Swiss artist Micha Hani has told Ruptly he chose Armenia for his latest project because the country is steeped in Christian tradition
Swiss artist Micha Hani (Vierwind) has created a massive mural of Jesus Christ using a decommissioned passenger jet in Armenia as a canvas. The installation can only be viewed in its entirety from above as all the elements merge into a single image.
Jesus’ outstretched arms are painted onto the wings, with the entire structure resembling a crucifix.
The scenic views of Lake Sevan, on whose shore the old Soviet Yak-40 has stood idle for years, add to the artistic experience, as seen in Ruptly drone footage.
It took Hani six days in mid-May to paint the aircraft’s fuselage, but he had spent several months preparing for the project beforehand, he told the Russian video agency.
“Getting the proportions exactly right so that the image looks ideal from every angle was the most difficult part,” the artist said, citing the plane’s complex shape.
Hani explained that he had opted for such an unusual canvas because he felt that “there is something both powerful and at the same time fragile in the plane.”
His choice of Armenia as the location for his installation was no coincidence either, Vierwind told Ruptly, noting that the South Caucasus nation “has an incredible wealth of history and spirituality.”
“You feel a certain depth there that is hard to explain. Moreover, it is the oldest Christian country out there. This is the right place for the project” he added.
With a background in 3D poly design, the Bern-born artist currently specializes in painting, graffiti, and illustrations, and views his art as inclusive in the sense that people “who would never set foot in a gallery” can still encounter his works in public spaces.
King Tiridates III proclaimed Christianity the state religion of ancient Armenia in 301 AD. The faith has persisted through the highs and lows of the nation’s turbulent history ever since.
The Ukrainian leader is exploiting his own Jewishness to promote the normalization of fascism – a stunning intellectual and moral perversion
It’s hard to believe one’s eyes while witnessing the latest performance put on by the comedian tyrant of Ukraine.
Within the space of a week or so, the regime of president-for-eternity-no-elections-needed Vladimir Zelensky has repatriated and reburied with pomp and ceremony the remains of Andrey Melnik, a twentieth-century Ukrainian fascist leader and Nazi collaborator, and named a contemporary military elite unit “Heroes of the UPA” (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army of World War Two).
The UPA was, in effect, the military arm of the OUN, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The OUN had two political wings that mattered, one under Andrey Melnik, the other under Stepan Bandera. They were rivals, but both were fascists.
During the war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, both OUN wings tried to collaborate with the Nazis. The Nazis, in their arrogance, did not always let them, but the whole OUN was very eager to please. The OUN and the UPA also participated in murderous German violence against Jews, serving as pro-active mass murder auxiliaries. In addition, they conducted a genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign of their own against Poles.
Predictably, the in-your-face obscenity of Kiev’s latest fascism worship has provoked Israel as well as Poland. Polish president Nawrocki would like to deprive Zelensky of the high state honors that Warsaw has foolishly bestowed on him and has threatened to curtail Poland’s support for Kiev’s EU ambitions. In Israel, both its official Holocaust remembrance and exploitation agency Yad Vashem and the foreign ministry have taken exception. That is, of course, ironic, since Israel itself engages obsessively in genocide and ethnic cleansing as well. Maybe, in this case, it takes a genocidal fascist to know one.
Official Kiev is in the middle of devastating corruption scandals – but to be fair, when is it not? – and shaken by mortifying revelations about Zelensky personally (surprise, surprise: a raging narcissist on coke and not a democrat but a kleptocrat) from a well-informed insider speaking to one of America’s most influential journalists. Yet its ruling clique finds time to really rub it in, again. How much it cannot stop hugging Nazis, dead and alive? Costs in foreign-policy terms? Apparently, no big deal: When the Nazi-loving urge itches really bad, to hell with caution and – very unusually for Kiev – even dissembling.
Some observers speculate that the fascism fetish is being escalated in public again because of the scandals and continually plunging popularity of the regime: Zelensky and the rest of his merry gang of war profiteers and proxy war meatgrinder jockeys, such commentators believe, are merely using the Nazi play “out of a position of weakness,” to distract from the unprecedently fetid swamp into which they have turned Ukraine’s sleazy politics.
This is a mistake. It is time that even the slowest in the West accept a simple truth about Zelensky, one he is not even hiding (like so many others): He genuinely likes fascists. And, with his extremely cynical manipulation techniques, his vicious persecution of political opposition and any dissent, his abuse of the mass media for propaganda, and his deep contempt for democracy, he has much heartfelt affinity with them, to say the least.
Silly – and, actually, racist – pseudo-arguments, advanced by Western proxy war boosters that Zelensky can’t possibly ally with a violent far-right because he is Jewish deserve no serious answer. The current Israeli regime and its policies of war, genocide, supremacy, and ethnic cleansing are fascist. Case closed.
In fact, the Zelensky regime has a longstanding, consistent habit of pandering to, working with, employing at high levels and on a large scale, and honoring the very far right. Some may love to quibble, in bored-academic-style, about pedantically precise terms for fine distinctions in one big pile of rottenness. But, in reality, those labeled Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, fascists, ultra-nationalists and so on form a large whole having much more in common than not.
Re-labelling has also served to spread big fat lies. In Ukraine, there is a long and foul tradition, reaching back far into the frozen depths of the first Cold War. Mendaciously re-packaging Ukrainian World War II fascists with their own bloody flavor of terror, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. But re-labelling these Ukrainian fascists as ‘integral nationalists’ makes about as much sense as calling Idi Amin Dada – the former ultraviolent dictator of Uganda rumored to have sampled a few of his victims – an ‘integral vegan.’
And so it is in the present, too. Play with words as much as you like, a fact remains a fact, that Zelensky’s Ukraine is state with a big fascism problem. In time, its roots reach back to the period between World Wars I and II, with a massive escalation during the latter. Regionally, it used to be concentrated in western Ukraine and, after the Soviet victory over the Nazis and Axis forces in 1945, among fugitives in the US, Canada, and Europe. There, with their brand of ready-to-kill fascist anti-Communism, they served the West in the first Cold War and systematically subverted Ukrainian communities and any institution they could buy their way into, such as Yale, Harvard, and Columbia Universities.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this self-declared Ukrainian ‘diaspora’ – ironically, a term popularized out of the same Israel-envy that produced an unseemly urge to politically claim a Holocaust of one’s own in the shape of the Holodomor (preferably with even bigger victim counts) – re-entered independent Ukraine and “repatriated” its ideology. They impaired Ukraine’s culture and politics with, unfortunately, great success.
In that, long-term sense, Zelensky and his regime’s sympathy for the fascist devil is part of a deeper story. Yet Zelensky’s personal contribution is not merely substantial but crucial. First because he has simply gone much farther than any post-independent leader of Ukraine in making fascism part of a deeply sick new normality. And second, because in our world of often imbecilic identity politics, he has, in effect, exploited his Jewishness to promote the normalization of fascism. It is hard to imagine a greater intellectual and moral perversion. But then again, it’s Zelensky.
The incoming missile was reportedly intercepted, but debris destroyed an MQ-9 Reaper drone and seriously damaged another
Around five US servicemen and contractors suffered minor injuries during a recent Iranian ballistic missile strike on a Kuwaiti air base, Bloomberg reports, citing a source. At least one MQ-9 Reaper drone was reportedly destroyed.
The incident apparently occurred during the latest limited exchange between the US and Iran on Thursday. The US military said it destroyed five Iranian kamikaze drones “that posed a clear threat in and near the Strait of Hormuz” and struck a military site near the port city of Bandar Abbas. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it targeted a US airbase in the region in retaliation.
Bloomberg reported on Saturday that an Iranian Fateh-110 missile was intercepted by Kuwaiti air defenses, but falling debris hit Ali Al Salem Air Base.
The fragments slightly injured around five US personnel and inflicted material damage. One MQ-9 Reaper drone stationed at the base was destroyed and at least one other was seriously damaged, an anonymous person with direct knowledge of the attack told the outlet.
The US-Israeli attack on Iran has taken a heavy toll on America’s MQ-9 Reaper fleet, with around one-fifth of it wiped out.
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that the US military has lost up to 30 drones of the type worth nearly $1 billion. The bulk of them are believed to have been destroyed or badly damaged by Iranian fire, with a few lost in accidents and on the ground in long-range strikes on US military installations in the region.
The losses have left a major dent in the US fleet of medium-altitude long-endurance drones used for reconnaissance missions and precision strikes. The number of MQ-9 Reaper drones in the US inventory has fallen well beyond the Air Force’s minimum floor of 189, hovering at around the 135 mark.
The drones will not be easy to replace, as the MQ-9 Reaper’s manufacturer, General Atomics, halted production of the flagship model last year, and only produces variants reserved for foreign customers.
Four more people were injured as vehicles were targeted with FPV drones in Belgorod Region, the local authorities report
Three civilians were killed and four others injured after Ukrainian drones targeted civilian vehicles in Belgorod Region, Russia, the local authorities have said.
A man lost his life “as a result of drone detonation” after the Ukrainian military attacked the village of Oktyabrsky in the early hours of Saturday, officials reported. Around the same time, Ukrainian forces “deliberately” struck a civilian car with an FPV drone in the same area, killing two occupants and injuring the two others.
Several hours later, another vehicle came under a Ukrainian drone attack in Oktyabrsky, leaving one person injured.
A separate Ukrainian drone attack also targeting a civilian vehicle in the village of Orlovka in Belgorod Region later on Saturday left a man with shrapnel injuries, according to the authorities.
In Rostov Region, Russia, Ukrainian UAVs attacked the sea port in the city of Taganrog overnight, setting a tanker and a fuel tank ashore ablaze, Governor Yury Slyusar stated, adding that the fire has since been extinguished, with no leaks reported.
Two people sustained injuries elsewhere in Rostov Region after a kamikaze UAV struck a house, according to the official, with the total number of Ukrainian drones downed over the region close to 50.
The Russian Defense Ministry estimated that a total of 127 Ukrainian UAVs were intercepted Friday evening to Saturday morning over several Russian regions.
In recent months, Ukraine has intensified its drone raids deep into Russian territory, targeting civilian infrastructure, industrial sites, and residential buildings. These attacks have increasingly targeted Russia’s oil infrastructure.
In April, Ukrainian UAVs hit an oil refinery and an adjacent marine terminal in Tuapse, Russia, a key port in Krasnodar Region. The ensuing fire led to high-risk air pollution, with miles of the beach in the resort town destroyed by an oil spill.
Moscow has accused Kiev of resorting to terrorist attacks to compensate for the setbacks the Ukrainian military has been suffering on the battlefield.
Russia has responded with long-range strikes of its own, saying it only targets Ukrainian dual-use critical infrastructure and military installations, and never civilian sites.
It is the first time nuclear power plant key equipment has ever been purposely targeted, Rosatom CEO Aleksey Likhachev has said
The Ukrainian military attacked Russia’s Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), puncturing a hole in the machine hall of one of the facility’s units, Aleksey Likhachev, CEO of the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, has said.
The ZNPP – which has repeatedly been attacked by Kiev forces over the past years – came under a new attack on Saturday, with a fiber-optics-guided drone making it to the machine hall of the sixth power unit of the plant. Given that such munitions are guided by their operators until the impact, the strike was carried out deliberately, and any “theories of an accidental hit” can be ruled out, Likhachev stated.
“One could, if I may put it this way, ‘congratulate’ the entire international community – this is the first-ever deliberate attack on the nuclear power plant’s main equipment, with a penetrative explosion and damage to the machine hall,” he said.
The Ukrainian armed forces repeatedly cross not just red lines, but the very boundaries of common sense. What to expect next? Strikes directly on the turbine? The reactor hall? The reactor and its safety systems?
Russia has repeatedly drawn the attention of the international community to the “extremely dangerous behavior” on Kiev’s part, the nuclear chief added. Many appear not to take the continuing attacks on the ZNPP “seriously,” while a potential nuclear incident at the plant could spread well beyond Russia and Ukraine, affecting those believing themselves to be “completely safe,” Likhachev warned.
Radiation levels remain normal at the site, the ZNPP said in a statement. The attack caused no casualties or “critical damage” to the facility, it added. Emergency teams are currently accessing the damage sustained by the machine hall, with the situation remaining under “full control,” the ZNPP stressed.
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian military has ramped up attacks on the plant, repeatedly striking structures within its perimeter and targeting the facility’s employees. The ZNPP came under Moscow’s control early in the conflict and has been operated by Rosatom after the Zaporozhye Region voted to join Russia in a referendum in the fall of 2022.
The country is facing sanctions due to a budget deficit, with PM Rumen Radev accusing his pro-EU predecessors of massaging economic numbers to secure entry
Bulgaria is facing EU sanctions due to an excessive budget deficit, just months after joining the eurozone, Prime Minister Rumen Radev has said. He claimed that the crisis was caused by the previous pro-EU government, which massaged economic numbers to narrowly pass the threshold to join the eurozone in the first place.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting in Sofia on Friday, Radev, who is widely regarded as an EU skeptic, said that the European Commission would publish its formal report on the country’s fiscal situation on June 3, thus launching the so-called excessive deficit procedure.
Under the procedure, Sofia must bring spending from last year’s 3.5% back below the 3% ceiling by putting a binding cap on the budget deficit. If Bulgaria fails, the EU can freeze funding and go as far as to impose fines of up to 0.05% of GDP every six months on the Balkan country.
Radev blamed the situation on a “difficult legacy” stemming from “negligence, incompetence, voluntarism, populism, and financial misconduct” by the previous center-right and pro-EU Zhelyazkov government, which collapsed in December 2025 following mass anti-corruption protests.
The prime minister also predicted that “this year, the deficit will be even larger” than 3.5%. The European Commission forecasts that the deficit will hit 4.1% of GDP this year, rising to 4.3% in 2027. “They [the previous government] lied to push Bulgaria into the euro… The bubble has burst,” he said of the budget deficit.
Bulgaria joined the eurozone on January 1, 2026, after barely meeting the criteria, especially in terms of inflation, which was the greatest hurdle. Proponents of the push sought to lock Bulgaria on the pro-West and pro-EU path, with practical monetary consequences deemed minimal as the Bulgarian lev had been pegged to the euro for decades.
However, critics have argued that the Zhelyazkov coalition – which supported eurozone membership – projected an unrealistic revenue growth, with potential to balloon the budget deficit.
A Politico report in 2025 also drew attention to a sudden and “mysterious” 82.8% cut in state-set daily hospital fees in April – a move that helped lower Bulgaria’s 12-month average inflation. At the time, an unnamed former local official told the paper that “the only reason Bulgaria has qualified is… due to state-administered prices.” According to Politico, the previous government also cut inflation by slashing rail fares by over 9%.
Radev – who has advocated for more pragmatic ties with Russia and consistently opposed military aid to Ukraine – was not against the eurozone per se, but insisted that such a decision could be made only on a public referendum.
However, the parliament blocked his request, with critics accusing him of trying to sabotage the process. Radev himself said that Bulgarian citizens were being ignored by an elite “marching toward the eurozone” and that “the representatives of the people denied the people their right to choose.”
A senior CDU lawmaker says homeowners should use housing wealth before receiving state-funded nursing-home support
A senior lawmaker from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU has proposed requiring Germans to use their homes to pay for elderly care, triggering a political row over social welfare amid the country’s mounting fiscal pressures.
The proposal by Albert Stegemann, deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, would tighten eligibility rules for public assistance with nursing-home costs, potentially requiring homeowners to draw on property wealth before receiving state support.
“Those who own assets must first use their own assets, including their home, before the community pays,” Stegemann told Bild on Thursday.
Germany’s long-term care system works in three stages. Mandatory insurance covers part of nursing-home costs, with patients expected to pay the remainder from their pension, savings or other assets. If those funds are exhausted, state social welfare assistance covers the gap.
Stegemann argues that homeowners should be required to draw on housing wealth before gaining access to that final layer of taxpayer-funded support.
The proposal comes as Berlin prepares a major overhaul of long-term care financing. Health Minister Nina Warken has warned that Germany’s statutory care insurance system could face deficits of more than €22 billion over the next two years unless reforms are adopted.
The debate is unfolding against the backdrop of mounting strain on Germany’s welfare model. Europe’s largest economy has endured years of stagnation following the energy shock caused by the Ukraine conflict. Although Germany officially emerged from recession in 2025, growth is forecast at just 0.5% in 2026 after a new Middle East-driven energy crisis dealt another blow to its industrial sector.
Nevertheless, Germany is spending heavily on both Ukraine and its own military buildup. It has committed more than €96 billion in military and civilian aid for Kiev since 2022, while announcing a domestic €100 billion rearmament drive.
Stegemann’s remarks immediately drew criticism from coalition partners and welfare organizations, who argue the proposal could effectively force elderly people to liquidate family homes before receiving assistance.
SPD health expert Christos Pantazis warned that many families fear “losing their home or their life’s work,” and called the idea “absurd.” Opposition Greens accused the government of pursuing socially irresponsible policies.
The US secretary of war has said America needs “partners, not protectorates,” amid a dispute over the military bloc’s burden sharing
The US will no longer “subsidize” the defense of “wealthy” allies, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said, reviving a long-running dispute between Washington and NATO’s European members over military spending.
The remarks were made at a major security summit in Singapore on Friday.
Hegseth linked the Trump administration’s push for higher allied defense spending to its broader strategy of shifting resources toward the Indo-Pacific and countering what he described as Chinese “hegemony” in the region.
“The era of the United States subsidizing the defense of wealthy nations is over. We need partners, not protectorates. We seek alliances built on shared responsibility, not dependency,” Hegseth told the annual International Institute for Strategic Studies Shangri-La Dialogue, according to an official statement by the Department of War.
NATO members agreed in 2014 to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense, but many EU countries failed to reach the target for years. Former President Barack Obama said in a 2016 interview that “free riders aggravate me,” calling on members to spend more.
According to NATO’s official figures, all 32 members met the 2% benchmark for the first time in 2025. However, the US still accounted for 60-62% of the bloc’s total military spending last year.
During a question-and-answer session following his address in Singapore, Hegseth described 2% contributions as “freeloading.”
Last year, NATO members agreed to work toward spending 5% of GDP on defense and security by 2035, including a core defense target of 3.5%.
Several governments have questioned the goal. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called a 5% target “unreasonable” and “counterproductive.” Belgium and Slovakia have also raised concerns over the scale of the increase.
The dispute has expanded beyond military spending as some EU governments have resisted Washington’s requests related to the Iran conflict. Spain has opposed the military action against Iran and refused to allow US forces to use joint bases for offensive operations, while France and Germany have called for diplomacy.
US President Donald Trump later criticized NATO allies over their response, saying it is “pretty shocking” that countries which support America’s objectives “don’t want to help.”
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys previously urged the US-led bloc to show Moscow that it can neutralize its “small fortress” of Kaliningrad
Croatian President Zoran Milanovic broke ranks with other NATO members as he slammed Lithuania’s foreign minister for his “irresponsible” call to attack the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
Milanovic’s comments came after Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys called NATO the “strongest organization ever created” last week, arguing for a more assertive posture toward Russia and saying European NATO members must turn “fear of the threat into a sense of empowerment.”
“We have to show the Russians that we’re capable of penetrating the small fortress they’ve built in Kaliningrad,” he said. “NATO has the capability, if necessary, to raze Russian air defenses and missile bases there to the ground.”
Speaking on Thursday at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the creation of the Croatian Army, Milanovic called out the remarks.
“Equally irresponsible, turning now to our own camp, are the calls and appeals I hear week after week from high-ranking officials of certain Baltic states to attack Kaliningrad Region… Such things should not be said,” he said.
He went on to warn that NATO’s principle of solidarity should not be unconditional: “Readiness to come to someone’s vital assistance on the one hand also presupposes responsibility on the other.”
Following the backlash, Budrys walked back the tone but not the substance, claiming that his remarks were not aimed at Russia but at audiences “less familiar with military matters,” and were intended to counter what he called Moscow’s narrative of Kaliningrad as an impenetrable fortress.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called the interview “not the most successful statement.” Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene urged restraint in public comments.
Kaliningrad is Russia’s westernmost outpost on the Baltic Sea coast and is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, with no land connection to the mainland part of the country. Formerly known as Koenigsberg and the capital of the German province of East Prussia, it was ceded to the Soviet Union after the end of World War II.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and NATO’s expansion, Kaliningrad became surrounded by the bloc from all sides.
Budrys comments triggered a sharp rebuke in Moscow, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling the remarks “borderline crazy” and a sign of “maniacal” hostility toward Russia.
Asked on Thursday whether NATO could attack Kaliningrad, President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia “has all the means to raze to the ground anyone who tries to do so.”
European Parliament member Diana Sosoaca said Bucharest would use the recent drone incident to justify increased defense spending
The leaders of the EU and NATO are using the recent drone incident in Romania to push the country closer to war with Russia, Diana Sosoaca, a Romanian member of the European Parliament and former senator, has told RT.
Romania blamed Russia after a drone crashed into an apartment block in the city of Galati near the Ukrainian border on Friday, injuring two people.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Romania to share data about the incident for an “objective investigation,” while Russia’s ambassador to Bucharest, Vladimir Lipaev, told RT that there is no proof the drone came from Russia.
“We ask for an international investigation,” Sosoaca, the leader of the opposition SOS Romania party, said. “There are only assumptions” fueled by anti-Russian fearmongering, she added.
Sosoaca went on to say that the EU and NATO are seeking to “push Romania to attack Russia,” while critics of escalation are being labeled as spies for Moscow.
Sosoaca added that the Romanian government will use the incident as a pretext for increased defense spending. She pointed to Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, who vowed on Friday to accelerate efforts to acquire anti-drone equipment through the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program.
These measures are unpopular with ordinary Romanians, who “don’t want to be at war with Russia,” Sosoaca said.
Putin said during a trip to Kazakhstan on Friday that Russia has no intention of attacking NATO but would “raze to the ground” any country that attacks it. The president also criticized Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys, who recently suggested that the US-led bloc should be prepared to “break into” Kaliningrad Region, a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea.
Several suspected Ukrainian drones have crashed in the Baltic states in recent months, prompting Moscow to warn NATO members against allowing Ukraine to use their territory to launch strikes against Russia.
Olivia Rodrigo has pushed back against criticism of a babydoll dress she wore during a recent performance
US pop star Olivia Rodrigo has criticized the online backlash over a baby-doll dress she wore during a recent performance, arguing that the controversy reflects the normalization of pedophilia and a tendency to blame girls for being sexualized.
The backlash came after Rodrigo wore the dress in the music video for her single ‘Drop Dead’ and during a performance in Barcelona.
Critics online described the look as “infantilizing,”“inappropriate,” and “too Lolita,” while some accused her of wearing “pedo bait” or “dressing like a toddler.”
Rodrigo rejected claims that the outfit was intended to be sexual, saying on The New York Times’ Popcast on Wednesday that it was inspired by punk and grunge icons Kathleen Hanna and Courtney Love.
She also noted that she had previously worn far more revealing stage outfits without drawing the same reaction and that the pink floral baby-doll dress in question covered more of her body than many of her other looks.
“What’s really disturbing is I have worn outfits that are maybe revealing on stage. I’ve been on stage in a sparkly bra and little shorts, which is my right,” Rodrigo said. “And that wasn’t inappropriate, but me fully covered up in a dress that people deemed to be childlike was inappropriate.”
“It just really shows how we normalize pedophilia in our culture,” she argued. “Also, it’s just this rhetoric we’re fed as girls from the time we’re little, which is, ‘Don’t wear that because a man is going to sexualize your body and it’s your fault.’ It’s so weird.”
Rodrigo’s remarks come amid a broader debate over the sexualization of minors in entertainment and popular culture, a discussion that has also been fueled by renewed scrutiny of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Another US pop star, Sabrina Carpenter, was criticized last year by some fans who argued that her photoshoot resembled the 1997 film Lolita, which centers on a relationship between an adult man and an underage girl.
Earlier this year, some fans accused the creators of the US popular drama series Euphoria of “inciting pedophilia” after one of the show’s female lead characters appeared in a toddler-like fetish costume.
The Russian president urged Bucharest to share data on Friday’s UAV intrusion and commented on tensions in Europe
Russian President Vladimir Putin took questions from reporters during his trip to Kazakhstan on Friday, providing an update on the Ukraine conflict and tensions with NATO in Europe.
He also commented on the recent drone incident in Romania, which NATO blamed on Russia, and touched on foreign policy debates in Armenia, a former Soviet state and longtime Russian ally.
Russia has the upper hand on the battlefield
The Ukraine conflict is nearing the end as the Russian military continues its offensive on all fronts, Putin said, adding that it would be “unwise” to provide a specific timeline.
“The situation on the battlefield gives reason to believe that (the conflict) is drawing to a close.”
He went on to say that although Moscow maintains “certain contacts,” no peace talks are being held at the moment.
While the US has been preoccupied with the Iran conflict, some EU officials have begun floating the idea of resuming talks with Russia, which were suspended in 2022.
Western leaders must stop misleading their people
The president reiterated that Russia has no intention of attacking NATO or EU members, dismissing claims to the contrary as “brazen lies.” He reiterated Russia’s position that it was forced to intervene in Ukraine after Kiev failed to implement the 2014-15 Minsk accords with the breakaway Donbass republics, which later voted to become part of Russia.
Western leaders are using the conflict to justify “unreasonable” military spending hikes, Putin argued. “They should not mislead their own people.”
Aggressors will be razed to the ground
Putin warned, however, Russia has the capability to “raze to the ground” any country that attempts to attack it.
He was responding to Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys, who said this month that, in the event of a conflict, NATO must demonstrate that it “can break into” Kaliningrad Region, a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania.
He warned that Russia would treat all Ukrainian drone launch sites as legitimate targets, even if they operate from the Baltic states.
Romania should share data on drone incident
Putin called for an objective investigation into a drone strike on a residential building in the Romanian city of Galati near the Ukrainian border on Friday, which injured two people. Romania, along with its NATO allies, blamed Russia for the intrusion.
The president said Romania should provide objective data about the incident, just as Russia handed over decoded flight data from a Ukrainian drone shot down last year en route to one of Putin’s residences. He noted that suspected Ukrainian drones have veered into the Baltic states and Finland in recent months.
Western media outlets ‘making fools of’ their own audiences
Putin said the Western media is “a tool for making fools of people” that is used to channel more money into Ukraine. He blasted foreign news outlets for their failure to cover the Ukrainian drone strikes on a college in Starobelsk last week, which killed 21 students and injured more than 40 others.
“Not a single word was said about the tragedy in Starobelsk, where our children were deliberately killed. Not a single word, as though it never happened,” Putin said.
Moscow has criticized outlets including CNN and the BBC for declining an invitation to travel to Starobelsk.
Armenia’s economy will suffer if it cuts ties with Russia
Commenting on the upcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia, Putin said the country’s drive for closer integration with the EU could eventually become incompatible with its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Leaving the EAEU would cost Armenia at least 14% of its GDP, he said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who was recently endorsed by US President Donald Trump, said Armenia is not planning to terminate its membership in the EAEU at this stage, but that voters would ultimately decide between the two economic blocs.
Russia is Armenia’s largest trading partner and provides the country with discounted natural gas.
Advantages in AI technology
Russia is one of the few countries with the human capital and energy resources to develop its own sovereign artificial intelligence, Putin said.
“We have enormous capabilities in nuclear and hydroelectric power, particularly in Siberia,” he said, adding that Russia has “clear advantages” in the global AI race.
The British public broadcaster aired a Question Time segment featuring AI-generated historical figures
The BBC has been accused of producing “AI slop” after an episode of Question Time featured AI-generated versions of World War II-era British leader Winston Churchill and Indian independence activist Mahatma Gandhi.
The episode, which aired on Thursday, opened with host Fiona Bruce introducing AI-generated versions of Churchill and Gandhi, as well as women’s suffrage campaigner Emmeline Pankhurst and Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.
“That would be something, wouldn’t it, if they really were on our panel. Of course they’re not. They are AI-generated. Just a small insight into the use of technology,” Bruce said before introducing the actual panelists for a discussion on the rapid rise of AI.
Tonight Question Time features an imagined AI panel made up of historical figures who shaped the modern world
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) May 28, 2026
The segment was widely mocked online, with some users calling it “AI slop.”
“Your funding should be cut just based on this,” one user wrote on X, calling the BBC staff involved “a plague to the film-making and television industry.”
“Genuinely a joke that I am forced to pay a fee for this dross,” another user wrote.
The British broadcaster, which is largely funded through license fees paid by the public, is reportedly losing around $1.36 billion annually as audiences increasingly turn to streaming platforms and other formats.
According to The Guardian, at least 314,000 households stopped paying the license fee last year. The BBC announced a 10% budget cut in February amid mounting controversies over its reporting and declining license-fee revenue.
President Donald Trump’s financial disclosures show that he made up to $750 million on trading in the first three months of 2026
The US Justice Department on Wednesday charged Google employee Michele Spagnuolo with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering after he used confidential corporate information to collect more than $1.2 million from bets on online prediction platform Polymarket.
However, US law enforcement appears to apply a blatant double standard when it comes to politicians, RT’s Caleb Maupin reports.
“Washington says that insider trading is illegal. You can’t have special information, and then get rich on Wall Street betting on it. That is, unless you’re the president of the United States,” Maupin says.
“Then you can negotiate, start a war, appoint somebody, call for more military spending, negotiate the Strait of Hormuz to be opened or closed, and know what you’re going to do before you do it and make bets and make lots of money.”
President Donald Trump made between $211 million to $750 million from securities trading in the first quarter of 2026, according to financialdisclosures published by the US Office of Government Ethics earlier this month.
The filings list the transactions in broad ranges rather than exact amounts, and include securities linked to corporate titans such as Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, Palantir, and Boeing.
While US government regulators assure Americans that they’re maintaining checks and balances, this seems to mean “fairness and order for average Joes or Google engineers, but not for everybody else,” Maupin says.
Sam Altman’s Open AI is building a monopoly on human knowledge, Zach Vorhies has warned
AI megacorporations like OpenAI and Anthropic have scraped every word of human knowledge from the internet, and the US government is helping them sell it back to the public, Google whistleblower Zach Vorhies has told RT.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman caused controversy last month during an appearance at BlackRock in Washington DC, when he described his company’s vision of “a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.”
In Altman’s future, AI companies will essentially charge users for access to data that they have collected for free by scraping libraries, archives, forums, and everywhere else knowledge is stored.
“These cartels have gone through and they’ve downloaded the data for themselves, before everybody else knew about it, and then once they downloaded it they shut the door behind them, which prevents researchers, it prevents startups from being able to challenge them,” Vorhies told RT on Friday.
The US government has helped AI companies operate as cartels, he argued, by waging “lawfare” against free alternatives. These include Anna’s Archive, which bills itself as “the largest truly open library in human history,” and was ordered to pay Spotify $300 million in damages last month for scraping the entire platform, and Z-LIbrary, which was shut down by the FBI in 2022.
These sites were “essentially are the great Libraries of Alexandria of our time, and right now the United States is burning them to the ground,” Vorhies said, pointing out that OpenAI has been granted “essentially a monopoly” on information by the government.
This monopoly, however, faces a challenge from Chinese AI firms like DeepSeek and Quen, which have scraped and collected the same information as their American counterparts. “What’s going to happen is that these other cartels from these other countries…are going to be able to drive the cost down, and hopefully that’s what we see,” Vorhies said.
A former engineer at Google, Vorhies leaked more than 950 pages of internal documents in 2019, which revealed that the search giants blacklisted hundreds of websites and hid them from users’ news feeds. Among the blacklisted sites were conservative news outlets like the Daily Caller, the Drudge Report, and the Gateway Pundit. One document revealed that Google employed “human raters” to sift through videos on YouTube, a Google-owned platform, and flag them for “fake news & other fringe” content.
To prevent AI companies manipulating their scraped knowledge in the same way, Vorhies argued that they should eventually be forced to reveal how their models work. “We…are going to have to crack these models open and look inside,” he said, to determine “whether they are fair.”
The Belarusian president has said he urged his French counterpart to engage directly with Moscow
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has urged his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, to take the lead in promoting dialogue between the EU and Russia, saying the Ukraine conflict should be resolved through direct talks rather than further escalation.
Speaking to journalists on Friday, Lukashenko revealed details of a phone call with Macron on May 24, saying he proposed a meeting in Minsk involving himself, the French president, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to Lukashenko, Macron did not rule out such a meeting but said he would first need to consult with his European allies. The Belarusian leader said he responded by urging Macron to take the initiative, describing him as one of Europe's most experienced statesmen.
“You’re the veteran among Europe’s leaders. Today, you are the key player and the driving force in Europe,” Lukashenko recalled telling Macron. “You should call Putin, come, sit down, and talk man to man.”
EU officials have for months complained that US-Russian negotiations on the Ukraine conflict have left the Europeans sidelined. However, the 27-member bloc has still failed to agree on who could speak for its interests in possible direct negotiations with Moscow, which Brussels cut off after the escalation of the conflict in 2022.
On Thursday, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas claimed that Russia was setting a “trap” for the EU by encouraging member states to decide who should represent the bloc in direct talks with Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Moscow never rejected direct contact with Western leaders and “they can just call President Putin.”
According to Lukashenko, Macron had also expressed concerns about Belarus potentially being drawn deeper into the Ukraine conflict.
The Belarusian leader dismissed such speculation, stating: “I am not planning to enter any war. Why would I?”
Lukashenko also rejected claims that recent joint nuclear drills conducted by Moscow and Minsk signaled preparations for a wider escalation.
The drill in Belarus was focused on concealed deployment, long-distance maneuvers and training the troops’ ability to prepare for launches from unscheduled locations, according to the sides.
Russia stationed nuclear weapons in Belarus in 2023, following repeated requests from Minsk. It also deployed its nuclear-capable Oreshnik hypersonic missile system there last year. The Belarusian leadership cited aggressive Western policies as the reason for the deployment.
According to Lukashenko, Minsk would consider using nuclear weapons only in the event of an attack on the country.
Washington’s global supremacy has become its own tar pit
The United States is caught in a trap of its own making. It wants to preserve its unique position in world politics, while at the same time freeing itself from the growing burden that this position imposes. Yet Washington hasn’t found any way to do so except by insisting, ever more loudly, on its own superiority so the result is that America clings more tightly to the very role it should have consciously begun to abandon long ago.
There’s an old story from ‘Uncle Remus’s Tales’, the famous collection by the American writer Joel Chandler Harris, in which Br’er Fox sets a black doll made of tar and turpentine by the roadside to trap Br’er Rabbit. The rabbit greets the doll, mistakes its silence for rudeness, grows angry and strikes it. His paw sticks so he strikes again, and the other paw sticks and the more furiously he fights, the more completely he is trapped.
This is increasingly what American policy looks like in its struggle to preserve hegemony. The US has become stuck to its own global role. It wants to escape the costs of maintaining that role, but every attempt to do so only entangles it further. In trying to defend the “tar baby” of global primacy, Washington is forced into ventures that are costly militarily and for its reputation.
The latest example is the unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. Washington would clearly prefer not to be dragged into a wider Middle Eastern crisis, yet it has once again acted in a way that makes such entanglement more likely. It wants the privileges of hegemony without the liabilities, but the two cannot be separated.
In its struggle with this tar-covered scarecrow, the US damages not only its obvious rivals, Russia and China, but the wider international order. At the center of that order stands the UN system and the institutions built after the Second World War. These structures have long served Western interests, but they also provided a degree of predictability. Now they are being undermined by the very power that once claimed to defend them.
Russia, China and many other states view this process with mixed feelings. None has an interest in a sudden collapse of American power, still less in the collapse of the American state itself because for a century, the United States has been a central factor in global development and the great diplomatic game. Its abrupt disappearance would create not freedom, but rather chaos.
At the same time, it’s obvious that America’s struggle to preserve hegemony is weakening it but this process can’t simply be reversed. The United States is trying to reformat its global presence because it no longer has the resources to sustain the model of engagement that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. Its economic model shows little sign of being capable of the transformation needed to restore the “golden years” of global leadership. Appeals to modern technology, however loudly advertised, look more like temporary devices to avoid deeper change than a serious renewal of American power.
Russia, China and many others therefore watch America’s internal difficulties with a certain satisfaction. They expect that the gradual weakening of the US position will eventually make it possible to speak with Washington on more equal terms and to formalize a fairer world order.
China expresses this position most clearly and compared with Russia, Beijing is in a more comfortable position. The US remains deeply connected to China economically and is therefore cautious about taking genuinely hostile action and East Asia also lacks Europe’s peculiar problem: there are no American allies there quite as eager as certain European states to escalate tensions for their own political purposes.
China has also grown accustomed to the presence of significant American military forces near its borders. Even Taiwan, though politically sensitive, is not viewed in Beijing as an insoluble military problem because Chinese leaders appear confident that, if necessary, they could resolve the matter by force. For now, their strategy is restraint and to watch the US exhaust its resources, avoid unnecessary confrontation and achieve victory without battle.
This approach is reflected in China’s language of “core interests.” Beijing signals that it will respond seriously only when crises touch its immediate strategic environment. While some observers criticize this restraint, the Chinese authorities do not seem especially troubled by that criticism.
But China’s long game is not without danger and the greatest risk is that Japan and South Korea may eventually seek their own nuclear deterrents if American power continues to weaken. Should that happen, China would face a strategic problem far greater than Taiwan. Beijing is also vulnerable to the damage caused by America’s erratic behavior in the global economy because China’s internal stability rests on the rising prosperity of its population, and that prosperity depends heavily on external trade and industrial links. The more Washington destabilizes the world economy, the greater the direct and indirect costs for China.
For Russia, too, American behavior brings both strategic opportunities and serious risks. The weakening of US control over Europe could, paradoxically, make Western Europe more dangerous as its elites, deprived of clear American discipline, may be tempted into an even more reckless confrontation with Moscow. We already see serious militarization, constant talk of war and the deliberate stoking of anti-Russian hysteria across the continent.
One cannot rule out that a further decline in American influence over its allies could become the trigger for a dangerous escalation in Europe. This is especially true because Americans themselves increasingly say they do not intend to bear full responsibility for the security of their traditionally reckless partners.
The economic consequences are also painful. US pressure on the global economy, together with the many sanctions imposed on Russia, has had a negative effect, though not nearly as severe as Washington expected. Russia has adapted, but the costs remain real.
Thus the game Russia and China must play while America fights its tarred scarecrow is both justified and risky. The weakening of US hegemony opens the way to a more balanced international order. But the scale of America’s presence in world affairs means that the transition cannot be simple or painless.
Changing that reality will require discipline and extraordinary diplomatic patience.
This article was first published by the Valdai Cluband edited by the RT team.
The victim, a Colombian tourist, was allegedly drugged and abused by a group of men at an abandoned building in Rome
Five illegal migrants have been arrested for allegedly kidnapping, drugging, and gang-raping a tourist in Rome, according to a statement released by Italian police on Thursday.
Investigators said the 32-year-old Colombian woman was abducted last week after dining alone at a restaurant in the Italian capital. According to police, she was approached by a man after telling him she was looking to buy hashish.
According to police, the man lured the woman to a secluded area, where she was allegedly forced into a van and taken to an abandoned building housing at least 22 migrants. Investigators said her phone and identification documents were also stolen.
Police allege that over the next three days, the woman was repeatedly raped by multiple men, kept under the influence of drugs, and threatened with death.
The woman reportedly seized an opportunity to flee when her alleged attackers became distracted. Half-naked and in a state of shock, she sought help from a passerby, who alerted police. She was taken to hospital, where doctors found injuries consistent with her account and traces of narcotics in her bloodstream, according to the police statement.
Una donna è rimasta rinchiusa per tre giorni in uno stabile abbandonato a Roma, dove, a più riprese, sarebbe stata costretta a subire violenze sessuali di gruppo dietro minacce di morte. Eseguiti 5 fermi a seguito delle indagini dei poliziotti della #squadra mobile#28maggiopic.twitter.com/W9KXiSNeO5
Police, working alongside immigration authorities and other agencies, later raided the abandoned building. Officers found 22 illegal migrants at the site. Five men were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the alleged gang rape.
According to RAI News, 11 of the migrants found at the site are set to be deported. The Daily Mail reported that all five suspects arrested in connection with the alleged rape are of African origin.
Italy remains a key entry point for migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Africa, with UNHCR data indicating that more than 66,000 people arrived by sea over the past year.
Migrant crime has become a major political issue in Italy, with high-profile cases of sexual violence and other serious offenses fueling public debate. According to data from the Italian Foreign Ministry analyzed by media outlet Il Sole 24 Ore, foreign nationals accounted for about 43% of reported sexual assaults in 2024, while making up roughly 9% of the population.
Thomas Massie’s fall shows what really destroys principled US conservatism: not the left, but obedience to the Israeli lobby
As an inveterate leftie with an irrepressible intuitive sympathy for genuine, decent conservatives – that term excludes, obviously, gutless mainstream centrists – I am always looking for exemplars of this old and venerable political species. For one thing, they are much more fun to talk to than woked-out liberals, washed-out social-democrats, or hysterical warmongers of the German variety of (camouflage) Green.
Genuine, decent conservatives tend to have much to say – about, for instance, such vital things as religion, culture, and the family – that is well worth listening to, whether you agree or not. And unlike dour, doctrinaire, and frequently neurotic centrists, genuine conservatives often have the calm self-confidence that comes from being authentic, and thus they can afford tolerance and a sense of humor, even humility.
Alas, it seems that, in the West, such decent conservatives are if not on the verge of extinction, then at least seriously endangered. And, ironically, their worst enemies are not my sort of people, the often all-too-toothless left.
What decent conservatives have to fear the most are their own fellow conservatives, but of the indecent kind. In the US – and not only – that indecency takes a specific form, namely spineless, profoundly unpatriotic submission to the interests of a foreign, and, as it happens, genocidal state and its powerful lobby, Israel.
Case in point: Thomas Massie, a prominent and influential US congressman from Kentucky. Massie has just been defeated by, in essence, his own political tribe. After serving seven consecutive terms in Congress for the Republican Party since 2012 and usually “cruis[ing] to victory” in primaries – pre-elections that decide who will represent the party – he has now lost his latest primary and thus, in effect, his seat in Congress.
Primaries are frequent, but this one attracted much special interest. And rightly so. It clearly was of great national significance, as US President Donald Trump himself went out of his way to launch and support the challenge to Massie, turning the humble local vote in a fairly remote district in a not-so-prominent state into a personal loyalty test. All who are with me – Trump in effect said – kiss my ring, and do not dare vote for Massie the rebel!
In that sense, Massie’s defeat by the largely unknown and politically inchoate newcomer Ed Gallrein is a victory for Trump. Once again, the man who made and betrayed MAGA has proven that he can stop – or at least, disrupt – the political careers of Republicans who oppose him. After a long, acrimonious relationship, Trump has won the divorce: Even during his first term he had called for, in effect, purging Massie from the Republican Party. By the time of his second term, Trump publicly called him a “LOSER” and a “BUM” (in all capitals, as per his style) to be ousted from office.
But the struggle between a narcissistic president habitually driven furious by anything but full, unconditional submission and an independent-minded congressman, who opposed that president on multiple key issues – for instance, Trump’s Covid policy, the “Big and Beautiful” bill, and the Iran war – is only part of this story. And not the most important one.
What really cost Massie his seat is, in one word, Israel. Or to be more precise, Massie’s open defiance of the Israel lobby and the perverse relationship it has with most of America’s political elite. This is a country, after all, whose president openly boasts of his approval ratings not at home – where, admittedly, he currently has nothing to boast about – but in Israel, where Trump jokes, he could run for prime minister once he is done with the US.
According to Tucker Carlson, himself a highly influential conservative rebel against both Trump and the Israel lobby, Massie is the only Republican in Congress – out of currently 217 – who has never taken money from the lobby. According to Massie, not for want of offers: the lobby, he reports, has attempted to buy him for years. Consistently saying no has made him a target for removal instead. For now, unfortunately, with success.
And the Israel lobby really made it rain this time. Megyn Kelly, like Massie and Trump an American conservative (by now) in opposition to Trump, has also dedicated a long segment of her very popular show to Massie’s defeat. With its total cost of over $32 million, this was the most expensive congressional primary in US history. According to Kelly, of that obscene total – a new local record in America’s long tradition of the worst-democracy-money-can-buy – $9 million came from AIPAC, that is, the institutional core of the Israel lobby (at least in public) and another $7 million from an especially established Super PAC – in essence, an election-buying-and-manipulation machine – that channeled the brazen intervention of billionaires, such as Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer, who are also Israel lobby mainstays.
What has Massie done to deserve such hostile largesse? Massie is, of course, not an “anti-Semite,” although that smear has predictably been used against him. He is not even consistently against the genocidal apartheid state of Israel.
Massie’s real sins are breathtakingly simple: Massie has fought, with some if limited success, for transparency in the case of the convicted sex criminal, massively Israel-connected agent of influence, and certainly not suicide victim, Jeffrey Epstein. And he has argued that America is in such horrendous debt that it should stop supporting other countries, including the single greatest and strategically counter-productive drain on its resources, Israel.
That is enough in today’s America: to insist that Americans have a right to know about a hyper-connected criminal who was busy buying and blackmailing US elites and that Americans have no obligation to sacrifice their taxes to Israel. To insist, in other words, on American national interests.
That Massie then consistently also opposed Trump’s policy to waste US lives, wealth, and international standing (a very depleted resource anyhow) by obeying Israel’s order to attack Iran only strengthened his enemies’ resolve to destroy him at least politically.
This need not be the end of the story. Massie, for one, has already promised that he will use his remaining time in Congress to expose more individuals who were involved with Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes. He has also not ruled out a run for president in 2028. Neither has Tucker Carlson, as it happens.
For now, Trump, and through him the Israel lobby, are maintaining their devastating grip on US politics. Before it finally loosens, Americans lack not only genuine democracy but even elementary sovereignty. The key question facing their nation is simple: Will the shameless manipulation of their politics by the lobby of a foreign country continue to escalate or will it, at long last, provoke a backlash that, as a minimum, would restore US independence? And perhaps the possibility to survive as a decent conservative in American mainstream politics.
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