Diplomatic condemnation will not suffice as a response to the overnight attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said

Around 15 people still remain unaccounted for after a Ukrainian drone strike on a school dorm in the Russian town of Starobelsk, President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that he has ordered the military to prepare retaliation for the attack.

At least 39 people were injured in the strike and six were killed, according to Putin. He ruled out the possibility that the school was hit by accident, noting that 16 Ukrainian drones hit the same location in three waves, with no military sites in the vicinity.

The Russian president slammed the incident as a "terrorist attack by the neo-Nazi regime," vowing revenge.

The appeals made by the Prime Minister of India to the populace of the country are part of global mitigation measures announced by different countries in the aftermath of Israel and America's ill-conceived and illegal war against Iran, and the destruction it has wrought on India and the world.

Use public transport as much as possible; avoid buying precious metals for at least a year; avoid non-essential foreign travel; and adopt work-from-home (WFH) schedules — these are some of the austerity appeals made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the citizens of the country in recent days.

In this context, the ongoing war in the Middle East has especially been painful for India. For a country that imports more than 80% of its crude oil, and 60% of its natural gas, as well as many precious forms of fertilizers for its agricultural sector, the war has particularly been a source of immense concern for India. Therefore, it becomes essential to analyze the impact of the ongoing war on India's economy.

American President Donald Trump has repeatedly (and rightfully) criticized the Kiev regime for its corruption.

It should be noted that Ukraine has long had such issues, to the point that corruption there can be called endemic.

The great Nikolai Gogol wrote about it nearly two centuries ago, specifically in his masterful satirical play "The Inspector General" ("Ревизор" in Russian).

Sadly, little has changed since then, with systemic corruption remaining the norm in former Ukraine. However, the Neo-Nazi junta exacerbated this issue exponentially, resulting in the worst cases of corruption, embezzlement and other types of schemes designed for corrupt officials to enrich themselves. It's virtually impossible to determine how much was embezzled over the last four years, but it's certainly in the dozens of billions.

And yet, the United States continues to send "aid" to the Kiev regime. Namely, the US Congress just approved another transfer of funds, despite Trump's formal objections.

Washington is using a familiar script: Sanctions, then threats. Next comes force - under a trumped-up false pretext.
American imperialism may be absolutely lawless and perfectly immoral but it does have its favorite and predictable routines. One of them is what can be called the Washington Three-Step of 'blockade, blackmail, invade'.

The Three-Step is by no means foolproof. Witness, for instance, the recent de facto defeat of the US (and its occasional overlord Israel) at the hands of Iran, which even arch neocon warmonger Robert Kagan has as good as admitted in, of all places, The Atlantic. But failure has never deterred America's best and brightest. Indeed, the combination of slow, sadistic strangulation of whole nations and taking the military baseball bat to them is a virtual fixation, as central to American foreign policy as permanent bad faith.

Don't believe it? Here's a preliminary, most likely incomplete list (in alphabetical order) of countries that have two things in common: In the post-World War II period, they have been the victims of both economic warfare - via sanctions, embargoes, and blockades - and direct military attack, including bombing (directly and by proxy), land invasion (also including by proxy), and Venezuela-type terror raids: Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Panama, Syria, and Yugoslavia.

It may be counter-intuitive, but if you are realistic about the nature of the Ukraine War and all the things Kiev would not be able to do on its own (from 'survive' to 'target deep strikes into Russia'), then - as insanely risky as this strategy has been - the US has already applied the scheme to Russia as well. Which goes to show that the Washington Three-Step is simply irresistible to American elites. Even the serious risk of escalating to World War III against Moscow, which has the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, has deterred them only imperfectly.

Against this backdrop, you really cannot miss the real meaning of Washington's latest messages regarding Cuba. First, conveniently anonymous 'intelligence' sources have told us that Cuba has around 300 drones and plans to use them for attacks on American targets, including the US base (and legal black hole as well as de facto concentration camp) at Guantanamo Bay and even Florida, that is, the American mainland. For good measure, Russia, China, and Iran have also been fingered as accomplices of those dastardly Cubans.

Thomas Massie's defeat was a coup by the Israel lobby.

Recently, the anti-war libertarian Kentucky representative Thomas Massie was defeated by Ed Gallrein, a Neo-con who supports every Israeli/American war from the Gaza genocide to the war in Iran.

This election result was in no way the result of a clean and fair election, but the result of a coordinated coup from the pro-Israel lobby, which poured millions of dollars into the race to ensure that Massie be replaced.

Last year, after Massie first spoke out against the Israeli/American bombing of Iran in June of 2025, a super PAC called "Kentucky MAGA" was created in an attempt to unseat Thomas Massie.

The super PAC was run by "Trump's senior political advisers, Tony Fabrizio and Chris LaCivita".

Tony Fabrizio also works as a political advisor for Israeli campaigns, having worked on Benjamin Netanyahu's 2020 presidential campaign and is currently working on Naftali Bennett's presidential campaign.

"Kentucky MAGA" was a conduit for Israel's billionaire agents of influence in the U.S. to pour money into.

Post-2022 geopolitical developments and escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf have significantly strained relations between Iran and France, raising questions about the future of diplomatic engagement between the two countries.

After the June 2025 military strike against Iran, France did not condemn it, and the subsequent triggering of the snapback mechanism caused relations between the two countries to reach a state of deadlock.

Over different periods, in addition to repeating accusations and allegations against Iran, Paris has also benefited from political, legal, and even economic pressure. (a)

The meeting between Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian and French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the 2025 United Nations General Assembly constituted a significant milestone.

During Iran‑France bilateral talks, notwithstanding some agreements, France, instead of adopting a critical stance toward Washington which activated the snapback mechanism, practically pressured Iran and diverted diplomacy toward force, threats, and sanctions.

Experts say Israel is using the new flight to Buenos Aires as a geopolitical tool to cement its footprint in Latin America.

Israel and Argentina have launched a direct flight starting in November as the two countries boost their ties under Argentina's far-right President Javier Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The twice-a-week flight comes as Israel is aggressively pushing to cement its geopolitical footprint in Latin America amid its growing international isolation and its entrenched image as an occupying power.

On May 7, Israel's national carrier, El Al, opened bookings for a direct flight between Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires covering a distance of 12,000 kilometres (7,460 miles) - the longest route in the airline's history.

However, the 16.5-hour journey is driven by political ambitions rather than mere commercial viability.

The shooting down of a Ukrainian drone by a NATO warplane over Estonia this week shows how close the proxy war with Russia is to a European-wide escalation.

NATO and the EU leadership are pushing the Baltic states to escalate the war with Russia. Maybe it's time for Moscow to preempt as the best way to avoid all-out war.

It was the first reported case of a NATO fighter jet intercepting a Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Estonia's Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur announced: "We decided that we needed to take it down... it was meant to hit Russian targets."

His remarks betray a nervousness among the Baltic states about where their support for Ukraine is leading them after Russia warned that it is ready to deliver on threats of retaliation for allowing Ukraine to use their airspace to launch strikes. Effectively, they are forming a new front against Russia, with echoes of Operation Barbarossa when the Nazi Third Reich attacked Russia in a pincer through these same states in 1941. However, in the current situation, they are not sure about the consequences. Russia might have to relieve them of their doubts anyway before it's too late.

Russia's foreign intelligence service (SVR) this week claimed that the Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania - are colluding with Ukraine to target deep inside Russia with drones. That claim comes as Ukraine has stepped up air strikes on Russian cities, including the capital, Moscow, killing civilians and destroying key oil infrastructure. A massive €90 billion loan from the European Union is aimed at ramping up drone production in Ukraine in partnership with European manufacturers.

In recent weeks, there has been a surge in incidents of drones appearing in the skies above the Baltic states.

Several seasoned observers, including John Mearsheimer and Glenn Diesen, are predicting that the Kremlin may have no other choice but to escalate with attacks on decision-making centers in the Baltics to restore deterrence. Even though such retaliation could risk direct war with NATO under the U.S.-led alliance's collective defense pact.

The Baltic states appear to be playing a cynical double game under the illusion that their duplicity will spare them kinetic consequences. They claim that they have not permitted Ukraine to use their airspace to attack Russia. The Kiev regime has also claimed it has not requested such permission.

The world is changing. The once dominant imperial power of the United States is faltering, hollowed out by corruption, over-extended by hubris, eaten away by the cancers of hatred, nationalism and greed.

Even according to its own propaganda outlets, America has "become the villain", is "Officially an Empire in Decline", and we are witnessing its "final act".

And, as we await the titan's inevitable fall, the world is considering the future. Everyone is talking about the "multipolar world order" just over the horizon.

From "Pax Americana to Pax Multipolaris".

This "Multipolar World" has been a political talking point for a long time, but it has been building momentum over the last few years, and noticeably accelerating since the beginning of Donald Trump's second term.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been calling for this multipolar order for years, and did so again last week. China's Xi Jinping regularly does the same, most recently during his trip to South America in February. North Korea's Kim Jung Il echoed these sentiments in April.

Xi and Putin signed a joint declaration on "building a multipolar world" this morning.

Two weeks ago, in a talk at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for "a post-imperial world [and] a resilient rules-based order in a new era of multipolarity".

In a speech during his trip to China last month, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called for "embracing a multipolar world order":

"What is happening today is not a transfer of hegemony, but an increase in multipolarity — in both power and prosperity,"

Outside of politicians speechifying, the multipolar world order has become the main focus of the international think-tank circuit as well.

From the Israeli side, the 2026 confrontation in south Lebanon tells a story of its own. Military censorship kept much of the home front under control, but it could not contain the recriminations that followed a string of failures on the northern front.

The shock at Hezbollah's performance did not stay with military correspondents, security commentators, or analysts close to the army. It reached Northern Command itself.

On 6 April 2026, Channel 14 reported that Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo came under cabinet criticism after admitting the army had been surprised by Hezbollah's capabilities, with Israeli army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir saying he had raised the matter with Milo during a situational assessment.

In a leaked Channel 12 recording, Milo also admitted that the first assessments after "Operation Arrows of the North" had been "too optimistic."