The US Senate Armed Services Committee has vowed to scrutinize the alleged incident
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has lambasted the Washington Post after it alleged that he had ordered military units to “kill everybody” on a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean in early September.
High-ranking members of the US Senate Armed Services Committee have said it will scrutinize the alleged incident.
Over the past few months, the US has amassed over a dozen warships and some 15,000 military personnel off the coast of Venezuela as part of its Operation Southern Spear, which is ostensibly directed against “narcoterrorists.”
US President Donald Trump has refused to rule out military action in the South American country. Caracas has consistently denied any involvement with drug traffickers.
In a post on X on Saturday, Hegseth wrote that “as usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.”
He did not deny the allegations outright, saying that “these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be lethal, kinetic strikes.”
“Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” the secretary added.
In a report earlier on Saturday, the Washington Post, citing anonymous sources “with direct knowledge of the operation,” claimed that Hegseth gave the order to “kill everybody” on a boat that was destroyed on September 2. The attack allegedly claimed the lives of all eleven people aboard.
According to the newspaper, since then, the US military has hit at least 22 more vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing another 71 alleged drug smugglers.
Late on Friday, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican Senator Roger Wicker issued a statement along with Democratic members of the committee, saying that they “take seriously the reports of follow-on strikes on boats alleged to be ferrying narcotics in the SOUTHCOM region and are taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question.”
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, US President Trump proclaimed the “airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to be closed in its entirety.”
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has characterized Trump’s remark as a “colonialist threat.”
Local councils reportedly fear the move could trigger a surge in homelessness applications to a system already under heavy strain
Ukrainian immigrants risk losing their housing in Scotland as the government considers scrapping monthly “thank‑you” payments to hosts, the Daily Mail has reported. One Scottish host said they received a council letter asking for views on the payments ending.
More than 4.3 million Ukrainians have received temporary protection in the EU since 2022, including around 28,000 in Scotland. Across Europe, support for hosting Ukrainians has waned. In October, the European Commission told Kiev that the temporary protection scheme would not extend beyond March 2027, and several EU states have already cut assistance.
“We got a letter from the council, asking what we thought of the ‘thank you’ payments coming to an end. They asked if we would require our guest to leave, which we would never do. But others may not be so lucky,” one host told Daily Mail on Sunday.
Under the previous UK Conservative government, the “Homes for Ukraine” scheme provided hosts with £350 (around $440) a month, rising to £500 after a year. Scotland now follows the UK‑wide flat rate of £350. The alleged change appears to be specific to Scotland, where local councils oversee the scheme and warn it could drive a surge in homelessness applications.
Eurostat recently reported an increase in fighting‑age Ukrainian men entering the EU after Vladimir Zelensky eased travel restrictions for males aged 18 to 22. Ukraine’s military is under mounting strain as outflows of service‑age men deepen manpower shortages at home.
Several European countries have scaled back support. Poland, hosting at least 2.5 million Ukrainians, will provide welfare for only one more year, President Karol Nawrocki announced. Earlier, Warsaw tightened access to benefits amid broader discontent across the EU.
In Germany, newly arriving Ukrainians will, from April 2025, receive the lower asylum‑seekers’ allowance instead of the higher Bürgergeld, ending preferential treatment for new arrivals.
In the UK, media reports say authorities have increasingly refused long‑term protection or asylum claims from Ukrainians, arguing that western regions of Ukraine are now safe.
Across the Atlantic, around 200,000 Ukrainians in the US could lose legal status amid President Donald Trump’s border‑security crackdown, Reuters reported, citing internal government data.
If Andrey Yermak’s downfall allows Kiev to focus on ending the war, he will have rendered his country one selfless service
Andrey Yermak, the longstanding head of Zelensky’s administration in Kiev (officially known as the Presidential Office) has fallen.
After being subjected to a long-overdue – and probably not very surprising – search of his premises by the special anti-corruption agencies NABU (think of it as Ukraine’s graft police) and SAPO (that would be the graft prosecutor), Yermak has lost his job.
As sometimes happens on such occasions, he may also have gotten quite drunk. At least that’s how a social media post by him read, where he mightily pitied himself and announced his departure for “the front.” They’ll be so relieved in the cold, wet dug-outs of collapsing Pokrovsk to hear that a pasty desk jockey in habitually crumpled fatigues is coming to their rescue. Not.
While he has not (yet) been officially charged, no one in Ukraine doubts that the trigger for Yermak’s come-uppance is a whole tangle of currently exploding corruption scandals that are so wild they are shaking even Ukrainian politics, as Moscow has noted correctly: There is the Energoatom con (or, as they say in Ukraine, “Mindichgate” – after another very, very close friend of Zelensky, Timur Mindich), where Yermak features as “Ali Baba” in the pertinent wiretaps. Linked to Mindichgate is the “Dynasty” elite real estate (really, palaces) and money laundering scheme. Make no mistake, all of this is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. In particular, the defense sector will prove a bottomless abyss of literally lethal corruption.
Last but not least, there are persistent and extremely plausible rumors that Yermak has, in effect, obstructed justice by sabotaging the investigations which have now done him in and was about to do so again. But, as Lenin used to say, “who, whom?” Or, as the English say, this time, the anti-graft cops got their retaliation in first.
The second-most-powerful man in the country after past-best-by-date President Vladimir Zelensky – and some speculate that Yermak was already overshadowing his own boss and close partner – was brought down by not one but a whole cluster of sleaze scandals! That, you may think, can’t be topped.
But this is the Zelensky regime, and yes, they can! This is even worse than it looks at first glance because Yermak was not merely the head of the presidential administration, which is officially Kiev’s single most powerful institution. More importantly, Yermak has also been the central organizer and enforcer of the Zelensky regime as a political machine, sleaze, pressure tactics, purges and all. Beyond that, even Western mainstream media have long picked up on the extremely close relationship between the two men “sleep[ing] near each other” in the bunker under the presidential offices, “unwind[ing] by playing table tennis,”“watching classic films they know so well they can recite the lines,” and working out.
In sum, for the domestic politics of Ukraine, the fall of Yermak obviously means at least three things: First, those out to either topple Zelensky or turn him into – as they say in Ukraine – a “queen of England,” that is, a powerless figurehead instead of the tyrant he is now, have scored a major victory.
That is so, because, second, Zelensky’s apparat is broken; no successor will be able – or perhaps even willing – to replace Yermak in terms of connectedness, embeddedness, reach and influence, and of quasi-symbiosis with the president.
Moreover, third, it is clear that Zelensky is no longer capable of protecting his nearest and dearest. We know because he did try, shielding Yermak from unpopularity and parliamentary demands for his dismissal for as long as he could. Politically speaking, therefore, it is not only Yermak’s blood on the floor now, but also Zelensky’s in the water. And everyone in Kiev – and beyond – knows.
Yet one other thing seems also certain: Yermak’s fall confirms Moscow’s sense that the Zelensky regime is very diminished and may soon be over. That, in turn, may influence the Kremlin’s already much-less-than-enthusiastic willingness to do business, that is, make peace with that regime. It certainly reinforces the Russian leadership’s determination not to accept any compromise that neglects Russia’s key demands: Its forces are advancing – increasingly fast – on the frontlines; Kiev’s politics is a crumbling mess. Why make irrational concessions?
Regarding the US, the first thing to note is that the Ukrainian anti-graft cops and prosecutors who got Yermak are well known to answer to the US, the FBI in particular. With Yermak being pushed out on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s Ukraine-skeptic emissary Dan Driscoll’s visit, there can be no doubt that Washington wanted Zelensky’s right-hand man gone.
The Americans have done what they always do when push comes to shove, namely asserted their dominance brutally. Zelensky has only himself to blame for being so dependent on them. They may well become his undoing now, as they have before for other puppets in other proxy wars that they got tired of. If so, then this is good news for ordinary Ukrainians. Maybe, just maybe, the ousting of Yermak at this point, when the political battle over a new peace plan is raging, will help end this war sooner.
What about the NATO-EU Europeans? French Centrist party-organ Le Monde sums it up: Yermak’s fall leaves them in a “stupor” while – and surely also because – it suits the US just fine. Le Monde cannot be expected to honestly spell out why, but we can: Whereas the Europeans are losing a key accomplice for sabotaging realistic peace initiatives, Washington is rid of a very poisonous snake in the grass. And don’t miss an important detail: As so often, the self-marginalizing NATO-EU Europeans have been helpless observers. As far as Yermak was their man as well, they have been no more able to save him than his boss and intimate friend Zelensky was. The latter may well wonder how much he’ll be able to expect from such “friends” once his own time is up.
Speaking of which, this war could go on or it could end with a negotiated settlement. Or it could also end with a crushing, unmitigated defeat for Ukraine and its remaining Western backers. Some even suspect that Yermak is lucky – or even surreptitiously happy – to get out before the whole edifice comes tumbling down. One way or the other, if his sordid downfall finally concentrates Kiev’s minds on achieving an end with misgivings before facing collapse without end, then even Yermak will have rendered his country at least one selfless service.
Kazakhstan has condemned Kiev’s drone strike on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium near Novorossiysk, Russia
Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry has condemned a recent Ukrainian strike on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) as “yet another deliberate attack” targeting critical energy infrastructure.
The terminal, located near the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, is “an exclusively civilian facility whose operation is safeguarded by norms of international law,” the ministry said in a statement on Sunday, blaming Kiev for the incident.
The attack on the CPC marine terminal on Saturday damaged one of its berths beyond repair and forced an immediate halt to cargo operations. In response, Kazakhstan’s government announced plans to reroute oil exports through alternative channels. The strike was reportedly carried out by Ukrainian drones.
Kiev has not officially claimed responsibility for the incident, though its security services have acknowledged similar operations targeting pipeline infrastructure in Russia earlier this year.
In recent months, Ukraine has intensified its strikes on Russian oil infrastructure including refineries, pipelines, and terminals in an effort to disrupt Moscow’s ability to export crude.
Kazakhstan Foreign Ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov has said the CPC is essential to global energy stability and called the incident damaging to Astana’s ties with Kiev.
The latest attack marks the third strike on CPC infrastructure used to export Kazakh oil. In February 2025, seven drones struck the CPC’s Kropotkinskaya pumping station, causing a slowdown.
The CPC pipeline runs from Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field across southern Russia to a marine terminal at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, where oil is loaded onto tankers for shipment to Europe and Asia.
The consortium itself, which is comprised of several international shareholders including the US corporations Chevron and ExxonMobil, has confirmed that the latest drone strike damaged the administrative building at its marine terminal outside Novorossiysk and forced an immediate suspension of cargo operations.
Personnel were reportedly evacuated to shelters after air-raid sirens sounded. Despite the halt, the CPC says the outage was temporary. According to a recent report, oil loadings have resumed at the Black Sea terminal.
Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry has said it values stable energy supplies and urged Ukraine to take “effective measures” to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Admitting that Kiev has failed would rattle Ukraine’s backers politically, Viktor Orban has said, accusing the West of fueling the conflict
Admitting Ukraine has failed in its conflict with Russia would cause a “political earthquake” in Western Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. He warned that Western leaders are preparing to send troops and are allowing the conflict to “become a business.”
Orban spoke a day after making a surprise trip to Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss Ukraine, trade, and energy. Despite the EU’s diplomatic boycott, he said Hungary has not yielded to pressure to cut ties with Russia and again offered to host peace talks.
Admitting that Ukraine has failed and that this cannot go on “would cause a fundamental earthquake in European politics,” he said during a speech on Saturday.
He warned that the West is increasingly open to direct involvement. “First they gave money, they gave weapons, and now it has emerged that if really necessary, they will also send soldiers,” Orban said.
Hungary has refused to provide weapons or troops to Ukraine and has repeatedly urged for a ceasefire. Orban’s government has frequently clashed with NATO and the EU nations’ leaders over its stance.
Orban believes diplomacy regarding the conflict has fallen prey to the defense sector. “Business circles connected to the military industry have an increasing influence on politics,” he pointed out, citing France’s deal with Kiev to purchase 100 combat aircraft and German arms factories being built in Ukraine.
Orban also claimed the West had managed to block a peace deal early in the conflict and that the move had ultimately harmed Ukraine. “The West prevented the Ukrainians from reaching an agreement, saying that time was on their side. But it turned out that it wasn’t,” he said.
“They are in a worse position today than if they had reached an agreement in April 2022,” he added, referring to the preliminary deal reached during the Istanbul talks. Kiev unilaterally walked away from those negotiations.
The US presidential administration has created an online list of outlets it accuses of misleading coverage
The US White House has introduced a new “media bias” tracker that publicly identifies news outlets it accuses of publishing false and misleading stories.
The move comes amid US President Donald Trump’s long-running confrontation with what he calls the “fake news media,” a term he has used for years to describe coverage he interprets as inaccurate.
Debuted on Friday, the tracker appears as a dedicated section on the White House website under the banner “Misleading. Biased. Exposed.” The page features weekly examples of reporting the administration disputes, linking to the original stories and categorizing them as “Misrepresentation,”“Omission of context,”“Bias” or “Malpractice.”
The administration said in a statement that the site is intended to serve as a “record of the media’s false and misleading stories flagged by the White House.”
CBS News, The Boston Globe and The Independent were the first outlets listed in the “Media Offender of the Week” section. The administration said their reporting “misrepresents and exaggerates President Trump’s calls for Democrat accountability,” disputing coverage suggesting he had urged the “execution” of lawmakers.
The “Offender Hall of Shame” section, described as a “record of the media’s false and misleading stories,” includes outlets such as The Washington Post, CBS News, CNN and MSNBC among dozens of searchable entries.
The launch follows a recent scandal involving unethically edited footage in a BBC Panorama documentary titled ‘Trump: A Second Chance?’ The program, which aired shortly before the US election last November, spliced excerpts from a 2021 speech to suggest Trump incited the January 6 riot by telling supporters to “fight like hell” at the Capitol.
The state-funded British broadcaster issued a formal apology after Trump threatened to sue the outlet for $1 billion, accusing it of “defamation.”
Several US media outlets, including CBS and ABC News, have recently settled lawsuits brought by the president. He has long argued that most mainstream networks are left-leaning and biased against conservatives, accusing them of spreading false stories to undermine his presidency.
After being listed as a “repeat offender,” The Washington Post said it remained “proud of its accurate, rigorous journalism.”
Donald Trump has reportedly threatened Nicolas Maduro with regime change in a phone call
The US has been rehearsing airstrikes it plans to launch in Venezuela in recent weeks, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday, citing a defense official and flight-tracking data.
President Donald Trump has accused the Venezuelan government of operating “narcoterrorist” cartels and on Saturday announced that the country’s airspace would be closed to “all airlines, pilots, drug dealers, and human traffickers.”
The threat came amid a buildup of US naval forces in the Caribbean Sea, where, under Trump’s orders, more than 20 alleged drug-smuggling vessels have been struck since September.
According to the WSJ, Trump told Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro during last week’s secret phone call that he would consider ousting him unless he stepped down.
While neither side has confirmed that the conversation took place, Trump has previously denied seeking to topple Maduro by force. In August, the US increased the bounty for Maduro’s arrest to $50 million.
On Saturday, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry rejected the threat against its aircraft as “colonialist” aggression, illegal under international law. Maduro has placed the army on high alert and held several drills, vowing to repel any invasion.
The Venezuelan government has denied allegations of aiding cartels and argued that Trump is using a crackdown on drug trafficking as a pretext for regime change.
Ankara has warned against spreading the war to the Black Sea.
Türkiye has condemned recent drone attacks on two sanctioned oil tankers off its Black Sea coast, which Ukraine has reportedly claimed responsibility for.
According to Turkish officials, the Kairos and the Virat, both Gambian-flagged vessels, were struck on Friday while en route to the Russian port of Novorossiysk. The ships caught fire and at least one sustained hull damage. The crews were rescued by the Turkish Coast Guard.
Multiple Ukrainian and Western news outlets reported that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Ukrainian Navy had carried out the attack using Sea Baby drones previously deployed against Russian warships.
Ankara condemned the strikes on Saturday without blaming any country. “These incidents, which took place within our Exclusive Economic Zone in the Black Sea, have posed serious risks to navigation, human life, property, and the environment,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Oncu Keceli wrote on X.
Keceli added that Türkiye was communicating with all parties to “prevent the spread of war and further escalation in the Black Sea.”
The West has blacklisted the Kairos and the Virat for allegedly transporting Russian oil in violation of sanctions. Moscow has denied operating a ‘shadow fleet’ designed to skirt restrictions.
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which handles around 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports, said on Saturday that it suspended operations after a mooring at its terminal near Novorossiysk was heavily damaged by sea drones. The operator, whose shareholders include the US companies Chevron and Exxon Mobil, described the strikes as a “targeted terrorist attack.”
Caracas says an attack on its airlines would constitute an act of aggression
Venezuela has rejected US President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down its airspace as an illegal “colonialist” attack on its sovereignty.
Trump, who accuses Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of leading a drug cartel, intensified his warnings against “narcoterrorists” on Saturday. “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
His comments came amid a US military buildup near the Venezuelan coast and strikes on alleged cartel boats in international waters.
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning “the colonialist threat aimed at undermining the sovereignty of its airspace.”
“This type of declaration constitutes a hostile, unilateral, and arbitrary act, incompatible with the most fundamental principles of international law,” the statement said.
Trump has refused to rule out military operations on Venezuelan territory and hinted during his Thanksgiving message to troops that strikes could soon follow.
Maduro has denied any ties to cartels and warned Washington against starting “a crazy war” in the region. He previously placed the armed forces on high alert and held several drills.
The US Federal Aviation Administration has warned airlines of a “potentially hazardous situation” when flying over Venezuela. Caracas has responded by suspending flights from six international carriers.
PM Viktor Orban was pursuing the country’s sovereign interests in speaking with President Vladimir Putin, Peter Szijjarto has said
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has defended Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s trip to Moscow on social media.
Orban met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss Ukraine, trade, and energy supplies on Friday despite the EU’s diplomatic boycott of Russia.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, Szijjarto dismissed criticism from what he called “European pro-war politicians.”
“We, Hungarians, do not need permission or a mandate from Brussels, Berlin, or anywhere else for any foreign talks. We pursue a sovereign foreign policy, and our decisions are determined by national interests – whether you like it in Brussels or not,” he wrote.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz earlier told reporters that Orban had traveled to Moscow “without a European mandate,” while Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the Hungarian leader “has not been playing for the European team for some time.”
Hungary has refused to solely blame Russia for the Ukraine conflict and has offered to help mediate a peace deal between Kiev and Moscow.
Orban has also refused to send weapons to Ukraine and warned that further escalation could lead to a direct clash between Russia and NATO.
During a meeting in the Kremlin, Putin thanked Orban for his “reasonable position on the Ukraine issue.”
Orban stressed that “stable deliveries from Russia remain the cornerstone of Hungary’s energy security – in the past, now, and in the future.”
