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The 1990 CFE agreement became meaningless after Russia’s withdrawal, Ankara has said

Ankara has suspended its participation in a key European arms control pact that was meant to prevent new conflicts from emerging on the continent after the end of the Cold War.

According to a decree signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and published on Friday, Türkiye will stop the implementation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) on April 8.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Oncu Keceli said, “there was no possibility to continue meaningful implementation of the treaty” since Russia left the accord in November.

The original CFE was signed in 1990 by NATO and the Soviet Union. Its principal goal was to cap the number of tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery, and aircraft either side could deploy between the Atlantic coast and the Ural Mountains. The agreement was later amended to reflect the breakup of the Soviet bloc and the expansion of NATO eastwards during the late 1990s.

NATO members have refused to ratify the adapted version of the CFE, which ultimately led to its 2007 suspension by Russia. Moscow also cited Washington’s plans to station anti-air missiles in Europe as one of the reasons for the pact’s demise.

Russia withdrew from the CFE in November 2023, arguing that the once-promising agreement had become pointless due to the West’s military support for Ukraine, the sanctions on Moscow, and other “hostile policies.” The US suspended its participation in the CFE following Russia’s withdrawal.

The CFE is not the only arms control pact that has become defunct due to the current tensions between Russia and NATO. In 2019, the US withdrew from the 1987 INF Treaty, which restricted the number of American and Russian ground-launched medium-range nuclear missiles. Moscow quit the agreement last year. The treaty fell apart as both countries accused each other of secretly violating it.

READ MORE: US to build weapons warehouse in Arctic Europe – media

In 2020, the US left the Treaty on Open Skies, which allowed mutual surveillance flights over the entire territory of the participants. Russia followed suit, abandoning the accord a year later.

Israel must do more than temporarily open one border crossing, a ‘paradigm shift’ is needed, Antonio Guterres has said

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for a “meaningful increase” in the amount of aid allowed into Gaza, arguing that the “scattered measures” adopted by Israel are not enough to save the enclave’s population from malnutrition and disease.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed on Friday to allow humanitarian aid deliveries into northern Gaza through the Erez checkpoint, which had been closed since Israel imposed a near-total siege on the strip after Hamas attacked the Jewish state on October 7.

Netanyahu stressed that the opening would be “temporary,” and would allow in enough aid “to prevent a humanitarian crisis” in Gaza.

“It’s not enough to have scattered measures – we need a paradigm shift,” Guterres told reporters in New York on Friday. 

Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, aid has only been delivered to Gaza via the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the south of the enclave. However, Cairo allows Israel to determine when the crossing can be opened, and Israeli troops inspect every truck that passes.

Recalling his visit to Rafah last month, Guterres noted that “long lines of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid continue to face obstacle after obstacle.”

“When the gates to aid are closed, the doors to starvation are opened,” he declared.

A UN-backed report warned last month that more than 70% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are facing “catastrophic hunger,” and that famine conditions now exist in the northern part of the strip.

“This is incomprehensible and entirely avoidable,” Guterres stated.

Israel has faced an international backlash after its military killed seven humanitarian workers in a drone strike on a clearly-marked aid convoy on Monday. Amid reports that the convoy was deliberately targeted, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a rare admission of guilt on Friday, announcing that two senior officers involved in ordering the strike had been sacked.

Israel is bracing for an Iranian counterattack after striking Tehran’s embassy in Damascus

Iran has warned the US to “stay away” from any potential clash between itself and Israel, while Washington has cautioned Tehran against targeting American facilities, Iranian presidential aide Mohammad Jamshidi said on Friday.

“In a written message, the Islamic Republic of Iran warns US leadership not to get dragged in [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s trap for [the] US: Stay away so you won’t get hurt,” Jamshidi wrote on X (formerly Twitter). 

“In response, [the] US asked Iran not to target American facilities,” he added.

Iran accused the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of carrying out an airstrike on its consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Monday, killing seven officers of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, including two generals. While the IDF followed its usual policy of neither confirming nor denying operations on foreign soil, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant inferred responsibility when he said on Wednesday that Israel “strikes our enemies all over the Middle East.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has vowed to retaliate, stating on Wednesday that Israel will “of course receive a slap in the face for this move.” The IDF responded by canceling all leave and scrambling satellite signals over Tel Aviv in anticipation of a strike in response.

US officials have not said whether an Iranian assault on Israel would be grounds for military intervention. However, Washington has repeatedly warned Iran to stay out of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, and Tehran has largely complied. Rather than participating in the conflict directly, Iran has continued its existing policy of arming and training Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, who have traded fire with American and Israeli forces since the conflict began in October.

Speaking to CNN on Thursday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that the US is “very concerned” about the potential for war between Israel and Iran, before adding that the US will continue to provide military aid to Israel.

READ MORE: Israel fires senior officers over drone strikes

Jamshidi’s post is the first acknowledgment by either side of back-channel talks between Washington and Tehran since the embassy strike. However, an anonymous American official told Axios on Tuesday that the US “directly” informed Iran that it “had no involvement in the strike and we did not know about it ahead of time.”

Speaking after a funeral procession for the slain officers in Tehran on Friday, IRGC commander Hossein Salami told a crowd of mourners that “no action by any enemy concerning [the Islamic Republic] will go unanswered.”

Fears of American withdrawal, over reliance on the Russian bogeyman, and Washington’s tilt to Asia make for shaky foundations

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is celebrating its 75th anniversary – the founding documents were signed in Washington this week in 1949. NATO is so firmly embedded in the international landscape that even its decisive transformation at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s did not shake its position.

In theory, the bloc should have been retired, having fulfilled its mission of defending the “free world” against the communist threat. But another logic prevailed: Why abandon an instrument that had worked so well? After all, the main achievement was not even victory in the Cold War itself, which was not in doubt in the West, but the fact that it was achieved without direct military confrontation. It was the result of a policy of prolonged containment and the gradual socio-economic exhaustion of the enemy. In other words, NATO was not a military bloc, but a highly effective political structure that could easily be refocused on other tasks.

The task at hand was a non-trivial one – to become a pillar of the new, Western-centred world order.

Let us leave aside the issue of NATO’s eastward expansion and the development of formerly hostile territories. Much has been said about the role this has played in the rise of European tensions and the emergence of the current politico-military crisis. But something else is even more interesting. The international situation in 2024 shows how the contradictions associated with NATO’s make up, and its unwillingness to change it, are potentially creating increasingly complex problems for the alliance.

The official narrative is that the bloc has never been larger (Sweden has just joined as the 32nd country) or more united. The challenge posed by Russia has, so the story goes, united allies ready to stand together against aggressive imperialist autocrats. 

In reality, the mood is complex. The main source of danger is now perceived not to be an adversary (Russia) but rather a leading ally (the United States). The internal political struggle in America – the main casualty of which has so far been military aid to Kiev – and the likelihood of Donald Trump entering the White House are forcing Western European states to consider the unthinkable. Will the United States abandon NATO altogether and shift its priorities? After all, Washington’s declining interest in the Old World is not an anomaly of Trumpism, but a steady trend since the beginning of this century.

The scaremongering about the US leaving NATO under Trump is most likely due to political infighting. Even if the mercurial ex-president wanted to do it, he has no authority to do so. Trump is generally fixated on something else – from his point of view, any grand strategy must bring in money, preferably in the most literal form, as a tariff for services. Hence his calls for NATO and East Asian allies to spend more on their own defense, thereby reducing the burden on the US budget. The more complex argument that control over allies requires investment, but is repaid a hundredfold by the ability to dictate rules, is not remotely interesting to Trump.

But let us reiterate: This is not about him. The Joe Biden administration, which is considered to be “pro-European,” is not averse to transferring a large share of the burden of Ukrainian spending to EU states and even seems to be encouraging them to take the initiative, which was not the case before. The notion of strategic autonomy, hotly debated in previous years, is being reconsidered. Except, now it is no longer just in the form of separate political course.

And here it is worth returning to how NATO was seen in the early 1990s. The contradiction between the Atlantic nature of the alliance and the trans-continental nature of its goals was not resolved at that time. The bloc remained focused on Europe and its environs, and attempts to use it to solve broader global problems did not work very well. Moreover, in the heyday of globalization, it was felt that the most important tools were not military – economic and social means of influence were far more productive.

The changes on the world stage towards militarization and the extreme intensification of major conflicts are forcing a review of capabilities. The US describes the global confrontation as a confrontation between democracies and autocracies, with China as a strategic rival among the latter. This calls for the globalization of NATO and the extension of its practical activities (if not its formal mandate) beyond the Atlantic basin.

Gone is the unified world based on the principles of liberal globalization. In it, the Western alliance could be said to be acting in the interests of security for all. Now NATO, or its incarnations in Asia, cannot claim to perform functions that are needed by everyone. The bloc serves the geopolitical interests of the “collective West.” Accordingly, the problems that NATO enlargement has created in Europe, which have already led to a possible need to fulfil military commitments, are likely to be repeated in Asia. Western Europeans see China as a beneficial partner rather than a threat, but within the framework of a common policy standpoint with the US, their priorities will have to be adjusted.

However, this does not make NATO’s future any more certain.

A number of crucial structures lack sufficient protection against being struck by ships, engineers told the outlet

Several major American bridges could collapse like the Francis Scott Key Bridge if hit by a large enough vessel, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing a group of structural engineers. The outlet examined “more than a dozen” key bridges in the wake of last week’s deadly incident in Maryland.

The report comes a week after a large section of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed following a collision with a ship, killing six people and likely causing billions in damage.

Most of the bridges examined by CNN appeared to be sufficiently protected with either “dolphins” or fenders – structures designed to deflect or stop a ship before it could hit a critically important part of a bridge – or even artificial barrier islands, the broadcaster said.

Yet, citing federal data, CNN said that the majority of the bridges had “fracture critical members,” meaning that if one single element is knocked out, the entire structure could collapse.

At least three bridges lacked adequate protections, according to the broadcaster’s analysis. One of them is Chesapeake Bay Bridge near Annapolis. Built in 1952, with a second span added in 1973, the four-mile-long (6.4 km) structure is part of the cross-country US Route 50.

Some of the bridge’s concrete piers located near the main shipping channel might not withstand being hit by a vessel, CNN’s sources warned. Adel ElSafty, an engineering professor at the University of North Florida, told the outlet it was “lacking in safety measures” and could “very much be vulnerable to a ship impact.”

A vessel similar to the one that hit the Key Bridge “would eat through this in a second,” said Hussam Mahmoud, a Colorado State University engineering professor.

The Maryland Transportation Authority told CNN in a statement that it was looking at “options” to increase protection of the bridge. While the Chesapeake Bay Bridge is currently undergoing work to upgrade its road deck and parts of its steel superstructure, none of the current work involves fortifying it against ships, CNN said.

Apart from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the Crescent City Connection – a pair of cantilever bridges over the Mississippi River near New Orleans – were also singled out as particularly vulnerable. Opened in 1958 and 1988, over 250,000 vehicles cross them per day on average.

The state’s Department of Transportation described the bridges as “like triple protected,” but the experts approached by CNN disagreed. The fender system that the bridges have is “definitely inadequate,” Mahmoud said, calling the officials’ claims “nonsense.”

Ambassador Yacov Livne has reportedly “changed tone” after initially claiming the bombing of the humanitarian convoy was not a war crime

Poland said on Friday that Israel’s envoy in Warsaw has apologized for the death of a Polish volunteer killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza this week.

Ambassador Yacov Livne was summoned by Warsaw over his “outrageous” remarks earlier this week. The Israeli envoy stated that the incident was not a war crime and accused Poles who think otherwise of anti-Semitism.

On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out three consecutive airstrikes on a humanitarian convoy, killing seven foreign nationals working for the relief organization World Central Kitchen (WCK), including 35-year-old Damian Sobol from Poland.

“I handed over a note of protest to the ambassador. The ambassador apologized for this event, which has no precedent in the history of the civilized world,” Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna told a press conference on Friday.

Livne reportedly informed Szejna that Israel’s top court would conduct a criminal investigation into the incident.

“There should be an investigation under the supervision of the victims’ countries under criminal law into this event, which bears the hallmarks of murder,” Szejna insisted, adding that Sobol’s family should also be offered compensation.

“The information we received so far [from Israel] is not satisfactory but we see this meeting as a change of tone,” Szejna said, noting that Livne would not be expelled.

The Israeli ambassador caused outrage in Poland with a social media post on Tuesday that the “extreme right and left” in Poland were accusing Israel of intentional murder, adding that “antisemites will always remain antisemites.” The diplomat insisted that the deaths of the aid workers were not a war crime but a tragedy, and that the IDF never targets humanitarian groups on purpose.

Livne should have used the opportunity to speak to the Polish media and “say a simple, human apology,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday. President Andrzej Duda denounced the ambassador’s “outrageous” remarks and called for an explanation.

Israel said on Friday that an inquiry into the incident had found serious errors and breaches of standard procedures by the military, with the result that two officers have been dismissed and senior commanders formally reprimanded.

Israel declared war on Hamas after the Palestinian militant group carried out a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, killing around 1,100 people and taking more than 200 hostages. More than 30,000 Palestinians have since been killed during Israel’s operations in Gaza, according to the local authorities.

The former president cannot cite free speech to dodge racketeering charges, a Georgia judge has ruled

US Judges in the states of Florida and Georgia have shot down attempts by former President Donald Trump to have two criminal cases against him thrown out of court. The cases pertain to his alleged mishandling of classified documents and efforts to interfere with the 2020 election.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled on Thursday that the former president cannot use his constitutional right to free speech to dodge election interference charges in Georgia. 

Trump has been charged with state-level racketeering offenses for instructing his campaign staff to find evidence of election fraud by the Democratic Party, and for a taped phone call made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he asked Raffensperger to “find 1,780 votes,” which would have guaranteed him a razor-thin victory in the state.

McAfee ruled that this statement was made “in furtherance of criminal activity,” and is therefore not protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. 

Trump’s lawyer,  Steve Sadow, said in a statement that “President Trump and other defendants respectfully disagree with Judge McAfee’s order and will continue to evaluate their options regarding the First Amendment challenges.”

While the ruling is a setback for Trump, McAfee handed Trump a minor victory last month when he dismissed three out of 13 charges against the former president and multiple counts against his senior aides and lawyers. Trump has also appealed a decision by McAfee to allow Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis to continue prosecuting the case, after it emerged that she benefited financially from her intimate relationship with a lawyer she hired to lead the prosecution.

Trump is facing three other criminal cases: two federal litigations concerning his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his alleged incitement of the January 6, 2021 riot on Capitol Hill, and a state-level case in New York concerning his ‘hush money’ payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Later on Thursday, the Florida judge overseeing the classified documents case declined a request by Trump to dismiss the charges based on his claim that the Presidential Records Act authorized him to take the documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate.

READ MORE: Republican megadonors rally to save Trump – Reuters

The judge did not rule Trump’s claim true or false, but noted that government prosecutor Jack Smith had made “no reference to the Presidential Records Act” in his indictment of Trump, giving the former president’s lawyers no legal grounds to invoke it.

Trump views all four cases as part of an overarching conspiracy by Democrats and their allies to prevent him from contesting this year’s election. In a post to his Truth Social platform on Easter Sunday, Trump condemned the “crooked and corrupt prosecutors and judges that are doing everything possible to interfere with the presidential election of 2024 and put me in prison,” including “deranged Jack Smith” and “sick Fani Willis.”

The former US president claims that his rival may have used cocaine and has demanded a drug test before a potential debate

Former US President Donald Trump has accused his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, of using drugs to get through his State of the Union address last month, and has insisted that he should be tested for drugs before any potential debates.

Speaking with radio broadcaster Hugh Hewitt on Thursday, Trump claimed that Biden “was higher than a kite” during his speech, and described it as “the worst address I’ve ever seen.”

He went on to recall last year’s scandal in which the Secret Service discovered a bag of cocaine at the White House, suggesting that Biden may have been “helped some way” to get through the annual address.

“I watched the State of the Union, he was all jacked up at the beginning, by the end he was fading fast, there’s something going on there,” Trump said.

A plastic bag containing cocaine was discovered in a phone locker in the West Wing of the White House on July 2, 2023. After launching an investigation, the Secret Service dropped the case after only a few weeks, concluding that it was impossible to determine the owner of the drugs.  

The move sparked outrage among Biden’s critics, with many suggesting the cocaine may have belonged to the president’s son, Hunter, who has admitted to struggling with substance abuse. 

The White House officially denied any involvement of the Biden family in the case and praised the Secret Service’s “thorough investigation.”

Nevertheless, Trump has insisted that Biden should be tested for drugs before the two engage in debates ahead of November’s presidential election. The billionaire has previously called on the president to debate him “anywhere anytime.”

Biden has not yet agreed to any debates with his rival, but said last month that it would depend on Trump’s “behavior.”

Recent surveys have found that a majority of voters are concerned with the mental capabilities of both Trump and Biden, who are set to face off in the presidential election on November 5. A poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research last month found that 63% of American voters do not believe Biden has the mental capacity to serve effectively as president; 57% said the same thing about Trump.

Washington expects Moscow to vote in favor of a document that the latter earlier dismissed as “detached from reality”

Washington expects Moscow to vote in favor of a US-backed resolution about non-deployment of nuclear weapons in space, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said on Thursday.

The document will be brought to a vote at the UN Security Council in New York next week, Kirby added. The draft resolution states that countries “should not develop nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction designed to be placed in orbit.” 

The draft resolution was prepared by the US and Japan after Bloomberg reported in February that officials in Washington believe that Moscow could deploy a nuclear anti-satellite weapon or a mock warhead to space as early as this year. Moscow vehemently denied the claim, which Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed as “unfounded accusations.” 

“We have heard President Putin say that Russia has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space,” Kirby said on Thursday. “So we look forward to Russia voting in favor of this resolution. There should be no reason why not,” he added.

If adopted, the proposal would reaffirm expectations that countries must “fully comply” with their obligations under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bans weapons of mass destruction in orbit.

Russia has since criticized the draft resolution as being “detached from reality.” According to Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky, the document has not been drafted or discussed by internationally recognized experts in the area. Russia has veto power in the UN Security Council as a permanent member.

Putin said in February that Russia has always been strongly against deploying nuclear weapons in space. However, he added that Washington is trying to drag Moscow into negotiations that are exclusively beneficial to the US. The president noted that Russia offered the US a draft treaty on preventing the deployment of nuclear weapons in orbit back in 2008 but pointed out that Washington has blocked the proposal ever since.

In late 2021, the US Space System Command announced plans to develop “next-generation” satellites in response to “growing space threats.” It was reported in October that the Space Force was going to build nuclear-survivable satellites for the US military and its nuclear command, control and communications network. In January, a senior Pentagon official described space as America’s “most essential warfighting domain” and that it was integral to the country’s national security.

President Andrzej Duda has urged bloc members to set aside at least 3% of their GDP to counter Russia

Polish President Andrzej Duda has sent a formal letter to the leaders of fellow NATO states, urging them to boost the minimum spending requirement for collective defense, the Rzeczpospolita news outlet reported on Thursday.

In a statement issued after a meeting in Brussels to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the signing of NATO’s founding document, Duda argued that the current minimum military spending threshold of 2% of GDP, which was established in 2014, was “no longer enough.” He suggested boosting it to 3% and claimed the proposal was “the basis for the consistent development of security throughout the Euro-Atlantic area.”

The Polish leader insisted that the bloc must take this “natural and fundamental step” in order to counter Russia’s supposed “imperial policy,” and as a response to growing tensions in the Middle East and the Pacific. 

Duda also suggested that the US and the UK should not be the only NATO countries to have powerful armies, claiming that “the times of peace are over,” and that all bloc members should increase their military potential and focus on equipping their armed forces with the most modern technological capabilities.

His statement comes as Warsaw announced plans to double the size of its military by 2035 in response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The country has also ramped up its defense spending this year to more than 4% of its GDP in response to what Duda has called “the emerging danger beyond our eastern border.”

NATO’s spending guidelines have been a sticking point among its members in recent years, as most states have failed to meet the 2% minimum. As recently as 2014, only three NATO countries had met the target. 

Former US President Donald Trump has even suggested over the course of his 2024 election campaign that the US shouldn’t protect any NATO states that fail to contribute sufficient resources for their own defenses.

UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps also claimed in a recent interview with The Telegraph that any NATO members that do not spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense were playing “Russian roulette,” and suggested that the West had moved “from a post-war to a pre-war world.”

While numerous Western leaders have recently warned that Russia could attack NATO within a few years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed such claims as “utter nonsense” designed to “beat the money out” of the populations of Western countries.

The bloc wants to find a “middle ground” in helping Kiev as it “is in danger of losing the war,” the paper reports

The US and Germany are reluctant to accept Ukraine into NATO despite fears of Kiev’s military collapse under Russian pressure, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

Officials in the US-led bloc are worried that such a drastic move “would draw it into the biggest land war in Europe since 1945,” the paper said, adding that NATO is looking for a “middle ground” instead.

These concerns are said to be shared by Berlin and Washington, which are opposed to opening membership talks with Ukraine at NATO’s summit in Washington in July. At the same time, they champion long-term security assistance commitments to Ukraine.

On Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged the bloc’s members to focus on providing Ukraine with “reliable and predictable security assistance” rather than voluntary donations. The NATO chief has reportedly proposed a five-year €100 billion ($107 billion) package of military aid to Kiev, which would also see the bloc take on more responsibility – rather than the US – in terms of coordinating assistance.

Several Western diplomats told the NYT, however, that this plan appears “elusive” at the moment.

A former US ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, said that Washington appears to be tacitly opposed to the initiative, which would diminish its role in coordinating the assistance. Hungary, another NATO member, has publicly spoken out against any moves that could make the bloc more involved in the conflict.

It is also unclear how NATO could compel members to contribute to the €100 billion package over such a long period of time, the report says.

However, “none of these things may matter” by summer if Russia continues to push back Kiev’s troops, as Ukraine is “in danger of losing the war,” the NYT said.

In recent weeks, Russia has liberated the key Donbass city of Avdeevka, while capturing several nearby settlements. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky warned last month that this would not be the last retreat unless the US renews its military assistance. An aid package has for months been stalled in the US Congress due to Republican opposition, as GOP members demand more efforts to enhance border security.

Russia has condemned the Western arms shipments to Kiev, warning they will only prolong the conflict. Officials in Moscow have also accused the West of using Ukraine as a tool in order to inflict “a strategic defeat” on Russia.

Paris had earlier said it had no intelligence linking the Crocus City Hall shooting spree to Kiev

French President Emmanuel Macron has dismissed claims that Paris may have been involved in the Crocus City Hall massacre outside Moscow, speaking to French media on Thursday. In a phone call on Wednesday with his French counterpart, Sebastien Lecornu, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu suggested that Kiev’s Western backers, including Paris, may have been behind the attack.

The terrorist incident in March claimed over 140 lives, after armed gunmen stormed a packed music venue near the capital. The suspected shooters were apprehended by Russian law enforcement on the way to the Ukrainian border.

The French and Russian defense ministers talked by phone on Wednesday. During the conversation, Lecornu repeatedly told his Russian counterpart that Western countries and Ukraine had no involvement in the massacre, the Russian MOD reported.

Shoigu replied that he had intelligence to the contrary, saying, “the Kiev regime does nothing without the approval of its Western backers.”

“We hope that in this case the French intelligence services are not behind this,” he added.

Macron called the statements “ridiculous,” “baroque and threatening.” “It makes no sense,” to say that France “could be behind [the Moscow terror attack] and that the Ukrainians are behind it,” the president told the media on Thursday.

He added that the phone call was prompted by Paris’ willingness to share “useful information” as a part of “joint work” among countries affected by terrorism.

Moscow also maintains that the terrorists had a “window” prepared for them to cross the border into Ukraine. While Islamic State’s Afghanistan-based wing (ISIS-K) has claimed responsibility for the attack, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Aleksandr Bortnikov, suggested in March that the US, UK, and Ukraine may have been involved.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated on Thursday that Kiev’s connection to the case is obvious, “especially since Ukraine’s involvement in other terrorist attacks on Russian soil is no longer in doubt.” He referred to the assassinations of journalists Darya Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky as examples of Kiev’s acts of terrorism.

Warsaw was outraged by the killing of one of its nationals by the IDF

Warsaw has summoned Ambassador Yacov Livne after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed a Polish aid worker in Gaza. The Polish authorities were critical of how Israel handled the incident and demanded compensation for the victim’s family.

On Monday, the IDF carried out three consecutive airstrikes on a humanitarian convoy, killing seven foreign nationals working for the relief organization World Central Kitchen (WCK), including Damian Sobol from Poland.

The organization said that the WCK team was traveling in an area designated as a safe zone and the car had visible WCK logos.

The IDF said the strikes were a result of “misidentification,” and President Isaac Herzog apologized to WCK founder Jose Andres for the aid workers’ deaths.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski spoke over the phone with his Israeli counterpart, Israel Katz, on Thursday, and “demanded an explanation of the attack,” according to the Polish Foreign Ministry.

“If Israel deliberately attacked the convoy, the families of the victims deserve an apology and compensation,” Sikorski wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Polish officials were also outraged by the comments Livne made to Israeli media. Speaking to YouTube channel Kanal Zero, the diplomat insisted that the deaths of the aid workers were not a war crime, but a tragedy, and that the IDF never targets humanitarian groups on purpose.

Livne should have used the opportunity to speak to the Polish media and “say a simple, human apology,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday. President Andrzej Duda also called for an explanation, stating he has “no doubt that Israel should pay compensation to [the Polish] citizen’s family.”

In a separate interview with Polish news channel TVP World, Livne reiterated that the incident will be thoroughly investigated.

READ MORE: Israel apologizes for aid convoy deaths

Israel declared war on Hamas after the Palestinian militant group carried out a surprise attack on Israeli cities on October 7, killing around 1,100 people and taking more than 200 hostages. More than 30,000 Palestinians have since been killed during Israel’s operations in Gaza, according to the local authorities.

Finland has decided to keep land crossings closed indefinitely and to ban shipping from several ports

The Finnish government has indefinitely extended a shutdown of its land border with Russia and banned maritime boundary crossings by leisure boats near its Baltic Sea ports.

Finland’s Interior Ministry announced the decision on Thursday, saying crossing points on the country’s land border with Russia will remain closed “until further notice.” Crossing points for maritime traffic near the Baltic Sea islands of Haapasaari  and Santio – as well as Nuijamaa, on the banks of an inland lake shared with Russia – will be shut down as of April 15.

Finland, which joined NATO last year, closed its eastern land border in late November, after more than 1,300 asylum seekers – primarily from Africa and the Middle East – crossed over from Russian territory during a four-month period. The flow of migrants had previously averaged just a few hundred per year, and the Finnish government blamed Moscow for the influx.

“Finnish authorities see this as a long-term situation,” Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said in a statement. She added, “There are hundreds and possibly thousands of people close to Finland’s border on the Russian side that could be instrumentalized against Finland.”

The Finnish Interior Ministry said the port closings were necessary to prevent “instrumentalized” migration as the weather warms. “This would be dangerous to people seeking to enter Finland and would burden maritime search and rescue,” the statement said.

Relations between Moscow and Helsinki deteriorated after Finland abandoned its longtime policy of military neutrality, joining the US-led NATO bloc amid security fears triggered by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The border shutdown was extended in February to at least April 14.

Russian officials have denied being responsible for the surge in migrant traffic. 

Refusals by Finnish officials to hold any talks with Moscow about their security concerns show the political nature of the border shutdown, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in February. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed “deep regret” that Finland had replaced friendly relations with an “exclusively Russophobic position.”

READ MORE: Finland avoiding dialogue – Moscow

A new survey has revealed that many US voters believe they won’t be able to get their country back on track peacefully

Many Americans believe that voting won’t be sufficient to turn their country in the right direction. In fact, a new poll has revealed that heading into this year’s US presidential election, one in five voters think violence may be required to achieve their political objectives.

The PBS/NPR/Marist poll, released on Wednesday, showed that 20% of US adults – including 28% of Republicans – believe that “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to get their country back on track.” That view was shared by 12% of Democrats and 18% of independent voters.

The survey results reflect rising doubts in the US political system. Nearly three in ten Americans, including 61% of Republicans, still don’t believe that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election. A USA Today poll released earlier this year showed that more than half of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s supporters have little confidence that this year’s votes will be accurately counted.

A University of Virginia poll released last October found that 31% of Trump backers and 24% of Biden voters believe that “democracy is no longer a viable system, and Americans should explore alternative forms of government to ensure stability and progress.” More than four in ten Trump fans agreed that “the situation in America is such that I would favor states seceding from the union to form their own separate country.”

The newly released PBS/NPR/Marist poll revealed that 41% of Americans believe the country has gotten so far off track that it needs a leader who is “willing to break some rules to set things right.” That view was shared by 56% of Republicans, 28% of Democrats and 37% of independents.

The poll shows that as Biden and Trump head toward their volatile rematch in November, the country is in “an incredibly dangerous place,” PBS said. University of Michigan law professor Barabra McQuade blamed Trump for the political tinderbox, saying he had stoked fears to manipulate voters. “Regardless of your politics, the idea of breaking rules and engaging in violence is just antithetical to the idea of America,” she said.

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Trump and his supporters have argued that Biden’s administration has abandoned democratic norms by “weaponizing” the justice system to persecute his political enemies and interfere in the 2024 election. The former president has vowed to pardon many of the people convicted of crimes stemming from the January 2021 US Capitol riot, referring to them as “J6 hostages.”