Friday by Russian human rights ombudsman Yana Lantratova, who briefed journalists on preparations to deliver essential supplies to the frontline town of Alyoshki and evacuate residents wishing to leave.

The Defense Ministry later named the military service member who was killed as Sgt. Andrey Vedernikov of the 98th Airborne Troops Division. He was fatally wounded while trying to defuse an explosive device deployed from a Ukrainian drone that was equipped with a proximity sensor, the statement said.

Lantratova held the press conference jointly with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmitry Lubinets, in the town of Armyansk, approximately 90 km from Alyoshki, which Kiev claims as Ukrainian territory. The humanitarian operation was mediated by US first lady Melania Trump.

Organizers have assembled 25 buses capable of evacuating at least 750 people, along with specialized vehicles for up to 30 people with limited mobility, nine ambulances and more than 50 medical personnel, Lantratova said.

Lubinets said the ceasefire around Alyoshki had held without reported violations for more than 75 hours, making it the longest lull in fighting since the escalation of the conflict in 2022. He expressed hope that the arrangement could serve as a model for similar operations elsewhere.

The joint briefing, held against the backdrop of a convoy of vehicles, was attended by dozens of journalists from Russia, Ukraine and the US, including RT’s Murad Gadziev. Organizers said they wanted to ensure maximum transparency throughout the humanitarian mission.

A Ukrainian drone strike has killed a worker while he was traveling to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the Russian facility’s management reported on Friday morning.

The statement described Thursday’s attack as “barbarism” and part of a “hunt” targeting plant personnel.

“Strikes such as this one not only affect particular people. They are designed to intimidate plant workers, seed panic and tensions among those who ensure the atomic site operates safely every day,” it said.

Russia’s nuclear energy agency Rosatom mourned the death of the worker, who was employed as a welder and was traveling to work on an e-scooter when he was targeted.

The incident was first reported on Thursday by Maksim Pukhov, the mayor of the city of Energodar, near which the Zaporozhye NPP is located. He identified the victim as a man in his early 40s but did not mention his connection to the plant.

Moscow has repeatedly criticized the UN nuclear watchdog for failing to explicitly blame Ukraine for attacks on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, including strikes targeting its personnel.

Rosatom head Aleksey Likhachev told an IAEA conference in September that 20 people, including nine plant employees, had been killed since Ukrainian forces intensified drone and artillery strikes against the facility in late April.

Among the victims were chief engineer Aleksandr Yakovlev and driver Dmitry Filippov, who were killed in July when a drone struck a car carrying the senior employee.

Russian management took control of the Zaporozhye NPP in 2022. Residents of Zaporozhye Region voted to join Russia in a referendum later that year, which Kiev rejected as a “sham” vote. The IAEA established a permanent on-site observer mission at the plant in September 2022.

An Italian military helicopter has crashed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, killing four people and injuring 11, the Italian Defense Ministry has confirmed. Dramatic footage shows the aircraft spinning out of control before plunging to the ground.

The CH-47 Chinook, operated by NATO member Italy, crashed on Thursday near the town of Brcko in northern Bosnia. The aircraft was deployed as part of the European Union Force (EUFOR) in the country.

Videos filmed by witnesses show the twin-rotor helicopter spiraling downward while flying at low altitude before crashing into a field.

The accident occurred shortly after takeoff from Brcko airport, according to Italian Ambassador Sarah Castellani. Weather conditions were reportedly favorable.

HELICOPTER CRASH IN BOSNIA KILLS FOUR ON EU PEACEKEEPING MISSION An Italian military helicopter operating under the EU’s Operation Althea crashed in Bosnia, killing 4 people & injuring 11 others. Italy’s Defence Ministry says the cause of the crash is under investigation.

— Subodh Kumar (@kumarsubodh_) October 30, 2026

Investigators are examining several possible causes, including a collision with high-voltage power lines, ANSA reports.

All 15 people aboard were Italian nationals. Two Italian Army personnel and two members of the Italian Red Cross Military Corps are among the dead. The 11 survivors were hospitalized, with none reportedly facing life-threatening injuries.

The helicopter crashed in an uninhabited area near the village of Gorica, narrowly avoiding nearby homes, according to local officials.

India will not compromise the interests of its farmers in the trade deal it is negotiating with the US, the federal trade minister has said, amid warnings and protest calls from powerful farm groups against cheaper American agricultural imports.

New Delhi and Washington announced a framework for an interim trade agreement in February, but the pact is yet to be signed. Negotiations have faced repeated delays over market access and tariffs, and unpredictability in US tariff policies.

“Not a single sensitive interest of our farmers or any stakeholder has been compromised,” Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said at an industrial development conference in New Delhi on Thursday. He maintained that India would gain a strong competitive advantage once the agreement’s details are made public.

Sensitive sectors including dairy, meat, poultry, maize, cereals, and genetically modified foods would remain protected, a February background paper published by India’s Commerce Ministry said. The concessions include limited, reduced-duty import quotas for almonds, walnuts, and pistachios, while tariff reductions on certain other products would be phased in over up to ten years.

There would be zero additional US duties on selected Indian agricultural exports worth $1.36 billion, including tea, coffee, spices, and processed foods, according to the government.

Finnish police have launched a criminal investigation into suspected environmental violations at a planned Google data center site, where hundreds of hectares of forest were cleared before the completion of mandatory environmental impact assessments.

The Oulu Police Department announced on Thursday that it is investigating suspected environmental damage at the site in Muhos, northern Finland, following complaints about the activities of Google’s local subsidiary, Tuike Finland.

According to Finnish public broadcaster Yle, police have received five requests for an investigation, including one from the Finnish Supervisory Agency (LVV), which oversees environmental permits and assessments.

Investigators identified possible irregularities in drainage and water management at the construction site. The authorities are examining whether the work violated environmental legislation and caused damage to surrounding waterways.

Google has acknowledged that it cleared around 330 hectares of forest in Muhos and nearly 200 hectares at another planned data center site in Kajaani, despite environmental impact assessments for both projects remaining incomplete.

Earlier this month, Finnish regulators ordered the company to suspend preparatory work at both locations, citing concerns about extensive logging, excavation, and drainage. The company confirmed on October 14 that it complied with the order.

The LVV has also warned that excavation and drainage at the Muhos site could release acidic, metal-contaminated water because of the area’s black shale deposits. The regulator has demanded a more detailed water management plan by November 5.

Google’s Finland country manager, Antti Jarvinen, apologized earlier this month for the extensive forest clearing but maintained that the company acted according to its understanding of Finnish law.

“I am extremely sorry that we are in this situation,” he told Finnish public broadcaster Yle. 

Jarvinen said Google worked with the authorities and experts but declined to identify which officials were informed about the clearing.

The controversy comes amid growing opposition to data center construction in the US, where people have protested against the enormous electricity and water demands, potential environmental damage, and rising utility costs of the facilities. In Virginia, hundreds of demonstrators recently demanded a halt to new projects. In Arizona, people have opposed planned facilities over concerns about water shortages and electricity costs.

The Pentagon’s former top military planner allegedly leaked classified information about Iran and Ukraine to journalists, Axios reported on Thursday, citing an internal investigation.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth fired Army Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia as head of strategy, plans, and policy on the Joint Staff earlier this week.

Without mentioning Sylvia by name, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on Thursday that the department has “zero tolerance for the intentional, unauthorized disclosure of classified information.” He added that the Pentagon “took necessary personnel action to protect sensitive information.”

According to Axios, Sylvia admitted to leaking information as early as June 2025, before most media outlets were barred from the Pentagon. He allegedly continued communicating with reporters through the encrypted messaging app Signal and once met a journalist at a diner to discuss military aid to Ukraine without authorization.

“He had trouble passing multiple polygraph interviews,” the report said, according to Axios.

Sylvia’s departure comes amid reports that the US and Israel are preparing to resume strikes on Iran following next week’s US midterm elections. US President Donald Trump has indicated that he may take military action if Tehran refuses to accept his terms for a peace deal.

Since returning to the White House in early 2025, Trump has sought to crack down on government leaks, accusing news outlets of conducting a smear campaign against him.

In July, Hegseth said the Pentagon and Justice Department established a joint task force to “identify and prosecute leakers.”

In April 2025, Hegseth fired three senior Pentagon aides – Dan Caldwell, Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll – amid an investigation into alleged leaks of sensitive information to the media. All three denied wrongdoing, and none was subsequently charged with a crime. Caldwell later returned to the Trump administration in a position at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

A Polish court has found Catholic Bishop Andrzej Jez guilty of deliberately failing to report two priests accused of sexually abusing children, in a landmark ruling against one of the country’s senior Catholic clerics.

The District Court in Tarnow described Thursday’s verdict as “unprecedented,” noting that Jez is the highest-ranking Catholic official in Poland to have been convicted of such an offense.

The court found that the bishop had knowingly withheld information from police about abuse committed by two priests who served in his diocese.

Jez pleaded not guilty, arguing that he had first referred the cases to the Vatican and notified Polish authorities only after establishing the relevant facts. He also invoked the papal secret, a confidentiality rule governing sensitive Church matters.

The judge rejected his defense, ruling that Church regulations could not override Polish law. She stressed that investigating abuse allegations was the responsibility of law enforcement, not religious authorities.

Jez avoided jail but received a two-year restriction of liberty, requiring monthly deductions of 25% of his salary to support a foundation assisting abused children. He was also fined the equivalent of about $5,000 and ordered to cover court costs.

The ruling is not final and can be appealed.

The case comes as the Catholic Church continues to face sexual abuse scandals and allegations of institutional cover-ups worldwide.

Earlier this month, former Australian Catholic Bishop Christopher Saunders was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for sexually abusing two young Indigenous men. A leaked internal Church investigation suggested that his misconduct could have been far more extensive.

In the US, the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco agreed earlier this year to pay $395 million to settle more than 500 child sexual abuse lawsuits, following a series of costly settlements and bankruptcy filings involving other dioceses and archdioceses.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he welcomed the rare phone call from the leaders of Finland and Norway, adding that Moscow has always supported efforts to normalize relations with European countries.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store spoke with Putin on Tuesday, breaking with the longstanding practice among European leaders of avoiding direct contact with Moscow since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. The initiative drew criticism from Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who questioned its effectiveness and said it was not coordinated with European partners.

At a press conference in the Kremlin on Thursday, Putin said he welcomes dialogue with Western countries despite their military support for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia.

“I believe it was the right thing to do. After all, there are people in Europe who, unlike some others, do not want to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia but instead want to establish some kind of constructive dialogue,” he stated.

He added that Russia will support “any steps aimed at restoring full-fledged and comprehensive relations” with European countries, whether through the EU or on a bilateral basis.

Putin reiterated that Russia is not seeking a broader conflict with the EU or NATO. “We do not want any war with Europe. If some of them want one, let them prepare. But they have not achieved their goal of inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia, and it is unlikely that this will be possible by 2030,” he said.

And if things go too far, there will be no winners at all. Let no one forget that.

The leaders of Norway and Finland said they sought to convey messages directly to Putin “regarding future negotiations to help to end the war,” ahead of US-mediated Russia-Ukraine talks expected to take place in Abu Dhabi in the near future. They described the conversation as a follow-up to their meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in Oslo on October 20.

Stubb has cultivated a close relationship with US President Donald Trump, with whom he has frequently discussed the Ukraine conflict, earning him the nickname ‘the Trump whisperer’ in the media.

The Finnish leader noted his country’s long experience of dealing with Russia. Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer border with its eastern neighbor and maintained peaceful, if sometimes uneasy, relations with Moscow throughout the Cold War.

The call came amid growing tensions between Kiev and Washington after Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel exports and subsequently waived additional restrictions following Zelensky’s refusal to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries, which Trump blamed for soaring fuel prices.

Moscow has accused European leaders of sabotaging the 2022 peace talks with Ukraine and seeking to undermine Trump’s ongoing efforts to broker a deal.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has estimated the impact of a cyberattack at $6.3 billion, saying hackers may have exploited an employee’s compromised laptop to make unauthorized withdrawals.

In an update on Friday, the company said its preliminary investigation suggested that an attacker gained access to a service container through a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer, allowing unauthorized withdrawal transactions to be submitted.

Binance said it found no evidence that wallet private keys were leaked and pledged to cover all losses using its Secure Asset Fund for Users and company funds.

“The estimated total impact sits at around $6.3B. We have worked with blockchain partners to freeze affected assets, with ~$3 billion frozen on-chain so far,” the exchange said in a statement.

As an immediate precaution, Binance temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals, and conducted security checks. It also revoked the affected address authorization and enlisted law enforcement and blockchain intelligence firms to trace and recover funds and identify those responsible.

The incident follows reports of suspicious transactions involving billions of dollars in digital assets transferred from wallets linked to Binance on Thursday.

Blockchain researchers initially estimated the outflows at $2.77 billion across five blockchains. Binance subsequently confirmed that $2.54 billion in affected assets were frozen. 

Stablecoin issuers Tether, Circle, and Ripple were among the companies that moved to freeze assets linked to the suspected attack.

The suspected attack comes amid a series of major cryptocurrency thefts this year. In September, hackers stole around $388 million from the Bitget exchange. Attacks on the Drift Protocol and Kelp DAO platforms in April resulted in losses of $285 million and $292 million, respectively. In February 2025, suspected North Korean hackers stole around $1.5 billion from Bybit in what was widely described as the largest cryptocurrency heist on record at the time.

Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating US anti-money-laundering laws and stepped down as head of the exchange as part of a settlement in which Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties. He subsequently served a four-month prison sentence.

US President Donald Trump pardoned Zhao in October 2025. The White House defended the decision, saying he was unfairly prosecuted under former President Joe Biden as part of a broader crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry.

US President Donald Trump has accused Democrats of fraud over an alleged plot to field a namesake candidate in Alaska’s Senate race.

An electoral trick familiar to Russians who remember the political free-for-all of the 1990s, the tactic involves recruiting a candidate whose name matches that of an established politician in the hope of confusing voters and siphoning off votes.

In Russia, such contenders became known as “clone candidates” and were a hallmark of the country’s notoriously ruthless election campaigns, forming part of the political “black PR” playbook.

In Alaska, Republican incumbent Senator Dan S. Sullivan now faces a namesake challenger, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher who is also running in the November 3 election.

According to a New York Times investigation, operatives linked to Democratic candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee allegedly helped recruit the namesake candidate as part of a broader effort to undermine the incumbent. The newspaper cited interviews, text messages and documents detailing the operation, which reportedly began in 2025. Both Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic committee have denied involvement.

Following the report, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, ordered an investigation into whether any laws had been broken and whether criminal charges or civil action was warranted. Trump has branded the alleged scheme “voter fraud at the highest level” and called for Peltola and the namesake candidate to be removed from the ballot and prosecuted.

@Odinsraven66 @StephenM To be precise, there is no indication what party "Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.” might be affiliated with on the Alaska bingo card. https://t.co/TWjsD2dWtT

— DougS (@doug_swartout) October 24, 2026

US black PR that came to Russia

Russians know the playbook. During the 1998 elections to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, namesake candidates appeared in multiple constituencies. At least two challengers sharing the surname Mironov ran against Sergey Mironov, then acting speaker of the regional parliament. He nevertheless secured a decisive victory with around 70% of the vote.

In a 2000 State Duma by-election in Sverdlovsk Region, Yekaterinburg police chief Nikolay Ovchinnikov faced Vladimir Ovchinnikov, who appeared above him on the alphabetically arranged ballot. The namesake reportedly secured more than 5% of the vote, although the police chief ultimately won.

An isolated example of the practice surfaced in St. Petersburg as recently as 2021, when opposition politician Boris Vishnevsky faced two rivals who had legally changed their names to Boris Vishnevsky, adopting similar hairstyles and beards for their election portraits.

This is not the first time the practice has appeared in the US. In the 2020 Florida state Senate race, a little-known candidate named Alex Rodriguez received more than 6,000 votes, while Democratic incumbent Jose Javier Rodríguez lost to Republican Ileana Garcia by just 32 votes.

The namesake candidate subsequently pleaded guilty to campaign-finance offenses connected with the scheme, which involved a former Republican state senator.

Conservative US influencers James O’Keefe and Cam Higby are facing felony charges over a video on Minnesota voting practices that allow one to “vouch” for eight others from the same precinct, while not having to show any ID.

Titled ‘I Wore Burqa To EXPOSE Election FRAUD In Minneapolis’, the stunt was shot during the Minnesota primary election in August. It features Higby posing as a Muslim woman dressed up in a full-face veil, with O’Keefe also wearing mock Muslim attire and speaking in a thick accent.

US President Donald Trump has for years alleged that Democrats have committed voter fraud, including by allegedly allowing non-citizens to participate in elections. The Republican has long advocated a standardized photo ID verification for voting.

On Wednesday, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office announced that O’Keefe and Higby had been charged with unlawful voting and identity theft. According to Attorney Mary Moriarty, the pair had “visited multiple precincts… and misrepresented their identities by giving election judges names of registered voters in the precinct without those voters’ knowledge or permission.”

Speaking during a press conference, Moriarty said that summonses had been issued in both men’s names. Should O’Keefe and Higby fail to appear in court, an arrest warrant will follow, the official clarified.

The conservative influencers availed themselves of a procedure which allows a registered voter in Minnesota to vouch for up to eight other voters from the same precinct, permitting the latter to cast their ballots without any further verification. Under Minnesota law, a person vouching for someone else must sign an oath and could face charges of perjury if it turns out that they lied on it.

Commenting on the charges filed against him in the Democratic-run state, Higby wrote on X that he was “not afraid of Minnesota.”

In their video, the conservative influencers specifically state they are “not actually going to vote… [and] touch any ballots,” with no intention to “break the law [or] to commit voter fraud.”

The idea was rather to “point out the vulnerabilities in the system and how easily exploitable it is,” O’Keefe and Higby explain.

Having visited three polling stations in different precincts, the pair concluded that “any person who has the address and name of another person can walk into a Minnesota… polling station and vote in that person’s name without ID.”

Additionally, poll workers “were going to allow me to vouch for eight other people so that they could vote the same day, also without verifying their ID,” Higby says in the video.

Late last year, Minnesota was thrust into the national spotlight after the federal authorities launched an investigation into an unrelated alleged fraud scheme involving multiple childcare centers run by locals of Somali background that appeared to be non-operational fronts.

The probe followed an expose by YouTuber Nick Shirley who claimed that the alleged fraudsters had received more than $110 million in state funds for non-existent services.

A few days ago, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) released a report titled ‘Russia’s Nuclear Deterrent and Its Weapons Procurement’. The report examines the development of Russia’s nuclear triad amid stringent financial constraints and the rising threat of a potential US non-nuclear counterforce strike.

The author of the report, Sidharth Kaushal, makes conclusions based on the publications of Russian military experts in the journal ‘Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), as well as established Western practices for analyzing Russia’s nuclear capabilities.

A British diagnosis of Russia’s nuclear future

Here are the key takeaways from the report: 

• Paradigm shift: Russia is being compelled to shift its focus from a posture of “assured retaliation” (increasing the survivability of mobile missile systems and submarine-launched ballistic forces to effectively counter a first strike) to a Launch on Warning (LOW) posture (employing its arsenal early against an enemy attack).

• Vulnerability of mobile forces: Advancements in US space reconnaissance make the concealment of mobile ground-based systems increasingly ineffective.

• Greater reliance on silo-based launchers, which are viewed as more secure bases for strategic missiles. Silo-based systems will comprise a greater proportion of throw weight, particularly since RS-28 Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles are silo-launched to ensure instant readiness. 

The author also provides interesting assessments of specific weapons systems:

• RS-28 Sarmat: The report projects no quantitative increase in the deployment of these missiles. Emphasis is placed on a short boost phase and a high payload capacity for overcoming missile defense systems.

• The medium-range Oreshnik missile is seen as a priority in the European theater of operations and as a tool for preemptively neutralizing US Dark Eagle systems in Europe. Given manufacturing shortages, it is expected to be deployed primarily in its nuclear variant.

• The long-range KH-BD air-launched cruise missile (with a range up to 6,500 km) is designed to be carried by Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers, in light of the lack of progress on the PAK DA next-generation stealth strategic bomber. 

How can we assess this report? Generally, the picture is more complex than described. Like in the Indian parable about the blind men and the elephant, the author of the report sees certain aspects of the ‘elephant’ but fails to see the general picture, which may be quite different. Let’s take a closer look. 

The logic behind Russia’s nuclear shield

Regarding the structure of the strategic nuclear forces and the shifting balance between mobile and stationary systems, the distinctive feature of the Soviet, and now Russian, approach lies in balancing mobile and stationary strategic missile systems. Despite advances in satellite reconnaissance, mobile missile systems hold certain advantages: for example, hundreds of them are deployed over vast territories. Moreover, several Peresvet laser weapon systems have already been deployed; these can blind potential adversaries’ optical reconnaissance systems at a critical moment. While reliance on space-based systems is understandable, it’s important to note that these technologies are also vulnerable to various factors, as we have seen recently.

Stationary missile systems come with a significant drawback: it’s relatively easy to spot their location. However, they offer a high level of protection against non-nuclear strikes and maintain relatively high (though not absolute) survivability in the event of a nuclear exchange. Russia’s strategy combines hard-to-detect mobile missile systems with stationary systems that can be employed in response to a nuclear attack. This combination allows for greater flexibility and multiple operational scenarios. Considering this strategy, it’s likely that a large inventory of Sarmat missiles isn’t necessary – two regiments with 50+ missile silos might suffice. This doesn’t indicate a shift in priorities but rather reaffirms a conservative and justified traditional approach.

Lastly, the demonization of the Oreshnik missile in the West is understandable and, overall, justified. Its minimal flight time presents a significant threat. There’s also the option for hybrid use – deploying it with non-nuclear payloads to signal intentions or for use in low-intensity conflicts. The existence of such a missile system increases the range of potential scenarios for employing strategic forces and provides substantial flexibility.

Even a few launch facilities would suffice for these purposes, which raises questions about the costly deployment of multiple brigades. Most likely, we’re talking about the deployment of divisions with 3-4 TELs instead of full brigades consisting of 12 TELs. This strategy also allows to increase the number of deployed missiles, should the need arise. 

Beyond the bluff: Weapons built for retaliation

The assessment of the aviation component of the strategic nuclear forces seems fairly accurate, but it’s necessary to note that several other weapon programs are also being developed alongside the KH-BD missiles. Russian defense contractors consistently work on multiple projects, regardless of the current financial climate. It’s reasonable to assume they’re developing air-launched hypersonic missile systems for both tactical and strategic aviation, as well as various types of cruise missiles for strategic use. Additionally, it’s highly likely that a range of tactical munitions for front-line aviation is also under development. Similarly, work on the new PAK DA strategic bomber is probably ongoing, even if the urgent need for this expensive project has diminished.

Infrastructure for these projects wouldn’t be carried out solely for PR purposes. At least one major base with several launch systems is being constructed for Burevestnik missiles, and for the Poseidon UUV, basing facilities are being built in the Pacific Ocean, and it is set to be deployed to the Northern Fleet. 

Experts monitor progress and construction through satellite imagery. Tracking testing activities is more complex, but there are signs that work continues in this direction as well. Most importantly, these combat systems possess an unknown yet potentially immense retaliatory capability, which is difficult to evaluate due to the absence of analogues. What’s certain is that their potential is significant. Poseidon UUVs may not be able to target naval fleets, but their true purpose is to ensure guaranteed retaliatory strikes capable of causing total destruction along an adversary’s coastline.

In summary, despite economic and financial challenges, Russia will undoubtedly find the resources necessary to maintain and advance its nuclear triad, or even the more powerful new strategic nuclear forces.

As European households struggled to pay their energy bills, the continent’s oil companies more than doubled their profits over the last quarter, reaping the benefits of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Eight months to the day since American and Israeli forces began bombarding Iran, Brent crude prices sat at $115 on Thursday, up from $72 pre-war. Dated Brent, the actual on-the-spot price that purchasers are paying for Brent cargoes in the North Sea, was even higher, at $120.

This price spike has driven the cost of petrol, diesel, and heating oil to record highs across Europe. However, it’s been a windfall for Europe’s largest oil companies, according to quarterly profit statements compiled by Germany’s Der Spiegel on Thursday.

British oil and gas giant Shell recorded a profit of $12.1 billion between July and September, a more than twofold increase on the previous quarter, and on the same quarter last year. Between July and September 2025, Shell made $5.43 billion in profit.

German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil and his counterparts in Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, have called for an EU-wide windfall tax on the oil giants, similar to the “solidarity levy” imposed by Brussels after the escalation of the Russia/Ukraine conflict in 2022.

“The Commission has been very reserved on this issue, although several member states have been calling for models to ​be presented for a long time,” Klingbeil said after a meeting of EU finance ministers in Ireland last month. “This must happen by the next [finance ministers’] meeting in ​October at the latest,” he added.

The European Commission shot down Klingbeil’s proposal, and October passed with no action from Brussels. “It is in the hands of member states,” EU Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters. “Member states can go ahead and take those decisions on the taxing of windfall profits.”

Despite Gulf exports reportedly recovering to 80% of pre-war levels, Houthi attacks on Saudi energy facilities and shipping, the threat of naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, and warnings of an “intense” new US military campaign against Iran have all played a role in keeping oil prices nearly twice as high as they were at the beginning of February.

Lithuania will introduce universal male conscription despite public resistance to compulsory military service, the country’s government has announced.

The Baltic state reinstated selective conscription in 2015, seven years after abolishing it. Under the new plan, the draft would be extended to all eligible men, while women would continue to serve voluntarily.

Annual recruitment will increase from just over 5,000 to around 7,500 men, President Gitanas Nauseda announced on Thursday following a State Defense Council meeting.

Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius described universal conscription as “necessary and inevitable.”

The decision follows similar recruitment pushes elsewhere in Europe. Poland is considering restoring compulsory service, which was abolished in 2009, and introducing a system covering both men and women. A recent poll, however, found that 53% of Poles aged 18–24 opposed reinstatement of the draft.

Berlin’s recruitment drive has met resistance, with some 45,000 people joining student protests across roughly 100 German cities and towns in September, with some carrying banners reading “We won’t fight in your wars” and “Russia is not our enemy.”

Applications for conscientious objector status reached over 12,000 between January and August, compared with 3,879 throughout 2025, according to figures reported by German media.

European officials have nevertheless continued discussing preparations for a possible war with Russia by the end of the decade. Estonian Defense Minister Martin Herem “joked” last month that if Estonia mobilized and Russia did not attack, it would be “economically more correct to attack ourselves” rather than keep troops waiting.

Russian officials have warned that Europe’s military buildup could itself lead to confrontation and that expanding NATO infrastructure near Russia’s borders would prompt additional security measures. Moscow has stressed that it is prepared to defend itself if attacked.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is stirring up trouble at home during a controversial trip to Montreal, turning what should have been a straightforward trade mission into a petty argument over Canada’s fictional “membership” in the bloc.

The EU mandarin traveled to Montreal for the 21st annual EU-Canada summit on Thursday, with her tail between her legs. A month after unilaterally promising Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney “associate member” status of the bloc, she was reportedly forced to scrub all mentions of the term and downgrade her offer to one of an “ever closer association” between the EU and Canada.

When the summit closes on Friday, both sides will issue a revised joint statement that reads: “We will create an even closer association between Canada and the EU... and work to define by the 2027 EU-Canada Summit the concept of an ever closer association of Canada to the EU, short of full membership itself,” according to a draft seen by Policito.

Why was the text changed?

Unilateral decisions and boundary-overstepping are von der Leyen’s calling cards, as her fellow Eurocrats have repeatedly complained to the press. “Nobody was consulted about associate membership apart from [von der Leyen’s] closest staff, it would seem,” an unnamed diplomat told The Guardian on Wednesday. The widespread anonymous briefing to various mainstream European media made it clear that France, Germany, Greece and Italy had forced von der Leyen to adopt the new, watered-down terminology.

Ursula goes rogue

In her first speech in Montreal on Thursday, von der Leyen refused to adopt the new, sanitized wording. After noting that “Canada cannot become a full-fledged member of the EU because of geography,” she insisted that “we are discussing the idea of Canada becoming the first associate member of the European Union. Our idea is simple: it is an ‘association without accession’.”

Whatever form Friday’s communique will take, von der Leyen has evidently chosen to disregard the concerns of the EU’s largest member states for the sake of her own personal project. However, the difference between both statements is purely rhetorical.

What does ‘associate member’ mean anyway?

Neither “Associate member” nor “ever closer association” are defined anywhere in EU law.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attempted to define “associate membership” in May when he suggested that it be granted to Ukraine. Under his proposal, Ukraine would participate in European Council meetings without voting rights, send representatives to the European Parliament, receive more EU funding, and become party to the EU’s mutual defense clause. 

“Ever closer association” is an even more meaningless term, lifted straight from ‘Ever Closer Union’, a hagiography on EU integration by the bloc’s court historian, Desmond Dinan. Writing in 1994, Dinan argued that “European integration is a good thing,” and the phrases he used – “ever closer union” and “pooling sovereignty,” for example – have since become staples of EU speeches and press releases.

US President Donald Trump ridiculed von der Leyen’s word games last month, calling the concept of associate membership “laughable,” and threatening to “put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things” if the EU-Canada proto-alliance ever harmed US interests.

Carney – who plainly insisted last month that Canada is “not looking to become a member of the European Union” – responded diplomatically to the intra-EU squabbling. “The good news is it doesn’t matter about ⁠specific names or nomenclature,” he said ahead of the summit. “What matters is the difference it will ​make to the lives ​of Canadians.”

However, Von der Leyen’s “membership” promise and the subsequent retraction has undermined Carney in front of his opponents. In a social media post on Thursday, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre described the concept of “associate membership” as “theater,” and dismissed the summit as “yet another grand theatrical meeting to sign a bunch of meaningless declarations filled with big words (catalyze, anyone?) and promises to meet again to talk more." 

How long will this theatre go on? While Canadians can’t afford food and homes, Mr. Carney has distracted for months with big talk about “Associate Membership” with Europe. Now, Europe has rejected it. For the next two days, we will be distracted again from the cost-of-living crisis with wall-to-wall media coverage on yet another grand theatrical meeting to sign a bunch of meaningless declarations filled with big words (catalyze, anyone?) and promises to meet again to talk more. No one’s mortgage or grocery bill will come down. We already have a free trade deal with Europe, Mr. Carney. Get the 9 countries who have not ratified it to do so. And get EU countries to let our beef into the continent and cancel their planned carbon tariff on Canada. Otherwise stop wasting your time and our money. Both are running out.

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) October 29, 2026

What does von der Leyen actually want?

Von der Leyen has far more riding on this summit than Carney. While the EU needs energy, minerals, and Canada’s geographic clout in the Arctic, Canada only needs to diversify some of its trade away from the US – which accounts for around 72% of its exports and 46% of its imports – in order to hedge against Trump’s tariffs and trade restrictions. At present, the EU accounts for less than 6% of Canada’s exports and 12% of its imports.

🛬 Touchdown in Montréal 🇨🇦 Rarely have I looked forward to a Summit this much. An ocean separates Europe and Canada. Yet we have never felt closer. We have a new ambition: bringing Canada closer to us than ever before, as Associate Member of the EU. And we want to take our unique partnership even further. With an Alliance for the Future, we will stand together and respond to a world of growing rivalries. Montréal, we’re about to write a new chapter in our shared history.

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) October 28, 2026

Although the agenda is wrapped up in the language of “shared values” and “respect for the rules-based international order,” Brussels’ priorities in Montreal are clear: the energy-starved EU needs access to Canada’s resources. 

According to Euronews, the latest draft of the joint declaration includes a promise to “assess opportunities for long-term energy connectivity,” including the supply of Canadian liquefied natural gas to the EU. Remember that in July 2025 von der Leyen personally pledged to Trump that bloc members would buy $750 billion worth of US energy by the end of 2028, in a trade deal that was widely seen as one-sided.  

Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne has also announced that Ottawa and Brussels intend to sign an agreement on the supply of critical minerals including lithium, nickel, and cobalt. The EU currently controls less than 4% of the world’s supply of these minerals, which are vital in the production of electric vehicles and missiles – both of which the EU intends to increase.

To challenge Russia in the Arctic, the EU likely has its eyes on Canada’s polar-trained military and its 20-strong icebreaker fleet, compared to the ten such vessels spread across the 27-member bloc. None of these icebreakers are nuclear powered, and even if they were to operate on joint Arctic missions, they would be outnumbered and outclassed by Russia’s fleet of 43, eight of which are nuclear powered

However, any hope von der Leyen may have had of securing preferential single market-style trade deals with Carney have apparently been dashed. According to AFP, the “associate member” version of the joint statement included an “explicit goal of deeper financial market integration.” The new, “ever closer association” communique has replaced this with a promise by both sides to “limit potential negative effects on each other.”

Von der Leyen’s unforced error

Whether von der Leyen will, by virtue of repetition and against the will of four EU member states, invent an “associate membership” is immaterial. The concept is a legal fiction, and by insisting on the word “membership,” the European Commission president set herself up for an entirely avoidable clash with the French, Germans, Greeks, and Italians.

It’s very interesting to see the Commission president goes so defiantly against the position of Germany — the biggest member state and her home country — on an issue that, as of now, remains strictly theoretical.

— Jorge Liboreiro (@JorgeLiboreiro) October 29, 2026

The argument over the statement’s wording has overshadowed the summit, but the geopolitical reality remains unchanged: the EU needs Canada’s energy supplies to keep its economy afloat, Canada’s money to prop up its Ukraine project, and Canada’s geography to legitimize its Arctic expansion. For these, it doesn’t matter how the deal is dressed up.

Bangladesh’s Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant has received the final regulatory clearance, paving the path to commence electricity generation.

Rooppur, the country’s first nuclear power plant, was given the nod to advance to Stage C by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority (BAERA), the Daily Star reported on Thursday.

During this stage, the reactor’s power will be increased to produce steam, boost the turbine, and generate electricity. Capacity will gradually be increased in phases.

“Now Unit 1 will proceed with the power startup to begin the generation process,” BAERA Chairman Mahamudul Hasan was quoted as saying by the news outlet. He added that the authority would determine the startup date.

Rosatom head Alexey Likhachev earlier this month told media that the plant is on track to be connected to the national grid by end of next month.

Rosatom, which is providing equipment, nuclear fuel, and engineering assistance, expects to commission the second unit in 2027.

Once fully operational, the plant is expected to deliver 12% of Dhaka’s power demand.

Likhachev recently disclosed that Moscow is in talks with Dhaka to build a new phase of Rooppur’s high-capacity units.

“We are primarily talking about a possible additional phase of large units,” Likhachev said on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week forum, adding that Dhaka was also exploring the possibility of small-capacity units and a research reactor.

German automotive giant Volkswagen has reported a €5.8 billion ($6.5 billion) net loss for the third quarter of 2026, up from €1.1 billion a year earlier, as the country’s manufacturing sector faces growing economic pressure.

Europe’s largest carmaker announced the results on Thursday. Revenue fell 6.3% to €75.3 billion, and vehicle deliveries dropped 14.3%.

“US tariffs weigh on us, the Chinese market is shrinking, and competitive pressure in Europe is increasing significantly,” VW Group Chief Financial and Operating Officer Arno Antlitz said in a statement.

Volkswagen faces growing competition from cheaper Chinese vehicles in Europe, and its expanding electric car business remains less profitable than that of conventional models.

The results follow the auto giant’s announcement in September of sweeping restructuring plans that could eliminate up to 100,000 jobs and leave four German factories facing closure.

The pressures extend beyond the automotive sector. In an assessment on October 21, the German Economy Ministry acknowledged weakening economic momentum and sluggish manufacturing activity, particularly in energy-intensive industries.

German manufacturers have struggled with high energy costs since losing access to inexpensive Russian pipeline gas following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

The shift toward military production is already visible in the automotive industry. In September, Volkswagen reached a preliminary agreement to sell its Osnabrueck factory for conversion to defense manufacturing, potentially preserving around 1,400 jobs. The project envisages cooperation with Israeli weapons producer Rafael on air-defense systems.

Weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall has also announced plans to expand production facilities, including armored vehicle manufacturing, potentially creating more than 1,000 jobs.

Germany’s expanding military industry has drawn criticism from Russia. Addressing the UN General Assembly in September, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov questioned Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ambition to make Germany Europe’s leading military power, warning of the potential consequences and asking whether Berlin learned the lessons of World War II.

Albania has imposed steep fines on people who take part in violent protests, citing a recent law imposed in France, in an attempt to quell weeks of clashes between police and protesters demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Under measures adopted Wednesday, remaining at a demonstration that turns violent will be a criminal offense, even for those not directly involved in clashes. Anyone who “chooses to remain in a crowd” engaged in violence or looting, or is found “concealing their identity,” faces fines of up to 500,000 leks ($6,130), over six-times the Balkan country’s average monthly salary.

Initially sparked by student anger over education costs and deteriorating facilities, the demonstrations have evolved into nationwide protests against inequality, soaring living costs, and cuts to public services.

Citing “urban anarchy” when announcing the crackdown, Rama acknowledged France’s controversial ‘casseurs-payeurs’ (rioters pay) bill, which would hold demonstrators liable for up to €10,000 ($11,160) in damages. The bill passed the French Senate on Wednesday and is now headed to the National Assembly, following weeks of protests and riots in which over 1,300 protesters were arrested in a single day.

Italy has also followed suit. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government approved measures last week that criminalize “violent participation in a demonstration,” punishable by up to five years in prison and fines of up to €20,000.

What’s behind the protests in Albania?

Anti-government protests in the country began peacefully in May over plans for a luxury resort in the Zvernec nature reserve, a project linked to US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The unrest has caused over €2 million in damage, according to official estimates, as rioters torched ministries and attacked police stations, public buildings, and businesses. Clashes flared up again over the weekend, with protesters chanting “Revolution” and “Rama in prison” and police using tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons in Tirana.

The Russia blame game

Despite the protests being driven by grievances over domestic matters, Rama blamed the violence on a “hybrid war” by foreign actors, specifically Russia and Iran.

The latest Call of Duty game has sparked backlash over footage from South Korea’s deadly 2022 Halloween crowd crush and a fictional war scenario that a local civic group has condemned as “American psychological warfare.”

Modern Warfare 4, released by Activision on October 23, introduces its campaign, centered around a fictional North Korean invasion, using seconds-long clips from the infamous Itaewon disaster.

The October 29, 2022 incident left more than 150 people dead after Halloween crowds became trapped in a narrow alley in Seoul’s nightlife district.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is facing backlash from Koreans for allegedly using footage from the actual Itaewon crowd crush, which claimed 159 lives, in the game. They reportedly included footage of people performing CPR at the actual disaster site and recreated a similar scene in the game. Koreans are now calling for the footage to be removed and I wonder if the developers are going to do anything about it because this is absolutely insane. It has only been four years since that tragedy happened, and now people are seeing something so closely resembling that horrific incident in a video game. This is deeply insensitive to the victims, their families and everyone who was affected by the tragedy.

— kdramahotgists (@kdramahotgists) October 29, 2026

Relatives of the victims responded to the game release, which came just days before the fourth-year anniversary of the tragic event, by demanding the scenes be removed from cinematics.

In a joint statement, bereaved families and civic groups condemned the inclusion as “highly inappropriate and insensitive,” stressing that witnesses and people involved in rescue efforts continue to suffer trauma.

“If there is even a minimal sense of respect and empathy for the victims, the game developer must take corrective action immediately,” they said.

The Korea Game Users Association also demanded an explanation, apology, and replacement footage, while opposing censorship or unjustified restrictions on games.

Civic group Candlelight Action also accused it of amplifying hostility toward North Korea and called it “American psychological warfare.”

Earlier this month, President Lee Jae-myung separately condemned Ukrainian remarks suggesting an imminent clash between the two Koreas, saying they amounted to encouraging war on the peninsula.

Responding to the footage controversy, Activision told South Korean media that the archival scenes were intended to convey a fictional narrative. It denied intending to trivialize the Itaewon disaster. At the same time, the company has made no commitment to removing the footage.

However, this isn’t the first time the Modern Warfare series has sparked controversy over its in-game campaigns. Its 2009 installment, Modern Warfare 2, placed players undercover among terrorists attacking a Moscow airport. The “No Russian” mission allowed them to join in shooting unarmed civilians, provoking outrage and prompting its removal from the Russian release.

In 2023, major Russian retailers also said they would withhold Modern Warfare III pending review over concerns that violence against Russian characters could violate local laws.

In December 2025, State Duma deputy Mikhail Delyagin similarly sought a regulatory examination of the series following complaints about its portrayal of Russia and repeated missions against Russian soldiers.

A Ukrainian man living in Monaco has been charged in connection with the death of Antoine de Massy, a relative of Prince Albert II, the ruler of the wealthy European principality.

The 42-year-old suspect, whose identity has not been disclosed, has reportedly lived in Monaco for three decades. Prosecutor General Stephane Thibault announced a judicial investigation on Wednesday.

According to local media, the Ukrainian national has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and failure to assist a person in danger. He denies wrongdoing and has been remanded in custody.

De Massy, 29, whose father is a first cousin of Prince Albert II, was found dead on Sunday evening after apparently falling approximately 13 meters from an elevated section of the coastal Boulevard du Larvotto into a garden behind a luxury residence.

The former competitive tennis player was reportedly last seen alive overnight Saturday into Sunday, leaving a nightclub apparently intoxicated and accompanied by another man. His family alerted authorities when he failed to attend a gathering, triggering a search that led to the discovery of his body in the secluded garden.

Thibault said CCTV footage showed the suspect accompanying de Massy along Boulevard du Larvotto. The Ukrainian national was arrested on Monday, although it remains unclear whether he was the man who reportedly left the nightclub with the victim.

The alleged bomber was identified as a Ukrainian woman who was later found dead in her home country, reportedly killed by her handlers. Investigators identified the suspected masterminds as an active operative of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR, and an unofficial agent of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Both are now in Ukrainian custody.

Kiev portrayed the bombing as a profit-driven crime carried out by rogue agents. However, one suspect claimed the operation had been authorized by the Ukrainian state as a legitimate act of war against Russia.

The case resurfaced this week when former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said the Monaco bombing “echoed” an alleged Ukrainian intelligence plot against him that Austrian law enforcement had thwarted.

Kravchenko fled Ukraine for Vienna last month and was subsequently dismissed by parliament after a subordinate was accused of running a protection racket on his behalf. The Austrian authorities confirmed the arrests of suspected Ukrainian intelligence operatives in early October.

A deadly high-speed train collision in Spain has deepened a political crisis engulfing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government ahead of next month’s general election, as opposition parties demand accountability. The disaster, which killed at least 69 people, has sparked angry protests and calls for resignations.  

The collision occurred near Urda in Toledo province when a high-speed train operated by Spain’s state railway company Renfe struck a stationary train. Audio recordings obtained by El Pais suggest controllers breached safety protocols despite repeated warnings from the stationary train’s driver. It was Spain’s second major railway disaster this year, following a collision near Adamuz in January that killed 46 people.  

The tragedy has become a major issue in Spain’s election campaign, with the right-wing Vox party blaming Sanchez and the left-wing Frente Amplio coalition demanding political accountability.  

The coalition, which includes parties allied with Sanchez’s government, called for an independent audit of the railway network, describing two deadly high-speed train accidents in one year as “unacceptable.”  

The leader of the main opposition People’s Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, also demanded an immediate investigation into the state of Spain’s railways, but stopped short of calling for resignations.  

“Spain has the right to know what is happening with its infrastructure, what condition the tracks and safety systems are in,” Feijoo said.  

Public anger spilled onto the streets of Madrid on Wednesday, where protesters clashed with police outside the Transport Ministry while demanding the resignations of Sanchez and Transport Minister Oscar Puente. Some demonstrators hurled flares and other objects at officers, who responded with tear gas.  

Sanchez has promised a thorough investigation, calling two such disasters in one year unacceptable. He has also pledged to strengthen railway safety while standing by Puente, according to El Pais.  

The tragedy has added to the Socialist-led government’s troubles following parliamentary defeats and mass protests over soaring housing costs. Sanchez called early elections after parliament rejected key housing measures in September, with the vote scheduled for November 29.

At least two people have been killed and another injured after rocks broke off a natural formation at a popular tourist destination in Türkiye’s Cappadocia region, local media have reported, citing provincial authorities.

The incident occurred at around 3:15 PM local time on Thursday following heavy rainfall, Nevsehir Governor Huseyin Kok told reporters.

The collapse took place near the entrance to the Goreme Open-Air Museum, where rocks broke off one of the region’s distinctive fairy chimney formations.

Rescue teams recovered two bodies from beneath the debris, while another person was taken to hospital with injuries, according to the governor.

Police, gendarmerie, medical personnel, and disaster response teams were dispatched to the scene, he said.

Rescuers are continuing to search the debris for anyone who might still be trapped, while the authorities have yet to release the victims’ identities or nationalities.

According to media reports, rain and wind have affected the region intermittently this week, forcing the cancellation of Cappadocia’s popular hot-air balloon tours on Wednesday and Thursday.

Nevşehir'in Göreme beldesinde peribacalarında çökme meydana geldi. Olayda yaralananların olduğu bildirildi. https://t.co/KKP5IfSTmo

— Onedio (@onedio) October 29, 2026

Similar rock collapses have occurred in Cappadocia in recent years. In September 2025, part of another fairy chimney in Goreme broke off, with local officials attributing the damage to temperature fluctuations and freeze-thaw conditions. No injuries were reported.

Cappadocia is one of Türkiye’s most popular tourist destinations, known for its distinctive fairy chimney rock formations, ancient cave churches, and underground cities. The Goreme National Park and Rock Sites of Cappadocia are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

For Russia, developments in the rest of Europe matter primarily insofar as they affect our national interests. Above all, this concerns security given that, for centuries, Russia has faced its greatest challenges from the West, and there’s little reason to assume that this historical pattern has disappeared.

Western Europe’s leading countries now stand at a crossroads, yet the choice confronting them isn’t simply between competing models of domestic development, it’s between war and peace with their neighbors, foremost among them Russia, whose size and historical role have repeatedly made it the principal obstacle to Western European expansion.

The unrest sweeping several European countries this autumn marks a new phase in the continent’s systemic crisis as it reflects the convergence of two long-term problems that much of Europe’s political establishment has proved incapable of resolving.

The first is the exhaustion of the socioeconomic model that sustained Western European prosperity throughout the Cold War and its aftermath. That model depended on Europe’s privileged position in the global economy and the absence of serious competitors beyond the Western world, but China’s rise, combined with increasingly limited resources, has undermined those advantages.

Closer economic integration with Russia, and access to its enormous natural wealth, might have offered Western Europe a final opportunity to preserve its exceptional position, but instead regional leaders allowed their own arrogance to prevent an accommodation with Moscow because they couldn’t accept that Russia wished to live peacefully with its neighbors, but on terms consistent with its own interests.

Integration into the American-led NATO system has deprived even major powers such as Germany, France, and Britain of the freedom to pursue fundamental political change and one of the alliance’s practical functions has been to preserve the existing political order within its member states.

Any serious attempt to transform that order would require a reassessment of relations with Washington and such independence is something these European governments have long been unwilling, or unable, to contemplate.

Together, these structural weaknesses have left Western Europe’s political and economic establishments effectively paralyzed.

For nearly two decades, governments have substituted the appearance of activity for meaningful reform. Successive emergencies, involving migration, the pandemic, hostility towards Russia, and preparations for military confrontation, have allowed leaders to avoid addressing deeper problem and this helps explain the temptation to interpret today’s unrest as another exercise in political manipulation. Emmanuel Macron, for example, has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to survive the consequences of disastrous decisions through tactical maneuvering.

Yet it would be a mistake to dismiss the protests as artificial or orchestrated.

By early October, the French protests had expanded as other groups affected by Macron’s liberal economic policies joined the demonstrations. The authorities blamed the political left, while unrest escalated into rioting and looting. 

Similar discontent emerged in Spain and Portugal, where soaring housing costs became the immediate trigger. Both countries have spent years occupying subordinate positions within the European Union, with little influence over its economic priorities, even as their former politicians find comfortable positions in Brussels.

Western Europe has consequently entered a period in which conventional political competition is increasingly accompanied by mass protest and the participation of young people is particularly significant.

In France, the EU’s most important military power and its only nuclear-armed member, it was students who provided the initial momentum. While much of the adult electorate has descended into political apathy under Macron, younger generations retain aspirations for a better future and their grievances are genuine. So, too, is the wider crisis that has brought people onto the streets.

There are therefore grounds to believe that public dissatisfaction may eventually bring new political forces to power, which from Russia’s perspective raises an obvious possibility in that perhaps Western Europe’s next generation of leaders will prove more reasonable on questions of security and relations with Moscow.

Indeed, the objective nature of the present crisis makes its possible consequences especially troubling and European history offers little reassurance that profound domestic upheaval produces peaceful relations with neighbouring countries. On the contrary, revolutionary transformations have repeatedly generated external aggression, and the French Revolution provides one example.

The upheavals of the late 18th century were followed by wars against neighboring states and, eventually, Napoleon’s attempt to dominate Europe.

The extraordinary energy released by revolution demanded an outlet, while new rulers also needed resources and opportunities for enrichment beyond their borders.

As Henry Kissinger observed in his early historical work, the internal foundations of Napoleon’s expansionism helped prevent a lasting accommodation with Russia after the disastrous campaign of 1812.

Germany offers an even more destructive precedent, where the political upheavals of the 20th century ultimately brought to power a regime whose ambitions extended far beyond Germany’s borders. The conquest of neighboring countries was followed by an attack on the Soviet Union and the most devastating war in human history.

Paradoxically, that dependence may now offer some protection against the most dangerous consequences of Europe’s internal crisis because governments that lack genuine strategic independence may also lack the freedom to embark upon adventures of their own choosing.

Nevertheless, Russia can’t base its security on the assumption that European political upheaval will produce more sensible leaders even if the temptation to hope for a peaceful transformation of Europe is understandable. Hope isn’t a strategy, and history provides ample grounds for caution.

Russia must therefore prepare not for the miracle of a Western Europe reconciled to peaceful coexistence, but for the possibility that its internal crisis will once again find expression in confrontation abroad.

Whatever political forces eventually emerge from the present turmoil, preparing for a military confrontation with our European neighbors must remain one of Russia’s central strategic priorities.

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

Germany has seen its highest annual suicide toll in nearly three decades, with 11,334 deaths recorded last year, according to the Federal Statistical Office. Experts suggest that the surge may be linked to a loosely regulated assisted-suicide system, which allows even healthy adults to seek help ending their lives.

The data set released earlier this month and analyzed in greater detail on Wednesday by Germany’s National Suicide Prevention Program (NaSPro) found a rise of 962 suicides, or 9.3%, in 2025, taking the annual toll to its highest level since 1998.

The total was greater than the approximately 7,677 people killed in traffic accidents, homicides, illegal-drug-related deaths and AIDS combined, the report said, adding that men accounted for 69.2% of suicides.

Since 2021, the annual total has climbed 23% though the number of suicides remains below its historical peak of 18,825 in 1981, NaSPro said.

Although hanging remained the most common method of suicide (4,145), it was followed by medication (2,848 cases), which saw a striking surge compared to 2024, when it accounted for 2,002 deaths. This category alone accounted for nearly 88% of the entire annual increase.

While the German government did not offer a definitive explanation for the dramatic increase, multiple experts linked it to the expansion of assisted suicides, which are not separately identified in official mortality statistics. Three major organizations providing such services reported 1,287 assisted deaths last year, up from 977 in 2024 and just 346 in 2021; medication is also the most common method used in assisted suicides.

Germany’s legal framework permits assisted suicide even for people who are not terminally ill or suffering from incurable conditions. Individuals willing to go this path are not required to provide any justification, and in principle, even a physically healthy young adult can legally seek assistance if the decision is voluntary, informed, and enduring. However, nobody is obliged to assist, and euthanasia performed directly by another person remains illegal.

Ulrich Hegerl, chairman of the German Depression Aid and Suicide Prevention Foundation, criticized what he described as the country’s “extreme position” on the matter, warning that “when assisted suicide becomes normalized as a service, this threshold is lowered, and the number of tragic, preventable suicides rises.” 

Suicide researcher Ute Lewitzka of Goethe University Frankfurt, meanwhile, has offered another explanation, describing the surge as a crisis phenomenon. She suggested that financial hardship and uncertainty can intensify suicidal thoughts among vulnerable people, while social media could also contribute. Lewitzka also criticized what she described as Germany’s inadequate access to psychological care.

The West African nation of Sierra Leone is looking to India and Russia for technology and expertise to process its mineral resources rather than remain a mere supplier to the world’s industrialized countries.

Sierra Leone wants to combine Russian mining expertise with Indian technology to develop its mineral wealth and expand domestic processing, the country’s Minister of Mines and Mineral Resources, Julius Daniel Mattai, told RT.

“Geology is not wealth,” the minister noted on the sidelines of the third Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow on Wednesday. He argued that mineral resources must be combined with knowledge and effective governance to generate economic benefits. Sierra Leone is seeking investment and technology for this move.

More and more African leaders are emphasizing local processing as they push to move their economies up the industrial value chain. It was also raised at the summit by African Union chair Evariste Ndayishimiye, who called for partnerships that would help African countries manufacture finished products, RT reported on Wednesday.

'Sierra Leone is Looking to Combine Russian Know-How With Indian Tech Talent’ - Julius Daniel Mattai, 🇸🇱's Minister of Mines & Mineral Resources ‘If we combine Russian knowledge, resilience, technology, education, with the intellectual capacity and capabilities of India, that means we have good friends,’ Julius Daniel Mattai tells RT India, on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa summit.

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) October 28, 2026

“We cannot accept a future where Africa supplies the minerals … while value addition and manufacturing take place elsewhere,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told the BRICS summit in New Delhi last month.

Sierra Leone is preparing to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Russian State University for Geological Prospecting covering scholarships, staff exchanges, laboratory access, and technology transfer, Mattai said.

Russia’s expertise in geological data interpretation, mineral processing, smelting and refining could support Sierra Leone’s mining industry, Mattai said. He stressed that reliable energy would be essential to expanding domestic processing and manufacturing.

The Russian military is intensifying efforts to clear mines and unexploded ordnance from roads leading to a Ukrainian town where a local ceasefire was announced this week to allow a humanitarian mission mediated by US First Lady Melania Trump.

The proposed aid deliveries are intended to alleviate the dire conditions facing residents trapped in Alyoshki due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Footage released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday shows a Russian mine-clearing robot and its operators securing access to the town in the Russian region of Kherson, which Ukraine still claims. Most of the munitions being disposed of are foreign-made, one of the explosives specialists said.

The ministry explained that many of the explosive devices discovered in the area originated in Western countries and were being detonated on-site to accelerate the clearance operation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the humanitarian effort during the Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow, saying: “We are working on this, just as we are working to resolve the Ukraine conflict.” He accused Ukrainian forces of bringing Alyoshki to the brink of a “humanitarian disaster” by blockading the town, a situation the US first lady is seeking to alleviate.

The Alyoshki operation is supported by the Belarusian government, which is providing logistical assistance to the foreign officials involved. On Thursday morning, local media filmed Russian and Ukrainian delegations departing together from the Belarusian city of Gomel.

Russian human rights ombudsman Yana Lantratova thanked her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmitry Lubinets, and Melania Trump for helping advance the humanitarian mission.

“Our main goal is to deliver aid to those who are staying in the town. We will also give a chance to anyone who wants to leave Alyoshki,” she wrote on social media. “The important part now is to reach people and provide for their needs.”

India’s Adani Group is among the suitors for Dutch energy storage company VTTI, as the South Asian nation’s businesses aggressively pursue overseas deals linked to energy and manufacturing, Bloomberg reported.

VTTI’s massive terminal capacity acts as a vital buffer in times of supply disruptions and volatile commodity markets. A deal could value the Rotterdam-based VTTI at around $3.4 billion, the report said.

Adani Group, which is backed by billionaire Gautam Adani, has interests spanning ports to power generation, airports, data centers, and mining assets.

Australian infrastructure player IFM Investors Pty and energy and commodities trader Vitol SA have a 45% stake each in VTTI, with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) holding the rest.

ADNOC is reportedly open to shedding its entire stake in VTTI, which runs facilities that store and distribute crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas and biofuels, apart from linking these to transportation infrastructure – trucks, ships and pipelines.

“The only steel plant left in the Netherlands today is a Tata Steel plant,” says a smiling Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal in the Netherlands https://t.co/cjr3XKHfXP

— Shashank Mattoo (@MattooShashank) October 26, 2026

None of the businesses involved have publicly commented on the report.

With a net worth of $105.7 billion, Gautam Adani is India’s richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The Adani group has been at the forefront of Indian businesses pursuing overseas deals. It recently considered buying a stake in the UK’s largest port operator, Associated British Ports. IFM ultimately won that deal, which valued AB Ports at $13.4 billion.

In July, the group’s flagship Adani Enterprises raised $1.6 billion from institutional investors, to fund capital expenditure and debt repayment.

Earlier this month, Tata Motors cleared a milestone in its takeover bid for Italian truck manufacturer Iveco Group, receiving provisional acceptances that crossed the 80% stake requirement threshold, Reuters reported.

India’s Reliance Industries is also funding the construction of the first new oil refinery in the US in 50 years. The $300 billion facility, to be located in Brownsville, Texas, will be developed by America First Refining.

Personal and operational details of more than 41,000 US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees and contractors, including undercover immigration agents, have been leaked online, reportedly exposing the department’s internal structure and surveillance operations.

The disclosure comes amid growing public anger over President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, with the department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facing growing criticism over aggressive raids, detention conditions, and the use of force against migrants and protesters.

Released on Wednesday by transparency nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), the files contain names, contact details, job titles, and internal system access groups across ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and other DHS agencies.

DHS confirmed to the media that it is “aware of a potential breach” and is working to address it, adding that it will protect employees and update the public “when more information is available.”

Dubbed ‘Icepick’, the archive was supplied to DDoSecrets by a hacktivist group called ‘Department of Peace’. It contains around 21,300 CBP records, 6,600 linked to ICE, and 3,400 to Homeland Security Investigations, along with records from immigration services, cybersecurity, and other DHS divisions. Some records match employees’ social media profiles, but others exposed internal organizational charts and previously undisclosed programs and operations.

According to Wired, the files reference undercover investigations, wiretapping, and immigration databases, with internal access groups linked to surveillance tools including Palantir’s Falcon software and Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition system used by immigration agents. Other groups reference AI services including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot Grok. Access groups are lists of employees authorized to use particular systems, which means the records could help identify which employees have access to surveillance tools and how DHS operations are organized.

“This dataset is massive in terms of both size and impact,” investigative journalist and hacktivist maia arson crimew, who developed a searchable version of the archive, said in a statement accompanying the release. She called it “a complete game changer for anyone investigating DHS,” arguing that it could help identify agents and their chains of command.

The hackers claim to have obtained the records through DHS’s Okta employee login system, though Okta denied that its systems were compromised.

Why now?

The hackers linked the leak to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s pledge to intensify immigration enforcement. Speaking after two fatal ICE shootings in Texas and Maine, Mullin said federal agents are “turning up the heat on the streets,” despite growing criticism of their tactics. “On July 17th, Markwayne Mullin said he was ‘turning up the heat.’ This is what happens to ICE when you do that,” a Department of Peace spokesperson said in a statement published by DDoSecrets.

The disclosure comes amid growing backlash over Trump’s immigration crackdown, a central priority since his return to the White House in January 2025. His push for mass deportations, expanded detention, and tighter border controls has sparked protests over aggressive raids, masked agents, and alleged racial profiling.

ICE has also faced scrutiny over detention conditions, with at least 52 deaths in its custody during Trump’s first 500 days back in office, according to Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights.

The administration maintains that its operations are necessary to enforce immigration law and remove dangerous criminals. The Icepick publishers say the records can help journalists, lawmakers, and civil liberties groups investigate DHS activities. Emma Best argued that the disclosure can enable investigations, congressional inquiries, and legal challenges by replacing the administration’s “anonymity with accountability.”

Yet another breach

The disclosure adds to a series of US government data security incidents.

In September, hacking group ShinyHunters claimed that it stole personal data on nearly all FBI agents and their spouses, including sensitive job details and medical information. The group said the attack was “not financially motivated” and demanded that the FBI withdraw a cybersecurity advisory published in May that it claimed contained false allegations about it.

Separately, a Pentagon personnel system breach reportedly exposed Social Security numbers, personal details, and military job records belonging to more than 3 million people, including service members and their families. The incident prompted a class-action lawsuit last week.

India’s long-planned refinery expansions could make it an even bigger diesel supplier in 2027, just as disruptions to Russian and Middle Eastern shipments have created an unexpected export opportunity for Indian refiners.

State-owned refiners plan to add 16.5 million tons of annual diesel production capacity next year, executives said at an industry conference in Goa on Tuesday. The projects were originally intended to meet India’s growing domestic fuel requirements, not the current global diesel shortage.

“The expansion is driven by a portfolio, but the opportunity is in diesel,” XAnalysts founder and chief oil analyst Mukesh Sahdev told RT.

Why are global diesel supplies tight even as oil demand is falling?

The US-Iran war has disrupted Middle Eastern fuel shipments, while attacks on Russian refineries and export restrictions have reduced supplies from another major producer. Diesel powers transportation, factories, and farms, and the shortages are largely driving the current price inflation and affordability crisis.

Global diesel and gas oil availability fell by 1.7 million barrels per day – equivalent to roughly two-and-a-half times Japan’s daily diesel consumption last year – in the third quarter, compared with a year earlier, according to figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Energy Institute.

Wholesale diesel prices surpassed $200 per barrel in September, nearly double their prewar levels, and reached around $220 in Europe and the US, the IEA said.

The shortage persists despite weakening overall oil demand, as diesel consumption has remained comparatively resilient and inventories have fallen, the agency said. On October 15, IEA members agreed to accelerate emergency stock releases, including over 20 million barrels of diesel.

How are Indian refiners positioned to benefit?

Indian Oil Corporation, the country’s largest refiner, expects expansions to add around 8 million tons of diesel a year. Hindustan Petroleum Corporation’s new Rajasthan refinery is expected to produce 3 million tons next year, while the expanded Numaligarh refinery in Assam state will add another 3 million tons, Reuters reported.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation plans another 1.5 million tons of annual output. In all, India’s plans will expand overall refining capacity from 267 million tons annually to 300 million by 2030.

The country already produces more diesel than it consumes.

Refiners produced around 59 million tons from April to September, against domestic consumption of around 46 million, according to Oil Ministry data cited by Bloomberg.

The additional volumes are coming onstream amid a global shortage, creating a commercial opportunity for projects originally designed around Indian fuel demand, ICRA senior vice president Prashant Vasisht told RT.

Russian crude ‘a natural fit’

New refining capacity alone does not guarantee more diesel. Refineries need suitable crude oil, while equipment limits how much of it they can turn into diesel, Vasisht explained.

“Indian refineries are also getting the right quality of crude oil,” Sahdev said, noting Russian, Iraqi, and heavier Venezuelan grades as suitable feedstocks for diesel production.

Russian crude is “a natural fit for the Indian system,” he added. The new Rajasthan refinery can process Russian Urals and Iraqi Basrah grades, S&P Global reported in July.

Sahdev said India’s reliance on Russian barrels has also grown as production from traditional suppliers in Malaysia and West Africa declined.

Can India fill the global supply gap?

India is already the world’s second-largest seaborne diesel exporter after the US, according to data analysis firm Kpler. Exports reached 596,000 barrels per day in September, compared with the year-to-date average of 482,000 barrels per day, the data shows.

Additional Indian production could make a meaningful difference to global supplies, but it cannot replace all the diesel lost because of disruptions affecting Russia and the Middle East, the analysts cautioned.

“We are providing very large quantities to Europe and some of the other regions, but these are still not enough,” Vasisht said.

Not all the additional diesel will be available for export. India’s growing domestic demand, refinery operations, and freight costs will determine how much reaches overseas buyers.

The IEA expects global refinery output to recover in 2027, but warns that depleted inventories could keep diesel markets tight well into next year.

But expanding production alone is not enough, Sahdev cautioned. India also needs stronger commodity-trading networks and financial mechanisms to capture the full value of its growing refining capacity.

“If India does not do this, then somebody else will make money on Indian capacity,” he said.

Astronomers have discovered a large icy object beyond Pluto that could qualify as a dwarf planet, potentially adding a new member to the solar system’s officially recognized group.

The discovery was announced on Thursday by the US-funded Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which houses the world’s largest 3.2-gigapixel digital camera, built specifically for astronomy.

Researchers estimate that the object, provisionally named 2026 ED138, is between 600 and 1,500 km in diameter and may be one of the largest dwarf planet candidates ever found. It currently sits roughly 46 times farther from the Sun than Earth. Pluto’s average distance, for comparison, is about 40 times Earth’s.

The object likely escaped detection until now because it appeared against a crowded backdrop of millions of stars near the plane of the Milky Way. However, Rubin’s repeated images and tracking software has now allowed scientists to pick out its movement.

#ICYMI: our Solar System has a newly-discovered dwarf planet candidate! Meet 2026 ED138, recently revealed by NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory ☄ Let's get to know this new world a little bit, shall we? https://t.co/wTOg898zBu https://t.co/RC0HP5rZiL

— NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory (@VRubinObs) October 28, 2026

If confirmed, ED138 would join five dwarf planets recognized by the International Astronomical Union, which include Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Ceres, and Pluto, which was considered the solar system’s ninth planet until it was reclassified in 2006. Dwarf planets orbit the Sun and have enough gravity to become roughly round, but share their orbital neighborhoods with other bodies.

“The main thing we need to do is to establish the physical size of 2026 ED138,” discoverer Matt Holman, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and Smithsonian, told Reuters. He explained that ED138’s size is currently estimated from the sunlight it reflects. However, a small shiny object can appear just as bright as a large, dark one, Holman said.

To narrow down the true size of the object, researchers could use Chile’s ALMA telescope which can detect radiation emitted by ED138 itself, helping get a more accurate measurement.

The last dwarf planet officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union was Haumea in 2008. Other candidates have since emerged, including 2017 OF201, whose discovery was announced in May 2025, but none have yet been formally added to the list.

Former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was shouted down by pro-Palestinian activists during a speech at a Swedish university, Berliner Zeitung has reported.  

The heated confrontation happened earlier this week at Uppsala University, where Baerbock was delivering a lecture on international cooperation and multilateral leadership, the outlet said on Wednesday.   

Activists repeatedly interrupted her speech, accusing her of defending Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure.  

“You justified the bombing of hospitals and schools in Gaza, and now you come here to talk about peace!” one protester shouted.  

Another challenged Baerbock over her talk of democracy and freedom, demanding: “Whose democracy are you defending? Whose freedom do you actually stand for – only that of Israelis?”  

Baerbock headed Germany’s Foreign Ministry from 2021 to 2025 and staunchly defended Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023. Berlin continued approving weapons supplies to Israel despite mounting international criticism, authorizing around €161 million ($168 million) in military exports in 2024.  

The former minister herself sparked controversy in October 2024 when she argued in the German parliament that civilian sites in Gaza could lose their protected status under international humanitarian law if Hamas used them for military purposes. Her remarks drew criticism from those who accused Berlin of providing political cover for Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure.  

Israel launched its Gaza offensive following the October 2023 Hamas-led attack, which killed around 1,200 people and saw some 250 taken hostage. More than 75,000 Palestinians have since been killed across the occupied territories, including at least 21,500 children, according to a UN Commission of Inquiry.  

In a report released on Monday, the commission concluded that Israel had continued committing “genocide” in Gaza despite the October 2025 ceasefire, with Israeli strikes reportedly killing another 1,431 Palestinians as of September 30. It also accused Israel of crimes against humanity in the occupied West Bank. Israel has rejected allegations of genocide, maintaining that its operations target Hamas.

The Financial Times has refused to correct an anonymously sourced article about a recent phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Norway and Finland, despite objections from both Nordic governments.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and Finnish President Alexander Stubb spoke with Putin earlier this week, drawing criticism from some of Europe’s more Russia-hawkish politicians. Store has since demanded the FT retracts its reporting on the conversation.

The British newspaper claimed that Putin spent significant time “lecturing” the Nordic leaders on “medieval Slavic history” and its relevance to the Ukraine conflict. Citing three anonymous sources described only as “familiar with the conversation,” the FT portrayed the Russian president as “fixated” on history.

Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov said later in the day that the FT article is “some invented information, or rather disinformation” and that the Nordic leaders were correct to call out the publication.

The FT, however, rejected the request, telling VG that it stood by its reporting.

Its article, published on Tuesday, was written by three journalists.

One of them, American national Christopher Miller, previously worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a US government-funded international broadcaster originally established with covert CIA funding to conduct anti-communist propaganda operations during the Cold War. Miller went to Ukraine in 2010 as a volunteer with the US Peace Corps.

His co-authors, Max Seddon and Henry Foy, head the FT’s bureaus in Moscow and Brussels, respectively.

Foy, notoriously broke a story in 2025 alleging that a plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had experienced suspected Russian GPS jamming. The FT journalist was himself aboard the aircraft when it landed in Bulgaria. 

Key elements of the story were challenged almost immediately by flight-tracking service Flightradar24. Bulgarian authorities subsequently debunked the core claims relayed by FT.

Despite the discrepancies, the FT insisted it stood by its reporting. Foy did not respond to requests for comment from fellow journalists who questioned the account.

The Pentagon has fired its top military strategist as Washington draws up contingency plans for a possible escalation of hostilities with Iran.

Army Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia has been removed from his position as director for strategy, plans, and policy (J5) on the Joint Staff, a spokesman confirmed late Wednesday, following media reports of his dismissal.

His predecessor, Lt. Gen. Joseph McGee, was forced into retirement a year ago amid reported friction with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine. Sylvia previously served as vice director of the J5.

The Pentagon did not explain Sylvia’s departure. His responsibilities included developing military strategies and plans to advise the chairman and the US president. He joins nearly two dozen senior military and civilian officials removed during Hegseth’s tenure.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of renewing large-scale hostilities with Iran, including resuming the intensive bombing campaign conducted during the first 40 days of the conflict, which the US and Israel launched in late February. A potential escalation could be timed around the November midterm elections.

Military experts have widely expressed concern that another bombing campaign would fail to “finish the job,” as Trump has put it, while further increasing the conflict’s economic toll worldwide. Tehran has repeatedly warned that it is prepared to retaliate against US allies in the Gulf region if it faces renewed attacks.

Trump’s public rhetoric remains supportive of Hegseth and his policies.

American journalists will observe a humanitarian mission under a Russia-Ukraine truce in the frontline town of Alyoshki in Kherson Region, Russia, US First Lady Melania Trump has said. Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev has confirmed that the reporters are expected there, and that demining operations are already underway.

Alyoshki, located on the left bank of the Dnieper River, was largely cut off from essential supplies and basic services for months under a Ukrainian siege, with drone attacks and remotely laid mines hampering aid deliveries and evacuation efforts from a town where an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 civilians remained.

Russian Foreign Ministry envoy Rodion Miroshnik described the situation as a “medieval blockade using modern methods,” accusing Ukraine of obstructing humanitarian efforts.

However, after US mediation spearheaded by the Slovenian-born US first lady, Moscow and Kiev agreed to a temporary ceasefire in the area starting October 27 to allow humanitarian assistance to flow in and evacuations to proceed. As of Thursday, both Russian and Ukrainian officials reported no truce violations. The pause is scheduled to last until Sunday.

Writing on X on Wednesday, Trump said four American journalists from conservative US outlet Newsmax will arrive in Alyoshki and accompany Russian and Ukrainian humanitarian leaders. “Serving as neutral observers, they will independently record and permanently document this historic humanitarian mission,” she said.

Speaking to reporters before departing to Alyoshki, Russian human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova said other foreign journalists are also expected to arrive, without providing further details.

Both Trump and Lantratova confirmed that Russia and Ukraine have begun clearing mines to secure aid routes. “It is now crucial to make the roads safe so that people can leave the town,” Lantratova said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that most Ukrainian mines found near Alyoshki were scattered by drones, and that they are predominantly Western-made. It also released a video showing a large-scale demining effort involving remotely-controlled robots.

The Alyoshki crisis was discussed during an October 9 phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump. According to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, the leaders agreed that Russia’s human rights commissioner would maintain direct contact with Melania Trump’s office. US envoy Steve Witkoff subsequently met with Putin in St. Petersburg last week to discuss proposals for ending the Ukraine conflict.

India has raised objections to a $686 million US package to upgrade Pakistan’s F-16 fighter jets and extend their service life, Indian media have reported.

Washington has gone ahead with the upgrade even as India and the US continue to deepen defense cooperation under a ten-year partnership framework signed last year. India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed, clashed briefly last year with drones and missiles following a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 26 civilians.

Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, in his talks with US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Wednesday, also raised the possibility of sensitive American military technology supplied to Pakistan reaching third countries, the Economic Times reported, citing officials familiar with the discussions. The two officials met on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus in Cebu, Philippines.

The proposed package, notified to the US Congress in December, is intended to modernize Pakistan’s aging F-16 fleet and extend their operational life through 2040.

It includes 92 Link-16 tactical communication systems, avionics upgrades, secure communications, navigation equipment, spare parts, and training, according to a US Defense Security Cooperation Agency notification published last month. The package does not involve the sale of new fighter jets, and the US agency said it would not alter the basic military balance in the region.

📹 'Our Strategies Are Battle-Tested': Rajnath Singh Cites Operation Sindoor At ADMM Defence Meet 💪💥 🇮🇳 DefMin cited the operation as proof of New Delhi's counter-terrorism methods being battle-tested. He also offered to share that experience with ASEAN partners through joint drills and intelligence sharing.

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) October 29, 2026

Washington has maintained that the upgrades would support cooperation with Pakistan in counterterrorism operations, improve coordination between the two countries’ air forces, and address aircraft safety concerns.

India has previously objected to American support for Pakistan’s F-16 fleet, including in 2022 when Washington approved a $450 million maintenance package. Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar also questioned Washington’s justification that the aircraft were needed for counterterrorism operations.

The third Russia-Africa Summit has concluded in Moscow, with Russian President Vladimir Putin and African leaders adopting a joint declaration and agreeing on priorities for cooperation in the coming years.

The second and final day of the gathering at the Kremlin focused on international affairs, Africa’s growing global role, economic cooperation and security. Putin and African Union chair Evariste Ndayishimiye addressed the summit before holding a joint press conference.

The leaders adopted a declaration covering issues ranging from UN reform and sanctions to maritime security, trade and infrastructure, alongside a cooperation action plan for 2027–2029. The declaration also called for greater African representation in international institutions and opposed neocolonial practices that undermine national sovereignty.

Putin held a series of bilateral meetings with African counterparts, discussing investment, energy, infrastructure and educational cooperation. Speaking to reporters, he also addressed Russia’s relations with Europe, international maritime security and Moscow’s role in resolving conflicts across Africa.

RT followed the summit’s final day, bringing you the key announcements, agreements, and footage from Moscow.

This live feed has now ended.

A fire broke out at a major nuclear research complex in South Carolina that supports the US nuclear weapons program, the Department of Energy has said.

The fire started at Savannah River National Laboratory, part of the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, on Wednesday evening and was subsequently extinguished, officials said.

“No contamination has been reported outside the affected facility,” the department said in a statement.

Emergency protocols were activated, with employees not involved in response efforts ordered to suspend operations and shelter in place as a precaution. The site was closed to incoming traffic, while nearby rail, river, and air traffic was restricted.

Officials lifted the emergency declaration at 9:45 PM, saying radiation surveys found no detectable contamination. Protective measures were lifted, and the site was cleared to resume normal operations on Thursday.

Established in the early 1950s during the Cold War, the SRS originally produced plutonium and tritium for US nuclear weapons. Although its production reactors have since been shut down, the complex continues to play a key role in maintaining the American nuclear arsenal.

The SRS processes and replenishes tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen used to boost the explosive yield of nuclear warheads. It also manages nuclear materials, treats radioactive waste, and carries out environmental cleanup.

The US government is also developing a facility at the SRS to manufacture plutonium cores for nuclear warheads as part of efforts to modernize the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile.

The incident comes less than two weeks after a fire swept through Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in Alberta, killing four soldiers and injuring 39 others during a live-fire training exercise. According to the Canadian military, strong winds caused the fire to spread rapidly, overtaking an area occupied by troops.

The Canadian Armed Forces said last week that 27 personnel remained hospitalized, while 12 were discharged. Military police have launched an independent investigation into the incident.

Israeli police have found no evidence supporting claims by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party that Arab parties rigged Tuesday’s parliamentary election, according to local media.

Police received 48 complaints involving suspected fraud and voter impersonation, around 40% fewer than in the previous election. No investigative or intelligence evidence pointed to widespread fraud, i24NEWS reported on Thursday.

“There’s nothing dramatic,” Major General Boaz Blatt, the head of the police’s Investigations and Intelligence Division, said, according to Kan News.

Israel’s Central Elections Committee said it received around 10,000 reports of suspected electoral irregularities, but around 80% were dismissed as unrelated to election integrity, including false or incorrectly classified complaints. The reports included allegations of photography at polling stations, ballot tampering, and disruptions to voting.

Neither major political bloc secured a parliamentary majority in Israel’s first election since the outbreak of the war with Hamas in Gaza in 2023.

Netanyahu’s bloc was projected to win around 52-53 seats, while the rival bloc led by former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot was expected to secure 48, according to preliminary tallies. A majority of 61 seats in the 120-member Knesset is required to form a government.

Arab citizens make up around 21% of Israel’s population, and their representatives could play a decisive role in coalition negotiations aimed at replacing Netanyahu, who remains caretaker prime minister.

Shortly after the initial results emerged, Likud alleged that Arab parties stole the election through “serious criminal offenses of bribery, threats, violence, forgeries and the use of illegal software to mobilize voters.”

The party said it collected hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence of alleged irregularities at polling stations in Arab communities and demanded an investigation by police and the domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet.

The Arab parties rejected the allegations. Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen accused Likud of attempting to delegitimize Arab voters, dismissing its fraud claims as “the words of losers.” Ra’am also denied wrongdoing, accusing the authorities of politically motivated arrests and attempts to suppress Arab turnout.

In 2021, the Islamist Ra’am party, led by Mansour Abbas, became the first independent Arab party to formally join an Israeli governing coalition, supporting a broad alliance led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.

The coalition ended Netanyahu’s 12 consecutive years as prime minister but collapsed in 2022, paving the way for his return to power following another election that year.

Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro declared himself the rightful leader of Brazil after arriving in the US. He fled the country following his election defeat to incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro, an ally of US President Donald Trump, landed in Miami, Florida on Wednesday morning aboard a private jet after traveling through Argentina and Ecuador. He defied a Supreme Court order to surrender his passports amid investigations into alleged financial crimes.

The senator is suspected of involvement in a money-laundering scheme linked to fraudulent deductions from pension payments. He also faces a separate investigation involving alleged financial misconduct. Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing, describing the cases as politically motivated.

The right-wing senator narrowly lost to Lula, a veteran left-wing politician, in Sunday’s runoff election, despite receiving more votes than his rival in the first round on October 4. His father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup to overturn his 2022 election defeat to Lula. The elder Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing, arguing that the case was politically motivated.

In a lengthy letter posted on X, Flavio Bolsonaro described himself as “the leader of Brazil” and claimed that the election was rigged. An earlier version of the letter described him as the country’s elected president.

“The illegitimate and illegal actions of Lula’s former lawyer allowed a mathematical impossibility to become reality, with Lula gaining more than 10 million votes between the first and second rounds,” he wrote.

Defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and his family have landed in Miami after fleeing his country. This comes a day after they were granted United States visas by the Trump administration. https://t.co/oB91ejWab5

— The Associated Press (@AP) October 28, 2026

Bolsonaro was referring to Supreme Federal Court Justice Cristiano Zanin, who previously represented Lula. Zanin ordered voting extended from 5-7 PM on Sunday following complaints from Lula’s campaign about public transportation disruptions. The last-minute ruling caused confusion because some polling stations had already closed, prompting Zanin to clarify that the extension only applied where voting was still underway.

Bolsonaro rejected the investigations against him and vowed to “lead the opposition” from abroad. “It was not my intention to leave my homeland, but I know exactly where this is heading. This is the classic playbook of any coup d’état.” 

Lula earlier condemned Bolsonaro’s departure as “a shameful act,” arguing that “those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear.”

Trump also suggested that Brazil’s election may have been rigged. He previously condemned the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro as a “witch hunt” and called for the case against the former president to be dropped.

More than four in five US deaths linked to drug-resistant infections involve pathogens commonly associated with hospitals and nursing homes, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The agency’s Antimicrobial Resistance Threats Report released this week draws on data from 2023 and estimates that 19 types of drug-resistant bacteria and fungi cause 9.7 million infections and 50,800 deaths annually in the US. Seven bacterial threats commonly associated with hospitals and nursing homes accounted for more than 42,000 of those deaths, along with nearly $12 billion in healthcare costs.

Antimicrobial resistance occurs when germs develop the ability to withstand drugs designed to kill them, making infections difficult or impossible to treat. Elderly people, those with weakened immune systems, and patients undergoing invasive medical procedures are particularly vulnerable.

A separate CDC study published in July found that reported cases of Candida auris more than doubled from 2022-2024, rising from 2,882 to 6,197. Most cases for which the type of medical facility was identified were detected in hospitals, including those that provide long-term treatment for seriously ill patients.

The CDC noted that many healthcare-associated infections are preventable, but much of the progress in combating drug resistance was lost during the Covid-19 pandemic, when staffing shortages, overcrowding, and disruptions to infection-control practices contributed to a rise in infections.

The warning comes as US hospitals face mounting financial and staffing pressures. A Harvard-led study published earlier this month found that 432 hospitals closed nationwide from 2010-2025, resulting in a net loss of 216 facilities and more than 24,000 beds.

Pakistan has restored overflight rights to two Taiwanese airlines after they stopped using its airspace three days earlier, according to AP, Bloomberg, and Dawn.

On Wednesday, Islamabad issued permits allowing Taiwan-based China Airlines and EVA Air to use Pakistani airspace until March 27, 2027, the outlets reported, citing official documents.

Hours earlier, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif defended restrictions on Taiwanese carriers, citing Islamabad’s longstanding adherence to Beijing’s One-China policy.

“The aviation division follows the One-China policy – only mainland China is allowed,” Asif told Bloomberg. “We have permitted only Chinese airlines to fly over Pakistan.”

According to flight-tracking data, Taiwanese airlines began rerouting flights to avoid Pakistani airspace on October 25. Taipei condemned Islamabad for what it described as undermining Taiwan’s sovereignty and “politicizing and weaponizing airspace,” according to Taiwanese media.

Most countries, including the US and Russia, do not formally recognize Taiwan as an independent state. Beijing considers the self-governing island part of China and seeks reunification, preferably through peaceful means, but has not ruled out the use of force. Washington and several other Western governments maintain unofficial ties with Taiwan and supply it with weapons, drawing condemnation from China.

China and Pakistan maintain close political and military ties, describing their relationship as an “all-weather strategic cooperative partnership.” China is Pakistan’s principal arms supplier, and Islamabad has consistently supported Beijing position on Taiwan.

Taiwanese airlines largely avoided Russian airspace after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, although neither Moscow nor Taipei formally prohibited them from using it. Following the Pakistani restrictions, several Taiwan-Europe flights were rerouted through Russia.

According to Bloomberg, no country had previously imposed a blanket overflight ban on Taiwanese commercial airlines. In April, Seychelles, Mauritius, and Madagascar withdrew overflight clearances for Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s aircraft, forcing him to postpone a visit to Eswatini. Lai eventually made the trip in May.

Protesters clashed with police outside the Transport Ministry in Madrid as they demanded accountability for a high-speed train collision that killed at least 68 people near Toledo.

Wednesday’s crash near Urda in Toledo province was Spain’s second major railway disaster in less than ten months. On January 18, a train derailed near Adamuz, Cordoba province, and collided with another train traveling in the opposite direction, killing 46 people.

According to elDiario.es, the demonstration, organized by far-right groups Falange and Revuelta, demanded the resignations of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Transport Minister Oscar Puente. “How many more people have to die before we throw these murderers and traitors out of our institutions?” Falange spokesman Federico Campanero said in a speech.

Ministerio de transportes ahora mismo. https://t.co/5WOlae1nzq

— Pablø (@nostalgicopablo) October 28, 2026

Some protesters threw flares and other objects at police, who pushed back the crowd and used tear gas.

La manifestación frente al ministerio de transportes exigiendo la dimisión de Óscar Puente se calienta. La gente está hasta los cojones. https://t.co/KGcoYNeIjU

— Capitán General de los Tercios (@capTercio) October 28, 2026

Tensión en una manifestación frente al Ministerio de Transportes en Madrid https://t.co/PlEVzgfUVy

— Alerta Zeta | Sucesos 🇪🇸 (@AlertaZeta) October 28, 2026

The right-wing Vox party and its affiliated trade union Solidaridad held a separate demonstration earlier at Plaza de Cibeles in central Madrid, where participants observed a minute of silence. Some carried a banner reading “Corruption kills.” The rally ended without major incidents.

In a speech on Wednesday, Sanchez promised a thorough investigation. “It is unacceptable for a country like Spain to suffer two high-speed rail accidents in the same year,” he said.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, the leader of the main opposition People’s Party, demanded an immediate investigation and independent review of the railway network. “Spain has the right to know what is happening with its infrastructure, what condition the tracks and safety systems are in.”

The disaster comes at a politically sensitive moment for Sanchez, whose government has faced public anger over housing costs and parliamentary setbacks. With a general election scheduled for November 29, the collision has brought renewed scrutiny of the government’s handling of railway safety.