Finland reduced bilateral relations to “zero” by joining the US-led military bloc, the Kremlin has said
Finland has launched large-scale military exercises 100km from the Russian border, the Finnish Defense Forces (FDF) has said.
The new NATO member’s ‘Northern Strike 225’ artillery firing drills, which kicked off on Monday, will continue for a week at the Rovajarvi shooting range in the north-eastern part of the country, the FDF said in an earlier statement.
The war games brought together three Finnish brigades, the country’s border guards, and a Polish multiple rocket launcher battery, according to the statement.
A total of 2,200 personnel and 500 vehicles are taking part in the exercises, which the FDF said are needed “to train the army’s artillery system and develop its performance in demanding early winter conditions,” while also improving coordination between various units.
The commander of the drills, Lieutenant Colonel Kimmo Ruotsalainen, described ‘Northern Strike 225’ as “the most significant artillery and mortar firing exercise… where we will finalize the skills of the fire units.”
According to the Finnish military, the end of the year will be an “intensive training period” for its forces, with some 20,000 servicemen from the army, navy and air force taking part in exercises across the country between November and December.
Finland, which shares a land border of approximately 1,340km (830 miles) with Russia, abandoned its long-standing policy of neutrality and joined NATO in April 2023, citing security concerns over the Ukraine conflict. The next year, another Nordic nation, Sweden, also became a member of the US-led military bloc.
After the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022, Helsinki imposed several rounds of sanctions against Moscow and closed the border with Russia, hurting Finnish business that benefited from Russian tourists.
During the conflict, Finnish President Alexander Stubb has been one of the harshest critics of Russia in the EU, advocating for increased Western military aid to Kiev. Last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov labeled Stubb as a “militarist hawk.”
Peskov earlier said Russia previously “had no problems” with Finland and Sweden, expressing regret that the two countries effectively “reduced to zero” their relations with Moscow by “dragging NATO military infrastructure onto their territory.”
Moscow has dismissed claims that it has any plans to attack members of the US-led military bloc as “nonsense”
Russia could attack NATO as early as next year, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has said, while calling for the country to further ramp up a multi-billion-euro rearmament and militarization push.
Western officials, including Pistorius, have used the claim to justify huge military spending spikes, including the EU’s €800 billion ($928 billion) ReArm Europe plan and NATO members’ pledge to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP.
Moscow has rejected the accusations as “nonsense,” saying the West is using Russia as a “monster” to fuel tensions, expand military budgets, and distract from domestic problems.
In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung released on Friday, Pistorius said, “military experts and intelligence services can estimate when Russia will have rebuilt its forces enough to attack a NATO member in the east. We have always said this could be from 2029 onward.”
“Now, however, some say it’s conceivable as early as 2028, and some even believe we have already had our last summer of peace.”
Pistorius lamented the state of the military, which he said is bleak – with infrastructure “partly dilapidated” and personnel numbers “drastically reduced.” He added that it urgently needs structural updates, from procurement to arms stockpiles and manpower, citing the threat of an imminent Russian attack.
He went on to say that Germany “must respond quickly and decisively by strengthening our defense capabilities,” and outlined several initiatives in progress, from drone procurement to boosting the army reserve to 200,000 soldiers by 2030 and infrastructure projects such as reinforcing bridges in case the country is used as a transit point for military equipment.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Pistorius’ comments do not “improve the situation,” and could push Russia to take preventative measures.
“Such militaristic rhetoric is increasingly heard from Europe,” Peskov told reporters on Monday. “Russia does not advocate any confrontation with NATO. But we may be forced to take measures to ensure our security.”
The legislation could target any nation maintaining trade with the country, according to the president
US Republicans are drafting legislation to sanction any country that trades with Russia, President Donald Trump has announced.
Since the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict, the US and its allies have imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia, aiming to cripple its economy. Moscow has repeatedly condemned the restrictions as counterproductive and illegal, claiming they backfire on those who impose them. Russia maintains that its economy has adapted by redirecting trade to non-Western markets. “The Republicans are putting in legislation that is very tough sanctioning, et cetera, on any country doing business with Russia,” Trump told reporters on Sunday.
“I hear they’re doing that, and that’s okay with me.” He added, “They may add Iran to that. I suggested it.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated last month that he was prepared to bring to a vote legislation long advocated by hawkish Senator Lindsey Graham to impose “crushing sanctions” on Russia, though he hesitated to set a firm deadline.
The bill would empower Trump to impose tariffs of up to 500% on imports from countries purchasing Russian oil, gas, uranium, and other products if Russia does not agree to a lasting peace with Ukraine. The bill is specifically targeting China and India – major consumers of Russian energy.
Earlier this year, Trump announced a 25% tariff on India as a penalty for its purchases of Russian oil, claiming the trade was helping Moscow prolong the conflict.
The upcoming legislation would expand on a series of restrictions implemented by the Trump administration in recent months. Last month, the White House sanctioned Lukoil and another major Russian oil producer, Rosneft, as well as their subsidiaries, citing what Trump called a lack of commitment to the Ukraine peace process on the part of Moscow.
The Russian Finance Ministry stated earlier that in the event of “crushing sanctions” being introduced, Russia would diversify supplies of goods prohibited from export to the US.
Any Washington-installed replacement in Venezuela would require sustained support, according to analysts cited by the outlet
A US-backed regime change operation in Venezuela would plunge the Latin American country into chaos or force Washington into a years-long struggle to keep a replacement government afloat, CNN reported on Sunday.
The Pentagon has deployed warships to the Caribbean and has carried out controversial strikes on small boats it claims are involved in drug smuggling from Venezuela. The White House maintains that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is an illegitimate, cartel-linked ruler, fueling speculation that direct military action might be imminent.
However, should President Donald Trump opt for forcibly removing Maduro, the US would face “fractured opposition elements and a military poised for insurgency,” along with a likely “political backlash at home” for violating Trump’s pledges to avoid new foreign entanglements, CNN argued.
Foreign policy hardliners – including Elliott Abrams, a veteran Republican human rights official who has long supported US-aligned dictators in Latin America – argue that Washington’s credibility is at stake.
“Trump is calling Maduro a narcoterrorist and a drug trafficker, and has assembled a huge armada,” Abrams told the network. “If he backs down now and Maduro survives, there goes all the ‘new Monroe Doctrine’ talk and the idea of being supreme in our own hemisphere.”
Washington has repeatedly failed at large-scale state-building ventures, despite pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into operations under both parties. President Joe Biden’s term started with a chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, where American-trained forces collapsed to a Taliban insurgency even before the final foreign troop pullout.
According to CNN, some Republicans fear that a heavy-handed intervention in Venezuela would alienate voters. “The American people did not vote for Trump to draw the US into a sustained conflict in Latin America,” a GOP congressional staffer told CNN.
Sheikh Hasina has been found guilty in absentia of ordering the use of deadly weapons against protesters in a popular uprising
Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) on Monday handed down in absentia a death sentence to former prime minister Sheikh Hasina in a crimes against humanity case.
The verdict found her guilty of ordering a violent crackdown on student-led protests last year, according to media reports.
The charges against Hasina include murder, attempted murder, torture, and allegedly ordering the use of deadly weapons against the protesters.
“The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate. They are biased and politically motivated,” Hasina said in a statement.
Hasina, who fled to India after the uprising in 2024, said in a recent interview with RT that the verdict was a “foregone conclusion.” She now lives in India.
Up to 1,400 people died, most by gunfire from security forces in the crackdown, per UN estimates. The protests ended after she fled the country.
Others who have been charged in the case are ex-Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun. Al-Mamum was the only accused present in the court.
The chief adviser of the interim Bangladesh government currently running the country is Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus. Bangladesh is slated to hold elections in 2026. Hasina’s Awami League, which had been in power for 15 years before the uprising, has been barred from participating.
Hasina is the daughter of Bangladesh’s first president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was assassinated in a 1975 military coup.
Ahead of the verdict, hundreds of protesters marched toward Dhanmondi 32, the former residence of Rahman.
The move would allow Washington to target the president’s assets and infrastructure, President Donald Trump claims
The US plans to designate the Venezuelan Cartel de los Soles, which it claims is led by President Nicolas Maduro, as a terrorist organization, the State Department has announced. According to a statement, the designation will take effect on November 24.
Trump has long accused Maduro of cartel links, calling him a “narcoterrorist.” Despite Maduro’s denials of the allegations, Washington dispatched a naval armada to the western Caribbean earlier this year, and since September, US forces have hit alleged drug-smuggling vessels near Venezuela. US officials also say Trump is considering strikes on cartel targets inside the country.
The State Department reiterated the claim on Sunday that the Cartel de los Soles is led by the “illegitimate” President Maduro and senior Venezuelan officials.
It added that “neither Maduro nor his cronies represent Venezuela’s legitimate government,” accusing them of corrupting the country’s institutions, directing “terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere,” and trafficking drugs into the US and Europe.
Trump said the designation would allow the US military to target assets of the cartel – and by extension, Maduro – and infrastructure in Venezuela. “It allows us to do that,” Trump told reporters on Sunday.
He added, however, that “we haven’t said we’re going to do that,” noting that the US “may be having some discussions with Maduro” first. “They would like to talk… we’ll see how that turns out.”
Trump did not elaborate on potential talks. It is unclear why he said the designation would allow strikes, as it would not permit attacks without separate authorization.
Maduro has dismissed the allegations and the military buildup as an attempt to overthrow him, while urging Trump to negotiate. In September, he sent a letter to the White House in which he said Venezuela has dismantled the drug networks, offering direct talks.
The alleged graft mastermind, Zelensky-ally Timur Mindich, is a fall guy who lacks the personality to be a mafia boss, Igor Kolomoysky has said
The close ally of Vladimir Zelensky accused of orchestrating a $100 million extortion scheme in Ukraine’s energy sector is being used as a “fall guy” by the real forces behind the scandal, according to his long-time patron, imprisoned Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoysky.
Timur Mindich fled Ukraine last week just hours before the Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) raided his home.
Kolomoysky, the controversial media and banking magnate who has spent two years in pre-trial detention over the infamous $5.5 billion hole in his bank’s accounts, downplayed Mindich’s alleged criminal prowess in comments to the press during a court appearance on Friday.
Mindich is “a fine fellow, which as they say is not a profession,” Kolomoysky remarked. “What they’re claiming about him – he’s no mafia boss.” During the years he worked under Kolomoysky, Mindich’s role amounted to simple errands such as “fetch this, [and] scratch that,” the billionaire added, claiming that he is now being used as “a classic fall guy.”
“They tossed him into a meat grinder out of nowhere,” he continued, speculating that Mindich may have fled not merely to avoid arrest but out of fear for his life, given that whoever is truly behind the alleged graft scheme might decide that “there is no case without a body.”
The NABU probe has already triggered the resignation of two cabinet ministers and implicated additional senior officials. Zelensky’s office has attempted to present the crackdown as proof of his anti-corruption agenda, despite his failed effort earlier this year to curb NABU’s independence.
Kolomoysky, whose media empire helped elevate Zelensky to national prominence during his career in the entertainment industry, openly mocked the Ukrainian leader, calling him “generalissimo Napoleon IV” – a jab referencing a comedic role Zelensky once played – and predicting that he will “soon be gone.”
Ukrainian outlets have previously reported that Kolomoysky may have assisted NABU in building its case against Mindich by passing investigators key information.
The gunmen targeted troops guarding the US Embassy, according to a military spokesman
US Marines guarding the embassy in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, engaged in a shootout with suspected gang members last week, a military spokesman has said.
The Caribbean nation of almost 12 million has been gripped by violence since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021, with heavily armed criminal groups exploiting the power vacuum to increase their influence in Port-au-Prince and other areas. Haiti has been in a state of emergency for over a year.
The Marines returned fire after being targeted by suspected gang members late Thursday, US Marine spokesman Captain Steven J. Keenan said in a statement on Sunday.
There were no injuries among the US servicemen as a result of the incident, Keenan added.
The US State Department ordered nonessential US government employees and their families to leave Haiti in July 2023. It currently has a ‘Level 4: Do Not Travel’ warning for the country, citing the risk of kidnapping, crime, terrorist activity, and civil unrest.
In June, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Ghada Fathi Waly, said the gangs had “approximately 90% of Port-au-Prince… under their grip,” while expanding their attacks to other areas that were previously peaceful. Control over key trade routes by criminal groups has crippled legal commerce, driving up the cost of essential goods such as cooking fuel and rice, Waly added.
According to UN data, at least 5,600 people were killed in gang-related incidents in Haiti in 2024, with 1.3 million across the country being displaced due to the crisis.
A Kenyan-led, UN-supported mission, which arrived in Haiti in 2024 to help curb the violence, was able to free the presidential palace in the capital and unblock several key roads, but could not achieve further progress due to a reported lack of personnel and equipment. Only around 40% of the planned 2,500 troops were deployed, according to AP.
Last month, the UN Security Council decided to reorganize the mission into the Gang Suppression Force, to be composed of 5,500 soldiers and police officers.
The Jewish state says the incident in southern Lebanon was due to poor weather conditions, with no casualties reported
UN peacekeepers stationed in southern Lebanon have accused Israel of firing on one of their patrols, criticizing the country for its “aggressive behavior.” Israel has acknowledged that the incident occurred, but said it was not intentional and was due to poor weather conditions.
In a statement on Sunday, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fired on personnel from a Merkava tank.
It called the incident “a serious violation” of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon that ended the 2006 war, stressing that it was not the first attack of this kind. “Yet again, we call on the IDF to cease any aggressive behavior and attacks on or near peacekeepers, who are working to support the return to the stability that both Israel and Lebanon say they seek.”
Israel confirmed that its forces fired on UN troops, but claimed it was by mistake. The IDF said its soldiers had identified “two suspects” in the El Hamames area and fired warning shots, after which the individuals withdrew, with no injuries reported.
After reviewing the incident, the IDF said the suspects “were UN soldiers who were conducting a patrol in the area and were classified as suspects due to poor weather conditions,” adding that “no deliberate fire was directed toward UNIFIL soldiers.”
Lebanon accused Israel of “violating Lebanese sovereignty, causing instability and obstructing the full deployment of the army in the south.”
The Israel-Lebanon border has long been a volatile area, with the Jewish state and Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah often exchanging strikes.
Tensions soared after the Israel-Hamas conflict erupted in 2023, with Hezbollah – an ally of Hamas – launching rockets and missiles into the neighboring state, and Israel responding in kind. In late 2024, Israeli forces crossed into southern Lebanon.
As part of a ceasefire deal later that year, Israel agreed to a full withdrawal, but has only done so partially – keeping several outposts in Lebanon and arguing that Hezbollah remains active in the area and poses a threat.
Rand Paul had long called for oversight on aid to Kiev
US Senator Rand Paul has accused President Donald Trump of staying silent on a major corruption scandal involving a close associate of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.
Last week, Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies alleged that Timur Mindich, Zelensky’s former longtime business partner, led a scheme that siphoned $100 million in kickbacks from contracts with the country’s nuclear power operator Energoatom, which depends on foreign aid. Two government ministers have since resigned, while Mindich fled the country to evade arrest.
“Remember when the Ukraine first Uniparty opposed my call for an Investigator General for Ukraine? Trump silent on $100M Ukraine corruption scandal resignations,” Paul wrote on X on Saturday, commenting on a news story about the affair.
Paul, who frequently attacks what he calls “wasteful spending” of American taxpayers’ money on foreign projects, has repeatedly pushed for a watchdog to supervise funds directed to Ukraine “in order to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Trump has criticized unconditional aid to Kiev in the past, calling Zelensky “the greatest salesman on earth.” In August, he said the administration of his predecessor, Joe Biden, had “fleeced” America by committing $350 billion to Ukraine. He has since argued that the US is profiting from the conflict by selling Ukraine-bound weapons to NATO.
Kiev’s European backers have also raised concerns about corruption. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called the affair “extremely unfortunate,” while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged Zelensky to “press ahead with anti-corruption measures and reforms.”
The scandal erupted just months after Zelensky had unsuccessfully tried to strip the country’s anti-corruption bodies, NABU and SAPO, of their independence – relenting only after protests in Kiev and outcry from Western supporters. He has since imposed sanctions on Mindich, who is reportedly hiding in Israel.
