Draft officers are frequently accused of abuse of power during the notorious “bussification” campaign involving the snatching of military-age men off the streets

Nearly 12,000 complaints have been filed against draft officials in Ukraine since the armed conflict with Russia began in early 2022, newspaper Ukrainska Pravda (UP) reported on Monday, citing data provided by the country’s parliamentary human rights commissioner.

Ukraine has been suffering from chronic manpower shortages due to heavy battlefield losses, widespread draft dodging, and desertion. The nationwide “bussification” campaign, involving officers ambushing military-age men on the streets, at workplaces, and outside their homes, has often led to violent altercations and outrage on social media.

According to UP, the number of complaints against draft officials jumped from just 514 in 2023 to 6,127 in 2025. A total of 1,657 complaints were filed in the first quarter of 2026.

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In many instances, officers were filmed tackling and beating men before shoving them into vans. Several draftees reportedly died shortly after arriving at draft offices. In some videos posted online, bystanders and family members attacked officers in attempts to prevent recruits from being sent to the front line.

The Ukrainian government lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 and introduced harsher penalties for draft dodging, while additional measures continue to be debated in parliament.

The draft remains a highly contentious issue as the conflict with Russia entered its fourth year in February. Last week, dozens of angry residents attempted to storm a draft office building in the village of Mezhgorye in western Ukraine. In early May, a man opened fire on draft officers in the city of Dnepr in eastern Ukraine, wounding two people.

Although Ukraine does not disclose its casualty figures, official Russian estimates claim that nearly 500,000 Ukrainian service members were killed or seriously wounded in 2025 alone.

The Strait of Hormuz crisis has changed the calculations of every major power

The US and Israeli attack on Iran in February and their subsequent failure to achieve their objectives has already changed the strategic calculations of every major power. In some respects, it has also opened new opportunities for political dialogue. Seizing those opportunities would benefit international politics as a whole.

The Middle East has always been one of the most unstable regions in the world. Rivalries there rarely disappear; they merely evolve. States that are bitter enemies one year often find themselves entering temporary pragmatic arrangements the next. But these understandings are tactical rather than lasting. The region remains trapped in a cycle of recurring crises.

For decades, however, the instability of the Middle East was viewed as manageable. The conflicts were bloody, but they didn’t threaten the foundations of the international system itself. Even at the height of the Cold War, the region was seen by the great powers as an arena for competition rather than a place where they would risk everything.

There were two reasons for this. First, the Middle East never directly touched the vital survival interests of the major powers. The US and the USSR competed there intensely, and today the US, Russia and China all maintain important interests in the region, but none considered it worth a confrontation that could spiral into a global catastrophe. Second, no regional state possessed the capacity to impose a revolutionary political project on the wider world.

In this sense, Middle Eastern conflicts resembled a permanent wound in international politics: painful, dangerous, but ultimately containable.

Now, however, the situation has changed.

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The most immediate consequence of the US-Israeli assault on Iran has been economic. Tehran’s response, particularly the disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on American facilities in the Gulf, sent shockwaves through global markets. Energy supplies were disrupted almost overnight, affecting not only the West but also powers such as China and India. Fears of a broader recession spread rapidly.

What until recently seemed unthinkable has now become reality: a regional conflict has demonstrated its capacity to undermine the foundations of global economic interdependence.

The political consequences may prove even more significant.

For decades, the United States was viewed as a power capable of imposing its will militarily almost anywhere in the world. Even after failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, many still assumed that no regional state could seriously resist overwhelming American military superiority.

That perception has now suffered another severe blow.

The overthrow of the Venezuelan government earlier this year reinforced the image of an America still capable of reshaping weaker states at will. It was against that backdrop that many observers expected Iran’s political system to collapse rapidly under pressure. Instead, the opposite occurred.

Despite devastating strikes against senior figures and constant aerial attacks, the Iranian state endured. No mass uprising materialized. The armed forces continued functioning. The country’s governing structures proved far more resilient than Washington and West Jerusalem appear to have anticipated.

This doesn’t mean Iran has emerged victorious. The long-term consequences of the conflict remain unclear, but it does mean that the old assumption of automatic American military supremacy no longer looks convincing.

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The reasons are not difficult to identify. Iran’s leadership and society proved capable of absorbing punishment without immediate political collapse. The attackers underestimated the cohesion of the state they were confronting. That miscalculation has implications far beyond the Middle East itself.

For the United States, this was a war of choice rather than necessity because Iran posed no existential threat to American survival. Israel, certainly, views Tehran as a strategic danger, but Israeli and American interests are not identical, regardless of how close their alliance may be.

That distinction matters because it explains why Washington, despite all its rhetoric, has shown no willingness to escalate toward the most extreme military options. America itself understands the limits of what it is prepared to risk.

Whatever the eventual outcome of the conflict, the Iranian episode is likely to provoke reflection in Washington. At the very least, it should force a reassessment of whether American ambitions still match American capabilities.

Yet such reflection will not come easily. The US political class has spent decades operating from a position of extraordinary global dominance. This has narrowed its worldview as American elites increasingly interpret international politics primarily through the prism of domestic political assumptions and ideological preferences.

At the same time, Washington has accumulated an enormous network of commitments across the globe. Maintaining them often creates pressure for exactly the sort of risky intervention that produced the current crisis.

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China, meanwhile, also faces important strategic questions. Beijing has tried to maintain stable and pragmatic relations with the current American administration. But the attack on Iran, widely viewed outside the West as a blatant violation of international law, narrows China’s room for maneuver. It becomes harder for Beijing to treat relations with Washington as merely another economic negotiation.

The conflict has also exposed China’s vulnerability to instability in distant regions on which it nevertheless depends heavily for energy supplies and trade. Chinese firms have invested massively across the Middle East, including in Iran itself. The disruption caused by the war is likely to intensify debates within China about economic security and over-dependence on vulnerable maritime routes.

In time, Beijing may begin reconsidering the balance between global economic integration and strategic self-sufficiency.

For Russia, the consequences are more complex than many assume. In the short term, Moscow has benefited economically from higher commodity prices. The conflict has also shifted some international attention away from Eastern Europe. But Russia is not necessarily interested in a complete collapse of American influence in the Middle East.

Paradoxically, a limited and constrained American presence can contribute to the broader balance of international politics. Total chaos or the destruction of all diplomatic frameworks in the region would not serve Russian interests either.

This is why the Iranian crisis matters so profoundly. It is not simply another Middle Eastern war, but rather a moment that has forced all the major powers to confront uncomfortable questions about military force, economic vulnerability, strategic overreach and the changing structure of the international system itself.

The attack on Iran was intended to demonstrate strength. Instead, it has exposed uncertainty. And in doing so, it may yet create opportunities for a more realistic and restrained dialogue between the world’s major powers.

This article was first published by the Valdai Club and edited by the RT team.

The US president stressed that he would “do whatever is necessary” to settle the Ukraine conflict

US President Donald Trump has not ruled the possibility of traveling to Russia this year to help facilitate a settlement to the Ukraine conflict.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Tuesday, prior to departing for an upcoming summit in China, the US president was asked if he could visit Russia in 2026.

“I could… I will do whatever is necessary. That war… I’ve settled eight wars,” Trump said.

“That war is getting closer. Believe it or not, it’s getting closer. And we think we’re going to end up getting a settlement between Russia and Ukraine.”

A day earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to host Trump. Putin initially extended the invitation after the historic bilateral US-Russia summit in Alaska last August.

However, the subsequent Washington-backed direct talks between Moscow and Kiev have stalled.

The negotiations will remain at a standstill until Kiev pulls its troops out of Donbass, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said on Sunday. “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.

READ MORE: Trump considering resuming airstrikes as talks with Iran stall – Axios

Washington is currently “more preoccupied with the Middle East crisis,” Ushakov added. The US war on Iran has settled into an uneasy standoff centered around the Strait of Hormuz and blockade of Iranian ports, with neither side accepting the other’s demands.

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Nevertheless, Washington is “not abandoning the Ukraine issue,” and is in regular contact with Moscow over the phone, Ushakov said.

Russia has maintained that any peaceful settlement is predicated on Kiev withdrawing from the remaining areas of the Donbass that are still under Ukrainian control.

Kiev exerts control over around 15-17% of Donetsk People’s Republic, Putin said in March. The Russian Defense Ministry reported fully liberating the neighboring Lugansk People’s Republic last month.

The chancellor urged workers to see welfare cuts not as a “threat” but as “a big chance”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was booed and mocked during a speech on Tuesday to one of the country’s biggest trade union groups as he tried to sell his welfare cut plans.

Merz has a history of blaming Germany’s economic troubles on its people. Last August, he said that the “welfare state as we have it today can no longer be financed.” In January, he urged Germans to work more, arguing that the “productivity of our economy is not high enough.”

He told a gathering of some 400 delegates from the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) that people must pull together because “we simply failed to modernize our country.”

Boos and whistles first erupted as he spoke about the health insurance reform approved by his cabinet in April. The changes, which Merz described as “historic,” are expected to save the government €16 billion ($18.7 billion), while forcing people to pay more for drugs previously covered by insurance even as their contributions continue to rise.

The chancellor then claimed that the upcoming pension reform – expected to be unveiled this summer – was driven by “demographics and mathematics” rather than “malice on my part or on the part of the federal government.” The remarks were also met with hissing and laughter, particularly when he claimed that the reform plans were “not a threat” but a “big chance.”

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Germany’s economy saw two years of recession in 2023 and 2024, and a period of near-stagnation in 2025 as its industry has been hit by rising energy and labor costs alongside weak demand. Berlin’s decision to abandon cheap Russian energy imports in 2022 as part of the EU sanctions policy in the wake of the Ukraine conflict escalation also played a major role in this development.

Last year, Germany’s central bank warned about a looming record budget deficit, attributing the threat to higher defense spending and continued financial support for Kiev.

Merz and his cabinet continue to pursue the chancellor’s goal of turning the German army into the strongest conventional force in Europe, citing a supposed ‘Russian threat.’ Moscow has repeatedly dismissed such allegations as “nonsense.”

Aleksandr Novak has cited record low unemployment and rising incomes as signs pointing to renewed growth

The Russian economy remains fundamentally strong despite contracting in the first quarter of 2026, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak has said, citing low unemployment, rising household incomes and improving business activity as evidence that the slowdown may be temporary. 

Russia’s GDP shrank by 0.3% year-on-year in the first quarter, marking the country’s first quarterly contraction since early 2023. The slowdown followed years of rapid expansion, with the economy having grown by over 4% in 2023 and 2024 before easing to around 1% last year. 

Novak told business daily Vedomosti on Tuesday that the downturn was part of a normal economic cycle. “After a period of high growth, there is always a correction,” he said, describing the current phase as being accompanied by “structural transformation” under “unprecedented pressure from sanctions.” 

Russia has retained its position as the world’s fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity (PPP) – which adjusts for cost-of-living differences across countries – since 2021, Novak said. Manufacturing output has risen nearly 23% since 2022, he added, driven by import substitution and increased domestic production after many Western companies exited the Russian market. 

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The deputy prime minister also cited historically low unemployment and rising household incomes as signs of economic stability. Real disposable incomes had increased by 26.1% over the past three years, driven by wage growth, social payments, business income and property income, he stated. 

“Poverty has declined to a record low of 6.7%,” Novak said, referring to the 2025 data. He said unemployment was expected to remain at around 2.3-2.4%, among the lowest levels in the country’s modern history. 

Novak attributed the slowdown partly to labor shortages and tight monetary policy aimed at curbing inflation, but said growth was expected to return this year as price pressures ease and financial conditions gradually improve.   

Novak’s views were echoed by Economic Development Minister Maksim Reshetnikov, who told President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday that the economy had “held up well” despite sanctions and external pressure. The ministry expects GDP growth to reach 0.4% this year before accelerating to 1.4% in 2027, Reshetnikov said.

A looming energy crisis “tsunami” will force Kiev’s European backers to restart long-frozen dialogue with Moscow, Kirill Dmitriev has said

The looming energy crisis will inevitably force Kiev’s European backers to negotiate with Russia, Kremlin investment envoy and senior Ukraine conflict negotiator Kirill Dmitriev said on Tuesday.

The EU and UK have largely frozen contacts with Moscow after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. While the Kremlin has confirmed that a visit by envoys sent by French President Emmanuel Macron took place in February, the talks went nowhere.

“Finnish President Stubb believes that… ‘it’s time to start talking to Russia,’” Dmitriev wrote on X. “The upcoming energy crisis tsunami starting to overwhelm the EU and UK will make it inevitable.”

He was replying to a statement Stubb made in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera published on Monday.

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“Yes, it’s time to start talking to Russia,” the Finnish president said. “If American policy toward Russia and Ukraine isn’t in Europe’s interests, as seems to be the case, then we must engage directly.”

Kiev’s European backers have increasingly made public statements about the need to reengage Moscow in dialogue, expressing concern about being sidelined in US-backed Russia-Ukraine talks.

However, any speculation about resuming talks is premature, until a concerted “political decision to resume dialogue” is made, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

READ MORE: EU’s confusion over envoy for talks irrelevant – Kremlin

Russia has long warned that the EU and UK have systematically worked to sabotage US efforts to settle the Ukraine conflict, while emboldening Kiev with continued military support. Moscow has stressed that it views a diplomatic settlement as preferable, but will push towards its goals by military means while Kiev refuses to compromise.

The Mirotvorets website has accused Yulia Mendel of pushing “Russian narratives” after she told Tucker Carlson about drug use and corruption in Kiev

Vladimir Zelensky’s former spokesperson, Yulia Mendel, has been added to a Ukrainian state-linked ‘kill list’ for telling American journalist Tucker Carlson of rampant cocaine abuse in the corridors of power in Kiev and the desire of a corrupt elite to prolong the conflict with Russia. 

Mendel worked with Zelensky for two years during which time she says she witnessed him change from peacemaker to propagator of war. 

The list is run by the Mirotvorets website, which has been linked to Ukrainian security services and is notorious for publishing the addresses and personal details of anyone remotely deemed an enemy of the Ukrainian state, including Russian journalists, some of whom were subsequently assassinated. 

The website has accused Mendel of “humanitarian aggression against Ukraine,” spreading “narratives of Russian propaganda,” calling for Ukraine’s “capitulation,” and “indirectly taking part in information‑psychological special operations” allegedly run by Russia. 

Mirotvorets cited Mendel telling Carlson that the Ukrainian delegation at talks in Istanbul in 2022 was ready to agree to “all of Russia’s demands” in order to stop the fighting, but that Kiev was pressured by the US and UK to continue the conflict and that Zelensky is now “one of the main obstacles to peace.” It also cited Mendel’s comments that Ukraine is “on the verge of disappearing,” and showing signs of “unhealthy nationalism.” 

READ MORE: Former Zelensky chief of staff faces new criminal case

Mendel, who served as Zelensky’s press secretary from 2019 to 2021, has in recent months become an outspoken critic of her former boss. In the interview she leveled a series of allegations of corruption and drug use, calling Zelensky a “dictator” who has grown “detached from reality.” She also described Zelensky and his former chief of staff Andrey Yermak as “malicious and extremely paranoid narcissists,” saying their relationship had turned into a “symbiosis.”  

READ MORE: ‘Zelensky thrives on war, why would he end it?’: Former press secretary exposes Ukraine’s posturing

Launched in 2014 as a nominally independent project, Mirotvorets has targeted a wide range of international figures, including Tucker Carlson, Hollywood director Woody Allen, Russian hockey star Alexander Ovechkin, and US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. 

Russian officials have condemned the site as extremist. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has described it as a hit list targeting individuals Kiev allegedly wants to “eliminate.”

The US is now investigating the same Ukrainian biolabs it once wrote off as a conspiracy theory

US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has confirmed that her team is investigating more than 40 US-funded pathogen laboratories in Ukraine. Here’s what you need to know about the story that was written off as “Kremlin propaganda” in 2022.

In a statement to the New York Post on Tuesday, Gabbard said that her department had identified more than 120 biological laboratories in 30 countries that had been funded by the US taxpayer for decades. More than a third of these labs are located in Ukraine.

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The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is going “to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain and what ‘research’ is being conducted to end dangerous gain-of-function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and the world,” Gabbard said.

Gain of function research refers to the modification of animal viruses to increase their transmissibility in order to study their effect on humans. The ODNI is currently investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus, which Gabbard and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. maintain was created in a US-funded biolab in Wuhan, China.

Gabbard’s confirmation of US-funded biolabs in Ukraine vindicates claims made by the Russian military in the early days of the Ukraine conflict – claims that were dismissed by then-President Joe Biden’s administration as “outright lies.”

What did Russia say about biolabs in Ukraine?

As the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, Vladimir Zelensky’s government in Kiev ordered the “emergency destruction” of dangerous pathogens at multiple US-funded laboratories in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on March 6 of that year.

The ministry claimed that Kiev ordered the destruction of the samples in order to hide its role in an American biological warfare program. Documents released by the ministry included an order from the Ukrainian Ministry of Health to destroy the pathogens, which included “plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases.”

Many of these laboratories were set up following the US-orchestrated ‘Maidan’ coup in 2014, and were run by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) – the largest biomedical research facility administered by the US military, according to the ministry.

After reviewing thousands of pages of documents seized from labs in Donetsk, Lugansk and Kherson, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov of the Russian Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces concluded in 2023 that “the US, under the guise of ensuring global biosecurity, conducted dual-use research, including the creation of biological weapons components, in close proximity to Russian borders.” Kirillov led Russia’s investigation into the labs until he was assassinated in 2024, allegedly by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

How did the US respond?

Former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a notorious Russia hawk, admitted under oath on March 8 that “Ukraine has biological research facilities,” which the US was helping to secure. Nuland, a driving force behind the Maidan coup, did not mention that the labs were American-run and funded.

“The United States does not own or operate any chemical or biological laboratories in Ukraine, it is in full compliance with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention, and it does not develop or possess such weapons anywhere”

Washington went into full biolab denial mode the following day. “This is preposterous,” then White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki wrote on social media on March 9 (she hosts one of MSNow’s most popular shows). “It’s the kind of disinformation operation we’ve seen repeatedly from the Russians over the years in Ukraine.”

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In a statement that same day, the US State Department said that “the Kremlin is intentionally spreading outright lies that the United States and Ukraine are conducting chemical and biological weapons activities in Ukraine.”

However, another partial admission came from then-Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on March 10. Whereas Nuland claimed that the US was not involved in running any Ukrainian biolabs, Haines told lawmakers that “the US government provides assistance, or at least has in the past provided assistance, really in the context of biosafety, which is something that we’ve done globally with a variety of different countries.”

Nevertheless, the official policy from the White House remained one of denial. “There are no Ukrainian biological weapons laboratories supported by the United States,” Biden’s ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN Security Council on March 11.

In a press conference on March 21, Biden claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “back is against the wall,” and Moscow’s claims that “we, in America, have biological as well as chemical weapons in Europe” are “simply not true.”

The US media largely toed this line. In the weeks following these statements, the New York Times described Russia’s story as a “baseless theory,” NPR referred to it as “a lurid and difficult to believe claim,” and The Guardian, CBS News, Bloomberg, and others all called it a “conspiracy theory.” Even on March 14, days after Nuland and Haines confirmed the labs’ existence, MSNBC ran a story on how “Ukraine’s non-existent biolabs” were a creation of “Russian propaganda.”

Were the labs making bioweapons?

Nuland and Haines admitted that the labs existed, but insisted that they carried out legitimate research. However, the line between legitimate gain-of-function research and the creation of bioweapons is blurred. Enhancing the transmissibility and lethality of viruses allows vaccines to be created, but also leaves scientists with potent pathogens that can easily be weaponized.

The Pentagon said in late 2022 that its biological research in Ukraine “focused on improving public health and agricultural safety.”

One year later, Kennedy Jr. told US journalist Tucker Carlson that this was merely a cover story, and that “we have biolabs in Ukraine because we’re developing bioweapons.”

Kennedy claimed that these facilities were creating “frightening stuff,” including genetically-engineered pathogens created with CRISPR DNA sequencing technology. This research used to be carried out in the US, but was moved abroad after some “bugs” escaped from American labs in 2014. “A lot of them went to Ukraine,” he added.

The DTRA’s biological research in Ukraine was paused in 2022, but resumed in 2023, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The program, which was previously known as ‘Joint Biological Research’, was rebranded as ‘Biological Control Research’ for the relaunch, according to documents released by the ministry.

Where are the rest of the US’ biolabs located?

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After the collapse of the USSR, the US moved to install biolabs in former Soviet states including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Set up under the auspices of preventing bioterrorism and the proliferation of biological and chemical weapon technologies, little is known about this network of laboratories surrounding Russia.

As RT reported, whistleblowers in Georgia have alleged that the laboratories in that country worked on plague, tularemia, brucellosis, and various hemorrhagic fevers, and people living near one lab in Tbilisi have claimed that some of these bugs have escaped and infected locals.

In the wake of the Ukraine conflict, the US has transferred much of its biological research to Africa, the Russian Defense Ministry has alleged. According to documents published by the ministry in 2024, laboratories have been set up in 18 countries, with some Pentagon-funded facilities studying deadly pathogens such as Ebola, and carrying out pharmaceutical trials on locals.

The gathering will help set the agenda for the group leaders’ summit later this year

India will host the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi on May 14-15. The gathering, to be chaired by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, is expected to focus on key geopolitical issues, including the conflict in the Middle East.

The meeting will also help lay the groundwork for the BRICS leaders’ summit scheduled for September. The ministers will outline key elements of final documents for the September summit, which India will host under its 2026 BRICS presidency.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will travel to New Delhi for the talks, Moscow confirmed earlier. In addition to the BRICS gathering, he will hold bilateral talks with Jaishankar and other Indian officials. Preparations for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India for the September summit are also likely to be discussed.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will not attend the meeting in New Delhi due to scheduling conflicts, Beijing said earlier this week. The meeting coincides with US President Donald Trump’s expected state visit to China May 13 to 15 – his first in nearly nine years.

Iran’s Abbas Araghchi is expected to attend the New Delhi meeting, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman has confirmed.

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The Middle East conflict is expected to be a key issue at the meeting, with tensions between BRICS members Iran and the UAE remaining high, the Hindustan Times reported on Tuesday, citing sources.

After the US and Israel launched the war against Iran in late February, Tehran has repeatedly targeted energy infrastructure and oil facilities in the UAE, accusing Abu Dhabi of acting as a “hostile base” over its ties with the US and Israel. The situation in Palestine is also expected to be on the agenda, with the HT reporting that most BRICS members are against toning down the bloc’s language on Gaza.

READ MORE: Iran’s new ‘atomic bomb’: How US policy pushed Iran over the brink

India has long sought to maintain balanced relations within BRICS while resisting Western pressure on issues such as Russian energy imports and the Ukraine conflict.

The previous BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting was held on the sidelines of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly in September 2025. India chaired it as the incoming BRICS chair for 2026.

In an exclusive interview with RT India, Russia’s foreign minister praises New Delhi’s firm stand on energy security

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov compared Western pressure on countries of the Global South, including India – the world’s second largest oil importer – over their trade with Russia to “neocolonial methods.”

Speaking exclusively to Runjhun Sharma, host of the show India, Russia and the World, Lavrov said on Tuesday that the ongoing Middle East crisis highlights Washington’s desire to control global energy trade flows.

“They put pressure on everyone, demanding that they should not purchase Russian oil, and this is unfair play. These are colonial, or neocolonial, methods. ‘You shouldn’t purchase cheap Russian oil. You should purchase my expensive oil, and buy expensive LNG from the US. We will rule the world by controlling global energy,” the Russian foreign minister said. He added that not all countries “cave in to such pressure.”

Lavrov noted that Moscow respects New Delhi’s position, repeatedly outlined by Indian officials – that its energy imports are dictated by national interests as well as market terms, and that New Delhi will decide from whom to buy energy and at what price.

India is the third largest producer and consumer of electricity globally, after China and the US. New Delhi imports over 85% of its crude oil requirements to meet rising domestic demand and refinery consumption. Since 2022, New Delhi has ramped up imports of Russian oil significantly and continues relying on Russian crude to meet its ⁠demand, despite continuous pressure from its Western partners.

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Washington imposed sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil in October, causing a temporary decrease in oil imports by India. However, the Trump administration has since extended a sanctions waiver, until May 16, after the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz wreaked havoc on global energy markets.

The Indian government has stressed that it will do everything it can to ensure uninterrupted energy supply to 1.4 billion people and industries.  At the same time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called on Indians to rethink their energy use, including cutting fuel consumption by using more public transport and working from home, amid continuing uncertainty over a ceasefire in the US–Israeli campaign against Iran.

READ MORE: Modi urges Indians to cut fuel usage amid Iran war

Speaking to RT India ahead of his trip to New Delhi for the meeting of BRICS foreign ministers, Lavrov said that the grouping can play a significant role in shaping efforts to end hostilities in the Middle East.

The full interview will be aired on RT on Wednesday.

Eighty-one years after Hitler’s defeat, Berlin’s pacifist era is ending

Days before Europe marked the 81st anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, Berlin unveiled something unprecedented in the history of the modern Federal Republic: Its first-ever military strategy, titled ‘Responsibility for Europe.’ A country that spent decades defining itself through restraint and repentance now openly declares its ambition to build “the strongest conventional army in Europe.”

Germany insists that this transformation is merely defensive. The declared threat is Russia, the declared mission deterrence. But history teaches Europeans to pay close attention whenever Berlin starts talking about military necessity, strategic leadership, and continental responsibility.

The new doctrine is the ideological burial of postwar Germany.

Germany’s strategic revolution

For decades, German society was built upon an anti-militarist consensus. Military force was viewed with suspicion, and pacifism became a civic religion. The very idea of German military leadership in Europe was politically toxic. But in only a few years, much has changed. A growing part of German society has accepted the narrative of an imminent Russian threat and abandoned the pacifism that had been carefully cultivated since 1945.

Germany’s political and military establishment now speaks openly about ‘war readiness’ and ‘combat capability’. General Carsten Breuer, one of the central figures behind Germany’s military transformation, argues that previous conflicts such as Afghanistan were optional wars, while a future confrontation with Russia will be a ‘war of necessity’ from which Europe cannot withdraw. According to this worldview, European countries must integrate militarily in preparation for a continental war.

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The problem is not simply militarization. Europe indeed requires stronger armies, restored industrial capacity, and societies capable of defending themselves. The illusion of eternal peace after the Cold War has clearly collapsed. Europe became strategically complacent while the world grew harder and more dangerous.

But Europe’s current military revival is unfolding under deeply ideological liberal elites obsessed with confrontation with Russia. And this obsession is leading the continent into a dangerous spiral.

In Berlin and other European capitals, political circles have fallen into the increasingly widespread belief that Russia could attack NATO and the EU around 2029. Whether sincerely believed or politically instrumentalized, these narratives have enormous consequences. Russia has shown no interest in invading Europe. Yet history repeatedly demonstrates how strategic paranoia and worst-case assumptions can become self-fulfilling prophecies. This is precisely what is happening in Germany.

The return of the German soldier

The most symbolic example is Lithuania. Germany’s Panzerbrigade 45, expected to reach full operational capability by 2027, represents the first permanent deployment of a German combat brigade abroad since the Bundeswehr was founded in the 1950s. Around 4,800 soldiers and civilian personnel are expected to be stationed near the Belarusian border. The brigade is explicitly designed as a permanent component of NATO’s eastern flank. Eight decades after German troops marched eastward, German armored units are once again permanently stationed in the Baltic region facing Russia.

Germany is also debating the return of compulsory military service, which was abolished in 2011. The assumption that a professional volunteer army alone can defend the country is increasingly viewed in Berlin as outdated.

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Since January, 18-year-olds in Germany have begun receiving questionnaires asking if they want to serve in the military. For men, the questionnaire is mandatory. The authorities are already discussing penalties for those who refuse to complete it. Beginning in 2027, all 18-year-old men could also face mandatory medical examinations to assess fitness for military service.

Earlier this year, Germany even introduced regulations requiring men to request permission before undertaking long-term travel abroad – which was eventually suspended after public controversy erupted, as military service remains voluntary.

The direction, however, is obvious. The liberal-democratic state is psychologically preparing society for mass mobilization.

A new military axis

Germany’s transformation is not occurring in isolation. At the same time Berlin rearms, Poland is building what may soon become the largest land army in the EU. Warsaw has embarked on one of the most aggressive military expansion programs in Europe, purchasing tanks, artillery systems, fighter aircraft, and missile defenses on a massive scale.

If current trajectories continue, Central Europe will soon be home to two massive armies – German and Polish – numbering close to 1 million troops combined.

Add France’s nuclear arsenal to the equation – which is increasingly discussed as a potential umbrella for broader European defense – and an entirely new continental security architecture begins to emerge. The contours of a Paris-Berlin-Warsaw axis can already be discerned, potentially complemented by Ukraine’s battle-hardened military.

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For Russia, this would inevitably appear threatening, regardless of Europe’s rhetoric about its defensive intentions. An EU dominated militarily by Germany, Poland, and France, aligned with an anti-Russian Ukraine, would make a pan-European security settlement extraordinarily difficult.

Instead of building a durable European security order that includes Russia, the EU is building one increasingly defined against Russia. This is the tragedy of the current moment.

Europe can’t exist against Russia

There is no lasting European security without Russia. This is the fundamental reality today’s European elites refuse to understand. European security is inseparable from Russian security. Geography alone guarantees it. Any attempt to isolate, contain, or permanently weaken Russia will ultimately destabilize the entire continent.

Yet the current leaders in Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw increasingly speak the language of civilizational confrontation. They behave as though Europe can achieve stability through military superiority over Russia. This is a dangerous illusion.

Europe genuinely needs renewal. It needs stronger armies, fighting spirit, and civilizational confidence. It also needs a strong, prosperous, and ambitious Germany. But strength without wisdom becomes dangerous.

The problem is not German rearmament itself, but the ideological framework guiding it. Europe’s declining liberal elites have fused military revival with an almost messianic anti-Russian worldview. Under these conditions, militarization ceases to be a stabilizing force and becomes an accelerant.

The continent is entering a new age of blocs, fear, and escalation. And once these dynamics harden, reversing them becomes extraordinarily difficult.

Eighty-one years after the fall of Hitler’s Germany, Europe once again hears German politicians speaking about military leadership and preparing for war.

This time, they insist history is on their side. Europe has heard this before.

The streaming giant exploited users and their kids to make billions of dollars selling their data, a legal complaint alleges

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Netflix, accusing the streaming company of illegally spying and collecting data from users and their children without their knowledge or consent.

In a statement published on Monday, Paxton characterized Netflix as “a logging company” that records and monetizes customers’ behavioral data “and occasionally streams movies.”

The lawsuit, filed in Collin County, Texas on Monday, cited past promises by Netflix executives not to exploit users’ personal data for advertising purposes.

However, despite promising privacy, the company allegedly mined information spanning customers’ viewing habits, preferences, devices, household networks, and application usage, according to the complaint. After building its customer base, Netflix allegedly began to sell user data to commercial data brokers, raking in billions of dollars annually, it said.

The lawsuit also focused on children’s accounts, which Netflix encouraged customers to make. The complaint alleged that the company kept users addicted using features such as autoplay and other “dark patterns” – design features that push users into actions they may not have intended, such as staying on a platform longer than intended, or agreeing to things they do not understand.

“Netflix is not the ad-free and kid-friendly platform it claims to be. Instead, it has misled consumers while exploiting their private data to make billions,” Paxton said.

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The streaming giant has denied the allegations. The suit is “based on inaccurate and distorted information,” it told CBS News in a statement.

Netflix has steadily declined in market value and share price since peaking in 2025. The company has also increasingly faced accusations of pandering and ‘woke’ bias, including from public figures such as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Last October, the billionaire called for users to “cancel Netflix for the health of your kids” in response to an animated show aimed at children seven or older featuring a trans character.