The G7’s political systems are entering a moment of truth
France is once again in crisis. Francois Bayrou’s government failed to win a vote of confidence in the National Assembly and has resigned. President Emmanuel Macron has promised to quickly propose another candidate. But after calling early elections last spring, he created a parliament with no stable majority. Now he must try to form a cabinet for the third time in little more than a year. If he fails, new elections will follow, and this time not even Macron’s usual tricks may save him. Both the far right and the far left have been waiting for this moment, sharpening their teeth for the embattled president for years.
The spectacle in Paris is not unique. It is part of a wider malaise across the political systems of the G7.
In Japan, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba long insisted he would not step down. Yet his party’s losses in two parliamentary elections left him no choice. In Britain, a scandal forced the resignation of the deputy prime minister and left the Labour Party floundering at approval levels no better than the discredited Conservatives. Nigel Farage’s Reform Party now leads in the polls. In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz is recording record-low ratings while the anti-establishment Alternative for Germany remains stable at CDU levels.
Italy and Canada are steadier, but barely. Canada’s Liberals were rescued not by their own strength but by Donald Trump. His coarse attacks on Ottawa provided a rally-round-the-flag effect, sparing them a near-certain defeat. The result was continuity in power, though with Mark Carney replacing Justin Trudeau. As for the United States itself, the picture is clear enough: Trump’s supporters face little resistance. His opponents are simply lying low, waiting for better times.
Each of these cases has local causes, yet together they reveal something larger. For countries with deep democratic traditions, turmoil is not new. They have endured crises before. But the simultaneity of today’s upheavals makes this moment extraordinary. The world is in open unrest, and no major power is insulated. The question is not whether the turbulence will continue, but how well political systems can withstand the waves.
Here there is a crucial difference between the United States and its allies, on the one hand, and the European Union on the other.
The US, Canada, Britain, and Japan remain sovereign states. Their degree of sovereignty can be debated, but their governments retain legitimacy and can act quickly when circumstances demand it. Those decisions may be good or bad, but they are at least their own, and they can change course if the results prove ineffective.
For the EU states, the situation is different. Their sovereignty is deliberately limited by the framework of European integration. In the second half of the 20th century, this was the Union’s great strength: by pooling authority, its members gained leverage they could never have achieved alone. But the same framework now acts as a brake. In a world where speed of decision is vital, Brussels makes it harder, not easier, to act.
Economic interdependence and ideological constraints ensure that problems not only go unsolved but reinforce each other. Worse, there is no vision of how the system might be changed under current institutional rules. As a result, rather than rethink course, leaders try to bulldoze through with even more energy in the same direction. Opposition forces are excluded even when they win elections. And the Ukrainian issue has been turned into the central pillar of EU politics. Should that issue fade, a mass of uncomfortable domestic questions will come to the surface – and Western Europe’s rulers know it.
Manipulation and muddling through remain possible, of course. France and Germany may once again stagger past their current difficulties. But each time it becomes harder, and the gap between society’s demands and the establishment’s interests grows wider.
This is why the “moment of truth” for EU politics is approaching. No one can predict what follows. The bloc will not return to the pre-integration era. But the political forces cast as outsiders today may soon be the ones defining the new order.
What we are witnessing is not just a crisis in France, or a resignation in Japan, or a reshuffle in Italy. It is a collective crisis of the G7’s political systems. The American led-bloc still has reserves of strength – above all, its sovereign states can still change course when pressed. But the EU, bound by its own rigidities, finds itself caught. Its governments cannot adapt quickly, and its supranational institutions block meaningful change.
The European project was once the most successful political innovation of the Old World. But it has grown stale. The EU’s cumbersome structure is no longer a solution but part of the problem. At a time when the world is shifting fast, the Union is locked into yesterday’s procedures.
This leaves Western Europe with a stark choice. Either it finds a way to reform – to reconcile sovereignty with integration, flexibility with cooperation – or it will continue to stumble forward, ever more divorced from the societies it claims to represent. In that widening gap lies the real danger.
For now, its leaders may suppress alternatives and manage through manipulation. But the longer they do, the greater the eventual reckoning. And when it comes, EU politics won’t be the same again.
This article was first published in the newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta and was translated and edited by the RT team
People honored the memory of the two murder victims with a vigil and makeshift shrine in the nation’s capital
Antifa has vandalized and defaced a memorial dedicated to the late conservative commentator Charlie Kirk and Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Vienna, Austrian Freisinnige (Freelance) party chairman Christian Ebner said on Sunday.
The makeshift memorial had been set up outside the US Embassy in the Austrian capital following the murders, both of which have inflamed partisan divisions in the US.
During a vigil for Zarutska and Kirk on Friday, people placed photographs, flowers US flags and letters at the wall of the embassy, and lit candles.
The memorial has been vandalized and torn down by Antifa activists as of Sunday, according to Ebner.
"THEIR LIVES MATTERED"
Tributes to Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk, outside Embassy of the United States of America in Vienna, Austria.
According to Austrian influencer Alexander Ehrlich, who was at the vigil, the group interrupted a moment of silence for the two murder victims by chanting slogans.
🇦🇹 Antifa disturbs Charlie Kirk commemoration
Vienna (Austria), 12.09.2025: the minute of silence for Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk at the US-embassy was disturbed by so-called "Antifa", shouting their slogans into the moment of commemoration and prayer.
Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, was brutally murdered by career criminal Decarlos Brown Jr. on a North Carolina train last month. The graphic video of the unprovoked stabbing was released by the local transit system last week and went viral.
Conservative influencer Kirk was fatally shot during a public appearance at a Utah university on Wednesday.
The murders have sparked intense debate over media bias, public safety, and the increasingly violent culture war, with conservative figures accusing liberal media of ignoring Zarutska’s death until long after it had gone viral on social media.
US President Donald Trump has strongly condemned both killings and promised to pursue those he accused of funding and fueling “radical left” political violence in the US. He has also said he would push for the death penalty for both killers.
Old Europe’s instinct is to double down on what fails. A new discipline of thinking can liberate sandbox generals from their hamster wheel.
The 18 August 2025 White House visit of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, flanked by Europe’s anti-Russian leaders, should have been nothing less than a clarion call – startling, undeniable, impossible to ignore.
1. Introduction: The Sputnik moment the West failed to notice
The debasing and futile act of supplication in D. C. ought to have jolted the West’s strategic imagination like the game-changing Sputnik moment – the shock of the small Soviet silver sphere that pierced the heavens, shattering illusions, exposing complacency, and demanding a ruthless reckoning.
The grim summer spectacle in the White House was destined to hammer home, with jarring force, the sterility of yesterday’s doctrines, reflexively invoked as default response. The public fiasco ought to have revealed that true geopolitical stability cannot be cobbled from the debris of a bygone order, but demands that leaders confront new realities, seize initiative, and chart a bolder, decisive course.
Yet despite the palpable, hypertoxic fallout of their policies, material and immaterial alike, Old Europe’s anti-Russian warriors doubled down compulsively on what had evidently failed – military buildup to shield against Russia and contain the so-called “predator” – mistaking restless motion for mastery, and chimera for progress.
Like hamsters, European armchair generals barrel forward endlessly on a wheel of their own making, expending ever more effort for ever more strain – trapped in a cruel cycle where spinning breeds pain, and persistence only deepens the folly and absurdity of the manifest charade.
To avert the annihilation of the Old Continent and open the path to a more luminous future for all global stakeholders, its power brokers must embrace strategic reinvention and craft a game-changing geopolitical blueprint – one that is forged through a new, more enlightened cognitive framework, unshackled from the past and attuned to the demands of a new era.
2. Process as enabler: The transformative force of divergent metathinking
Achieving enduring geopolitical stability demands more than a habitual reflex. To excel, Western strategists must confront the limits of their own reasoning and summon bold, truly innovative solutions through what I call “divergent metathinking” – an intellectual crucible for leadership.
This pioneering metacognitive discipline, harnessing process as a transformative enabler, fuses three intertwined operations of the mind into a unified, purposeful force: System 2 reasoning (predominantly asking “what” and “how”), double-loop reflection (harnessing the power of “why”), and open-expanse imagination (daring to explore “what if”).
In practice, however, the opposites of these illuminating modes often coalesce into a single reactive pattern: swift, instinctive impulses dominate (System 1), assumptions persist unchallenged (single loop), and convention stifles imagination (boxed mind).
This amalgam of mental shortcuts is nothing more than a mere reflex – unworthy of the title “thinking”. Cognitive habits, social pressures, and institutional norms conspire to create a predictable, rigid, and suffocating landscape of the mind – ripe for disruption by the liberating force of divergent metathinking.
In three decisive ways, this new discipline of reflective cognitive practice breaks from the status quo and transcends it – hence the Greek prefix meta (μετά, meaning “beyond”): beyond instinct, beyond assumption, beyond constraint.
But insight alone is never enough. To be of consequence, it must be forged into a lofty vision, hammered into a shrewd strategy, and executed with ruthless precision. Such mastery demands a veritable transmutation – of organizations, of behavior, of cognition itself.
At its core, divergent metathinking runs on three interlocking engines, each amplifying the others, each propelling thought beyond old limits to remake the world.
System 2 reasoning
Many of our actions are guided by the snap judgments of System 1 – the intuitive, reflexive mind, relying on gut feeling, pattern recognition, and heuristics. It operates unconsciously and effortlessly – jerking a hand from a hot stove, snatching a cookie without thought, or driving a familiar route on autopilot. A formidable ally in executing routine tasks, it can swiftly turn into a subtle saboteur, prone to bias and error when confronted with the novel and the complex.
System 2 thinking counterbalances this instinctive mode, hinging on careful deliberation grounded in logical analysis and factual evidence. Raising questions such as, “What is the most rational course of action, informed by every shred of data, known or to be discovered” or “How should we allocate resources to maximize impact”, it calls for conscious reasoning, penetrating reflection, and uncompromising control: taking precautions to avoid injury, weighing nutrition choices, or planning around road closures.
It is this deliberate, analytical, fact-driven reasoning that empowers movers and shakers to tackle complex problems and forge decisions with positive, transformative, and enduring impact. In particular, engaging System 2 is an indispensable requirement for charting a course with clarity and insight in today’s turbulent, complex, and perilous geopolitical arena, fraught with high-stakes, multifaceted challenges.
Double-loop reflection
Most people operate in single-loop mode: patching errors without ever challenging the assumptions that produced them. Like a thermostat that merely nudges the temperature back to a preset point, or police increasing patrols to reduce crime, they treat symptoms instead of zeroing in on root causes – forfeiting the chance to lay the groundwork for truly resolving the real, underlying problem.
Double-loop thinking shatters that simplicity, plumbing the depths of understanding. It runs on two intertwined feedback loops: one addressing visible actions, the other probing the bedrock assumptions, asking whether the mental models, systems, goals, or methods themselves need to change, thereby opening the door to more fundamental, transformative, and sustainable solutions.
By repeatedly asking “why”, problem-solvers operating in this mode transcend quick fixes. Rather than merely correcting errors on the surface (a single feedback loop), they interrogate the latent beliefs that shape their understanding of a problem and, if necessary, alter them while reframing the challenge itself.
Return to the thermostat: Instead of simply adjusting the heat, the double-loop thinker asks the hard meta-question, “Should the target temperature itself be different?” The same principle applies to policing: Rather than addressing crime merely in a knee-jerk, seat-of-the-pants fashion by ramping up surveillance, a resourceful mind might explore whether deep-seated social inequalities lie at its root and, if so, enact systemic changes.
Or consider education: When pupils fail, a single-loop teacher piles on extra worksheets; a double-loop educator questions the very assumptions behind learning, rethinks methods, and creates architectures that genuinely empower understanding.
Open-expanse imagination
What I call “open-expanse imagination” – the antithesis of boxed thinking – is the art of perception without limits. As an exploratory, unconstrained, and audacious approach to generating ideas, it transcends convention – a true exercise in “meta” thinking. This operation of the mind sparks curiosity, opens fresh perspectives, and incubates visionary, boundary-free concepts. Imagine the steppe: a vast, seemingly limitless plain stretching to the horizon, unbounded and untamed.
An open-expanse mind dares to sense, apprehend, and envision the world anew, embracing radical, unthinkable alternatives. He contemplates questions like, “What if everything we thought we knew was wrong?” and, before any consideration of budget, technology, or practicality, “What if anything were possible?”
To fully grasp the power of open-expanse inquiry, imagine, by way of example, a world in which delivery drones replace every urban courier truck – just one of countless possibilities waiting to be conceived.
In fact, many of the marvels we take for granted today – like the internet in every pocket or instant global communication – sprang from what might be called a “disruptive meta-thinker”, bold enough to envision the seemingly impossible and bring it to life.
3. Practicing divergent metathinking: Harnessing smart questions as catalysts
A sharp, discerning mind does not merely answer questions – it interrogates both questions and answers.
Consider a wise business advisor: He resists the instinctive urge to respond hastily, pausing to probe whether the question itself is truly the right one. If it is not, he reframes it to uncover the root causes of a conundrum and unlock enduring solutions. Before moving to implementation, he meticulously scrutinizes every answer, leaving no stone unturned.
Sharp, analytical questioning is the opening gambit that ignites three-dimensional divergent metathinking. Remarkably, the triad of cardinal operations at the heart of this new discipline of mind can be simultaneously galvanized into purposeful, expansive motion by one single, thought-provoking question. It is summoned to shatter any specious inquiries of the past, which habitually funneled thought into blind alleys and dead ends, thereby closing off horizons of possibility.
By enthroning reason above instinct, such an overarching, catalytic question awakens and nurtures the full force of System 2 thinking – systematic, analytical data processing that opens horizons of deliberation previously unseen. When the query probes underlying assumptions, the inquirer also taps the power of double-loop reflection. And, as a crowning flourish, questions aimed at creative breakthroughs unleash open-expanse imagination with boundless potential.
As a fitting overture, even the opening lead question itself deserves to be held aloft, turned in the light, and scrutinized through the prism of divergent metathinking.
In geopolitics, applying the analytical rigor of slow System 2 thinking to problem framing yields an unmistakable lesson: Anti-Russian hawks in Old Europe are evidently pursuing a flawed line of inquiry.
To break free, Western strategists must leapfrog into divergent metathinking, scrutinizing and reframing their implicit, habitual geopolitical question – the myopic one that ensnares them in the hamster wheel of military escalation: “How can we defend ourselves and our allies against Russia, the unprovoked aggressor, and decisively deter it from ever attacking European nations again?”
Analytically refracted through a System 2 lens, this structurally flawed line of inquiry exemplifies the perils of the complex-question fallacy. It is loaded, masking several biased, question-begging assumptions – “begging” to be proven – much like asking, “When did you stop beating your wife?”.
Such a manipulative interrogation is an insidious trap, cornering opponents by implicitly presuming guilt before any evidence has been provided. In the marital example, the questioner presumes the husband has been inflicting violence on his wife, though this has not been established.
Any response to such an inappropriate, loaded inquiry surrenders to its dubious premise. Yet, as a caveat, it must be recognized that a complex question is deemed fallacious only when its embedded claims are contested.
Time for a dose of double-loop scrutiny: The hawkish security-related query on Russia brazenly conceals three unproven assumptions, nested like Matryoshka dolls. First, that Russia is an aggressor; second, that its supposed aggression was unprovoked; and third, that this alleged habitual, unprovoked aggressor must be deterred – assumptions accepted uncritically, shaping policy with unchecked force. Beyond being loaded, this surreptitious question corrals thought into unproductive channels, setting loose a self-perpetuating vicious cycle of fear and hostility.
Manifestly, Russia’s leaders would dismiss each of the embedded conjectures as patent falsehoods. Concerning the alleged lack of provocation, they would adduce the attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) on Donbass that preceded the Special Military Operation (SMO). Russian power brokers would also bristle at the label “aggressor”, insisting that the SMO constitutes a defense of the motherland. Beyond this, they would dispute the implicit assumption that Russia must be deterred, asserting that it is a peace-loving nation, posing no threat to any other state.
Answers are fleeting, tied to circumstance; but the right question is a genuine paradigm-shifter, unfurling new horizons of thought. The challenge, then, is incontestable: What inquiry could supplant the fallacious construct, liberating Western strategists from the hamster wheel of escalation?
As a provocation for thought, policymakers might in the first instance ask: “What bold, innovative approaches could transform Europe’s relationship with Russia, forging a profound, enduring, and mutually beneficial partnership, capable of unfreezing a sustainable peace dividend?”
Better still, once incisive analysis and relentless scrutiny of assumptions have stripped away every vestige of illusion, Europe’s hawks might infuse their inquiry with open-expanse imagination, daring to ask: “What if Russia, long cast as the threat, could instead become Europe’s greatest security asset?”
Undoubtedly, this alchemical question – the kind that catalyzes iteration upon iteration of divergent metathinking – can summon bold, revolutionary solutions to the security conundrum, casting Russia not as a looming threat but reimagining it as a boundless wellspring of unprecedented opportunity. What might such a novel, groundbreaking blueprint look like when rendered in paradigmatic form?
[Part 5 of a series on European defense. To be continued. Previous columns in the series:
The initiative seeks to make the press, content creators, and social media financially liable for false claims and baseless accusations
US President Donald Trump has shared a video calling for a law that would make media outlets, content creators, and social media networks financially liable for making false claims and unsubstantiated accusations against anyone.
The president reposted a short clip on Truth Social that was originally published on TikTok by a woman going by the name Elly May. There, she calls on him and his administration to reinstate the Smith‑Mundt Act, which, according to her, “held news corporations accountable for lying to the American people and spreading propaganda instead of truth.”
A piece of Cold War-era legislation, the Smith‑Mundt Act was aimed at preventing domestic dissemination of US media content intended for foreign audiences, such as from Voice of America or Radio Liberty. Contrary to what May said in her video, it was not repealed under former US President Barack Obama and is still in force. It also has nothing to do with holding US news media accountable for spreading false narratives at home.
In the video, May also urged Trump to name it “the Charlie Kirk Act” after the conservative activist murdered this week. She accused the media of bringing “chaos, hatred, division, and anarchy all across this country” and also linked Kirk’s death to “constant hateful rhetoric” he faced online and in the media.
Trump did not comment on May’s video in his repost. A petition of a similar nature launched on Change.org on Saturday got nearly 43,000 signatures in about a day. Directed at Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, it also called on them to introduce strict penalties against news media, content creators, and social networks for spreading “false narratives,” baseless accusations or employing “unfair” censorship.
Kirk, 31, the founder of Turning Point USA, was killed while addressing students at a college in Orem, Utah, on Wednesday. A suspect arrested in connection to the case was “deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology,” according to Utah Governor Spencer Cox. In the wake of the incident, Trump vowed to pursue not only Kirk’s murderer but also what he called the “radical left” networks that fuel political violence.
The militant group’s leadership is blocking ceasefire negotiations, the Israeli prime minister has claimed
Killing the Hamas leaders in Qatar would clear the way to ending the Gaza conflict and the return of Israeli hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday, just days after the Jewish state bombed the militant group’s top members in Doha.
Hamas has said that its leadership was not taken out by the Israeli attack, which it described as an attempt to assassinate negotiators working on a potential settlement to the Gaza conflict.
“The Hamas terrorists chiefs” in Doha have “blocked all ceasefire attempts in order to endlessly drag out the war,” Netanyahu claimed.
“Getting rid of them would rid the main obstacle to releasing all our hostages and ending the war,” Netanyahu wrote on X on Saturday.
The Hamas terrorists chiefs living in Qatar don't care about the people in Gaza.
They blocked all ceasefire attempts in order to endlessly drag out the war.
Getting rid of them would rid the main obstacle to releasing all our hostages and ending the war.
Qatar has hosted several rounds of Israel-Hamas negotiations, mediating talks that led to two temporary ceasefires in the Gaza war, one in 2023 and another earlier this year. It has accused Israel of “state terrorism” after the attack on its territory.
US President Donald Trump has also condemned the strike and distanced himself from it. “I view Qatar as a strong Ally and friend of the US, and feel very badly about the location of the attack,” he said on Tuesday, adding that it was solely Netanyahu’s decision.
The Trump administration’s frustration with the Israeli prime minister has deepened since the attack on Qatar, Politico wrote on Thursday. “Every time they’re making progress, it seems like he bombs someone,” the outlet cited a White House official as saying.
Moscow has denounced the Israeli attack as a flagrant violation of international law and an attempt to derail the settlement process. Qatar plays a “key mediating role in indirect talks between Hamas and Israel,” and striking it could only be viewed as an attempt to undermine peace efforts, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
The alleged shooter admitted to acquaintances on Discord, however, that he killed the conservative activist, Spencer Cox has said
The suspected assassin of conservative activist Charlie Kirk is refusing to cooperate with the investigation, Utah Governor Spencer Cox has told ABC. The authorities are currently gathering evidence from “people around him” and his online activities, according to the governor.
Tyler Robinson, 22, the alleged shooter, remains in custody. He is expected to face formal charges on Tuesday, Cox said. “He has not confessed… to authorities. He … is not cooperating,” the governor stated, adding that “all the people around him are cooperating.”
Cox noted that the suspect had a trans partner, confirming earlier media reports. “We can confirm that… his roommate was indeed a boyfriend who is transitioning from… male to female,” which was also verified by the FBI, he said. This person is cooperating with the authorities, according to the governor.
The investigators also established that the suspect talked to acquaintances about the shooting after the incident on Discord and claimed responsibility for it, Cox stated. “All we can confirm is that those conversations definitely were happening, and they did not believe it was actually him. It was … all joking until… he admitted that it actually was him.”
The motive of the murder remains unclear, according to ABC. Cox previously told the Wall Street Journal that Robinson was “deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology.” Asked by ABC to comment on the statement, he replied: “so far, that has come from his acquaintances and his family members.”
Kirk, 31, the founder of Turning Point USA, was fatally shot in the neck while addressing students in Orem, Utah. Robinson was arrested on Friday after his father reportedly recognized him in surveillance footage and persuaded him to surrender.
Police recovered a Mauser .30 caliber bolt-action rifle and ammunition engraved with slogans such as “Hey fascist! Catch!” near the shooting scene.
US President Donald Trump said in the wake of the incident that Kirk’s murderer should face the death penalty. Cox also previously said the authorities would seek capital punishment for the assassin.
Washington wants migrants worldwide to seek protection only in the first country they enter, Reuters and Bloomberg have reported
The US is planning to press for curbs on global migration at the United Nations this month, insisting that asylum seekers should request protection in the first country they enter rather than choosing their preferred destination, according to several media reports.
The current global asylum system “has long been abused by bad actors and economic migrants to fuel the global migration crisis,” the State Department’s statement cited by Bloomberg said, adding that the administration of US President Donald Trump believes that these “abuses have disrupted entire regions, enriched criminal cartels, and violated the sovereignty of nations.”
According to Reuters, US officials have prepared an event to be held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York later in September, which is expected to call for “commonsense and necessary reforms” to the asylum system.
Under the proposed framework, asylum seekers would be required to claim protection in the first country they reach, not a destination of their choosing, a State Department spokesperson told the Daily Caller. The official added that the administration’s position is that every nation has a right to control its borders, asylum should be temporary, and host governments should decide when conditions in a person’s home country are safe enough for return.
Reuters noted that the Trump administration’s plan could mark a significant shift from global migration policies that have been in place since the middle of the 20th century, noting, however, that the US has no authority to unilaterally change the global framework.
Trump has made curbing migration in the US a centerpiece of his domestic and foreign policy. He has repeatedly warned against so-called migrant “caravans” from Latin America, portraying them as a threat and claiming they were full of criminals. Rights groups, however, argue that these groups consist mainly of poor people fleeing gang violence who travel together for protection.
The Trump administration has also tightened domestic asylum rules, declared a national emergency on the southern US border, increased deportations, and pressured Latin American governments to stop migrant flows.
The suspects, who were detained in Georgia, could have been planning to smuggle the materials into Russia or derail local elections, officials have claimed
Georgia has arrested two Ukrainians carrying high-grade explosives, allegedly supplied by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), local officials have said. They are investigating whether the explosives were destined for sabotage operations in Russia or to disrupt Georgia’s upcoming local elections set for early October.
In a statement on Thursday, Georgia’s State Security Service (SSG) said that a vehicle with Ukrainian plates entered via a checkpoint on the Turkish border, after travelling through Romania and Bulgaria. Hidden in secret compartments were 2.4 kg of hexogen, which SSG called significantly more powerful than TNT.
According to the SSG, one of the detainees testified that SBU officers in Ukraine handed the explosives to the driver, instructing him to deliver them after crossing into Georgia to another person.
SSG Deputy Head Lasha Magradze stated that one of the detainees claimed that the material was meant for use against Russia in a bid to repeat the so-called operation Spiderweb – a Ukrainian drone attack in June that targeted Russia’s strategic aviation. Moscow confirmed several aircraft were damaged by the dozens of drones sent but rejected Kiev’s claims that around 40 warplanes were destroyed.
However, Magradze also pointed out that some evidence supports the version that the suspects could have been seeking to disrupt the local government elections set for October 4. Kaha Kaladze, the mayor of Tbilisi and a senior figure in the ruling Georgian Dream party, echoed the concerns, saying the material could have been intended for opposition factions aiming to stir chaos in the ex-Soviet state.
In addition, Georgia is located relatively close to TurkStream and BlueStream pipelines in the Black Sea, which carry Russian gas to Türkiye. Moscow has in the past accused Ukraine of attempting to sabotage TurkStream.
Russian counterintelligence services have on multiple occasions reported arresting Ukrainian agents accused of planning infrastructure attacks. Moscow has frequently labelled such activities as “terrorism.”
Kiev may need $10-20 billion more than previously planned to sustain the conflict with Russia, the agency has reportedly said
Ukraine faces a growing funding gap that could require billions more in outside support to finance its conflict with Russia, Bloomberg has reported, citing sources from the International Monetary Fund.
Ukraine, which spends around 60% of its budget on the conflict, relies heavily on Western assistance to cover pensions, public wages, essential services, debt, and humanitarian needs. It obtained a $15.5 billion loan from the IMF in early 2023 to cover some of the expenses and has already received around $10.6 billion, but the financing program was based on the assumption that the conflict would end this year and expires in 2027.
Kiev requested a new funding plan earlier this week, estimating that it will need up to $37.5 billion over the next two years if the conflict continues. But according to the Bloomberg report on Thursday, the IMF believes Ukraine may need $10-20 billion more than this, raising the total to $57.5 billion.
IMF spokeswoman Julie Kozack confirmed on Thursday that the agency has begun talks with Kiev on a new support program, but did not acknowledge the reported shortfall. Sources told Bloomberg that Kiev and the IMF are expected to settle on a figure for the new loan next week. Ukraine’s cabinet and Finance Ministry declined to comment on the report.
Ukraine has struggled to secure new aid from its main backers. US contributions have dwindled since President Donald Trump’s return to office, leaving the EU as the biggest donor. One method pursued by the West has been to use profits from the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets abroad. Last year, the G7 backed a $50 billion loan plan to be repaid from these earnings.
Some Western countries have called for the full confiscation of Russian assets, while others warn of legal risks. Nevertheless, the profits have already been tapped, with the EU, which pledged $21 billion under the program, disbursing roughly half of the amount so far this year.
Russia has warned that financial and military aid to Ukraine only prolongs the conflict and has denounced the use of frozen assets as “robbery” which violates international law and erodes trust in the Western financial system.
Brussels must adapt to the US president’s way of conducting business and politics, Kaja Kallas has said
The EU must improve relations with US President Donald Trump, the “most influential man in the world,” and adapt to his way of doing business and politics, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, has said.
Kallas made the remarks in an interview with German outlet RND published on Friday. She was asked whether the EU can still trust Trump after a much-criticized trade deal that imposed a 15% tariff on most exports from the bloc while lifting tariffs on US industrial goods. The deal, which also involved shifting from Russian energy to US imports, sparked backlash from EU officials, who said it favors Washington.
“The US is and remains our most important partner. But the new administration has clearly changed how it conducts policy and official business. We Europeans must adapt and adjust to their way of working,” Kallas said, adding that Trump’s tariffs have become a “new benchmark for how well a country gets along with the US.”
“Trump is the most influential man in the world… We simply have to learn how to work with him.”
Kallas also said any settlement of the Ukraine conflict is unlikely without Trump’s involvement, claiming that only the US “has the power to force Russia into serious peace negotiations.” She expressed hope that Trump will follow through on earlier threats and impose further sanctions on Moscow.
Russia has not been targeted with US tariffs due to the existing sanctions, but Trump has threatened tariffs on its trade partners if the Ukraine conflict is not resolved quickly. Last month, he doubled the tariffs on India to 50%, accusing it of aiding Moscow by buying Russian oil and defense equipment, and hinted at new measures against China.
This week, Trump signaled that he could further sanction Russia if NATO members stop buying its oil, arguing that the military bloc’s commitment to Ukraine peace efforts is insufficient.
Russia has denounced the Western sanctions as illegal, and has said it is open to talks on Ukraine, but stressed that any peace deal must address the root causes of the conflict and include Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and recognition of the new territorial realities.
