Civilian infrastructure in several Russian regions, including Crimea, Krasnodar, Belgorod, Kursk, Kaluga, and Rostov, came under drone attacks on Sunday

The Victory Day truce announced by Russia last week to mark the 81st anniversary of the end of World War II was initially set to expire on Sunday, but following a proposal from US President Donald Trump, Moscow agreed to extend it for two more days.

In a statement on Sunday, the Defense Ministry said that Ukrainian forces carried out drone and artillery strikes on civilian sites in Crimea, Belgorod Region, Kursk Region, Kaluga Region, Rostov Region, and Krasnodar Region. In Belgorod alone, five civilians, including a teenager, were injured in Ukrainian drone attacks, according to regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Ukrainian troops also carried out 676 strikes against Russian positions using artillery, multiple-launch rocket systems, mortars, and tanks. Kiev’s forces launched 6,331 drone attacks and attempted eight assaults on Russian positions.

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In total, the MOD has recorded 16,071 ceasefire violations by Kiev’s forces since Friday. Under those circumstances, Russian troops responded “symmetrically” by targeting firing positions, drone launch sites, and command centers.

Russian forces “continue to strictly observe the ceasefire regime and remain at previously occupied lines and positions,” the ministry stated.

Throughout the conflict, Moscow has repeatedly declared temporary truces during major religious and national holidays. Last month, Russia announced an Easter ceasefire, which the Defense Ministry said was violated by Ukrainian forces more than 6,500 times within 32 hours.

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Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky issued several veiled threats ahead of the Victory Day celebrations, prompting Moscow to warn its foreign partners about the possible consequences. The Russian Defense Ministry warned that a retaliatory strike on central Kiev would be carried out if attempts were made to disrupt Victory Day events in Moscow, and urged residents and diplomats to leave the Ukrainian capital in advance.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the warning apparently reached Washington and contributed to Trump’s extended ceasefire initiative. He also said that while the globalist faction of Western elites is still effectively waging war against Russia, using Ukrainians as proxies, the conflict is heading towards its end.

The remote overseas territory of Tristan da Cunha in the southern Atlantic has no airstrip and can only be reached by sea

The British Army has airdropped a team of medics accompanied by paratroopers to treat a suspected hantavirus case on the remote island of Tristan da Cunha. The patient was among the passengers who left the Dutch-flagged cruise vessel MV Hondius before the deadly outbreak was confirmed.

The cruise liner, now dubbed the “plague ship” by some media, initially carried 175 guests and crew from 23 countries when it suffered an outbreak of a rare pathogen typically spread through contact with infected rodent droppings. The outbreak was caused by the Andes strain of hantavirus – the only one known to be capable of human-to-human transmission through close contact.

One of the passengers left the vessel on his home island of Tristan da Cunha, located in the southern Atlantic, on April 14 – three days after the first death – and reported his first symptoms two weeks later. The man is said to be in stable condition.

9,788km from the UK across the South Atlantic, one operation 🪂@BritishArmy and @RoyalAirForce joined forces to deliver urgent medical supplies to one of the world’s most remote communities, Tristan da Cunha. pic.twitter.com/uOQJP6pmcy

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) May 10, 2026

On Saturday, a British Royal Air Force A400M aircraft dropped two medics and six paratroopers on the island, along with oxygen and medical supplies to aid in the treatment of the case. The small island, with a population of fewer than 300, has no airstrip and is reachable only by sea.

UK specialist paratroopers and military clinicians have carried out a daring parachute operation to deliver critical medical support to Tristan da Cunha – Britain’s most remote inhabited Overseas Territory – after a suspected case of Hantavirus was identified on the island. pic.twitter.com/w0xPU8fvcw

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) May 10, 2026

The World Health Organization has so far reported eight hantavirus cases linked to MV Hondius, including six confirmed cases and two still considered suspected. Three people have died from the infection. Authorities are also trying to trace the contacts of some two dozen people who disembarked at St. Helena on April 24, along with the body of the first victim.

READ MORE: WHO chief dismisses ‘another Covid’ fears over hantavirus plague ship

The distressed vessel anchored at the industrial port of Granadilla in the Spanish Canary Islands, where the passengers were medically checked and ferried ashore over the weekend. Most were then repatriated to their home countries and placed in quarantine. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who personally oversaw the operation, reassured the public that hantavirus, while “serious,” is “not another COVID.”

Patient zero is believed to be a 70-year-old Dutch man, who was the first to die from the disease. According to the New York Post, he was an ornithologist who visited a landfill near the Argentinian city of Ushuaia for birdwatching shortly before boarding the ship. There, he and his wife, who also died, could have inhaled particles from the feces of local rats known to carry the disease.

Tehran has delivered its counterproposal to Washington’s conditions for ending the war via Pakistani mediators

US President Donald Trump has called Iran’s response to Washington’s latest proposal for ending the war “totally unacceptable,” after Tehran insisted it would not surrender its strategic leverage in the Strait of Hormuz without concessions.

The contents of Iran’s response have not been made public, but according to US media reports, Tehran’s counterproposal focused on ending the war and securing guarantees that hostilities would not resume, while offering none of the nuclear concessions sought by Washington.

“I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. He previously told Axios that the Iranian reply was “inappropriate,” but did not elaborate.

READ MORE: Trump vows to get Iran’s enriched uranium

Iran’s response allegedly called for a broader end to hostilities across multiple fronts, including Lebanon, before the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and further nuclear talks, according to AP. Trump, however, has continued to demand immediate restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program and has repeatedly threatened to resume large-scale military action if Tehran refuses to accept US terms.

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Trump has repeatedly extended the ceasefire, arguing that Iran’s leadership is divided and unable to produce a unified response. Iranian officials, however, have publicly rejected Washington’s terms as an ultimatum, accusing the US of trying to turn negotiations into surrender talks after failing to achieve its stated goals on the battlefield.

Tehran has also made clear that it views control over the Strait of Hormuz as a central bargaining chip, with Mohammad Mokhber, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, comparing the waterway’s strategic value to an “atomic bomb” and vowing that Iran would not “forfeit the gains of this war.”

The latest exchange comes after weeks of fragile diplomacy and intermittent clashes around the Strait of Hormuz, where the US has enforced a naval blockade and Iran has sought to assert control over the strategic waterway.

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US officials had hoped Iran’s long-awaited response would show progress after a 10-day delay, Axios reported. An Iranian source, however, dismissed Trump’s dissatisfaction, telling Tasnim that Tehran’s proposal was aimed at protecting Iranian rights rather than pleasing the US president.

The diplomatic setback also comes as tensions rise over possible European involvement in the Gulf. France and Britain had been discussing a multinational mission to secure navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, while Tehran has warned that any such deployment would draw an immediate response.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday reiterated his offer to help move Tehran’s fissile material stockpile

US President Donald Trump has said that Washington will get hold of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium “at some point,” repeating one of his key demands in peace talks.

In an interview aired on Sunday, journalist Sharyl Attkisson asked Trump what stage the war with the Islamic Republic had reached, considering that the US has yet to secure Iran’s fissile material.

“Well, we’ll get that at some point, whatever we want,” he said. “We have it surveilled, you know, I did a thing called Space Force… If anybody got near the place, we will know about it. And we’ll blow them up.”

The US and Israel launched their attack in late February, framing the war as a way to preempt Tehran’s development of a nuclear weapon.

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In its latest proposal, Washington doubled down on its demand that Iran promise never to develop such a weapon, stop all enrichment activities and give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

Moscow has repeatedly offered to aid in the peace process and help remove the material.

“Not only did we make such an offer; we already implemented it once before, back in 2015. Iran has complete trust in us, and not without reason,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalists during Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on Saturday. Russia has never violated its agreements and continues to cooperate with Iran on its peaceful nuclear energy programs, he added.

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Iran retains more than 400 kg of uranium enriched to 60%, according to International Atomic Energy Agency estimates. Weapons-grade levels typically require 90% enrichment and higher.

While Iran has not published a response to the latest US offer, it has consistently refused to hand over its uranium stockpile or halt its civilian nuclear program, while demanding that Washington provide guarantees of non-aggression and remove its forces from the region. Tehran has also long denied plans to build a nuclear bomb.

The Ukrainian leader’s remarks during his visit to Armenia are seen as a threat by the Russian Defense Ministry

Russia expects Armenia to explain its lack of reaction to the “anti-Russian” statements made by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky during a recent summit in Yerevan, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Providing a venue for such rhetoric goes against the spirit of partnership between the two nations, he told journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday.

Zelensky was in Yerevan earlier this week for a two-day summit of the European Political Community (EPC), an EU-led intergovernmental group launched in 2022 in response to the escalation of the Ukraine crisis. He asked for more military and financial assistance from the West while claiming that Moscow was scared that Ukrainian “drones may buzz over Red Square” ahead of Victory Day celebrations in Russia.

The Russian Defense Ministry then warned that if Ukraine attempted to disrupt the festivities with attacks, a major retaliatory strike would follow.

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“We would surely expect some explanations” from Armenia, Peskov said, pointing to what he called a lack of any attempt to “balance” Zelensky’s rhetoric on the part of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who was hosting the summit. Moscow does not understand “why anti-Russian statements are coming” from Armenian soil, he added.

On Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Armenian ambassador in Moscow to protest “opening the floor” for Zelensky’s “terrorist threats against Russia.”

Peskov maintained that Yerevan has a “sovereign right” to define its foreign policy and host any summits it wants, adding that Moscow only wants it not to take an anti-Russian position.

Relations between Russia and Armenia started to cool after Pashinyan came to power in 2018. During his time in office, Armenia lost a proxy war with neighboring Azerbaijan over the latter’s region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinyan then attempted to fault Moscow for not providing military assistance at the time.

As US priorities move away from the EU, NATO faces a fragmented future shaped by Russia fears, French autonomy and Germany’s military revival

The headlines are filled with reports of growing discord inside NATO. Donald Trump openly questions the value of allies who, in his view, fail to carry their share of the burden. Western Europe complains about the unreliability of its American patron while simultaneously pledging loyalty to the Atlantic alliance. Beneath the daily noise, however, something far more significant is taking place: the gradual transformation of Europe’s political and military order.

For decades, the United States guaranteed Western Europe’s security while those Europeans concentrated on prosperity and welfare. That arrangement now appears increasingly unstable. Washington’s strategic priorities have shifted toward Asia and the confrontation with China. Europe remains important as a logistical and political platform for American power, but it is no longer the unquestioned center of US grand strategy.

Trump didn’t create this process, though he has accelerated it dramatically. His irritation with NATO is not simply personal caprice. It reflects a deeper American conclusion that the era of underwriting Western European security indefinitely has become too expensive and strategically distracting.

The alliance itself was built for another age and another purpose. NATO was designed to contain the Soviet Union and anchor American influence in Europe. It was never intended to become a global instrument for confronting China. Yet this is precisely the direction in which many in Washington would like to push it.

These Europeans, however, do not share America’s sense of urgency regarding Beijing. For most of them, China is an economic competitor, not an existential threat. Russia, by contrast, remains the central security obsession of much of the bloc, especially in Northern and Eastern members. 

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This divergence is beginning to reshape NATO from within.

France has emerged as the loudest advocate of greater Western European strategic independence. Paris retains a long tradition of military autonomy and still possesses something few other European powers can claim: a genuinely independent nuclear deterrent. France cannot realistically replace the American nuclear umbrella over Western Europe, but it increasingly seeks to position itself as the ideological leader of a more self-reliant bloc.

Britain, meanwhile, continues its traditional balancing act between the EU and the United States. London insists on its independence from Brussels while simultaneously searching for external support from Washington. Northern and Eastern states remain intensely hawkish and committed to confrontation with Russia, regardless of whether the Americans remain fully engaged. Southern Europe appears far less enthusiastic, distracted instead by migration, economic stagnation and domestic instability.

As so often in European history, however, the decisive factor will likely be Germany.

Much of post-war Europe was built around one central idea: Germany must never again become an independent geopolitical force. After 1945 the country was divided, militarily constrained and tightly integrated into Western structures under American supervision.

Even German reunification in 1990 was accepted partly because Germany remained embedded inside NATO. At the time, many believed that anchoring a unified Germany within the Atlantic alliance was the safest possible arrangement for Europe.

Ironically, that very decision became one of the starting points of today’s geopolitical crisis. NATO expansion eastward created a security architecture that Moscow increasingly viewed as hostile and destabilizing.

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Now, three and a half decades later, Europe may again face the prospect of a Germany becoming strategically autonomous, though this time under entirely different circumstances.

Former Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a “new era” in 2022 following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. For some time the slogan appeared largely symbolic. Under Germany’s current leadership, however, concrete changes are beginning to emerge.

Berlin is discussing accelerated rearmament, expanded military infrastructure and legislative changes aimed at increasing recruitment for the Bundeswehr. The debate over compulsory military service, once politically unthinkable, has returned to the mainstream.

Recent comments by Franz-Josef Overbeck, the Catholic military bishop of the Bundeswehr, are revealing. Overbeck openly called for Germany to send forces to the Strait of Hormuz and argued that compulsory military service should be restored not only for men but also for women.

His reasoning was blunt. Germany, he argued, can no longer remain on the sidelines in an increasingly dangerous world.

Many within Germany’s political establishment likely agree with him privately. Politicians, however, remain cautious because German society is still deeply uncomfortable with militarism and foreign deployments. Decades of post-war political culture have created a pacifist instinct that remains powerful among voters.

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The bishop, unlike elected officials, can speak more freely.

At the same time, Germany faces mounting economic difficulties. This is not merely a temporary downturn. The old German economic model rested heavily on cheap Russian energy and export-driven industrial growth, not to mention stable globalization. Much of that foundation has eroded.

As a result, discussions that would once have been politically toxic are now occurring openly. Militarization is increasingly presented not simply as a security necessity, but also as a potential engine of economic renewal.

Only a few years ago such arguments would have sounded extraordinary in Germany. Today they are becoming part of mainstream debate.

This is where the historical dimension becomes impossible to ignore.

German political culture has long been characterized by discipline and a tendency to follow strategic paths with remarkable determination once a consensus forms. In calmer periods this can be an enormous strength. In moments of geopolitical confrontation, however, it can become dangerous.

The path on which Russia once again serves as Germany’s principal antagonist is deeply familiar from European history.

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For decades after the Second World War, many believed that lesson had finally been learned. Economic interdependence between Russia and Germany was supposed to make large-scale confrontation irrational. The collapse of that assumption has shocked much of Europe.

Trump’s pressure on NATO is therefore acting as a catalyst for changes that were already underway. Western Europe is being pushed, reluctantly and unevenly, toward greater military independence. Whether this ultimately strengthens NATO or gradually hollows it out remains unclear.

The alliance is unlikely to collapse outright. Institutions of this scale rarely disappear suddenly. More likely is a gradual transformation into something narrower and more fragmented.

A core bloc focused primarily on containing Russia may emerge within NATO, while the United States shifts more of its attention toward Asia.

Whether such a bloc becomes effective will depend above all on Germany. If Berlin fully embraces rearmament and strategic emancipation from American oversight, Europe’s political landscape could change profoundly and by the end of Trump’s presidency, this process may already be far advanced.

Thus, once again, Europe may discover that history is not something safely confined to textbooks. The old rivalries and anxieties that shaped the continent for centuries have an unsettling habit of returning precisely when people convince themselves they are gone forever.

This article was first published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, and was translated and edited by the RT team 

The phaseout would deepen the bloc’s dependence on more expensive US gas, the Slovak prime minister has warned

The EU plan to phase out Russia as an energy supplier will end in the US reselling Russian oil and gas to Europe at far higher prices, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has warned.

Speaking in Bratislava on Sunday, Fico said Washington has “a huge interest in buying all transit infrastructures” across the European continent.

“So the Russians will supply the Americans with gas and oil at standard prices, and the Americans will sell it to us with an American high-margin surcharge. Are we such idiots already?” he said.

Already, “the share of Russian liquefied gas in Europe is increasing,” Fico added, pointing out the hypocrisy of Brussels singling out countries like Slovakia to pressure over Russian fuel supplies. “So we can’t, but France can buy liquefied gas from Russia.”

Contrary to the EU, Bratislava’s position is to “diversify the supply options for all fuels,” he said.

In February, the European Commission doubled down on long-standing plans to phase out Russian fossil fuel imports by 2027.

READ MORE: EU energy bill spikes amid Iran war supply shock – commissioner

While the US-Israeli war on Iran and the subsequent fuel crisis have pushed Brussels to prepare for “the worst-case scenarios,” the EU will not abandon its pivot away from Russian liquefied natural gas, the bloc’s energy chief, Dan Jorgensen, told the Financial Times last month. Brussels will instead rely on more expensive supplies from the US and other partners, he said.

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Just last week, Washington launched a multi-billion dollar push to invest in and build a major US pipeline project in Central and Eastern Europe, which still imports Russian gas via the TurkStream pipeline and its extension – Balkan Stream.

According to Moscow, such US projects, as well as sanctions against Russian oil companies, are part of a sweeping strategy to capture the energy market.

Washington is aiming to monopolize all international energy supply routes in an attempt to attain global economic dominance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told TV BRICS earlier this year.

Prime Minister Evika Silina has dismissed Andris Spruds after unmanned aircraft violated the country’s airspace

Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina has dismissed Defense Minister Andris Spruds after Ukrainian drones hit oil storage facilities on the Baltic state’s territory.

“The drone incident this week clearly showed that the leadership of the defense sector failed to deliver on its promise of a safe sky over our country,” Silina wrote on X.

She added that Spruds had lost both her trust and the trust of the public.

Spruds, however, stated that he had already decided to resign himself. He accused the prime minister of rushing to announce his dismissal for political reasons and lying about informing him and his party, the Progressives, in advance.

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The incident highlights growing tensions and security concerns in the Baltic states amid the ongoing Ukraine conflict.

Several NATO countries bordering Russia have recently reported cases of Ukrainian unmanned aircraft entering their airspace and crashing instead of striking targets inside Russia. Earlier this week, Latvian officials said two drones – which the Russian military identified as Ukrainian Lyuty-type fixed-wing aircraft – crossed into the country overnight. One remains unaccounted for, while another sparked a fire near the town of Rezekne, roughly 40 km from the Russian border.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga commented on the scandal on Friday, claiming he had addressed the issue with Riga and apologized to the three Baltic states and Finland. The top diplomat also attempted to shift the blame to Russia.

Peace talks will remain stalled until the Ukrainian military leaves Donbass, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov has said

The Ukrainian military needs to pull back from Donbass for the peace process to move forward, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov has said. Talks between Moscow and Kiev will remain stalled until then, he told journalist Pavel Zarubin, adding that the Ukrainian government knows this.

Russia and Ukraine have held several rounds of talks, including with US mediation, since early 2025, when President Donald Trump returned to the White House. The process has slowed down following the latest US-mediated meeting in Geneva in February.

According to Ushakov, any new meetings will not change the situation unless Ukrainian troops are withdrawn. “Until [Ukraine] makes the step, one can hold some more rounds, dozens of rounds [of talks] but we will remain in the same spot,” he said.

“They know in Ukraine that it must be done and they will do it sooner or later,” the presidential aide stated. Ushakov also said that Moscow maintains close contacts with Washington when it comes to the peace process, adding that Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, could visit Russia “soon.”

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“The US is now more preoccupied with the Middle East crisis but they are not abandoning the Ukraine issue,” he told Zaurbin, while saying that Moscow and Washington “actively communicate by phone.”

Earlier this week, Ushakov called a potential Ukrainian withdrawal from Donbass “one serious step” that would greatly advance the settlement process. Military action would cease after that, he stated on Thursday.

The two Donbass republics voted to join Russia together with two other former Ukrainian territories – Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions – in autumn 2022. In March, President Vladimir Putin stated that only between 15% and 17% of the Donetsk People’s Republic remains under Kiev’s control. In April, the Russian military reported fully liberating the neighboring Lugansk People’s Republic.

The Ukrainian leadership has repeatedly refused to both recognize the status of the new Russian regions or to cede any territory to Moscow. It also maintains that recapturing the regions incorporated into Russia is one of its ultimate goals.

France is illegally harvesting its citizens’ data, while accusing social media platforms of doing the same, the entrepreneur has alleged

Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov has accused France of hypocrisy after prosecutors expanded a criminal investigation into Elon Musk’s X. Durov said French authorities were violating citizens’ privacy while accusing the social media platform of similar conduct.

The entrepreneur made the remarks on Sunday, just days after the Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it would seek new charges against X over alleged illegal sexual deepfakes made by the platform’s Grok AI, as well as unlawful data extraction and other crimes.

“The French government is accusing X of the very things the French government itself is doing,” Durov tweeted.

The French government is panicking. They know a major political shift in 2027 will expose their misdeeds – so they’re trying to silence free speech platforms under whatever pretext they think they can get away with.

He called on the international community to back X against what he called the French state’s “immoral assault” on the social media app.

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French investigators initially launched their investigation of X and Grok in January, alleging that the platforms’ algorithms were biased and accusing the company of illegal data gathering and of possessing and spreading sexualized deepfakes created by its AI, including images involving minors.

The tech mogul has denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the legal action as a “political attack.”

Last month, the US Department of Justice reportedly denied a request from French prosecutors to cooperate in the investigation. US President Donald Trump’s administration has long been critical of what it has called attacks on free speech and political opposition in the EU and UK.

Durov’s Telegram has also faced legal troubles in France. The entrepreneur was arrested at a Paris airport in 2024 and indicted on a dozen charges after French prosecutors accused him of being complicit in crimes committed using his social media platform. Durov has since been allowed to leave France, despite the ongoing investigation.

READ MORE: ‘Proud to stand alongside Elon Musk’ – Telegram’s Durov

The entrepreneur has repeatedly called the arrest absurd and condemned crackdowns on social media networks as a concerted attack on free speech.

RT explores how Moscow repeatedly pleaded for a second front years before D-Day

Long before the D-Day landings came to symbolize the decisive turning point of the Second World War in many Western narratives, the Soviet Union had already spent years bearing the brunt of the war against Nazi Germany, suffering massive losses while repeatedly urging Britain and the US to open a second front.

By June 1944, when Allied troops landed in Normandy, the Soviet Union had already spent almost three years bearing the brunt of the war, grinding down Hitler’s forces on the Eastern Front after suffering devastating losses and the brutal occupation of much of its territory.

Not only did 27 million Soviet citizens died during the war – a toll unmatched by any other Allied nation – approximately 70% to over 80% of all German military deaths in WWII occurred on the Eastern Front, fighting the USSR. Yet in much of today’s Western discourse, the Soviet role in defeating Hitler is often overshadowed.

The issue resurfaced recently after US President Donald Trump delivered a Victory in Europe Day statement praising the US and Britain for defeating Nazi Germany without mentioning the Soviet Union.

READ MORE: ‘People are forbidden from honoring Victory’: How Europe is erasing the memory of Nazism’s defeat

RT’s Caleb Maupin argued that many Western countries that later formed NATO remain uncomfortable acknowledging the scale of the Soviet sacrifice in World War Two, saying it conflicts with the anti-Russia narrative that has dominated in recent decades.