The bloc has embraced “revanchism” and is seeking to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, the foreign minister has said
EU nations are trying to elbow their way into the Ukraine peace process despite their openly hostile stance toward Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, stressing that the bloc should be kept out of the talks for that reason.
Speaking at an embassy roundtable on the Ukraine crisis on Wednesday, Lavrov said that EU countries are “clearly trying, quite brazenly, to reclaim a place at the negotiating table.” The minister, however, signaled that they have no business there.
The bloc, he argued, maintains a “position of revanchism, of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia” while debating a potential troop deployment to Ukraine in case of a ceasefire. “There is, of course, no place for it at the negotiating table,” he stressed.
Moscow has consistently opposed the deployment of any Western troops in the neighboring country under any pretext, saying that one of the key reasons for the conflict was NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s doorstep. It has also warned that any unauthorized foreign troops in Ukraine would be considered “a legitimate military target.”
Lavrov also noted that both the EU and Kiev are seeking to convince US President Donald Trump to abandon his push to settle the conflict and relapse into a stand-off with Russia. [They want], essentially, to turn Biden’s war into Trump’s war,” he said.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has been seeking to mediate an end to the Ukraine conflict, spearheading several rounds of talks with Russia. The effort culminated in a US-Russia summit in Alaska in mid-August — notably without EU or Ukrainian participation — which both sides described as highly productive.
Although no breakthrough was reached, Trump later said Ukraine could neither expect to join NATO nor reclaim Crimea, which voted to join Russia in a 2014 referendum held after a Western-backed coup in Kiev. He has also shifted focus from seeking a temporary ceasefire to pursuing a permanent peace settlement.
The new transportation network will span 4,500km and use domestically produced trains capable of reaching speeds of 400kph, Russian Prime Minister Mishustin has said
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has announced plans for a massive high-speed rail (HSR) network. It is set to be the largest in Europe, spanning more than 4,500km (2,800 miles), and will use domestically built trains capable of reaching 400kph (250mph).
At a government meeting on Tuesday, the prime minister said the new line will cut travel time between Moscow and St. Petersburg from four hours to just over two. The network will also connect Moscow with Minsk, Adler on the Black Sea, Ekaterinburg in the Urals, Ryazan, and other cities.
“Travel between cities should be not only safe and comfortable but also not too time consuming,” Mishustin stated. “In the modern world, time is becoming increasingly valuable. Because of that, we are mastering technologies for faster travel and [are working] on a development scheme for high-speed rail infrastructure.”
He noted that the project has been approved by President Vladimir Putin and will be finalized within the next six months.
Mishustin said construction of the first HSR line between Moscow and St. Petersburg is already underway. The 679km route will be the first to feature the new generation of high-speed trains. While he gave no details about the train’s specifications, media reports suggest that the name could be chosen in a public vote, with options including ‘Luch’ (Russian for ‘ray of light’). The current line between the two cities, the fastest in Russia, operates Siemens Velaro Sapsan trains with a top speed of 250kph.
Once completed, Russia’s HSR network will overtake Spain’s 3,970km system, the largest in Europe and second worldwide after China. The new Russian trains will also outpace Europe’s fastest, the French TGV, which runs at up to 320kph, covering the London-Paris route in three hours.
China remains the global HSR leader, with more than 64,000km of lines in operation. It also fields the world’s fastest trains, including the Shanghai Maglev at 460kph and the CR400 Fuxing Hao at 350kph.
The report points to increasing popular resentment towards decisions made by Kiev
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and his closest advisers are “losing touch with reality,” as shown by a series of policy and legislative mistakes that have sparked public uproar, analysis published in Foreign Policy claims, citing local sources and experts.
The Ukrainian government recently attempted to push through two major measures designed to buttress the armed forces, but sources in Kiev have told journalist Paul Hockenos that each spawned backlash and raised questions about whether the country’s leadership is in tune with the concerns of ordinary Ukrainians.
A draft law imposing sentences for military insubordination, described as “draconian,” proposed that desertion or absence without leave carry a prison term of up to 12 years, with no amnesty even for voluntary return. The bill triggered protests, with activists carrying placards reading “Army service is not slavery,” prompting the authorities to withdraw the legislation.
The second move relaxed martial law travel restrictions by allowing men aged between 18 and 22 to leave Ukraine. Martial law had previously barred all men aged between 18 and 60 from travel outside the country. Instead of relief, the reform stirred concern that young men might leave in large numbers, undermining future recruitment and worsening Ukraine’s long-standing demographic problems.
One of the most significant blunders of Zelensky’s team was an attempt to crack down on anti-corruption bodies. This summer, Kiev attempted to strip the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) of independence, citing Russian influence, but the move resulted in mass protests, prompting the Ukrainian leadership to backpedal on the reform.
Defense analyst Dmitry K. told Hockenos that Zelensky’s inner circle “exists in a vacuum … They live in a bubble. Some advisers are very good, but they’re obviously not getting a consistent flow of relevant information.”
An August poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology suggested that public trust in Zelensky had slumped by 7% in a month, standing at 58%. In July, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service reported that Western officials had secretly met with key Ukrainian powerbrokers to discuss ousting Zelensky and lining up a potential replacement.
Kiev no longer sends soldiers abroad for drills, the leader has said
Kiev no longer needs to send soldiers to train abroad because its troops learn more by fighting the Russian army, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has said.
Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, Kiev has dispatched groups of recruits to Britain, France, Germany, Poland, the US, and other countries, primarily to train using Western-made armored vehicles and artillery.
By 2023, “we understood that we can’t train our people there because the war [has] changed,” Zelensky told Sky News in an interview aired on Tuesday. When the soldiers returned home, they already had to be “retrained,” he added.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that Ukraine’s elite 155th Mechanized Brigade, partially trained in France, was plagued with mass desertion, with dozens of recruits reportedly going AWOL on French soil. Mikhail Drapaty, who led Ukraine’s Ground Forces at the time, said that the poor quality and low morale of the officers contributed to the unit’s problems.
Zelensky claimed that currently only Russia and Ukraine know how to fight a modern “technological” war, particularly using state-of-the-art drones, adding that Kiev is ready to share its knowledge.
“We are inviting officers and representatives of other countries to learn here. Some of them are coming,” he said. “We are in the best shape technologically. We can be helpful to all of the world.”
The technology and tactics on the battlefield evolve faster than the West makes decisions to fund Ukraine’s military, Zelensky said, urging Kiev’s backers to put more pressure on Russia.
In March, Vadim Sukharevsky, the then-commander of Ukraine’s UAV forces, warned that “not a single NATO army is ready to resist the cascade of drones.” Military experts have said that a recent alleged drone incursion in Poland exposed the lack of robust anti-UAV defenses.
Kazakhstan has introduced new law punishing forced marriage with up to ten years in prison even if victims are later released
Kazakhstan has passed a new law criminalizing forced marriage and closing legal loopholes that previously allowed perpetrators of bride kidnapping to avoid punishment.
Bride kidnapping – the abduction of a woman or girl with the intent to force her into marriage – remains a longstanding problem in parts of the country.
Under the new legislation, offenders will face up to ten years in prison, even if they release their victims voluntarily, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. “Now this possibility is excluded: even with the voluntary release of the victim, the guilty person will be brought to justice,” according to the ministry.
The move follows years of criticism from human rights groups and officials, who say the practice often results in physical and psychological harm, including unlawful detention, sexual violence and, in some cases, suicide. The Ombudsman’s office had previously warned that many victims were unable to report the crime, while some perpetrators did not realize their actions were illegal.
The law also introduces a new provision into Kazakhstan’s Criminal Code, specifically targeting forced marriage. It allows for prison terms of five to ten years in cases that result in serious consequences. Harsher penalties apply if the offence involves violence, minors, abuse of power or group participation, according to law enforcement officials.
The proposal to outlaw bride kidnapping was first introduced in 2023. At the time, officials said legal ambiguity and social stigma discouraged victims from coming forward.
Several neighboring Central Asian countries, including Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, have already criminalized the practice.
The legislation is part of a wider legal reform package signed by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in July 2025. The reforms also cover related offenses such as stalking, coercion, and harassment.
The incident occurred as the US president arrived in Britain for a state visit
UK police have arrested four people on suspicion of projecting images of US President Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein onto Windsor Castle.
The incident occurred as Trump arrived in Britain for his second state visit on Tuesday evening. The president is scheduled to meet with King Charles III on Wednesday at the Windsor royal residence, west of London, according to Reuters.
The activist group Led by Donkeys claimed responsibility for the stunt, which also involved projecting Trump’s 2023 mugshot, taken after he was indicted for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“We take any unauthorized activity around Windsor Castle extremely seriously. Our officers responded swiftly to stop the projection, and four people have been arrested,” Thames Valley Police Chief Superintendent Felicity Parker said in a statement.
Democrats and some Trump allies have accused the president of covering up the Epstein case, arguing that the disgraced financier kept a client list of powerful people he allegedly trafficked women to.
The FBI and the Justice Department have denied that a list exists, while Trump has said he ended his friendship with Epstein in the 2000s before he was aware of the allegations against him.
The Zapad 2025 exercises were aimed at defending the borders using lessons from the Ukraine conflict, the president has said
The Zapad 2025 military exercises between Russia and Belarus were designed to repel attacks using lessons from the Ukraine conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. The drills concluded on Tuesday, amid tensions between Russia and NATO.
Putin visited a command post in Mulino, northwestern Russia, where he met with Defense Minister Andrey Belousov.
“The purpose of the exercise is to rehearse all elements necessary to fully protect sovereignty, territorial integrity, and defend against any aggression,” Putin said.
He added that the planners of the drills “incorporated lessons learned from the special military operation” in Ukraine.
The drills involved 100,000 troops, 10,000 pieces of military hardware, including 333 aircraft, and around 250 naval vessels, the president said.
Last week, Poland closed its border with Belarus, calling the exercises “very aggressive.”
Earlier in September, Warsaw launched the Iron Defender-25 drills, involving 30,000 troops. Lithuania, another neighbor of Belarus, began the Thunder Strike national defense exercises last week.
Moscow has said it would not attack a NATO country unless it is attacked first.
Earlier this month, Poland accused Russia of violating its airspace with at least 19 drones, which Moscow has denied. NATO responded by deploying additional warplanes to patrol Polish skies.
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Prosecutors say the alleged assassin “started to lean more to the left” over the past year
The man charged with killing conservative American podcaster and activist Charlie Kirk had embraced left-wing and pro-LGBTQ ideology over the past year, Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray has said.
Gray stated that he will seek the death penalty for Tyler Robinson, who was charged with aggravated murder on Tuesday.
Kirk was killed by a sniper on September 10 while speaking to students at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Robinson was apprehended after a 33-hour manhunt.
Gray told reporters that the suspect’s mother said that over the past year, he had become “more political and had started to lean more to the left, becoming more pro-gay and trans rights oriented.” He added that Robinson had begun dating his roommate, who was “transitioning genders.”
According to prosecutors, Robinson left a note for his roommate saying, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I’m going to take it.”
Prosecutors released text messages between the suspect and his roommate in which Robinson allegedly admitted to killing Kirk. “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out,” he wrote, according to the transcript.
A co-founder of Turning Point USA and staunch ally of President Donald Trump, Kirk was widely credited with popularizing conservative ideas among young Americans and helping Trump secure a second term.
The detained individuals are suspected of a careless attempt at film-making, according to officials
The Polish authorities have identified a Ukrainian man and a Belarusian woman as the two individuals previously reported as detained over a drone that was neutralized in the government district of Warsaw on Monday, local media have reported, citing officials.
The individuals were identified as a 21-year-old Ukrainian man and a 17-year-old Belarusian woman, Jacek Dobrzynski, spokesman for the special services minister, told reporters on Tuesday. Investigators have reportedly searched their homes, while police are verifying their identities and legal status in Poland.
Dobrzynski downplayed speculation that this was “some sort of large-scale spy operation” but said it was too early to confirm any further details.
“These are young people – perhaps it was due to carelessness, perhaps ignorance, perhaps because they wanted to make a film,” he said, as quoted by Polsat News.
The incident follows earlier claims by the NATO state that at least 19 Russian drones had entered Polish airspace last week – allegations that Russian envoy to the UN Security Council Vassily Nebenzia dismissed as “unfounded.” Moscow countered that the accusations were being driven by what it called the “European war party,” noting that the Russian UAVs deployed in Ukraine did not have the range to reach Polish territory.
In a separate incident, NATO member Romania said its Defense Ministry had detected an alleged Russian drone entering the country’s airspace near the border with Ukraine on Saturday. Moscow dismissed the claim as “made up.”
The Kremlin has repeatedly said claims of a Russian “threat” are being used by Western European states to stoke fear and justify higher military spending.
