Cognitive war

Iran is threatening to attack energy facilities, undersea telecommunications cables, and data centers and artificial intelligence infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region if the United States and Israel resume their bombing campaign. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said that Tehran could strike targets in as many as seven regional countries, and that if Iran

Bulgaria would continue to fulfill its financial commitments to support Ukraine through the European Peace Facility, but insists that its contribution not be used to purchase new lethal weapons. According to a report by the Bulgarian state news agency BTA, the government in Sofia therefore decided on October 21 to apply so-called constructive abstention, which allows it to stay out of such support

Russia is once again trying to influence the American election with a broad disinformation campaign, this time ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. That is the claim of the senior Democratic members of Congress's two intelligence committees, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia and Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, who on Wednesday received a classified briefing on election security. The b

Witkoff, the real estate agent whom demented American President Donald Trump appointed as presidential envoy to advance peace in Ukraine — meaning he has full authority to negotiate, to blackmail, to flatter, to relay promises and to collect counter-promises — put on a show in St. Petersburg yesterday that would make any thinking, decent person feel sheer nausea. But let's start at the beginning.

Russia has released Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old American citizen whom Moscow accused of fighting as a mercenary on Ukraine's side. Vladimir Putin announced on Wednesday in St. Petersburg, during talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff, that Hubbard had already been taken to Pulkovo Airport. The Michigan-born retired teacher was sentenced by a Moscow court in 2024, at the age of 72, to nearly

On Tuesday, October 20, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed security guarantees for Ukraine with US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Oslo, while Kyiv has to face the fact that Washington is also making uncertain the cooperation needed for its current defense. After the meeting, Zelensky said that the various versions of the guarantees had been compiled into a single document, which Witk

We're getting close to the point where, if a head of state or government wants to win the next election, they should pay Donald Trump to publicly badmouth them. According to a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) between October 8 and 16, 54 percent of Ukrainians trust Volodymyr Zelensky, while 41 percent do not.

Iran is deliberately prolonging negotiations with the United States in order to politically weaken Donald Trump ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, G4Media reported, citing Reuters, which in turn cited three senior Iranian officials and an additional Iranian source. “The clerical leadership is determined not to give Trump a political victory,” the news agency quoted one of the anonymous off

On Tuesday, the parliament of eastern Libya approved the maritime boundary agreement that Turkey signed in 2019 with the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, then internationally recognized. This retroactively grants the blessing of the eastern part of the country, controlled by General Khalifa Haftar, to a treaty that Greece, Cyprus and Egypt have considered unlawful from the outset.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking on Tuesday in India, where he is taking part in trade talks, called allegations that the United States is deliberately restricting the intelligence information it shares with Ukraine, thereby contributing to the deaths of Ukrainian civilians, “scandalous” and “outrageous.” “I saw someone linked to the Ukrainian government claim that people in Ukraine are

Talks are at an advanced stage on two Israeli defense companies, Israel Shipyards and Rafael, supplying the Republic of Cyprus's navy with warships equipped with advanced weapons systems. The deal, worth around 150 million euros, could be signed in the coming weeks once the two countries' defense ministries finalize the terms. According to the plans, Israel Shipyards would build the vessels, while

On Monday, outside the White House, US President Donald Trump told reporters that Russia “is actually behaving pretty decently with Ukraine” and “not doing too much.” On the very same day, a Russian drone struck a park in the Kharkiv region in broad daylight, killing six people, including two children, according to a report by the Kyiv Independent. The night before, Russia had attacked Kyiv with m

Kim Jong-un has not died, at least according to Pyongyang, which on Tuesday released new photographs of the North Korean leader after rumors of his death spread like wildfire on social media over the weekend. In footage from the state news agency KCNA, Kim is shown visiting a clothing and footwear industry exhibition in Pyongyang on Monday, October 19, accompanied by his wife, Ri Sol-ju, and daugh

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has for weeks failed to approve the transfer of a major shipment of Patriot air-defense missiles to Ukraine, even though Ukraine's allies have already paid for the weapons. This was reported to the Kyiv Independent by a senior Ukrainian official and two Ukrainian military officers, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter. “The contracts fo

According to Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, Warsaw has evidence that Russia supported Viktor Orbán's government and worked closely with it. The head of Polish diplomacy spoke about this in a lengthy interview given to Gazeta Wyborcza, in response to a question about whether the European populists enjoying Moscow's backing could be considered the Kremlin's fifth column. He said the evid

In the span of a week, Ukraine has learned just how fragile is the satellite network on which its drones, troop communications and much of its air defense depend. Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, categorically denied on Sunday reports that the White House had ordered restrictions on Starlink in Ukraine. He said no one at the White House had instructed anyone to slow down the internet, add

On the night from Saturday to Sunday, Ukraine launched the war's largest drone attack to date on Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, and this time even Moscow could not deny the damage. Saint Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov himself admitted that a fire broke out at the city's oil terminal, at the Ruchyi oil depot, and at industrial warehouses in the southern Kolpino district.

Robert Brovdi, callsign “Magyar,” commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, needs no introduction to our readers. His occasionally blunt manner, unusually unvarnished for diplomacy, produces exactly the attention-grabbing effect he needs. He has already spoken about the West's lag in drone warfare, citing the example that half a dozen Ukrainian drone pilots could bulldoze the entire Ramstein

Near Huliaipole in Zaporizhzhia region, Russian soldiers shot dead on orders two wounded, unarmed Ukrainian prisoners of war, while the Ukrainian army listened in on the radio as it happened. Maksym Kravchuk, spokesperson for the Southern Defense Forces, told Ukrainska Pravda on Saturday that the intercepted Russian radio communication clearly contained the order: the wounded Ukrainians were to be

Slovakia will not join the 70-billion-euro aid package that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky requested from European leaders on Thursday at the EU summit in Brussels. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, speaking to the TASR news agency,said that Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar made the same decision, and that Prague is not asking for a share of the package either, since Czech Prime Mini