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The crewed flight is the first to have been aborted at short notice in the history of Russia’s space program

The launch of a Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket, which was supposed to bring a Soyuz MS-25 manned spacecraft into orbit, has been aborted by an automatic safety system about 20 seconds before its scheduled liftoff on Thursday. The crew of three astronauts was reportedly declared safe.

The Soyuz was scheduled to blast off at 16:21 local time (13:21 GMT) from the Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan ahead of a dock with the International Space Station’s Prichal module at 16:35 GMT.

On board were Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, Belarusian space flight participant Marina Vasilevskaya, and US astronaut Tracy Dyson.

The head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, Yuri Borisov, told reporters that the reason for the canceled launch was a voltage drop in chemical power source. The crew handled the emergency situation professionally, he stated.

It marks the first time in Russian manned space exploration that a rocket liftoff carrying a crewed mission has been scrubbed during the countdown, according to historian Alexander Zheleznyakov.

“I don’t remember such an incident that there was a cancellation in such a short time before the launch,” he told RIA Novosti, adding “There were cases when it was canceled a day before for various reasons.” At the same time, he pointed out that similar incidents have occurred worldwide with unmanned launches.

According to Roscosmos, the launch of Soyuz MS-25 has been rescheduled for Saturday, March 23, and will take place at 15:36 local time.

The Israeli military has failed to intercept a cruise missile fired by the militants at the port of Eilat

Yemen’s Houthi militants have struck Israel with a cruise missile, marking the first time that one of the group’s projectiles has reached the Jewish state. The strike follows repeated efforts by the US and UK to destroy Houthi launch sites.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed on Tuesday evening that it tracked a “suspicious aerial target” that entered Israeli airspace and struck an open area near the Red Sea port city of Eilat. 

The IDF then confirmed that the target in question was a cruise missile, and that no casualties or damage occurred. The Houthis later claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Houthis have launched repeated missile and drone attacks on Israel since October. Until Monday, all of the group’s missiles and aircraft had been intercepted en route to their targets either by the IDF, the American or British navies, or the forces of neighboring countries like Jordan. 

The Shia militia, which functions as the de facto armed forces of Yemen, has also vowed to disrupt commercial shipping in the Red Sea until Israel ceases its war with Hamas. Houthi militants have carried out scores of attacks on commercial shipping in the region, including a successful missile strike on an allegedly American-owned liquefied petroleum gas tanker on Tuesday.

From the outset of its campaign, the group said that it would target Israeli or “Israel-linked” shipping, including vessels owned or operated by American or British firms.

The US and Britain responded by deploying naval forces to the region and launching repeated waves of airstrikes against Houthi launch sites and other military facilities in Yemen. The most recent of these strikes took place on Monday, when US Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said that its forces destroyed missiles, drones, and “weapons storage containers” on Yemeni soil.

In a much larger series of strikes in late February, American and British warplanes destroyed 18 Houthi targets across eight locations in Yemen, including underground bunkers, radar sites, and surface-to-air missile batteries, according to the British Defense Ministry.

READ MORE: Red Sea attacks halving Suez Canal trade

These operations have failed to deter the militants, however. Back in January, US President Joe Biden conceded that while the air campaign was not “stopping the Houthis,” it would continue regardless.

Houthi attacks caused a 50% decline in shipping traffic through the Suez Canal in January and February, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported earlier this month. While most Western vessels are now forced to take the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, the Houthis have told Russia and China that their ships will be allowed to pass through the Red Sea unimpeded in exchange for unspecified “political support,” Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

Vessels from the two countries will not be targeted in the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden, the Yemen-based militant group has reportedly assured

The Yemen-based Houthi militants have told Russia and China that their ships can sail freely through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden without fear of being attacked, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing sources.

People with knowledge of the matter told the outlet that the understanding was reached during talks in Oman involving Russian and Chinese diplomats and a top Houthi political figure.

According to Bloomberg’s sources, in exchange for promising safe passage for ships the Houthis want the two countries to provide political support for the rebel group in international bodies such as the UN Security Council.

The Houthi rebels have carried out dozens of drone and missile attacks on commercial vessels traversing the Red Sea, disrupting shipping traffic through one of the world’s most important maritime corridors. As a result, many major shipping companies have stopped using the Suez Canal and are instead redirecting ships around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa.

The Houthis have been attacking ships they believe to be linked to Israel in what they claim is a show of “solidarity” with the Palestinian people in light of the war in Gaza. After the US and the UK conducted a number of strikes on Houthi facilities in Yemen, the group said it would now also attack ships affiliated with both nations.

In a recent such incident, Yemeni missiles struck the merchant vessel True Confidence in the Gulf of Aden earlier this month, causing the first deaths since the militant group started its attacks. The Houthis claimed the vessel was American. However, according to a Bloomberg source, the ship used to be owned by Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital, but a new non-US company had taken it over.

A senior Houthi political leader, Ali Alqhoom, declared recently on X (formerly Twitter) that the group’s goal is “sinking America, Britain and the West in the swamp of the Red Sea.” 

Last week, the Houthis’ leader, Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, vowed to expand the campaign to the Indian Ocean and hit vessels traveling around South Africa.

Attacks on vessels in the Red Sea region decreased traffic via the Suez Canal, a vital route between Asia and Europe that ordinarily handles about 15% of global maritime trade.

Germany has given Kiev twice as much military aid as the UK, and Berlin has reportedly joined calls for London to do more

Kiev is “disappointed with Britain’s stance” on the conflict with Russia, sources in the UK defense sector have told the Daily Mail.

The UK is being overtaken by Germany and the Nordic states as Ukraine’s leading European backers, the industry operatives, who wished to remain anonymous, told the news outlet in an article published on Wednesday.

The sources also griped that Britain’s leaders are not coming across as bellicose enough compared to French President Emmanuel Macron, who has publicly refused to rule out deploying troops to Ukraine.

“The UK was the first country to give NLAW anti-tank rocket launchers, the first country to pledge tanks, so we received some leeway from Kiev,” one of the sources said. “But we are not pushing through capability thresholds any more. We’ve spent our political capital with [Ukrainian President] Vladimir Zelensky and we are not spending enough on military aid.”

“The Ukrainians are disappointed with Britain’s stance at the moment. Germany has also told the UK it has to do more. From where we once were, it is galling to be told that,” they added.

The UK has delivered less than €5 billion ($5.4 billion) in military aid to Ukraine since 2022, while Germany has sent €9.36 billion and the Scandinavian states – Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway – have sent a combined €9.12 billion, according to a report from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. When promises of future aid are fulfilled, the UK will have sent €9.12 billion, while Germany will have delivered €17.7 billion.

The identity of the Daily Mail’s sources is unclear, as is the veracity of their comments. The Mail has openly lobbied the British government to increase military spending before, most recently when it announced its ‘Don’t Leave Britain Defenceless’ campaign earlier this month. Backed by a number of hawkish former defense chiefs, the campaign calls on the government to spend 2.5% of the UK’s GDP on its military, up from 2% at present.

Speaking at a NATO summit last July, Britain’s then-defense minister, Ben Wallace, complained that London would like “to see a bit of gratitude” from Kiev for the military aid sent by the UK. Wallace’s comments were sarcastically dismissed by Zelensky, before the minister walked them back and insisted that he was not speaking for himself, but for “citizens and MPs across the international community.”

READ MORE: EU state to send more old Leopard tanks to Ukraine – media

“The UK continues to lead military support for Ukraine as the first country to provide lethal aid as well as the first to provide Western main battle tanks and long-range precision strike capability,” the British Defense Ministry told the Daily Mail. “We have committed more than £7 billion [$8.8 billion] of military support to Ukraine, including £2.5 billion in 2024/25.”

Beijing has said it has no intention of using force, unless provoked by the leaders of the self-administered island

The Chinese military is on track to meet a supposed 2027 deadline for a ground operation in Taiwan, a senior US Navy official has told Congress.

Beijing considers the self-governed island to be part of China. Its stated policy is to seek peaceful reunification, but has warned that it will resort to military action if the US-backed administration of Taiwan attempts to declare formal independence.

On Wednesday, Admiral John Aquilino, who leads the US Indo-Pacific Command, spoke at a session of the US House Armed Services Committee about the readiness of the People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA) seize Taiwan. In prepared remarks, he labeled China an “adversarial regime” and “the only country that has the capability, capacity, and intent to upend” the status quo in the Pacific.

“All indications point to the PLA meeting President Xi Jinping’s directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Furthermore, the PLA’s actions indicate their ability to meet Xi’s preferred timeline to unify Taiwan with mainland China by force if directed,” Aquilino said.

The purported directive has been alluded to by senior US officials, including CIA Director William Burns, who mentioned it on several occasions in 2023. American military commanders have suggested for years that 2027 may be the time of a decisive conflict for Taiwan, with a 2035 deadline discussed as well. Last April, at another committee hearing, Aquilino said he believed “everybody is guessing” regarding the issue.

Xi reportedly raised the American claims during a meeting with US President Joe Biden in San Francisco last November. The Chinese leader “denied any near-term plans to use force” against Taiwan, mentioned the two purported deadlines, and rejected these statements with “a hint of irritation” in his voice, a senior White House official said, describing the talks to Voice of America on condition of anonymity.

READ MORE: US scraps airborne directed-energy weapon program – media

When asked about the latest assessment on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian dismissed the attempts by “some people in the US” to “hype up the China-threat narrative to escalate tensions across the strait and instigate confrontation.” The island’s status is a domestic Chinese issue, he said.

The former US president is reportedly concerned about developing dementia after his father suffered from the fatal disease

Former US President Donald Trump has a fear of developing dementia due to his father’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Washington Post, which cited several of the billionaire’s former associates.

The outlet claimed to have spoken to a former senior executive at the Trump Organization, who said they had seen Donald Trump interact with his father Fred Trump Sr. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source claimed that “Donald is no doubt fearful of Alzheimer’s.”

“He’s not going to talk about it and not going to admit it,” they told WaPo, claiming that this information was nevertheless relevant in light of Trump’s allegations that current US President Joe Biden is not mentally fit for office.

WaPo also cited Trump’s niece, Mary L. Trump, who reportedly recalled that Donald was seriously upset by his father’s descent into dementia after the patriarch failed to recognize his children at a family gathering in the mid-1990s.

The outlet also cited an interview that Donald Trump gave to Playboy in 1997, in which he stated that seeing his father suffering from Alzheimer’s had left him wondering “out loud about the senselessness of life.”

In recent years, Trump has repeatedly claimed that US President Joe Biden was suffering from severe mental health issues as he could often be seen tripping, getting lost, mixing up world leaders and countries, losing his train of thought mid-sentence, and most recently forgetting NATO’s new ally in confusing Norway with Finland. At the same time, the billionaire has boasted that he himself had passed the Montreal cognitive test with flying colors.

However, some have suggested that Trump’s own mental health may also be slipping, after several gaffes on the campaign trail in recent months, such as confusing South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley with former speaker Nancy Pelosi, and warning that the US could face “World War II” under Biden.

Meanwhile, a recent survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 63% of American voters are not very or not at all confident in Biden’s mental capability to serve effectively as president. Trump also did not fare well, with 57% voicing concerns about his mental capacity.

The pair are now set to face off in the upcoming US presidential election, which will be held on November 5.

Paris must give Kiev “the means to enter negotiations” with Moscow, the three-time presidential candidate has insisted

The conflict in Ukraine does not directly affect France’s key national interests, the former leader of the far-right National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, told the BFM TV broadcaster on Wednesday. Le Pen, who led the party for more than a decade argued that “France’s vital interests are not in question.”

The three-time presidential candidate also suggested that Russia does not pose a threat to European nations and that the best thing Kiev’s Western backers can do is ensure that it sits down at the negotiating table with Moscow as soon as possible.

According to the politician, “the only way to help Ukraine is to give it the means to enter into negotiations.” 

Late last month, French President Emmanuel Macron said that, while there was no consensus among Kiev’s backers on a military deployment to Ukraine, “in terms of dynamics, we cannot exclude anything.” Numerous NATO allies were quick to reject his suggestion. However, reports have since appeared in the media, claiming that Paris may have been preparing for such a development for months. 

Reports have also alleged that active-duty military personnel from NATO states are already operating in Ukraine in various capacities – something that Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski appeared to confirm on Wednesday.  

Le Pen accused Macron of “playing politics with war,” suggesting that the head of state may not be fully aware of what is going on on the battlefield in Ukraine. 

She also argued that Moscow was unlikely to attack European countries as it “does not have the military means to engage in a territorial war with the whole” of the continent.

Last week, French legislators voted in favor of a 10-year security pact with Ukraine, which was signed by Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart, Vladimir Zelensky, last month. National Rally abstained, with Le Pen accusing the head of state of “hijacking, exploiting and instrumentalizing a major international crisis for a short-term electoral agenda.”

She has consistently opposed plans to admit Ukraine into NATO and the EU, as well as economic sanctions on Russia, and the delivery of heavy weapons to Kiev.

On Tuesday, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, claimed that France was preparing to deploy as many as 2,000 troops to Ukraine. 

Over the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his supporters that fighters from NATO states were already present in Ukraine. He also said a conflict between NATO and Russia could not be ruled out, but added that everyone probably understood the dire consequences of such a development.

Up to 20 additional vehicles are to be refurbished and transferred by Spain, according to local reports

Spain will donate up to 20 mothballed Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks to Ukraine, adding to the ten sent last year, local media reported this week. The EU nation has a stockpile of over 100 of the vehicles manufactured in the late 1980s.

The news was first reported by Spanish outlet ABC, after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez chaired a high-profile meeting with executives of national defense contractors.

Last year, Sanchez authorized donating ten of the German-designed tanks to Kiev despite the objections of Podemos, his left-wing party junior coalition partner at the time.

The new shipment will be drawn from storage, where they have been kept for the last decade, and refurbished at a factory in Seville before being transferred to Kiev, ABC said. The report offered no specific timeline, but said the deliveries would happen over the coming months.

A list of previous Spanish military aid to Ukraine was revealed by Secretary of State for Trade Xiana Mendez earlier this week. Local media estimated the value of the armaments at €133 million ($145 million). The list included items ranging from night vision goggles to the ten Leopard tanks, dispatched by the Defense Ministry between March 2022 and the end of February this year.

Forbes noted that the new armor donation had been anticipated, considering that as of 2022 Spain had more than 100 of the vintage Leopard 2A4s acquired from German surplus stock in 1998. Santa Barbara Sistemas, the manufacturer that operates the plant in Seville, has produced more than 200 Leopard tanks of the newer 2E version.

Added to the additional 14 Leopard 2A4 tanks pledged by Germany and the Netherlands, the Spanish donation would allow Kiev’s 33rd Mechanized Brigade to replenish its fleet eroded by battlefield losses and breakdowns, the magazine said.

Moscow has warned that whatever Western military assistance Ukraine receives cannot change the outcome of the conflict. It perceives the hostilities to be part of a US-led proxy war on Russia and has said that it will not compromise on its national security goals.

READ MORE: Another Abrams tank destroyed in Donbass – MOD

”For us [the Ukraine conflict] is a matter of life and death; for them it’s a matter of improving their tactical position [globally and in Europe],” President Vladimir Putin said in an interview last week.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has claimed Russia is making a mistake if it believes Berlin will waver in its support for Kiev

Germany will not let Russian President Vladimir Putin forcibly alter Ukraine’s borders or impose the terms of peace, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has vowed.

Speaking to lawmakers in Berlin on Wednesday, Scholz insisted Germany “will not accept a dictated peace at the expense of Ukraine.” 

“Law is stronger than violence,” the chancellor said, claiming that Putin had sought to violate that principle with the launch of Russia’s military operation against Ukraine in February 2022. “We will not let him get away with this,” he added. 

Scholz insisted that Germany’s backing of Ukraine will not decrease, and that expecting otherwise would be a “miscalculation.”

He reiterated his criticism of Putin’s reelection last weekend for a fifth term as president, saying it showed that “Russia is not strong.”

However, as EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell acknowledged in an interview on Wednesday, European allies will be hard-pressed to fill the funding gap if Kiev’s biggest backer, Washington, reduces its support. US President Joe Biden’s administration ran out of funding for Ukraine in January and has struggled to secure congressional approval for over $60 billion in additional military and financial aid. 

Scholz made his comments ahead of an EU summit scheduled to begin on Thursday in Brussels. Major topics of discussion will include efforts to ramp up aid to Ukraine, as well as the bloc’s response to the Israel-Hamas war. Russian forces have made battlefield gains in recent weeks, and US defense chief Lloyd Austin warned on Tuesday that Ukraine’s very survival will be at risk if the West fails to provide more weapons to Kiev.

Even as he lobbies allies for more Ukraine aid, Scholz has resisted political pressure to provide Kiev with long-range Taurus missiles, saying that such an escalation could draw Germany into a direct conflict with Russia. Speaking at the Bundestag on Wednesday, he told lawmakers that debate within Germany over the Taurus issue is “nothing short of ridiculous.” He added that the controversy isn’t well understood outside of Germany, describing it as “embarrassing for us as a country.”

Britain has ruled out a “full-blown military deployment,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesman has said

London has no plans to send troops to fight Russia alongside Ukrainian soldiers, a UK government spokesman told TASS news agency on Wednesday.

The comment came after French President Emmanuel Macron said he would not rule out an eventual presence of NATO troops on Ukrainian soil, as the conflict between Kiev and Moscow continues.

The French leader initially floated the idea in late February and later doubled down, describing Russia as an “adversary.” He denied that Paris was “waging a war” against Moscow, however.

Following Macron’s statements, Le Monde reported that France had been contemplating the idea of deploying troops since at least June 2023.

The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, said on Tuesday that Paris is preparing to send around 2,000 soldiers to Ukraine.

London has no such plans, a spokesman for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office told TASS. British soldiers will not “fight side by side” with Ukrainians, the official stated, adding that the government has ruled out a “full-blown military deployment.”

The UK government told reporters last month that it would not send additional troops “beyond the small number of personnel we do have in the country supporting the armed forces of Ukraine.”

Commenting on a potential NATO deployment to Ukraine earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that this would be “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”

NATO member states have also said they have no plans to send troops to Ukraine. The US-led bloc has maintained that it does not wish to become a party to the conflict, but will continue to support Kiev with arms and money for “as long as it takes.”

READ MORE: France considering Ukraine military deployment – Odessa MP

Russia has warned that the delivery of Western weapons already makes NATO countries de facto participants in the conflict and risks further escalation. Putin said last month that Moscow has no intention of attacking NATO members, unless it is attacked first.

The US environmental regulator has finalized rules that could force a ninefold increase in the market share of electric vehicles

US President Joe Biden’s administration has followed through on its pledge to accelerate the phaseout of cars powered by internal combustion engines, unveiling new emissions rules that may force the nation’s auto industry to be dominated by electric vehicles (EVs) in less than a decade.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its new emissions standards for passenger vehicles on Wednesday, laying out limits that will start getting tougher in 2027 and ratchet further downward through 2032. The agency said that under one scenario, its 2032 standard could be met if 56% of new cars and trucks sold are EVs and 13% are plug-in hybrids.

EVs accounted for just 7.6% of new vehicle sales in the US last year, meaning the new rules may necessitate a ninefold increase in the segment’s market share. The guidelines are designed to allow automakers to choose the emissions-control technologies they will use to be in compliance, EPA administrator Michael Regan said. However, the industry has already largely given up on hydrogen fuel cells to power its vehicles, so EVs figure to be the primary solution.

“With transportation as the largest source of US climate emissions, these strongest-ever pollution standards for cars solidify America’s leadership in building a clean transportation future and creating good-paying American jobs – all while advancing President Biden’s historic climate agenda,” Regan said. He claimed that the new mandates will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 7 billion tons over the next three decades.

It’s not clear whether the EPA’s estimates include the emissions that will result from increased generation of electricity to charge millions of new EVs. Coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels accounted for about 60% of the nation’s power generation last year, according to the US Energy Information Administration. And as the EPA has acknowledged, studies have shown that the production of EVs and their batteries generates higher emissions than the manufacturing of conventional cars.

Critics of the new mandates have argued that Biden is essentially forcing US consumers to buy cars that many don’t want or can’t afford. “The Biden administration is deciding for Americans which kind of cars they are allowed to buy, rent and drive,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican. She added that the new rules mandate an “unrealistic transition” to EVs and threaten a power grid that is already being weakened by EPA-driven shutdowns of fossil-fueled generators.

READ MORE: Trump mocks Biden over ‘electric tanks’

The sinking of a South Korean vessel has left at least eight crewmen dead and two missing

At least eight crewmen have been killed and two left missing after a South Korean chemical tanker capsized near an island just off the western Japanese coast.

The vessel, named the Keoyoung Sun and owned by South Korea’s Keo Young Shipping Co., sent out a distress call on Wednesday morning near Mutsure Island, according to the Japanese Coast Guard. It was reported to be tilting to one side after anchoring in rough seas and high winds near Mutsure, to the west of Shimonoseki, a port city at the southwestern tip of Japan’s biggest island.

The 28-year-old tanker was loaded with 980 tons of acrylic acid and was operated by a crew of two South Koreans, eight Indonesians and one Chinese national. It was completely capsized by the time Japanese rescuers arrived on scene. The Japanese Coast Guard recovered one surviving crewman, an Indonesian, and the bodies of eight who perished. Two others were still missing as of Wednesday evening.

Japanese media showed images of the ship floating upside down with seawater washing over its red underside. At the time of the incident, the Keoyoung Sun was reportedly bound from the Japanese port of Himeji to Ulsan, one of South Korea’s largest refining and petrochemical hubs. Its captain was South Korean.

The incident comes about one month after an LNG carrier and an overloaded cargo ship collided off South Korea’s southern coast. All 77 people on board the two vessels were rescued. Also last month, 11 crewmen were rescued from a sinking cargo ship in high winds and rough seas near South Korea’s Jeju Island.

A South Korean oil-products tanker sank in October 2022 after taking on water off the coast of Taiwan. One crew member died, and 19 were rescued. South Korea’s worst maritime accident occurred in 2014, when the capsizing of a ferry carrying students on a high school field trip left more than 300 people dead.

An hour of computer use is enough to make a man soft, Chinese scientists have claimed

A new study has found that extended computer use more than triples a man’s risk of developing erectile dysfunction. Long-term screen time, the researchers explained, may lower men’s sperm production and eventually cause impotence.

After analyzing data from more than 220,000 men aged between 40 and 69, Chinese scientists discovered that for every additional 1.2 hours spent using a computer, a man’s chances of experiencing erectile dysfunction (ED) increased by 3.57 times.

The study, published in the ‘Andrology’ journal on Wednesday, set out to see whether different kinds of “sedentary activity” affected men’s erectile function. However, they found “no evidence” to suggest that watching television or driving a car for the same time had the same effect.

The scientists did not examine the effect of computer use on men younger than 40, who are far more likely to spend long periods playing video games or using social media.

While the researchers did not discover exactly how computers affect erectile function, they found that men who spend longer in front of the screen showed higher levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which is manufactured by the brain’s pituitary gland. Lower levels of FSH cause a drop in sperm production, and could also cause ED, they theorized.

For those suffering from computer-induced ED, the scientists noted that “moderate physical activity may help to correct the dysfunction.”

Aside from their apparent libido-lowering effects, video games have been blamed for all kinds of social ills in China. Beijing recently introduced new rules aimed at reducing “irrational” spending on games, two years after Chinese regulators forbade under-18s from playing online games for more than three hours per week in a bid to prevent the spread of gaming addiction.

Chinese state media described games as “spiritual opium” and “electronic drugs” at the time.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has decided to step down after failing to sell voters on revising the country’s constitution

Ireland’s Leo Varadkar has resigned as Taoiseach (prime minister) amid political backlash over a housing crisis, mass migration, and a failed effort by his government to revise how the country’s constitution defines families and protects the traditional homemaker role of women.

Varadkar announced his decision on Wednesday, saying he will quit as president of the Fine Gael political party immediately and step down as prime minister once his successor is ready to take office. Acknowledging that his resignation would be a “surprise to many and a disappointment to some,” he said Ireland’s ruling coalition would have a better chance of winning reelection under different leadership.

“My reasons for stepping down are both personal and political,” Varadkar told reporters in Dublin. “But after careful consideration – and some soul-searching – I believe that a new Taoiseach and a new leader will be better placed than me to achieve [reelection].”

The decision follows a referendum earlier this month when Irish voters overwhelmingly rejected proposals by Varadkar’s government to replace constitutional references to the makeup of a family and a mother’s “duties in the home.” The prime minister, who had campaigned for the two proposed revisions by arguing that the Irish constitution is “old-fashioned” and “very sexist,” called the defeat “two wallops.”

Ireland is scheduled to hold its next election later this year or in early 2025. Varadkar’s party, Fine Gael, has fallen behind the Sinn Fein party in the polls.

The Irish government has faced rising public anger over a massive influx of asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East, as well as more than 100,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia in their country. The migrant influx has driven a 31% jump in Ireland’s population over the past two decades, contributing to the EU's worst housing shortage and rising crime.

Riots erupted in Dublin late last year, after three children and a school staffer were injured in a stabbing attack – allegedly by an Algerian migrant. Varadkar responded to the uproar by condemning the protestors, saying they were “filled with hate. They love violence, they love chaos, and they love causing pain to others.” He vowed to “modernize” Irish laws, not to crack down on migrant crime, but to punish “incitement to hatred and hatred in general.”

READ MORE: Migrant-loving Western leaders are at war with their own people

Varadkar became Ireland’s youngest head of state on record, as well as its first openly gay leader, when he first took office as prime minister in 2017. Fine Gael failed to win a majority in Ireland’s 2020 election, but Varadkar returned to power in 2022, when his party formed a coalition with the Fianna Fail party and the Greens.

Varadkar campaigned to legalize same-sex marriage in 2015 and to ease Ireland’s strict anti-abortion laws in 2018, achieving monumental changes in a predominantly Catholic country.

Washington reportedly wants to bring new members into the AUKUS pact before Donald Trump’s potential return to power

Canada and Japan could join the US, UK, and Australia in the AUKUS security partnership by the end of the year, Politico reported on Tuesday. The White House wants the deal done before November’s presidential election, which could see the more isolationist Donald Trump return to office, the report claims.

A diplomat involved in the talks told the news site that Canada and Japan could join ‘Pillar 2’ of the pact, under which they would collaborate with the founding members on developing advanced military technology such as artificial intelligence and hypersonic missiles.

AUKUS was established in 2021. Under the pact’s ‘Pillar 1’, Washington and London pledged to help Canberra acquire nuclear-powered submarines, while ‘Pillar 2’ is a broader technology-sharing agreement. Apart from Canada and Japan, India, New Zealand, and South Korea have been floated as potential ‘Pillar 2’ members.

The White House is attempting to fast-track Canada and Japan’s membership, a second diplomat told Politico. US President Joe Biden, the diplomat said, is “pushing really hard to get some things on AUKUS pillar 2 done now, before the US election.” 

Trump is currently the presumptive Republican nominee to challenge Biden in November, and holds a slight lead over the incumbent in most polls. According to the first diplomat, Trump’s “American isolationism is a risk to the Indo-Pacific,” and should he win, Western leaders will phone each other up and ask: “What the f**k are we going to do now?”

“If pillar 2 fails then AUKUS fails, because we could have just had a submarine deal,” the diplomat said, adding: “We’re very confident of getting some of the pillar 2 deals done by the end of this year.”

With elections looming in the UK and Australia next year, London and Canberra are on board with the rapid expansion planned by Washington. An official working at the British Defense Ministry told Politico that “there is an impetus to get pillar 2 done sooner rather than later.” 

Trump’s position on AUKUS is unclear, and the former president has not spoken about the pact on the campaign trail. While Trump was hawkish on China during his presidency and instigated a major trade war with Beijing, he has expressed disdain for multilateral agreements and suggested that he would not defend NATO members who refuse to increase their defense spending.

Beijing has condemned the AUKUS pact as an attempt to build an “Asia-Pacific version of NATO,” with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin arguing last year that it is based on a “Cold War mentality which will only motivate an arms race, damage the international nuclear nonproliferation regime, and harm regional stability and peace.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that AUKUS “provides for the deployment of a military strategic complex with a nuclear component in the region,” and is “confrontational” by design.

The presence of a certain number of NATO-member forces has been implicitly confirmed, according to Warsaw’s top diplomat

The fact that Western forces are present in Ukraine is now an ‘open secret’, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has told German press agency dpa.

The statement comes less than two weeks after the minister said the deployment of NATO troops to the country was “not unthinkable,” and that he appreciates French President Emmanuel Macron for not ruling out the idea.

In an interview with dpa on Wednesday, Sikorski stated, “As your chancellor [Olaf Scholz] said, there are already some troops from big countries in Ukraine.” 

Last month during a press meeting, Scholz justified his rejection of the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine by saying that Berlin would not participate using soldiers in targeting control, either from Germany or on the ground.

“What the British and the French are doing in terms of target control and accompanying target control cannot be done in Germany,” the chancellor told journalists at the time. His words have been widely interpreted as confirming the presence of Western soldiers in Ukraine.

Asked by dpa whether Scholz’ revelation was a problem, Sikorski responded, “In Polish, we have the expression ‘tajemnica poliszynela,’ which describes a secret that everyone knows.” 

Sikorski reiterated that Warsaw would not send ground troops to Ukraine, citing historical reasons. “Ukraine and Poland have been one country for 400 years. This would provide fodder for Russian propaganda. Therefore, we should be the last ones to do so,” he concluded.

The Polish diplomat, however, welcomed the French president not taking the option of sending ground troops off the table.

Macron said in late February that he “cannot exclude” the possibility of soldiers from the US-led military bloc being sent to aid Kiev. The statement sparked a wave of denials from the leaders of NATO member states, who insisted they harbor no plans to deploy combat troops to Ukraine. He doubled down this month, saying that Paris recognizes no limits or Russian “red lines” when it comes to backing Kiev. Europeans “will have to live up to history and the courage that it requires,” the French leader insisted.

In his recent address to Russia’s Federal Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the talk of “deploying NATO military contingents to Ukraine,” by saying that all previous attempts to conquer Russia have ended in failure, and that “now the consequences for potential invaders would be far more tragic.”

The protesters oppose what they see as excessive EU environmental requirements and unfairly cheap imports from Ukraine

Polish farmers intensified nationwide protests on Wednesday, decrying EU agricultural policies and the flood of duty-free imports from Ukraine. Tens of thousands of agricultural workers are blocking roads in several hundred locations across the country, according to media reports.

The demonstrators have blocked the main roads leading out of the capital of Warsaw with tractors and other agricultural equipment, numerous media outlets have reported.

“We have run out of arguments. We need to work in the field, spring has already come, but there is no point in this, since we will not earn anything, so we are here,” one of the protesters, a farmer who called himself Krzysztof, told RIA Novosti.

The roads leading to the German-Polish border have also been blocked. Footage from the area shows dozens of vehicles parked on the motorway, blocking traffic.

Police have been called to the sites where the demonstrators are gathered, but there have been no reports of clashes so far.

According to media reports, Polish farmers were planning a total of more than 500 road blockades on Wednesday, pledging to “paralyze” the country. Polish police said they were aware of over 580 protests planned for Wednesday and expect roughly 70,000 people to take part.

Protests by farmers have been taking place in Poland and across other EU states for weeks. The demonstrators have been calling for changes to the restrictions placed on them by the bloc’s environmental policies – the so-called Green Deal – and for a halt to imports of agricultural products from outside the bloc, primarily Ukraine. The farmers complain that they are unable to compete with the cheap Ukrainian imports that are flooding EU markets.

Despite the outcry by farmers, earlier on Wednesday, Brussels reached a provisional agreement to extend Ukraine’s duty-free access to its markets until June 2025. However, the agreement introduces an “emergency brake” on imports of poultry, eggs, sugar, oats, maize, groats, and honey if they exceed the average levels of 2022 and 2023. However, the Polish protesters opposed the deal, saying they want the reference point for import limits to be the years prior to the Ukraine conflict, as volumes were much lower then.

READ MORE: EU extends tariff-free trade with Ukraine  

Last week, EU lawmakers also proposed easing certain environmental rules, such as measures targeting crop rotation, in a bid to stem the protests. This will be among the topics for discussion by the agriculture ministers of member states at their next meeting on March 26.

In yet another gaffe, the US president suggested that Norway, one of the bloc’s founders, joined only last year

US President Joe Biden has confused two Nordic countries, Finland and Norway, as he touted the latest wave of NATO expansion amid the Ukraine conflict.

Speaking at the campaign event in Reno, Nevada, on Tuesday, Biden recalled a conversation with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the autumn of 2023, a few days before his death.

According to the US president, the veteran diplomat told him that many European countries “looked over [their] shoulder at Russia with some dread” until the US set its foot on the continent. Biden also claimed that Kissinger praised him for “strengthen[ing] NATO like it’s never been strengthened before.”

“You’ve united Europe in a way. You’ve increased NATO and the border of NATO from bringing in Sweden and Norway.” He further quoted Kissinger as saying, “it’s changed the world.”

Biden was apparently referring to Finland, which shares a 1,340 km border with Russia, that joined Sweden in applying for membership in the US-led military bloc shortly after the start of the Ukraine conflict. Finland became a NATO member in April 2023. Sweden only joined earlier this month, after dealing with grievances from Hungary and Türkiye.

Norway, meanwhile, was one of NATO’s founding members at the bloc’s inception in 1949.

The US president has been ridiculed for recurring gaffes. Earlier this month, speaking to MSNBC, Biden claimed that Washington “shouldn’t have gone into Ukraine,” when in fact he was alluding to Iraq and Afghanistan. Late last month, he also mistakenly referred to Chinese leader Xi Jinping as “the head of Russia.”

Biden last week secured enough delegates in the Democratic primaries to clinch his party’s nomination for this November’s presidential election in which he is almost certain to face archival and Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump.

At the same time, a recent survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 63% of American adults are not very or not at all confident in Biden’s mental capability to serve effectively as president. Trump also did not fare well, with 57% voicing concern about his mental capacity.

Prosecutors accuse Truong My Lan of orchestrating an embezzlement scheme that caused more than $20 billion in damages

A property tycoon in Vietnam could face the death penalty in a corruption trial over alleged fraud that is considered the largest in the Southeast Asian nation’s history, according to local media reports.

Truong My Lan, chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group (VTP), allegedly embezzled over 304 trillion dong ($12.5 billion) from Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), which she effectively controlled through “thousands of ghost companies” between 2012 and 2022, the newspaper Vietnam+ reported on Monday, citing court documents. A further 193 trillion dong ($7.8 billion) in damages came from accumulated interest on the loans that Lan and her accomplices allegedly took from the bank.

The total damages the alleged scam caused amounts to roughly 498 trillion dong ($20 billion), or about 4.69% of Vietnam’s GDP.

Lan has also been accused of bribing officials to ignore her activities, including a payment of $5.2 million she allegedly made to a senior central bank inspector, prosecutors said. Apart from Lan, 85 other people are being probed in connection with the case.

The tycoon was arrested when the investigation was launched back in October 2022. Her trial is expected to run until the end of April. Prosecutors are demanding that she receive a death sentence for embezzlement, 20 years in prison for bribery, and up to 20 years for violating the country’s financial regulations.

“During the trial, Truong My Lan did not admit to the crime, was stubborn, blamed her subordinates and didn’t show remorse. The defendant’s actions caused extremely serious and irreparable consequences, so Truong My Lan should be permanently removed from society,” Vietnam+ cited the prosecutors as saying.

Lan’s representatives have not responded to media requests for comment on the proceedings.

VTP was one of Vietnam’s most profitable real estate companies, with projects ranging from luxury residential buildings and offices to hotels and shopping centers. It held some of the most luxurious properties in the country’s commercial hub, Ho Chi Minh City.

Lan’s trial is part of an anti-corruption drive that started in 2022, which has seen thousands of officials within the highest levels of government and business executives investigated.

The former US president faced virtually no opposition as all other main Republican candidates have dropped out of the race

US Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has easily won the GOP primaries in five more states, with incumbent leader Joe Biden doing the same with the Democrat Party, as the pair moved towards a rematch in November’s presidential election.   

Trump scored landslide victories on Tuesday in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, and Ohio, securing the support of all the delegates.   

He faced little opposition as all of his high-profile Republican rivals, including former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, have already dropped out of the race.   

With the exception of Haley, who has stated that Trump must “earn” the backing of her voters, all of the previous Republican hopefuls have endorsed the former president.

Trump had already secured the support of a majority of delegates last week, making him the presumptive GOP nominee for the November vote.   

Biden made similar strides in the Democratic primaries on Tuesday, securing the support of all delegates in the same five states. In Florida, the incumbent leader was the only candidate on the ballot.   

Like Trump, Biden has already won enough delegates to become his party’s presumptive nominee, facing almost no opposition within the Democrats. While both candidates have essentially locked up their respective nominations, they are expected to be formally selected at the Republican National Convention in July and the Democratic National Convention in late August.   

The US presidential election will be held on November 5. According to the latest Morning Consult survey, Trump and Biden are tied among registered voters, with each receiving 43% of support. However, a February Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll found Biden trailing his rival in seven swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada and Wisconsin.

The parliament has passed a resolution calling for an end to weapons deliveries as the war in Gaza continues

Canada will halt future arms sales to Israel, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told the Toronto Star on Tuesday.

The statement came after the parliament passed a resolution on the matter amid a growing push among MPs to condemn Israel’s military operation against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, which has entered its sixth month.

Despite the non-binding nature of the document, Joly confirmed that the government will cease the transfer of weapons to Israel. “It is a real thing,” she said, answering a reporter’s question.

The parliamentary motion was part of a larger vote originally put forward by the minority left-leaning New Democrats (NDP), who pitched it as a way to revive peace talks and support the Palestinians. The resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza was passed on Monday after MPs agreed to tone down its language and include a demand that Hamas “must lay down its arms.”

The document calls on Ottawa to “cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel,” the CBC reported on Tuesday. The original text demanded the suspension “of all trade in military goods and technology with Israel.”

The resolution also calls for “the establishment of the State of Palestine as part of a negotiated two-state solution.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz condemned Joly’s remarks on X (formerly Twitter), arguing that the refusal to sell weapons “undermines Israel’s right to self-defense against Hamas terrorists.” He added that “history will judge Canada’s current action harshly.”

Hamas launched a series of raids on Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,100 people and taking more than 200 hostages. Israel’s subsequent military operation in Gaza has killed nearly 32,000 Palestinians, according to the local health authorities.

Despite the mounting international calls for a lasting ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Tuesday that the Israel Defense Forces will continue their advance on Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, which he described as a stronghold of the militants. “We do not see a way to eliminate Hamas militarily without destroying these remaining battalions,” he told legislators.

Judges have denied a request by the Biden administration to block the implementation of a controversial new state law

The US Supreme Court has rejected an emergency request by President Joe Biden’s administration to block enforcement of a new law in Texas that will allow police to arrest illegal migrants crossing into the state from Mexico.

The 6-3 ruling was issued on Tuesday, allowing the new law to go into effect as it continues to be challenged in the lower courts in a US Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit. Texas Governor Greg Abbott welcomed the decision, calling it a “clearly positive development,” but he acknowledged that the state’s legal battle with the Biden administration is not over.

Texas has been at the forefront of a campaign by Republican-governed states to press for stronger border security amid the influx of illegal migrants across the border with Mexico.

Abbott has deployed National Guard troops and state troopers to put up barriers at the border since Biden took office in January 2021. He has defied Biden’s demands to stop such practices, saying the federal government has failed at its constitutional duty to defend the states.

The controversial new law, known as SB4, enables state and local law enforcement officers to arrest migrants who illegally cross the border. It also allows Texas judges to order the deportation of illegal immigrants. The Biden administration has insisted that only the federal government has jurisdiction over border security.

“We fundamentally disagree with the Supreme Court’s order allowing Texas’ harmful and unconstitutional law to go into effect,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. “SB 4 will not only make communities in Texas less safe, it will also burden law enforcement and sow chaos and confusion at our southern border.”

The high court’s ruling was divided along partisan lines, with the six judges appointed by Republican presidents voting to allow implementation of the Texas law and the three Democrat-appointed justices dissenting. “The court gives a green light to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion.

READ MORE: Biden and Trump to visit Mexican border on same day

Biden’s critics have argued that his policies have led to chaos at the border, enabling record flows of illegal migrants, including suspected terrorists, and causing increased drug trafficking. Abbott and other Republican governors have sent busloads of illegal immigrants to Democrat-ruled cities, such as New York and Chicago, to draw more attention to the border crisis. New York Mayor Eric Adams has warned that the surge in migrant arrivals is straining local government resources, threatening to “destroy” America’s largest city.

Vengeance on Biden, curbing illegal migration, ending support for Kiev – The Donald will have a busy schedule should he win the presidency, but how much can he accomplish?

In the event of another Trump presidency, will the Orange Man restrain the desire to seek vengeance on his political enemies, or will he succumb to the temptation to play ‘dictator for a day’, unleashing mayhem in the process?

Perhaps it would be the understatement of the century to say that Donald Trump has a grudge to bear. Not only was his first term as president overshadowed by the dual hoaxes known as Russiagate and Ukrainegate, but the legal entanglements continue to follow him out of office as well. This has made Orange Man the first former president in American history to be hounded with state and federal lawsuits. And should he get elected to another four years in the Oval Office, nobody should be surprised if the reprisals against his arch-nemesis begin in earnest.

“If I don’t get Immunity, then Crooked Joe Biden doesn’t get Immunity,” Trump fumed in January on his social media site. “With the Border Invasion and Afghanistan Surrender, alone, not to mention the Millions of dollars that went into his ‘pockets’ with money from foreign countries, Joe would be ripe for Indictment.”

This sort of vendetta mentality is more worrisome in light of Trump’s stated desire to play “dictator for a day.” While it’s unclear what sort of cases the former president intends to bring against Biden, we can expect every legal channel available from the height of his office will be explored – investigations into high treason, abuse of office, corruption, mishandling of classified documents, etc.

As he wraps up his business with the Biden clan, Trump won’t waste any time revisiting the signature issue that got him elected president in 2016, which was his promise to secure the border and build a wall. This will prove to be a messy affair as the US military, working in cahoots with local law enforcement, will be tasked with carrying out sweeping raids aimed at deporting millions of illegals around the country.

Trump floated the idea of doing something similar during his first term, but he was refuted by attorneys over fears of legal repercussions. This time around, however, he will surround himself with more obedient staff, who are already dreaming up ways to make a militarized border “perfectly legal.”

Despite fierce criticism from human rights organizations, the Trump administration will also suspend asylum requests by people arriving at the border, while halting birthright citizenship for children born on US soil to undocumented parents. Meanwhile, the concept known as ‘sanctuary cities’, which gives illegal migrants the ability to settle around the country at huge expense to taxpayers, will be abandoned altogether due to ‘violations of constitutional law’.

On the question of crime, which has exploded on Biden’s watch, Trump proclaimed that our “once great cities have become unlivable, unsanitary nightmares, surrendered to the homeless, the drug-addicted, and the violent and dangerously deranged.” His plan to address the crisis is to prohibit urban camping and contain the homeless in tent cities, which will be overseen by “doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and drug-rehab specialists.” Trump said the money the US saves from “ending mass, unskilled migration” will cover the costs.

On the energy front, Trump will roll back Biden’s policies, which are ostensibly engineered towards saving the planet from climate change, a concept that does not resonate in Republican circles. Trump will shelve the Democrat’s solar and wind projects, while bringing back his own vision of delivering endless supplies of oil from Canada through the Keystone XL pipeline.

On the foreign scene, Trump began a trade war with China in 2018, and that reckless policy looks set to continue. As an integral part of his ‘Make America Great Again’ program, the Republican candidate continues to view the Asian economic superpower as an enemy rather than a robust trading partner (trade between the US and China amounted to $758 billion in goods and services last year). Trump has pledged to begin “aggressive new restrictions on Chinese ownership of assets in the US, bar Americans from investing in China and phase in a ban on importing key categories of Chinese-made goods like electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals.”

Trump has an equally suspicious view of Washington’s relations with NATO, especially those members of the Western military bloc that are in arrears on their membership payments. The presidential candidate’s campaign website contains one cryptic line on the matter that will keep Brussels up at night: “We have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally re-evaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.”

Despite tense relations with the bloc, Trump says that, should he be elected president, he will end the Ukraine conflict “in twenty-four hours.” How would he pull off that magic trick? By cutting Kiev off from the gravy train, which has already delivered Zelensky and the military industrial complex tens of billions of dollars of US taxpayer money. Considering the latent militancy the pervades Capitol Hill, however, curbing this appetite for destruction may represent the toughest uphill slog for Trump 2.0.

Lloyd Austin has made a grim prediction about Kiev’s battlefield prospects

Ukraine’s very survival could be at stake unless the West sends more military aid, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday. 

The head of the Pentagon was in Germany for a meeting of the so-called Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base, in his first overseas trip since his hospitalization in January. 

“Today, Ukraine’s survival is in danger and America’s security is at risk,” Austin said at a press conference after the meeting. 

Keeping the weapons, equipment and ammunition flowing is “a matter of survival and sovereignty for Ukraine” and “a matter of honor and security for America,” he added.

He did not say how the US intends to support Ukraine without additional funding. The bill that would provide over $60 billion in assistance to Kiev is still stuck in the US House of Representatives.

US “inaction” has already resulted in Ukraine losing ground on the battlefield, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Tuesday’s press briefing. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has been trying to pressure the Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to approve the Ukraine funding for months, so far without success.

After the Ramstein meeting, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced a package of  weapons and ammunition for Kiev worth €500 million ($543 million).

Washington had used up almost all the congressionally approved funding for Kiev. The Pentagon has asked Congress for at least $6.5 billion to replenish its own depleted stockpiles. On Friday, the White House announced it had managed to put together a package of ammunition worth $300 million from various “savings” at the Pentagon, but warned that this would only support Ukraine for a couple of weeks. It was the first batch of US funding since the start of 2024.

Meanwhile, the US has urged Ukraine to expand its mobilization to younger men in order to fill up the badly depleted ranks of frontline brigades.

Ukrainian forces lost the key Donbass fortress of Avdeevka last month, pulling back in disorder before the advancing Russian forces, and have been taking heavy casualties in open battle ever since. The battle has prompted French military analysts to conclude that Kiev can’t possibly win on the battlefield, according to classified reports leaked to the outlet Marianne earlier this month.