Russia is seeking support for its war effort abroad – and threatening retaliation beyond Ukraine. Reports of foreign labor in drone factories, proposals to counter Starlink, and allegations of overseas recruitment show different ways Moscow could sustain its military effort and put pressure on its opponents.
Nowhere Far Enough
On October 9, Mikhail Zvinchuk, founder of the Russian military Telegram channel Rybar, was detained in Montenegro. Montenegrin authorities accused his team of using media work to interfere in the country’s politics. Rybar said they had come legally to film at Cetinje Monastery and had submitted an official filming request. Moscow’s response explains why this matters: Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, suggested replenishing an “exchange fund” with Europeans and Americans to recover detained Russians. One arrest became a warning about others to come.
Mikhail Zvinchuk, founder of Rybar, a Russian pro-war Telegram channel covering the war in Ukraine, was detained in Montenegro on October 9
Five days earlier, Medvedev had delivered the orbital version of that warning. If Russia’s Rassvet constellation were destroyed, American Starlink satellites would “come tumbling down like ornaments from a dried-up Christmas tree.” “Space is a very crowded place,” he added. “We need to be mutually courteous.” Kiev had sought sanctions and restrictions, not announced a satellite attack. Moscow was putting a military threat behind its demand that Russian communications infrastructure be left alone.
The link is not between a blogger and a satellite. It is between two threats of retaliation: damage our network and yours becomes a target; detain our people and yours may become bargaining chips. Moscow is challenging the assumption that pressure on Russia can remain a one-way transaction.
Partners Behind the Front
The space threat has a practical backdrop. Leaked documents published in July describe a closed Russian-Chinese military forum in Guangzhou in November 2023. Chinese researchers proposed several ways to counter Starlink, from legal pressure and jamming to cyberattacks and destruction. Their hardest problem was also the simplest: how to disable satellites more cheaply and quickly than SpaceX could replace them. They do not show that these systems were built or deployed.
Visualization of the planned Starlink Generation 2 constellation
Russia and China have different strengths to offer. Moscow brings battlefield experience and air-defense knowledge; Beijing brings electronics, artificial intelligence, and manufacturing capacity. Russia can show what works under fire. China can help turn those lessons into equipment made at scale. A sixth closed forum was reportedly planned for the fall in St. Petersburg.
This is why repeated technical meetings matter more than dramatic threats. A shared design, tested and improved over several years, could outlast the war that first made it useful. For Moscow, the goal is to weaken an American advantage. For Beijing, Russian experience offers lessons without having to fight the same war.
Discussion of leaked documents, the “one-to-many” concept and replacement costs
But destroying satellites is not a clean solution. Russia’s 2021 antisatellite test forced both astronauts and Russian cosmonauts to shelter aboard the International Space Station, according to NASA. Debris threatens more than the intended target. Jamming can offer a narrower response; smashing entire networks risks damaging the same orbital space Russia and China also need.
The factory floor shows another side of this partnership-building. A September report by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team says North Korean workers are employed at Alabuga in Tatarstan, where Russia produces Geran-2 drones, and describes workers entering Russia as students. Pyongyang rejected the report as fabricated. If the findings are accurate, the bargain is straightforward: Russia gains workers, North Korea gains income. Foreign support does not have to arrive as a finished missile; it can help keep the assembly line moving.
September 2026 sanctions-monitoring report. Pages 31-32 discuss Alabuga and drone production. Pyongyang rejects the report
The Underground Price List
Recruitment abroad serves a different purpose. A September 15 U.S. indictment alleges that a Russian intelligence-linked network used Cuban and Venezuelan intermediaries to recruit inside America. Prosecutors describe payments of $1,000-$1,500 for surveillance and a $40,000 offer to kill a Russian dissident believed to be near Washington. Another alleged offer promised an American $25,000 to kill a target in Lithuania. These remain accusations, not court findings or proof of an officially declared bounty program.
Original U.S. indictment naming the alleged Russian, Cuban, and Venezuelan participants
The alleged network operated from at least 2024, before the Montenegro arrests. Its importance lies in the method: foreign intermediaries and local recruits, rather than an obvious Russian team. If substantiated, the charges would show Moscow reaching inside America through people who do not carry Russian passports.
The October 9 threat to expand the “exchange fund” signals that consular protests may no longer be Moscow’s only answer. It suggests foreign detainees could become leverage for recovering Russians. The warning to European and American governments is pointed: the detention of a Russian abroad may create a problem for their own citizens elsewhere.
Russia’s partners help it build weapons; alleged overseas networks extend its reach; threats against satellites and foreign detainees aim to raise the cost of confrontation. These are different tools, not proof of one master plan. But October’s warnings carry a common message: Moscow wants the other side to feel exposed too. Medvedev closed his latest message with a Russian proverb: “If you live among wolves, you must howl with them.”
White Nights, a short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky first published in 1848, is the latest literary discovery of Generation Z. TikTok users seem to be talking about little else.
Während der Anti-Spiegel schon seit Anfang 2026 darüber berichtet, dass auf Betrug spezialisierte ukrainische Callcenter in Europa ihr Unwesen treiben und dass dieses Mafia-Geschäft auch schon zu Bombenattentaten in Europa geführt hat, haben westliche Medien das Thema komplett verschwiegen. Erst jetzt, also mit vielen Monaten Verspätung, gab es darüber Anfang Oktober einen Artikel in der […]
The European Union’s technology chief expects countries that oppose stricter artificial intelligence rules to change course, as AI systems are becoming more capable and harder to evaluate.
“I’m sure that all those countries who are not willing to regulate the use of AI, they will come back to that quite soon,” European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen told the European Newsroom (enr) on Friday. She warned of a “risk of very serious incidents” in the absence of any guardrails and called for the establishment of safeguards at an international level.
Concerns about the risks of AI have been at the centre of public attention for weeks, sparked mainly by hacking attacks carried out by AI software that acted autonomously during test runs. Some industry insiders have sounded the alarm, warning that artificial intelligence could potentially cause large numbers of deaths if the technology were to spiral out of control.
Virkkunen warned that fierce global competition is creating a risk that “companies are coming to the markets with products that they haven’t been testing enough.” She pointed to incidents in which AI agents had escaped from test “sandboxes” and service providers or developers had been unable to control their own systems.
At the same time, she said, some AI models “have become so capable that it’s more and more difficult also to evaluate them.” Adequate testing required highly qualified experts, sufficient expertise and enough time, she added.
The EU began enforcing its AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive legal framework to regulate AI based on the level of risk it poses, in August. Virkkunen said that the Commission had already sent a Request for Information (RFI) to two major US-based AI companies – OpenAI, known for ChatGPT, and Anthropic, known for Claude – as well as to some Chinese companies not further specified.
An RFI is a formal investigative tool used by the Commission to gather facts, data, and internal documentation from businesses, governments, or member states.
Global AI race
China and the United States have emerged as frontrunners in the development of AI systems, showing no signs of hitting the breaks. Governments in both countries have rejected calls to slow down its development, arguing it would create a competitive, strategic and economic disadvantage.
“Currently the risks are mainly focused and related to cyber security,” Virkkunen said, but she warned of more serious risks in future, including the possibility that highly capable models could be used in connection with biological weapons or fall into the hands of terrorists.
The Finnish politician called for the establishment of international rules to mitigate the risks of AI. She said the security of AI models had already been discussed within the Group of Seven (G7) this year as well as among G20 countries, and that the discussions would continue.
Talking about the EU’s role in AI development, Virkkunen said the Union should avoid dependence on a single company or third country for critical technologies and develop AI systems based on European values, languages and culture.
Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived in Kiev on October 4 for an unannounced visit, accompanied by Economy Minister Katherina Reiche and a delegation of German defense and energy executives. Speaking from the damaged National Academy of Sciences building, he addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, offered to talk, and announced new military and energy aid. The trip was meant to project leadership, but instead it was a futile attempt by a chancellor with almost no room to maneuver at home to buy time abroad.
Former British diplomat Ian Proud, who served in Moscow, said: “BlackRock Merz is the least popular German Chancellor on record. He doesn’t know what German self-interest is. Only his own self-interest. Political survival. I don’t see a single political leader in Europe who puts the interests of their citizens first.” Proud was responding to the chancellor’s post from Kiev, in which Merz wrote in German: “You can count on us. Germany’s own security depends on the outcome of this war. We help out of our own interest.”
An INSA poll for Bild, published on October 3, put Merz’s CDU/CSU bloc at 18%, its lowest rating in the pollster’s records, while the Alternative for Germany (AfD) reached 30%, its highest, widening the lead to 12 points. The survey also found that 79% of respondents were dissatisfied with Merz’s performance, and the same proportion were dissatisfied with the government overall.
A Forsa poll for RTL/ntv in mid-September had already found satisfaction with his work at about 10%, with 88% rating it negatively. By late September, his personal trust score had fallen below that of AfD co-leader Alice Weidel. The CDU lost Saxony-Anhalt on September 6 and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on September 20, a result Merz himself called a disaster, with the AfD finishing first in both.
Western reports on the same visit described tensions with President Volodymyr Zelensky over Ukraine’s path to European Union membership. Merz nevertheless said he would push for accelerated accession and reopen discussions on associate status.
Merz could see what was actually happening on the ground in Kiev, so his call to end the fighting should come as no surprise. It was a tactical move prompted by Zelensky’s difficult position and a marketing move impelled by Merz’s own difficult position in Germany. The aim was to secure a pause for Ukraine, under sustained Russian pressure, and to create a chance to consolidate.
“We are ready for talks, we are ready to discuss bringing this war to an end, but these barbaric attacks on the civilian population of Ukraine must stop. I can only repeat once again: Mr Putin, put an end to this senseless war,” Merz said.
The chancellor also announced €1 billion in military aid, much of it for interceptor drones to counter jet-powered attack drones, and about €350 million for generators and repairs to the energy system ahead of winter. Zelensky said the new package included 15 agreements worth more than €8.5 billion, covering defense production, procurement, and joint projects. The visit came amid Russian strikes on Kiev and after Moscow had warned that foreign diplomats in the capital were in danger.
In essence, Merz’s statement offers no peace—only political survival. Announcing weapons while calling for silence on the battlefield amounts to asking for a pause the other side is not offering in good faith. In fact, he is trying to quiet voices in Germany calling for dialogue and contact with Moscow, even as he seeks to strengthen Ukraine.
Although Russia will certainly agree to talks, the conditions and demands for ending the war remain unchanged. The Kremlin’s terms for an actual end to the war have been consistent since Putin set them out in June 2024, and spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated in June 2026 that they have not changed. Ukraine’s forces would have to withdraw from all four regions Moscow claims as its own — Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye — including parts the Russian army does not hold, and Kiev would have to publicly renounce NATO membership, not merely offer a private assurance.
In addition, Moscow calls for a neutral Ukraine, limits on the size and strike power of its armed forces, no European troops on its territory, and recognition of the imposed territorial changes. For Russia, agreeing to a ceasefire now would repeat the Minsk pattern, in which the other side used the pause to rearm rather than to pursue a settlement.
Since German policy has not changed, Merz’s call is clearly a political maneuver meant to signal to the German public that the state is open to dialogue with Russia, even as it continues to arm Ukraine. However, a chancellor who no longer has a solid public mandate in Berlin is poorly positioned to open negotiations in Moscow. Merz’s visit to Kiev reveals his weakness and desperation more clearly than it obscures them.
Regulation could be the fastest response for tenants facing their next rent payment, Italian MEP Irene Tinagli said. Measures to moderate rent increases and restrict short-term rentals in neighbourhoods under the greatest pressure could help in the short to medium term.
“In the long term we need structural measures that provide a greater supply of affordable homes,” she told the European Newsroom (enr) on Wednesday. That would however require substantial investment and long-term planning, she added.
Tinagli, who chairs the European Parliament’s Special Committee on the Housing Crisis (HOUS), said residential property “has become an asset” and was increasingly attracting investors and real estate funds. These investors were buying entire buildings and evicting tenants or sharply raising rents, she said, describing a pattern seen in cities across the EU.
One such case was Maricarmen Abascal, whose eviction from her longtime Madrid home made her a symbol of Spain’s housing protests. She died in hospital at the age of 87 on October 7, two weeks after her eviction. She never returned home, despite an agreement with the apartment’s owner, Urbagestión, that would have allowed her to return at roughly her previous rent rate.
In the interview, conducted before news of Abascal’s death emerged, Tinagli described Abascal’s eviction as “a case that we are seeing in many other cities and countries across the European Union” and added: “It tells me that we need to do something.”
European tools, local action
While housing remains primarily a national and local responsibility, the EU could provide authorities with tools to act, alongside guidelines and parliamentary resolutions, Tinagli said.
She pointed to greater use of cohesion funds, “reprogramming them to address housing investments”, and more flexible state-aid rules to support social and affordable housing projects.
Work on an Affordable Housing Act, which the European Commission proposed last month, was intended to give authorities clearer criteria for restricting short-term rentals “where they are becoming increasingly invasive of the dynamics of the city,” the Italian politician said.
Such restrictions could range from limits on licences to outright bans, depending on local housing pressures. Reducing potential returns from holiday lets could curb investors’ interest in driving up property prices, she added.
Europa hat bekanntlich zu wenig Gas und dürfte im nächsten Winter ein Energieproblem bekommen. Trotzdem will die EU-Kommission 2027 komplett auf russisches Gas verzichten. Ungarn hat sich unter Orban und auch in den ersten Monaten der Regierung Magyar gegen eine schnelle Absage an russisches Gas gewehrt, nun aber hat der ungarische Energieminister in einem Interview […]
Als normaldenkender Mensch sollte man meinen, dass die deutschen – angeblich so kritischen, objektiven und unabhängigen – Medien darüber berichten und die Öffentlichkeit davor warnen würden, wenn es tausende Callcenter mit zehntausenden Mitarbeitern gäbe, die sich auf Telefonbetrug spezialisiert haben und damit in den Ländern des Westens eine Milliarde Dollar monatlich verdienen. Wie wir gleich […]
European Union ambassadors have approved 1,646 new sanctions designations against individuals and organisations linked to Russia, with more than half of the additions targeting the industrial chain behind ballistic missiles including the Iskander-M.
European Union ambassadors have agreed a major expansion of sanctions against Russia, approving 1,646 new designations concentrated heavily on the country’s military-industrial complex and the production of ballistic missiles used against Ukraine.
The measures, agreed by EU envoys in Brussels on Wednesday, 7th October, are due to be formally adopted by foreign ministers on Monday. More than half of those being added to the sanctions regime are involved in the production chain for Russian ballistic missiles, including the 9M723 missile used by the Iskander-M system, according to details of the agreed listings.
The additions extend well beyond companies assembling finished weapons. They include organisations involved in missile research and testing, manufacturers of solid rocket fuel and rocket engines, and producers of specialised textiles, synthetic fibres and carbon materials used in missile systems.
Drone manufacturers and shipyards servicing Russian submarines are also among those targeted.
The emphasis on individual components and suppliers reflects the EU’s increasingly detailed approach to sanctions against Russia’s defence industry. Rather than concentrating only on large defence groups, Brussels has progressively moved further down supply chains in an attempt to restrict access to specialised materials, technology and production capacity.
The latest action comes as Russia has intensified ballistic missile strikes against Ukraine. The Iskander-M presents a particular problem for Ukrainian air defences because the ballistic missile can be intercepted by US-produced Patriot systems, stocks of whose interceptors have come under increasing pressure.
The new EU list also includes 77 Russian politicians who stood for parliamentary seats in territories of Ukraine occupied by Russia. Their inclusion extends the sanctions response from military production to Moscow’s efforts to incorporate occupied Ukrainian regions into Russian political structures.
Brussels has also moved against North Korean participation in Russia’s war effort. Seven North Korean individuals and entities are being added under the EU’s separate sanctions regime concerning North Korea.
Military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang have expanded considerably during the war. Ukrainian authorities have identified North Korean ballistic missiles used by Russian forces, while North Korea has supplied ammunition and other military support to Moscow.
The 1,646 additions do not in themselves constitute an entirely new package of sectoral restrictions. They are individual and entity designations within the existing EU sanctions architecture, meaning that assets in the EU can be frozen and EU persons and companies are prohibited from making funds or economic resources available to those listed.
Their scale is nonetheless significant. By placing the missile-production chain at the centre of the new designations, the EU is attempting to connect its sanctions policy more directly with the weapons Russia is currently using against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
Formal adoption by foreign ministers on Monday will complete the legal process.
The EU should not accept any cuts to the proposed allocation of funds to defence and security in the next long-term EU budget, German MEP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said in Strasbourg on Wednesday.
“Without security, we have no discussion anymore about anything,” the chair of the European Parliament’s committee on defence and security (SEDE) told the European Newsroom (enr) on the sidelines of Parliament’s plenary session.
The European Commission has proposed €131 billion for investment in defence, security and space under the European Competitiveness Fund in the EU’s 2028–2034 budget. This represents a five-fold increase compared with the current budget period.
Asked what compromise she would accept on the size, funding or allocation of defence spending to secure a budget agreement, Strack-Zimmermann said: “We need everything without compromises.”
The next long-term budget requires unanimous agreement among EU member states and the European Parliament’s consent.
Support for Ukraine
Strack-Zimmermann accused Russia of trying to deter European leaders from visiting Kyiv and undermine their support for Ukraine following attacks during German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit last Sunday.
Asked about accelerating deliveries to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia’s war of agression, Strack-Zimmermann said funding was available but action required approval from national governments.
Ukraine needed humanitarian, military and economic assistance, including money to produce more weapons to protect its people, she said.
All in on SAFE
Strack-Zimmermann urged countries to move faster on joint defence procurement, backing the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument.
SAFE provides up to €150 billion in competitively priced loans to member states aimed at accelerating large-scale investment in critical capabilities.
“We have more than 150 different weapons systems and to protect Europe we need this SAFE program,” the German politician said.
She said the programme had attracted interest both within and outside the EU. According to the European Commission, 19 EU member states have submitted defence investment plans, such as France, Italy and Poland, but not Germany.
The first non-European country to participate in SAFE was Canada, which concluded an agreement with the EU in June.
Prime Minister Luís Montenegro has thrown his support behind António Costa remaining president of the European Council for a second two-and-a-half-year term. Speaking in Strasbourg on Tuesday (October 6), Montenegro
Seit Monaten berichte ich über den Streit zwischen der EU und der Ukraine, in dem es darum geht, dass die EU im Gegenzug für die Auszahlung der Gelder aus dem 90-Milliardenkredit „Reformen“ fordert, die der EU die volle Kontrolle über die ukrainische Polizei, Staatsanwaltschaft und Gerichte bis hoch zum Verfassungsgericht geben. Mit anderen Worten: Die […]
The EU’s difficulties in negotiating with China go beyond tariffs and quotas — structural economic differences, political fragmentation within Europe and broader geopolitical tensions reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the China that Brussels is dealing with and the world in which it must compete. The Strategic Disconnect: Europe’s China Blindspot The fact that European negotiators […]
Litauen ist militärstrategisch ausgesprochen wichtig, denn sollte es zwischen der NATO oder EU und Russland zu einem militärischen Konflikt kommen, wäre Litauen das erste Schlachtfeld. Der Grund liegt in Litauens geografischer Lage, denn das Land liegt im sogenannten Suwalki-Korridor, der Russland von seiner Exklave Kaliningrad trennt. Im Kriegsfall würde die NATO als erstes versuchen, Kaliningrad […]
French teenagers asked for teachers and decent classrooms. They got a national confrontation. Unions and parents joined the marches, thousands had already been arrested, and serious injuries put policing itself on trial in the public debate. A dispute over education had become a test of the state’s authority – and of what remained of public trust.
Street clashes, fires, and attacks on emergency vehicles: short clips collected from the unrest in France
A Failing Grade
The movement began in the second half of September over overcrowding, missing teachers, deteriorating buildings, and overloaded schedules. Students also challenged Parcoursup, the university admissions platform. The students were not asking for a new republic. They wanted the existing one to put enough teachers in its classrooms.
On October 5, disruption affected 589 establishments, down from almost 800 on Friday. The decline was real. So was the danger of mistaking fewer blockades for a settled dispute.
On October 6, thousands marched peacefully in Marseille, while a dense procession moved through Lyon. Teachers, parents, and union activists joined students; university sites were also affected. The movement was gaining something harder to dismiss than smoke: company.
Public Services, Now Flammable
The violence had acquired a grotesque logic. In Marseille, a fire truck burned and buses came under attack. In La Ciotat, a teacher was doused with gasoline. Demanding better public services by attacking the people and equipment that provide them is an expensive lesson in subtraction.
Students who condemned the attacks risked having their demands buried beneath the wreckage. Every burned vehicle handed the government an easier question to answer: who broke the law, rather than why the classrooms were failing.
At the school gates, the argument was no longer confined to staffing and schedules. Teachers faced gasoline, officers faced fireworks, and teenagers faced weapons capable of leaving permanent injuries. The next lesson would be counted in casualties.
Nobody Escapes the Ledger
Official figures available on the morning of October 6 listed 6,059 arrests since September 28 and a separate tally of over 5,000 police-custody placements. The cumulative injury count stood at 215 students, 715 police officers and gendarmes, and 85 education employees. France’s police inspectorate had opened ten investigations. These figures describe a crisis, not a scoreboard.
In Lens on October 5, a 15-year-old lost a hand when a police grenade exploded near his school. Police sources said he had picked it up; a witness disputed that account. The prosecutor said the sequence remained unresolved. The investigation will take time. The injury is permanent.
Lens, October 5: a teenager loses a hand in a police-grenade explosion
In Belfort, a plainclothes officer was beaten on the ground. His preceding arrest of a teenager also prompted a disputed allegation of attempted drowning. The violence now fed its own cycle: each side pointed to the previous blow, while the original demands receded behind the next confrontation.
The Republic Takes Notes
On October 6, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said he had no apology to offer injured students while investigations remained underway. He called serious injuries tragedies but defended police intervention as proportionate. The findings were pending; the minister’s confidence was not.
Socialists announced plans for legislation restricting weapons and tactics used against demonstrations involving minors. Paris’s mayor offered municipal rooms for student meetings. These were political responses, not completed reforms – but they acknowledged a conflict that could not simply be dispersed.
Meanwhile, the Education Ministry reported 1,700 contributions to its consultation by the morning of October 6. Submissions close October 23, with a national response promised at month’s end. The government had set a deadline for listening. Delivering answers would be the harder assignment.
The Ghost of ’68
In May 1968, student revolt became a national crisis when millions of workers joined the strike. Today’s union presence makes the analogy tempting, not complete. Joining a march is not shutting down the economy. Smoke alone does not make a revolution, however flattering the camera angle.
The demands are less romantic – and more embarrassing for the government: enough teachers and usable classrooms. Before anyone remakes society, could someone repair the school? Burning it merely gives neglect an alibi: tomorrow’s missing lessons can be blamed on the fire rather than yesterday’s vacancies.
Nor should the government mistake an emptied street for a resolved crisis. Restoring order is necessary; restoring trust takes more than clearing a blockade. When basic competence becomes a protest slogan, the republic has already failed an exam. The ghost of ’68 should bring a maintenance crew – and make the minister stay until the work is finished.
Following Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, analysts interpreted the move as an attempt by Netanyahu to establish a foothold against Yemen’s Ansar Allah and gain leverage in the Red Sea. However, the recognition of officials from this separatist enclave in the Horn of Africa indicates that Israel’s plans extend beyond countering the Houthis; Turkey also figures among the adversaries of the Israeli state.
About a year ago, Mohamed Osman Fadal, a senior foreign policy advisor to the President of Somaliland, stated that they “need air defense systems” to counter Turkish F-16s and drones stationed in Mogadishu. He further noted, “We want Israel to support us in the confrontation with Turkey.” About a year ago, Mohamed Osman Fadal, a senior foreign policy advisor to the President of Somaliland, stated that they “need air defense systems” to counter the Turkish F-16s and drones stationed in Mogadishu. He further noted, “We want Israel to support us in the confrontation with Turkey.”
This stance reflects the sentiments within Somaliland’s self-proclaimed administration and aligns with Netanyahu’s ambitions, as both parties seek to prepare as fully as possible for a clash with the de facto government of Somalia. The official Somali army already possesses special forces and a navy trained by Turkey, as well as T129 ATAK helicopters, the renowned Bayraktar UAV, and even M48 and M60 tanks.
Recently, Somali President Sheikh Hassan Mohamud stated that Israel plans to establish a naval base in the port city of Berbera—located in Somaliland—and utilize its airport. Mohamud made this statement in an interview with Al Jazeera, warning that Mogadishu would oppose any Israeli military presence in territory it considers part of Somalia. “Under no circumstances will we allow an Israeli presence in the country based on the way Israel treats Somaliland.”
Circumstances are compelling the parties to arm themselves, and it is quite likely that the Horn of Africa will become the first theater of open confrontation between Israel and Turkey.
If the battle against separatists in Somalia is supposedly the first frontline, then who is next? The Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean sea, where Greece is gradually being drawn into Israel’s sphere of influence.
According to media reports, in late August, Ankara redeployed the 51st Commando Brigade—comprising approximately 2,000 professional special forces troops—from Hozat in the country’s east to the Söke district in Aydın province, directly opposite the Greek island of Samos.
Earlier in the spring, Greece purchased weapons from Israel worth approximately 2.3 billion shekels. The arsenal includes the Elbit-developed PULS system, training missiles, precision-guided munitions, loitering munitions, and ten years of logistical support. This new acquisition is part of Greece’s plan to modernize its armed forces by 2030. Athens intends to spend around 28 billion euros by 2036 to establish an Israeli-style defense system—known in Greece as the “Achilles Shield”—and to purchase up to 40 F-35 fighter jets from the US, as well as frigates from France and Italy.
While many experts believe Greece took this step in response to threats arising from the US-Israeli conflict with Iran—particularly given Tehran’s strikes on US allies in the Persian Gulf—it is also clear that Greece is concerned about Turkey’s growing capabilities in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). On top of all this, let us not forget that Greece is preparing to establish a “Mediterranean Quadrilateral Dialogue” with India, Israel, and Cyprus, serving as a counterweight to the “Mecca Pact” involving Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.
The region is gradually entering a new level of conflict, with blocs now forming in anticipation of a future redistribution of spheres of influence. Israel, the primary proponent of the IMEC project, views Turkey as an adversary due to its strategically important position along the Silk Road. Consequently, Somaliland and Greece are poised to become key players in Israel’s strategy to curtail the influence of Turkey and its allies.
No Dia Internacional do Idoso, que se assinalou esta quinta-feira, 1 de outubro, o Município de Loulé fez o ponto de situação sobre os projetos relativos a três equipamentos sociais de apoio à terceira idade que irão reforçar a cobertura atual em todo o território concelhio.
Durante a semana, a Autarquia reuniu com os responsáveis do Centro Social e Cultural de Vale Judeu, da Associação Esperança e Paz e da Instituição de Solidariedade Social da Serra do Calderão, os promotores do lares que serão criados em breve para dar resposta a uma das necessidades mais prementes no concelho.
Em relação à futura estrutura residencial para idosos de Vale Judeu, neste momento encontra-se em revisão do projeto, “o que significa que, muito em breve, estará pronto para ser lançado o concurso público”. É também neste ponto em que se encontra o lar que irá nascer em Loulé, numa iniciativa que tem o envolvimento direto da Associação Esperança e Paz. “Aguardamos a entrega do projeto de execução para depois ser revisto e também poder ir para concurso”, refere Telmo Pinto.
O alargamento do Centro Comunitário de Nossa Senhora da Conceição, no Barranco do Velho, permitirá criar mais um equipamento para apoiar a população idosa no interior do concelho, um território marcado pelo envelhecimento demográfico. Este será “um processo mais rápido”, até porque já foram entregues as especialidades, prevendo-se que, num curto prazo, seja lançado o concurso.
No total dos três equipamentos, serão mais 120 lugares em lar disponíveis para uma resposta social em que os equipamentos estão longe de ser suficientes. “Continuamos a trabalhar, juntamente com os responsáveis das instituições, coordenando este trabalho para que nada falhe e possamos responder o mais depressa possível às necessidades das pessoas”, realça o autarca Telmo Pinto.
Cheap drones, heavy bombs, disrupted shipping, and vulnerable supply routes are challenging the idea that technological superiority guarantees military success. The emerging contest is not simply over who builds the smartest weapon. It is over who can adapt, produce, and keep fighting after the enemy learns how to break it. Washington’s Project Meridian offers one answer. Recent battlefields suggest a much harder test.
The Battlefield Rewrites the Blueprint
The war in Ukraine shows that military innovation does not always mean more sophisticated weapons. Sometimes it means finding a simple way around an enemy’s defenses. Russian forces did that with drones guided through fiber-optic cables instead of radio signals, allowing them to operate despite radio jamming.
During the fighting to push Ukrainian troops out of Russia’s Kursk region, fiber-optic drones threatened the roads supplying Ukrainian positions. Sustained attacks on transport made those positions harder to supply, reinforce, and evacuate. Ground that remained defensible against a direct assault became increasingly difficult to hold as supply routes came under pressure.
Drones did not replace infantry or artillery. Their value came from linking reconnaissance and strikes to a broader effort to disrupt Ukrainian logistics. A relatively small change in drone guidance helped Russian forces put pressure on the supply lines sustaining the defense, rather than just individual vehicles or positions.
A separate example from eastern Ukraine shows how drone attacks can also threaten robotic supply vehicles
Nor did the advantage remain exclusive. Ukrainian units expanded their own fiber-optic capabilities, turning a Russian breakthrough into another round of adaptation. Cable guidance removes the vulnerable radio-control link, but introduces weight, handling, and physical constraints. It does not make the aircraft invisible or indestructible. A solution to one problem creates a different set of tradeoffs.
Russia’s glide bombs demonstrate another route to military innovation. Instead of replacing existing weapons entirely, guidance and wing kits give older bombs greater reach and precision. Their heavy payloads perform tasks that small drones cannot. Their use against Ukrainian positions illustrates why the future battlefield will contain both cheap electronics and large quantities of conventional explosives.
The broader lesson is uncomfortable for anyone selling a universal replacement for the old military. New systems do not arrive on an empty battlefield. They must work with existing aircraft, artillery, engineers, supply units, and command structures. Their value depends on how those parts fit together.
That also limits what strike videos can prove. A successful attack demonstrates an outcome, not the average success rate, the number of failed missions, or the effort required to repeat it. The decisive question is whether an army can turn occasional success into a dependable military capability.
The Cost of Keeping Routes Open
The Red Sea offers a different warning. An attacker does not necessarily have to defeat a navy to impose strategic costs.
Houthi attacks pushed shipping companies toward longer routes around Africa. By late summer 2026, traffic through the Suez Canal was recovering but remained well below pre-crisis levels. Houthi attacks had pushed shipping companies onto longer, more expensive routes, showing how a regional armed group could disrupt global trade without defeating a major navy.
An interception can therefore be a tactical success without restoring normal commercial activity. The defender must protect ships and sustain confidence over time. The attacker may only need to keep the risk credible. Counting destroyed drones does not answer whether the shipping route is functioning.
The familiar comparison between a cheap drone and an expensive interceptor captures only part of this problem. Saving a merchant ship or warship can justify an expensive defensive shot. The deeper question is whether sufficient interceptors, maintenance capacity, crews, and replacement stocks remain available throughout a prolonged campaign.
Ukraine presents a related problem on land. Russian glide bombs combine substantial destructive power with relatively inexpensive conversion kits. Defending against every incoming weapon with a costly missile is not necessarily sustainable. But abandoning high-end air defenses would leave other threats unanswered.
The likely response is a layered force rather than a single miracle weapon. Different threats demand different combinations of detection, electronic warfare, physical protection, and interception. An army also needs to keep operating when some threats get through.
Kursk and the Red Sea are not interchangeable battlefields. One concerns a contested land campaign, the other pressure on maritime commerce. What connects them is the importance of maintaining a function under repeated attack. Delivering supplies and keeping shipping moving matter more than producing an impressive interception tally.
Washington Looks Upward
Washington is approaching this problem through a different starting point: global networks, industrial scale, and institutional control.
On September 30, Pete Hegseth announced Project Meridian alongside a proposed Autonomous Warfare Command and the Fortress America initiative. Meridian would examine future military capabilities, while the new command would organize the expansion of autonomous and robotic systems. Fortress America would address the resilience of bases and supply chains. These are related initiatives, not a single approved war plan.
U.S. service members at the State of the Force address, Quantico, September 30, 2026
Meridian’s advisers include Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich, under Pentagon technology chief Emil Michael. The study has 120 days to report. Its significance is not that three men can invent the next war. It is that major technology suppliers are being invited to help define the military capabilities Washington should pursue.
The September 30 memorandum commissions a study of future warfare
The State of the Force event at Quantico, where Project Meridian was announced, September 30, 2026
Some of the supporting infrastructure already has funding. On May 26, Space Systems Command awarded SpaceX a $2.29 billion agreement for the Space Data Network Backbone. A fully operational prototype is due by the end of 2027. The intended function is to connect military sensors and weapons through a high-capacity orbital communications network.
That addresses a real military requirement. Information has limited value if it cannot reach the people or systems that need it. But a larger network does not automatically become a more dependable one. The test is whether useful connections survive disruption, and whether units can continue operating when they do not.
Heavy-lift rockets could support the deployment of larger satellite constellations, although these programs do not yet amount to a single publicly defined architecture. Starship Flight 14 reached orbit on September 28 and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites. That demonstrated payload delivery, not every capability promised for the rocket. Reaching orbit once and providing dependable, economical military infrastructure are different milestones.
Starship Flight 14 launches from Starbase, September 28, 2026, carrying 26 Starlink V3 satellites
Starship’s final descent, landing burn, and splashdown during Flight 14, September 28, 2026
Golden Dome extends the ambition to missile defense. In May, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a notional system consistent with the administration’s stated objectives could cost about $1.2 trillion over 20 years. Crucially, this was not a price tag for the Pentagon’s approved design. The final architecture had not been publicly disclosed.
A notional national missile-defense architecture assessed by the Congressional Budget Office
Estimated costs of the Congressional Budget Office’s hypothetical system, expressed in 2026 dollars
The policy risk is not simply excessive ambition. It is defining military problems in ways that favor the products already offered by influential suppliers. That deserves scrutiny without assuming that commercial involvement makes every proposal useless. A contract is evidence of spending. It is not evidence of battlefield superiority.
Elon Musk, named a co-leader of Project Meridian
Machines Still Need Factories
The American approach emphasizes integrating ambitious systems through large institutions. The battlefield experience points toward an equally important requirement: changing ordinary systems quickly.
These approaches are not mutually exclusive. Satellites and inexpensive drones can support the same force. The tension lies in their development cycles. A major space program cannot be redesigned every few weeks. A frontline drone or its communications equipment may lose effectiveness if updates take years.
The industrial base must therefore support both continuity and rapid revision. Ukraine’s drone sector demonstrates the importance of close feedback between operators and developers, but also the vulnerability of assembly dependent on imported components. A domestically assembled aircraft is not necessarily an independently sustainable capability.
Russian developers are also discussing the problem in terms broader than individual weapons. In September, the Ushkuynik center presented a drone assembly line housed in a modified shipping container. The proposal illustrates an effort to distribute production rather than concentrate it in a single factory.
These are developer proposals, not independently demonstrated solutions at national scale. Nevertheless, they identify two important problems: distributing production and closing gaps between separate defensive systems.
A workshop, a repair team, and a reliable component supplier may therefore matter as much as another model advertised as revolutionary. Military adaptation requires people who can identify a failure, explain it to engineers, approve a modification, and return workable equipment to service.
Autonomous Warfare Command: new drones, familiar geometry. All that’s missing is the secret handshake
Autonomy does not remove these obligations. The meaningful question is which task a machine can perform reliably without continuous human input, under what conditions, and with what consequences when it fails. “Autonomous” should describe a tested function, not serve as a substitute for explaining one.
Fortress America recognizes another dependency. Hegseth’s stated aim is for military installations eventually to operate under their own power, alongside stronger protection and domestic supply chains. Yet independence from the civilian grid would not by itself eliminate the need for fuel, spare parts, communications, or skilled maintenance. Resilience must extend beyond the perimeter fence.
The same principle applies at the front. Engineering and logistics deserve attention alongside strike footage. They show how forces sustain movement and support combat units, rather than merely how they destroy a target.
From Remote Control to Robotic Forces
The next stage of warfare is unlikely to resemble an army of humanoid machines replacing soldiers. A more plausible future is a force in which people fight alongside growing numbers of specialized robots, from reconnaissance aircraft to ground vehicles carrying ammunition, evacuating casualties, and supporting assaults.
That transition is already underway. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces are using ground robots for logistics, evacuation, and other battlefield tasks. In September, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry reported that its ground systems had completed more than 25,000 supply and evacuation missions in August alone. The figure is an official claim, not an independently audited total, but it illustrates how far the ambition extends beyond occasional demonstrations.
Over the next five years, the important change may be the organization of these machines into working formations. Aerial drones could scout ahead while ground robots move supplies and support troops. Humans would still set objectives and handle situations the machines cannot reliably interpret. The advantage would come from coordinating those different roles, not simply putting more unmanned vehicles on the battlefield.
Remote control, however, is not autonomy. A vehicle that needs continuous steering from an operator remains dependent on communications and human attention. Greater autonomy could allow machines to navigate, avoid obstacles, or complete limited tasks when a connection fails. None of those functions automatically makes a robot capable of independently identifying legitimate targets or deciding when to fire.
The likely result is a race between robotic capability and countermeasures. More machines may reduce the number of soldiers exposed on supply routes, but those machines will themselves become targets. Communications, batteries, maintenance, and replacement parts will remain constraints. Robotization moves some risks away from people; it does not abolish the costs of war.
Nor will inexpensive robots make heavy weapons obsolete. Small drones, armored vehicles, artillery, and aircraft perform different jobs. The stronger force will be the one that combines them effectively and changes that combination faster than its opponent.
Meridian should be judged against this prospect, not the grandeur of its language. Can Washington build systems that cooperate, survive disruption, and remain affordable enough to replace? Can its procurement machinery adapt as quickly as the battlefield demands?
The next war will not be won by whoever unveils the most impressive robot. It may favor the side that can lose machines without losing momentum, preserve human judgment without slowing every decision, and turn battlefield lessons into production before the enemy does. The real revolution is not a machine that looks like a soldier. It is an army that learns to fight differently because machines are now part of its ranks.
Dass die NATO Russland bei Kaliningrad immer heftiger provoziert, wird von westlichen Medien zwar verschwiegen, ist aber nicht zu bestreiten. NATO-Staaten führen bei Kaliningrad fast ununterbrochen Manöver durch, in denen sie die, Blockade, Bombardierung und Eroberung der russischen Exklave üben. Russland hat daher letzte Woche eine deutliche Warnung an die NATO ausgesprochen, über die ich […]
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