Russia, on the contrary, experiences no shortage of army volunteers, the president has said.

Ukrainian recruitment officials have been catching would-be soldiers "like dogs" in the country's streets, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

Putin made the remarks on Tuesday during a meeting with members of 'Business Russia,' during which he noted that Russia has been enjoying a steady flow of volunteers to fight against Ukraine.

"While the Kiev authorities are engaged in forced mobilization - people are caught like dogs on the street, then our guys go voluntarily, they go themselves... They are catching 30 thousand people there now, and we have 50-60 thousand a month enlisting willingly."

Ukraine launched a general mobilization following the escalation of the conflict with Russia in early 2022, barring most men aged between 18 and 60 years old from leaving the country and setting the conscription age at 27. Last year, faced with mounting losses and manpower shortages, Kiev lowered the limit to 25, while introducing stricter penalties for draft dodgers and simplifying other mobilization rules.

The Pentagon is halting gender-affirming healthcare for transgender troops as it moves to implement President Donald Trump's plan to kick them out of the U.S. military, according to a memo seen by Reuters on Monday.

The instructions from the Defense Department barred any new hormone treatments as well as any surgical procedures for transgender troops, the memo said.

"I am directing you to take the necessary steps to immediately implement this guidance," Stephen Ferrara, the acting assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said in the memo.

Senior intelligence officials told Fox News Digital DNI Gabbard is moving the National Intelligence Council to ODNI

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has fired the top officials leading the National Intelligence Council - whom whistleblowers describe as "radically opposed to Trump" — and has moved the agency to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, to ensure she can block any "politicization of intelligence," Fox News Digital has learned.

Gabbard fired Mike Collins, who was serving as the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, and his deputy, Maria Langan-Riekhof, Tuesday, senior intelligence officials told Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital reached out Langan-Riekhof for comment and did not immediately hear back, and couldn't immediately find contact information for Collins.

After patiently proposing to Benjamin Netanyahu that he negotiate with the Palestinian resistance and meeting only a stubborn determination to massacre the Palestinians, annex Gaza, southern Lebanon and Syria, and launch a war against Iran, the Trump administration has changed gears. It is now clear to them, as it has been to everyone who has been interested in this region for 80 years, that revisionist Zionists are the enemies of peace and therefore also of Israel.

The main obstacle Donald Trump faces in his peace negotiations, both with Iran and Ukraine, is the role of the "revisionist Zionists" now in power in Israel. [1] Two weeks ago, I presented in detail and with supporting evidence the pressure they are exerting on Washington to derail the talks with Tehran [2]. I did not address in my column on Voltairenet.org their pressure on behalf of the Ukrainian "integral nationalists" [3], which only became public on May 3, with Natan Sharansky's emphatic statements in support of Volodymyr Zelensky [4]. I have already explained why and how these two groups formed an alliance in 1921 against the Bolsheviks and many Ukrainian Jews, which led to an investigation by the World Zionist Organization and the resignation of Vladimir Jabotinsky from its board of directors. This affair is today underestimated by Jewish historians who are reluctant to study the massacre of Jews by other Jews. There are, however, exceptions such as the work of Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe [5]. Sharansky himself prevents historians from studying the subject by presiding over the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (the shooting of 33,771 Jews on September 29 and 30, 1941) by the Einsatzgruppen and the "integral nationalists" two weeks after Stepan Bandera's transfer from Kyiv to Berlin.

In Rome, the French opposition leader Marine Le Pen warned of a broader campaign by EU elites to suppress dissent across the continent.

Marine Le Pen used a visit to Rome on Saturday to denounce what she called a growing "democratic scandal" within the European Union, following her recent conviction that has barred her from running in France's next presidential election.

Speaking alongside Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the French nationalist leader warned that her case was part of a wider pattern of political suppression aimed at silencing sovereignist movements across Europe.

The US president said the step would help the new government in Damascus "stabilize" the situation in the country.

US President Donald Trump has said he will lift sanctions on Syria, reversing more than a decade of policy aimed at pressuring Damascus. He added that he hoped for a "fresh start" with the transitional government of Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Al-Sharaa, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, came to prominence as the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group with ties to Al-Qaeda which led a coalition of opposition groups that toppled longtime leader Bashar Assad last year.

During an investment forum in Riyadh on Tuesday, Trump said:

"There's a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace. I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness.

"It's their time to shine. We're taking them all off. Good luck Syria, show us something very special."

The US president reportedly plans to meet Al-Sharaa on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia.

Kaja Kallas' delusional and laughably ill-timed announcement, made the day after Russia's 9 May Victory Day triumph in Moscow, that European puppet leaders are planning to establish a "special tribunal" within the framework of the Council of Europe to judge Russia for "aggression" and other alleged crimes in Ukraine jogs some memories from the Hague. ICTY, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, is located there, as the new Tribunal Kallas has mentioned will also be. This writer had spent some of the most interesting years of his life there.

An enduring memory is former Serbian and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who was abducted by the vassal regime installed in his country after the October 2000 colour revolution and sent to the Hague to be put on trial. During his initial appearance in the courtroom, addressing the judges and Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, Milosevic referred to the court as a "false tribunal."

That phrase stuck in my mind. Milosevic's English was adequate, but it was not flawless. Hence the picturesque turn of phrase he used. Had he been more fluent in idiomatic English he would have called it a "phony" or "bogus" tribunal. Instead he translated what he meant to say directly from his native Serbian with a result that was more amusing than academically precise. But no harm was done. In fact, under the circumstances the glaringly unidiomatic locution made his profound point even stronger.

Regrettably, Kaja Kallas has not disclosed technical details about the projected Tribunal which should be made available before the credibility of this venture can be properly assessed. There are several parameters that must be established before any such "court" can be taken seriously.

The first of these is a clear definition of the new judicial body's mandate. It is not enough merely to say that it shall deal with war crimes and crimes against humanity arising from the conflict in the Ukraine since February 2022. Whose crimes will be the subject of the court's investigation and ultimately judgment? Kallas' rationale behind the creation of this court raises serious issues in that regard. She refers exclusively to "Russian crimes," a reference also echoed by EU Commission President Ursula van den Leyen and EU Rule of Law Commissioner Michael McGrath. Has no one else been observed committing crimes in Ukraine during the period under consideration, or perhaps going back a bit further, to 2014? If there are any lingering doubts concerning this matter, which directly impacts the Tribunal's objectivity, they were settled by the clarification on the European Commission posted on its website:

"The Tribunal will have the power to investigate, prosecute and try Russian political and military leaders, who bear the greatest responsibility for the crime of aggression against Ukraine."

Has Germany learned nothing from committing the Holocaust?

The demonstrative support shown once again by Berlin for Israel-while-committing-genocide is a spectacle that remains very revolting and puzzling to many and certainly to everyone who is intellectually and morally sane. Across changes of government, Germany is displaying a callous, brutal, and also perfectly tone-deaf come-what-may loyalty - if that is the word - to the genocidal apartheid state of Israel that practices an ideology and commits crimes all too reminiscent of Nazism. It is ironic that, within the perverted coordinates of German public discourse, occasional, very cautious hints of "concern" are considered noteworthy. Why is Germany the way it is?
A single, small, low-quality do-it-yourself poster recently displayed in the center of Germany's capital Berlin may offer some cluse. It has caused a minor scandal that has gone against the grain of the country's usually unshakable support for Israel. But the more important news is that that scandal, in the end, has made no difference.

The essence of the incident was simple: in late April, the Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft (DIG) - "German-Israeli Society" - held one of its "Israel Days" in Berlin. In Germany, the DIG is a prominent and powerful organization. Its main source of funding, according to the country's official lobbying register for 2023, is the German state. The latter's Federal Agency for Civic Education - in essence, Germany's office of Centrist ideological orthodoxy and indoctrination - describes it as the country's "central organization [...] where friends of Israel come together in non-partisan cooperation."

"Israel Day" in Berlin was a largely informal event, really a street party with speeches. To make things even more fun, there was catering by the restaurant Feinberg's. In particular, Feinberg's, specializing in what it calls Israeli cuisine - Palestinians recognize many dishes as plagiarized from their tradition - offered a very special melon smoothie.

Indian decision-makers failed to handle the crisis properly, causing serious damage to the country.

Recent developments in the India-Pakistan conflict indicate that New Delhi has suffered a significant military humiliation. Despite the ceasefire allegedly mediated by Washington, reports suggest that hostilities are ongoing — implying that the agreement was either never respected or was quickly broken by one of the parties.

It is unclear whether Islamabad abandoned the path of peace after gaining an advantage on the battlefield, or whether it was India that, unwilling to accept its military defeat, chose to resume offensive actions. The fact remains: tensions are far from resolved, and the international perception is that India severely underestimated Pakistan's response capabilities.

It is remarkable, from any point of view, that Indian strategists acted as if they could launch strikes inside the territory of a nuclear power without facing serious retaliation. This is a major miscalculation, revealing political amateurism and serious failures in military intelligence.

That would be a nightmare scenario from the perspective of Israeli interests.

A report circulated last week alleging that Trump cut off all direct contact with Bibi after feeling manipulated by him. For as sensational as it sounds, the larger context suggests that it might be true. For starters, there was bad blood between them since late 2020 after Trump reportedly felt betrayed by Bibi recognizing Biden's electoral victory while Trump was still challenging it in the courts. This is a very personal issue for him seeing as how he continues to insist that he won so it wouldn't be surprising.

More recently, Bibi has been pressuring Trump to bomb Iran, which Trump doesn't want to do since a large-scale war in West Asia would offset his planned "Pivot (back) to Asia" for containing China. In connection with that, Trump reportedly dismissed former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz due to him supposedly coordinating too closely with Israel. Also of relevance are the rumors that Israel was caught off guard by the US' resumption of talks with Iran and is against any agreement between them.