Suspected embezzlement ringleader Timur Mindich was reportedly tipped off by a mole inside the anti-corruption agency
Timur Mindich, a business associate of Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky accused of running a high-level embezzlement scheme, allegedly had a mole inside the agency investigating him who helped him evade justice, according to a new report.
Mindich fled to Israel along with his right-hand man Aleksandr Zukerman shortly before Western-backed anti-corruption agents raided his home. Ukrainakaya Pravda (UP) is among several outlets that have been publishing purported transcripts of surveillance records gathered during the 2025 investigation.
The alleged mole
Friday’s release centers on Andrey Sinyuk, the former deputy head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), who resigned after formal charges were filed against Mindich and his associates. He is suspected of warning Mindich about the raid.
In a conversation reportedly recorded on October 14, 2025, Igor Mironyuk and Dmitry Basov, suspects in the alleged $100 million embezzlement scheme at state atomic energy firm Energoatom allegedly orchestrated by Mindich, discuss a SAPO deputy head identified as Andrey.
Andrey is described as an old friend of a man named Oleg – whom UP believes to be either deputy head of Zelensky’s administration Oleg Tatarov or one of his aides – and as a “good contact that is worth keeping.”
No honor among thieves
“Oleg is among those who played with him,” Basov said, according to the transcript. “Everyone worked with him, dined and wined and split money. It’s clear what the relationship format there is normal… manly.” However, he added that he feared “this pederasty among those people may backfire,” and that Andrey could “play a double game” by keeping records of the “wages” – regular bribes – he allegedly received.
It is unclear whether the references to homosexuality were meant literally or used as insults aimed at Ukrainian government figures whom Mindich’s associates viewed as untrustworthy.
Mironyuk and Basov agreed that Andrey could be useful, but said he should be used sparingly and only after a test operation involving a service that could not be traced back to them.
UP claims that on October 26, Sinyuk searched classified criminal databases for the names of Energoatom suspects, including Mironyuk and Basov, as well as figures linked to Mindich, such as former energy ministers German Galushchenko and Svetlana Grinchuk. According to the outlet, the searches were logged in the system and later uncovered during an internal investigation.
Escape plan emerges
The outlet also cited conversations allegedly involving Mindich’s personal driver shortly before charges were filed against the businessman, which appeared to point to preparations for an emergency escape from Ukraine.
The leaks of the so-called ‘Mindich tapes’ have fueled a growing corruption scandal in Kiev since mid-April.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has denounced attempts to equate the roles of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union
The West is busy rewriting the history of World War II, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has stated ahead of the 81st anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany.
Russian officials have repeatedly accused the US and EU member states of distorting historical truth and belittling the crucial role of the Soviet Union, which lost an estimated 27 million people in what is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War.
Speaking on Thursday, Zakharova said that defending historical memory is a fundamental priority for Russia. This is all the more important in light of revanchist tendencies in the West, according to the spokeswoman.
She pointed out that the 51 nations that voted against the UN resolution on “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance” late last year were mostly representatives of the “collective West.”
Zakharova accused EU bureaucrats of waging “historical aggression.” She cited resolutions by the European Parliament, as well as organizations affiliated with the Council of Europe, which “promote the rewriting of history,” with the Soviet Union “being ascribed responsibility nearly equal to that of [Nazi] Germany” for the start of World War II.
The official also noted that “in some countries, the war on monuments and memorials in honor of fighters against Nazism is gaining momentum.” She singled out Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia as prime examples of this unsettling trend, citing the demolitions of Soviet war memorials there in recent years.
RT correspondent Marina Kosareva delves into how the reframing of the past has become all too common among senior Western officials, and what ramifications this could have.
Public spending is coming to the rescue for an economy that is facing severe structural problems
After two years of recession, it seemed that Germany’s economy had stabilized in 2025 and was even inching in the direction of a return to growth. Sure, nobody was sounding the trumpets of a full-fledged recovery, but it seemed the worst had passed.
That was, admittedly, before the US-Israeli war on Iran muddied those waters. But even apart from this black swan event, what has really been going on in the German economy deserves a closer look. After all, there are different ways of generating GDP growth and not all of them have the same deeper implications.
In Germany’s case, it turns out the nascent recovery was almost entirely fueled by state spending while the private sector is in virtual free-fall. This, incidentally, goes some way toward explaining the ongoing rearmament in Germany in response to the supposed threat from Russia – a threat that very conveniently is breathing new life into unsustainable industry. This is no less than military Keynesianism, a phenomenon few expected to see in Germany. And it is being tasked to address several major structural shifts at once.
RT Newsroom explains what’s going on.
2025 marked an inflection point
The German economy broke a two-year recession, growing by 0.2% in 2025, following a 0.5% contraction in 2024. However, the growth was driven in large part by government spending. There was a late-year pickup in industrial and construction output – also government-driven – while exports continued to lag.
Public spending, however, rose 5.6% in 2025 and now represents more than 50% of GDP. This number itself isn’t particularly eye-popping in a European context. Several EU countries have higher ratios. But Germany has historically been more fiscally conservative with an economy much more oriented toward private industry and exports. Helmut Kohl, German chancellor in the 1980s and ‘90s, once called a spending ratio above 50% socialism. This is a threshold beyond which Germany would be seen as having adopted a different economic model.
That different economic model is now here. But think about it from this angle: What happens when you boost public spending by over 5% and still can only barely eke out any economic growth? It means the private sector is crumbling.
Digging into the data
A widening split has opened in Germany’s economy since 2022, dividing industries more exposed to market forces from those being backstopped by public spending. Traditional sectors – especially the automotive and chemical industries – have struggled with high energy costs and global competition. This has been reflected in the share prices, which have been very sluggish, with Porsche leading the way among the declines.
The weakness is also visible in underlying demand, with domestic orders broadly declining, although amid volatility, since 2022. Last year saw periodic spikes driven by large contracts – almost certainly state-driven – whereas underlying demand remained weak. Exports were weak, so was private investment. Capital goods orders, a key gauge of private-sector investment, have been falling, pointing to continued contraction in market-driven industrial activity.
The chart below shows relative performance of German equities since 2022.
At the same time, defense contractors and state-backed industrial firms have surged on the back of government spending. Rheinmetall shares have rocketed more than 1,000% since early 2022, with its market cap rising from about €4 billion to roughly €67 billion. Hensoldt and Renk have also posted strong gains, while even adjacent players such as Infineon have nearly doubled in value.
Construction and industrial groups tied to public projects – including Hochtief, Heidelberg Materials, and Bilfinger – have also rallied sharply, in some cases climbing several-fold from 2022 lows.
This has all come while the economy has been in recession and the manufacturing sector has been hemorrhaging jobs. What this points to is that Germany’s headline market gains are masking a lack of real recovery. While the country’s stock market, the DAX, has risen strongly, most of the growth is concentrated in a narrow, state-backed segment.
What this means
The contrast reflects very different operating conditions. Automakers and chemical firms compete in open global markets, where rising energy and labor costs erode competitiveness and push production to cheaper regions. Consumers can choose from many options. Defense contractors, by contrast, operate largely outside these pressures, relying on government-funded demand. Arms deals are driven by political and strategic decisions rather than market pricing, meaning input costs such as energy matter far less.
Rising costs have made large parts of Germany’s traditional industrial base less competitive. The response of the German state to that has been to shift toward sectors insulated from the market. Industry is not recovering in a conventional sense, but being redirected to where demand is state-driven rather than market-driven.
This shift is already reshaping Germany’s manufacturing base. According to the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), about 17% of industrial firms are now tied to the defense supply chain, with involvement particularly high in vehicle manufacturing at 36%. Some struggling auto plants are being repurposed for military production.
Volkswagen is exploring the possibility of producing military vehicles at its Osnabruck factory and is in talks with Rheinmetall. Schaeffler, hit by a shrinking auto business and job cuts, is also pivoting to defense, while Deutz now supplies engines for air defense systems, drones, and armored vehicles. DIHK estimates that up to a quarter of German companies could soon be directly or indirectly linked to the defense sector, deepening the divide between a market-driven industrial base and a state-funded one.
The role of debt
Germany has long had an aversion to high debt levels. The country’s fiscal mindset was shaped by the Weimar hyperinflation and the lesson that was seared into the collective mindset of German policymaking: macroeconomic instability means social and political breakdown. This tendency toward restraint was institutionalized under Angela Merkel, who instituted what was called the “debt brake,” which limited the federal deficit to 0.35% of GDP, a very low figure by European standards. The so-called Schwarze Null, or “black zero,” indicating a balanced budget was an imperative.
In recent years, however, things have started to slip. In 2022, an amendment was passed under then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz that allowed the creation of a €100 billion defense fund that would not count toward the brake. Another amendment was passed that exempted defense spending over 1% of GDP.
This has unleashed a significant amount of funds that is finding its way into the economy via state contracts. The German government plans to double defense spending over the next five years from current levels, with $761 billion to be spent by the end of 2029, of which more than half ($469 billion) will be funded through new debt.
Decline in industrial jobs in context
Germany’s manufacturing sector has shed nearly a quarter of a million jobs since 2019. This figure is often bandied about as self-evidently catastrophically large but without much context. In itself it isn’t a staggering figure: Germany’s industrial employment has generally been around 7.5 million workers – figures vary depending on how they’re counted – so the 245,000 job losses represent about 3.25% of sector employment over six years (through 2025).
Is that a lot or a little? The United States lost 5-6 million manufacturing jobs over the decade of 2000-2010, representing some 25-30% of the sector. Germany’s job losses obviously pale in comparison. So why is this a big deal for Germany?
First of all, it’s the pace of the losses, which has been picking up. If the total for the past six years has been around a quarter of a million, the figure for 2025 alone was 120,000 – or half of the six-year total. The trend is extremely worrying.
Second, the problem is that manufacturing plays a much more prominent role in the German economy than it played in the US. It sits at the center of dense networks of supply chains, meaning that each industrial job supports additional jobs elsewhere. This is called a multiplier effect. So even a relatively modest change in employment can trigger a much larger shift in the broader economy.
The deindustrialization in the US was traumatic but the economy was less dependent on manufacturing as its central organizing pillar. The US economy, already highly financialized and more dependent on other sectors such as services, technology, and healthcare, was, to a larger extent, able to absorb these job losses. In fact, unlike the German economy, the US continued to post growth for nearly that entire period when those manufacturing jobs were disappearing.
For Germany, which held to a much more export-oriented model driven by the private sector, the decrease in manufacturing employment is hitting much closer to the heart.
Military Keynesianism as the solution to three problems at once
The term military Keynesianism has gained a certain currency in Europe in recent years and for good reason. This is an economic policy where a government attempts to boost economic growth and employment by significantly increasing military spending. It is an offshoot of the economic theories associated with John Maynard Keynes which hold that aggregate demand rather than mere private investment is the primary driver of the economy and that the government should manage this when the private sector weakens.
Military Keynesianism can absolutely produce growth, but it does so without solving underlying productivity or competitiveness problems. Defense output is ultimately economically non-reproductive. A machine tool – a specialty of German industry – sold to a civilian manufacturer can produce goods for decades, thus expanding the economic value-added. A tank shell, by contrast, generates nothing once produced.
Germany’s old model depended on three pillars: cheap Russian energy, Chinese export demand, and American security guarantees. All three have weakened simultaneously. Germany is attempting to confront all three merely by throwing the state’s fiscal ledger at them – all while the private sector shrivels away.
Voters have taken out their frustrations on the British prime minister after two years of failure and broken promises
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer led the Labour Party to a landslide win in 2024. Since then, his approval rating has plummeted and he’s suffered one defeat after another. But what is it about Starmer that’s so uniquely unpopular?
Labour’s victory in the general election of 2024 was the party’s best result in more than two decades. Ending 14 years of Conservative rule, the election swept Starmer into Downing Street with a 174-seat majority and a level of public goodwill that none of his Tory predecessors had enjoyed.
How unpopular is Starmer?
The honeymoon period was brief. Within a month of the election, Starmer’s net approval rating fell from plus seven to zero, with 52% of Britons telling Ipsos that they felt the country was heading “in the wrong direction.” According to YouGov, his net approval now sits at –48 on their polling scale (not a percentage), making him the least popular prime minister in recent history.
After losing 187 local council seats in England last year, Labour is on track to lose around 1,800 when counting concludes on Saturday, in another round of local elections that are being viewed as a referendum on his leadership.
Calls for Starmer’s resignation are coming not just from his opposition – including the triumphant Nigel Farage’s Reform UK – but from within his own party. According to The Times, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband urged Starmer to begin “planning his resignation” weeks ago, in order to avoid a painful period of public infighting after the elections.
Taxes and austerity
In his first address to the nation after taking office in 2024, Starmer announced that his government had “discovered a £22 billion ($29.9 billion) black hole in the public finances,” and would have to make “unpopular decisions” to fix it. This translated into the fastest rising tax rates in the developed world, according to the OECD.
ADMIN POST@Keir_Starmer highlights our out of control migration system which he has done little to nothing about.
He talks about a 22 billion pound 'black hole' yet he continues to pay 5.38 billion pounds per year for illegal economic migrants to be housed in hotels all… pic.twitter.com/ayptgAsmta
Starmer hiked income and dividend taxes by 2%, increased national insurance taxes paid by employers, and raised property taxes. Between July 2024 and November 2025, Starmer’s government imposed a new tax or increased an old one every ten days, according to the Taxpayers’ Alliance.
The prime minister’s Conservative predecessors presided over an historic decline in British living standards and a rise in energy costs and inflation, both of which soared after the UK cut itself off from Russian fossil fuels in 2022. Voters expecting Starmer to ease this burden were left short-changed, however, with the PM announcing sweeping welfare cuts last year. Public outcry forced Starmer to roll back some of these cuts, including a deeply unpopular slashing of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners.
“We had 14 years of Conservative austerity,” Green Party leader Zack Polanski told reporters on Friday. “Keir Starmer was voted in on a promise of change and, actually, what we’ve seen is very little change, and in many ways things have got worse.”
Two-Tier Keir
If Starmer’s tax hikes and welfare cuts angered the left, his response to a spate of anti-immigration riots in late 2024 infuriated the right. Hundreds of British citizens were arrested for making anti-immigrant social media posts, and violent criminals were released from prison early so that rioters and those supporting them online could be jailed.
Starmer was drawn into a public spat with X owner Elon Musk, who referred to the PM as “two-tier Kier” over his apparent prioritization of speech crimes over real ones. His pushing of the Online Safety Bill, which critics say will further stifle free speech in Britain, then drew the ire of US Vice President J.D. Vance, who told Starmer to his face that “there have been infringements on free speech that affect not just the British… but also affect American technology companies and by extension, American citizens.”
These issues, coupled with Starmer’s failure to reduce illegal immigration, helped Reform UK emerge as the big winner on Friday, picking up at least 1,200 seats.
Palestine on the ballot
After ousting Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2020, Starmer dropped all of Corbyn’s pro-Palestine policies. Whereas Corbyn was a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and supported a boycott on goods from occupied Palestinian territories, Starmer refused demands from within his party to call for a ceasefire in Gaza in late 2023, and publicly affirmed Israel’s right to cut off power and water to the strip’s two million residents.
Starmer has since reversed his position, and now backs a ceasefire and two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but left-wing and Muslim voters have abandoned his party in droves over his listing of ‘Palestine Action’ as a terrorist organization, the arrests of thousands of protesters for voicing support for said organization, and his calls for “policing of language” and banning of anti-Israel protests.
The Green Party has made the Palestinian issue a central part of its platform, and won a crucial by-election in Manchester earlier this year by courting Muslim voters. “Palestine is one of the elements on the ballot,” Polanski said ahead of Thursday’s elections. “I think lots of people feel very strongly both about their local services – as they should do – and feel equally strongly that a reprehensible genocide is happening.”
Few scandals smeared Starmer’s reputation as thoroughly as the Mandelson affair. Peter Mandelson served as Starmer’s ambassador to the US between February and September 2025, when he was dismissed over his long-standing relationship with pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. Starmer was apparently aware of Mandelson’s ties to Epstein when he appointed him envoy, but was forced to fire him after emails emerged in which Mandelson called Epstein his “best pal,” and encouraged him to “fight for early release” from prison in 2008.
Mandelson was arrested in February, and is currently being investigated for lobbying on behalf of Epstein in the late 2000s, and leaking classified information to the notorious sex offender.
Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, took the blame for appointing a known associate of Epstein, and resigned in February.
The bottom line
Starmer’s policy record is enough to account for the surge in support for left- and right-wing alternatives on Friday. After two years of Labour leadership, Britons are poorer, less free, and more divided.
His policy failures, however, are only one aspect of his unpopularity. The Labour leader also inspires a level of visceral, gut-level hatred unseen in modern British politics: he’s been described by commentators as “useless and lacking in charisma,”“empty, brittle, [and] wooden,” and endured chants of “Keir Starmer is a wanker” from right-wing and left-wing crowds alike.
Within Labour, figures like Ed Miliband likely think that they can win back support by distancing themselves from Starmer and appointing a new figurehead to sell their message. Polanski and Farage both think that the time has passed, as has the traditional Labour/Conservative duopoly. Farage told reporters that Friday’s results represent “a complete reshaping of British politics in every way,” while Polanski said that “the new politics is the Green Party vs. Reform.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has hailed the results as “a complete reshaping of British politics”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has been decimated in parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales, as well as local elections in England. However, Starmer is refusing calls to resign.
Labour was the biggest loser in Thursday’s elections. As results came in on Friday, Starmer’s party had lost more than 1,300 local council seats in England, around five seats in the Scottish Parliament, and 21 seats in the Welsh Senedd, as of 11 PM local time.
While full results are not expected until Saturday, Starmer has already admitted that “when voters send a message like this, we must reflect and we must respond.” However, although the PM has been urged to resign by some within his own party, including Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, he has dismissed the idea, stating that he is not “going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos.”
Some 5,066 out of 16,000 local council seats in England and all 129 and 96 seats in the Scottish and Welsh legislatures were up for grabs on Thursday. Labour went into the election holding 5,873 local seats, but looks set to emerge with closer to 4,000.
For the first time this century, Labour will lose control of Wales, with First Minister Eluned Morgan losing her seat and the Plaid Cymru and Reform dominating the Senedd.
Labour’s loss has not been the Conservative Party’s win. While power has typically swung back and forth between both parties for more than 100 years, the Tories are on track to lose 550 council seats, plus 16 seats in Scotland and 9 in Wales.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK was the big winner in England, picking up more than 1,200 local council seats. In some constituencies, Reform’s gains have come almost entirely at the Conservatives’ expense. Reform picked up 37 seats in Suffolk, where the Tories lost 36. Farage has spent years hammering successive Tory governments over their failure to reduce immigration and lower the cost of living, and as such has drawn the votes of dissatisfied right-wingers who once backed the Tories.
Reform UK has wiped out the Tories and won Essex County Council.
“It’s a big, big day, not just for our party, but for a complete reshaping of British politics in every way,” Farage told reporters, adding that Labour had been “wiped out.”
Zack Polanski’s Green Party has also drawn votes from former Labour supporters abandoning Starmer’s party over the prime minister’s austerity policies and support for Israel. “I said that the Green Party was going to replace Labour,” Polanski told reporters, “and we’re seeing that right across the country. The new politics is the Green Party vs. Reform.”
US President Donald Trump on Friday announced a three-day ceasefire and a major prisoner swap between Moscow and Kiev, expressing hopes the truce would become the “beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought war.”
Trump took to his Truth Social network to make the unexpected announcement. The US president said the ceasefire would be in place for May 9-11, with the two sides swapping 1,000 POWs each during the period.
“The Celebration in Russia is for Victory Day but, likewise, in Ukraine, because they were also a big part and factor of World War II,” Trump wrote, adding that the “request was made directly by me,” and both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky agreed to it.
“Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War. Talks are continuing on ending this Major Conflict, the biggest since World War II, and we are getting closer and closer every day,” Trump added.
Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov has confirmed the truce, stating that Moscow agreed to extend the ceasefire it announced for May 8-9 for the period mentioned by Trump, as well as to a major prisoner swap.
Berlin’s years of obedient Atlantic loyalty have ended in troop cuts, shelved missiles, and fresh humiliation from Washington
Despite what Western mainstream media, think-tanks, and some propagandists with academic titles have been telling us, NATO-EU Europe has never “appeased” Russia.
In reality, the NATO-EU European elites, with Germany among the leaders, have certainly appeased the US. Because you don’t end up with the Nord Stream scandal and US President Donald Trump’s Turnberry tariff diktat without a policy of irrationally self-damaging submission driven by shortsightedness and fear bordering on panic – that is, appeasement.
And what has all that fear been about? In essence, a very simple thing: being abandoned by Uncle Sam, because NATO-EU European elites have a breathtakingly perverse relationship with the US, the greatest abuser of the sovereignty of their countries and spoiler of the prosperity of most of their citizens.
During last century’s Cold War, which ended almost four decades ago – in 1987 with the INF Treaty’s unprecedented elimination of an entire class of nuclear weapons – Western Europe’s dependency on Washington could at least claim some kind of rationale. It was dubious, but plausible on its own terms. But there is no remotely reasonable or good-faith explanation for the European elites’ failure to emancipate their countries from America after 1987 or, at the latest, 1991 when the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist.
That is why what is happening between the US and Germany now is one of those ironies of history so implausible you’d never dare invent them. And yet it’s true: Washington has just announced the largest drawdown of US troops in Germany – it’s single biggest and most important base in Europe – since the end of the great post-Cold War re-adjustment.
In the 1980s, there were still 250,000 American troops in what was then West Germany. After the end of first the old Cold War and then the Soviet Union, by 2005 that number had decreased to somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000. Which is where it has, in essence, remained.
Until now: Trump has just decreed that 5,000 – or 14% of the current number – of American troops must leave within no more than one year. That is still less than the 12,000 soldiers Trump wanted but failed to pull out during his first term, but it’s enough to matter. Especially since that departure is unlikely to be the last: Trump has already announced that US numbers in Germany will be “cut way down” and “go down a lot further.”
Moreover, medium and intermediate-range, nuclear-capable missiles – the old Tomahawk combined with Typhoon launchers and the new Dark Eagle hypersonics – scheduled to be stationed in Germany next year, a Washington-Berlin agreement never submitted to serious debate in Germany, are also shelved. By the way, being punished by “Tomahawk withholding”is now a common experience that Berlin and Kiev can commiserate about. What an achievement for Berlin: getting the Ukraine treatment from Trump’s US.
For reasonable people, the absence of the missiles is a good thing, of course: if it lasts, this US cancelation will put a damper on the plans of the most bellicose in Berlin who seem to positively relish the idea of going to war with Russia within the next decade or two. From the perspectives of these dark fantasists, however, the American change of mind hurts badly, since the NATO-EU Europeans have no comparable systems and will still need years to develop them.
The unwitting trigger of what may well be remembered as a historic turning point is Friedrich Merz, a German chancellor whose signature style has combined harsh and bossy austerity talk and mean social policy at home with almost absolute submission to Washington abroad. It was Merz’s off-the-cuff and very unguarded comments about America’s humiliation by its lost war against Iran that made Trump go ballistic. Merz, speaking before an audience of German high-school students who will now forever remember how individual incompetence can make history, has “torpedoed” – in the Financial Times’ words – his prior policy of flattering Trump no matter what.
That can mean only one of two things: Washington doesn’t have enough respect for Berlin to even discuss American plans concerning Germany. Or Berlin is not smart – or courageous – enough to raise urgent issues in a clear manner and due time. Or perhaps, of course, it means both.
Merz is no rebel by nature, to put it politely. Indeed, the only – if tragically important – thing about which Merz has ever shown any substantial disagreement with the current American leadership is the Ukraine war. Where Washington has displayed – whether in earnest or just the always devious American way – an imperfect willingness to end this perfectly avoidable and unnecessary war by some form of compromise, Merz’s Germany has led the European rebellion against too much American reasonableness. By now, it is Berlin that has become the main supporter of the proxy war, even while its own economy keeps tanking and over 17.5 million – one fifth – of Germans are “at risk of poverty and social exclusion.”
Even mainstream mouthpiece Spiegel admits that the German model of economic growth “has reached its end.” Yes, it’s that simple and that obvious. Spiegel is, of course, not honest about the causes of this not-so-sudden death: it is not merely a result of China and the US no longer buying enough German exports. In reality, cutting Germany off from competitively priced Russian energy and instead establishing an unprecedentedly severe dependency on the US and sources it can control and sabotage (as currently, the Persian Gulf suppliers) has been a decisive factor.
But that obvious fact is a taboo of German mainstream discourse because it stands for perhaps the single worst policy failure of post-unification Germany. Whether by treacherous design or criminal stupidity – it is not something its elites will ever allow to be publicly admitted while still in control of the mainstream media.
And if the German economy looks miserable, so does the German government. Merz himself, leader of a coalition so fractious its members can’t hide their shouting matches from the media, is abysmally unpopular, raking up the worst ratings of any German chancellor since there have been polls. Some 76% of Germans are dissatisfied with the government as a whole. Indeed, a majority of Germans (59%) wants fresh elections now. If they were to take place, the winner would be the new-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), which is outdistancing Merz’s CDU.
Merz is the rare leader who has mastered the art of antagonizing literally everyone and at once: his voters, most Germans in general, his coalition “partners,” and his overlord in Washington as well. And all for nothing, or at least, nothing worthwhile: Germans cannot stand him for his broken promises, his staggering arrogance and lack of empathy with a nation in considerable pain, while he has not even achieved any major reforms.
His SPD coalition partners defy him despite the fact that he has bent over backwards to accommodate them, so much so that his own party has had enough of his perverse submission to a junior partner.
And Trump hazes and punishes him not because Merz has taken a principled stand against the genocide in Gaza or the war against Iran. On the contrary, in both cases, he has been a willing follower of America’s – and Israel’s – criminal leadership. What Trump does not like about Merz is that the latter has not been perfect in his submission.
And that is how Merz does represent the worst about the current iteration of Germany’s elites. Stuck in an archaic Cold War client mentality that is not even opportunistically advantageous. To paraphrase a great French statesman: Berlin’s policies are worse than criminal, they are stupid. But they are also worse than stupid because they can’t even avoid being shamefully criminal and immoral.
America’s reputation has been deteriorating for two years straight, according to a globalist pro-NATO nonprofit
America’s reputation has been worsening under US President Donald Trump and the country now lags behind China and Russia, an annual study commissioned by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation indicates.
The Denmark-based nonprofit was founded by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in 2017 in response to the purported retreat of Washington from the global stage amid Trump’s first tenure. Over the past six years, the foundation has released Democracy Perception Index reports, which assess “the state of democracy” in countries across the globe.
The return of Trump to office has seen the US plummet in the rating, which ranges between +100% and -100%, with the country currently dropping to -16% from +22% two years ago. The current indicator is less than China (+7%) and Russia (-11%), according to the survey.
The Nordic countries, Sweden, Norway, and the host nation of the non-profit, Denmark, were listed as the top three nations in the latest index. Ukraine was among the bottom five, taking 95th place in the rating and measuring -23%.
The survey was conducted by Nira Data polling company between March 19 and April 21, reaching more than 94,000 respondents across 98 nations. The study, however, does not provide much detail on what exact criteria were used to compile the index.
The poor performance of the US is “saddening but not shocking,” Rasmussen stated when the report was released. The ex-NATO chief squarely blamed Trump for the situation, citing the US administration’s actions, including repeated run-ins with Washington’s European allies over various issues ranging from aggressive trade policies to the openly proclaimed intent to seize Greenland from Denmark.
“US foreign policy over the past 18 months has, among other things, called into question the transatlantic relationship, imposed widespread tariffs, and threatened to invade a NATO ally’s territory,” Rasmussen said.
The strained transatlantic ties have been further aggravated by the US-Israeli war against Iran, which has been unpopular among many European NATO allies. The conflict has led to global oil shortages, with Europe emerging as one of the worst-affected regions.
The US has been dragged into war by Israel despite CIA assessments that Tehran was not building a bomb, Joe Kent has said
Washington joined Israel’s war against Iran despite intelligence assessments that the Islamic Republic was not developing nuclear weapons, US President Donald Trump’s former counterterrorism chief, Joe Kent, has said.
Kent, who resigned in protest as head of the US National Counterterrorism Center in March, argues that West Jerusalem dragged Washington into another “never-ending” conflict that does not serve American interests.
In a post on X on Thursday, Kent said the entire US intelligence community, including the CIA, had agreed before the escalation that Tehran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon.
He added that US agencies had also warned that Iran would target American bases across the Middle East and attempt to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if attacked by Israel or the US.
One of the many tragedies of this war is that before the war began the U.S. Intel Community, including CIA, was in agreement that Iran wasn't developing a nuclear weapon & that Iran would target U.S. bases in the region & shut down the Strait of Hormuz if they were attacked by… https://t.co/6fqTW7qLX3
Despite this, “the narrative and agenda spun by a foreign government – Israel, won the argument and forced us into this war,” Kent wrote.
A former CIA officer, Kent claims that Trump fell victim to an Israeli misinformation campaign portraying Tehran as a threat. Similar lies were used to drag the US into war with Iraq back in 2003, he has argued.
Trump rejected those allegations last month, insisting that “Israel never talked me into the war with Iran” and reiterating that “Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.” Tehran has consistently maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.
The US and Israel launched a military campaign against Iran in late February, prompting retaliatory strikes by Tehran on regional targets and shipping routes linked to the Strait of Hormuz. Despite a ceasefire announced by Trump last month, the US military launched a wave of strikes on Iranian targets near the strait on Thursday night, while Tehran accused Washington of violating the truce and responded by targeting American warships in the area.
According to Axios, US-Iran negotiations have focused on a proposed 14-point memorandum that reportedly includes a moratorium on Iranian uranium enrichment, phased US sanctions relief, the release of frozen Iranian funds, and guarantees of free transit through Hormuz.
The documents detail reports of mysterious objects and aerial encounters involving US military personnel
The Pentagon has declassified and released a batch of government files on unidentified flying objects (UFOs), describing the move as a “historic transparency effort.”
The release, published on a dedicated page on the website of the US Department of War, contains hundreds of documents, videos, intelligence reports, and witness accounts spanning decades, including FBI interviews, NASA mission transcripts, military pilot testimony, US State Department cables, and archival imagery tied to unexplained aerial incidents.
Among the newly released material are reports describing “metallic objects,” unexplained “red lights” in the sky, and aerial encounters involving US military personnel. One highlighted case references a 2024 Indo-Pacific sighting of a football-shaped object near Japanese waters, while another revisits Apollo 17 mission records from 1972 documenting mysterious drifting lights observed above the lunar surface.
The release was coordinated through the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) as part of a broader interagency initiative involving the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, NASA, the FBI, the Department of Energy, and other US intelligence agencies.
Officials said additional releases are expected in the coming weeks as part of a broader declassification effort.
The initiative follows years of congressional pressure and military personnel whistleblower testimony alleging the government withheld information about unexplained objects observed near sensitive military installations.
In February, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of War to disclose “any and all information” related to UFOs and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
Trump’s UFO disclosure order follows earlier declassification efforts related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. Those releases produced few major revelations beyond details already known publicly about the killings.
Trump’s order on UFO files also followed a widely shared podcast appearance by former US President Barack Obama, who discussed the possibility of extraterrestrial life while insisting the American government was not concealing proof of alien contact. Trump later claimed Obama had “made a big mistake” by disclosing “classified information.”
In 2024, the Pentagon released a report detailing decades of UFO sightings that it said contained no proof of extraterrestrial life.
Former AARO chief Sean Kirkpatrick told AP last week that many alleged UFO sightings have mundane explanations, arguing that viral videos often stem from infrared camera distortions, aircraft heat signatures, or other routine phenomena rather than extraterrestrial technology.
Cyberattacks powered by advanced models could disrupt markets and payment systems, the fund has warned
Artificial intelligence could make cyberattacks a systemic threat to global finance, the International Monetary Fund has warned, saying advanced models can help attackers exploit vulnerabilities faster than institutions can fix them.
In a blog post published on Thursday, the IMF said its latest analysis suggests that “extreme cyber-incident losses could trigger funding strains, raise solvency concerns, and disrupt broader markets.”
According to the organization, the current financial system relies on shared digital infrastructure, including software, cloud services and networks for payments and other data. The fund warned that advanced AI models can sharply reduce the time and cost needed to identify and exploit weaknesses, raising the risk of simultaneous attacks on widely used systems.
The fund cited Anthropic’s recent controlled release of Claude Mythos Preview, which it described as “an advanced AI model with exceptional cyber capabilities.” According to the IMF, Mythos could find and exploit vulnerabilities in every major operating system and web browser, “even when used by non-experts.”
AI-driven cyber risks could destabilize the financial system if they are not managed carefully, the IMF stressed, noting that attacks could spread beyond finance because banks share digital foundations with energy, telecommunications and public services.
“Defenses will inevitably be breached, so resilience must also be a priority,” the IMF warned, calling for cyber stress testing, scenario analysis, board-level oversight, public-private cooperation and stronger international coordination.
The warning comes amid broader concerns over the misuse of AI. A recent UK study found artificial intelligence was being increasingly used by human traffickers to “identify, recruit and control victims at scale.”
The White House is allegedly also considering reviewing new AI models before they are released to avoid political fallout from potential AI-enabled cyberattacks, the New York Times reported earlier this week.
AI chatbots have also increasingly been implicated in facilitating serious and violent crimes. A recent joint investigation by CNN and the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that 8 out of 10 AI chatbots were eager to help researchers simulate the planning of violent attacks, including school shootings, religious bombings, and assassinations, wishing would-be attackers “happy (and safe) shooting!”
The opposition has harshly criticized new language rules passed by Moldovan President Maia Sandu’s pro-EU PAS party
Moldovan President Maia Sandu’s pro-EU PAS party has pushed through new procedural rules that severely restrict the use of the Russian language in parliament.
The ex-Soviet republic of around 2.5 million people sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine has charted an increasingly anti-Russian course since Sandu came to power in 2020.
Under the new regulations adopted on Thursday, Romanian is declared to be the sole working language in the legislature. Bills will no longer be translated into Russian, which was previously designated as a language of inter-ethnic communication. The new rules also introduce time limits on lawmakers’ addresses during plenary debates, as well as changes to voting procedures.
The opposition lambasted the new Code of Parliament, with Communist Party MP Constantin Staris warning that it would undermine the legislature’s legitimacy.
Alexandru Versinin of the right-wing Democracy at Home party accused the ruling PAS of “shutting our mouths,” citing the newly-placed restrictions on debates. The parliament’s chair, Igor Grosu, responded by switching off the lawmaker’s microphone.
In October 2025, the Moldovan government adopted a new security strategy, identifying Russia as the main threat.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded by warning that the Moldovan leadership was “making a grave mistake” by increasingly antagonizing Russia.
Last September, the pro-EU PAS party narrowly secured a majority in parliamentary elections, which saw claims of irregularities and manipulation.
Critics bemoaned uneven access to voting: only two polling stations were opened in Russia, despite the country hosting one of the largest Moldovan diaspora communities in the world of up to 500,000 people. By contrast, dozens of polling stations were opened in Italy alone – where the Moldovan diaspora tends to be more pro-EU.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov characterized the vote as a “fraud.”
Ex-Moldovan President Igor Dodon, the leader of the Party of Socialists, similarly alleged that the “ruling Party of Action and Solidarity has claimed victory in the election exclusively by manipulation with support from the EU and NATO.”
He further claimed that the West was aiming to turn the country into an “anti-Russian project” like Ukraine.
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