On Tuesday, Argentine political leaders, workers, students, and social activists will march to the Congress in Buenos Aires to demand compliance with the University Financing Law and urge the Chamber of Deputies to reject Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) 70/23. The gathering is scheduled to take place in front of Parliament, where demands regarding the Land Law and the Rental Law will also be voiced.
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The mobilization will bring together faculty, non-teaching staff, students, university officials, labor confederations, tenants’ organizations, Malvinas war veterans, and political leaders. Participants will call on the government to implement the University Financing Law and on the Chamber of Deputies to repeal DNU 70/23, which has already been rejected by the Senate.
The protest was decided upon weeks ago, following strikes and public teaching sessions organized by faculty and non-teaching staff unions. The organizations maintain that the law must guarantee the sustainability of national universities and demand that the Executive branch comply with existing regulations.
The Buenos Aires University (UBA) issued a message supporting the call to action: “Let us not normalize non-compliance with the law. Laws must be obeyed. Always.” The university called for participation in the fifth Federal University March to demand adherence to the law and to defend public higher education.
#Argentina | A federal court struck down President Javier Milei’s decree blocking the University Financing Law and ordered the government to immediately release funds for public universities.
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) October 7, 2026
The ruling follows more than a year of disputes over university funding.#Education… pic.twitter.com/SbD2Nswu3P
These demands were also voiced last week at the Palacio Pizzurno, the headquarters of the Secretariat of Education. There, student unions from the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area staged a sit-in and asked the Secretary of Education, Carlos Torrendell, to increase scholarships in accordance with the University Financing Law.
According to the statement regarding the event, the meeting lasted three minutes before authorities forcibly removed the students from the building. Later, the Ministry of Human Capital announced it would file a formal complaint regarding the incident. Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof confirmed he would participate in the march.
During an event marking the 150th anniversary of the implementation of Law 988 on Common Education, he stated that the national government does not respect the law and maintained that its representatives would be “in the streets on the 15th, defending public universities.” Kicillof also noted that the 26 national universities located within the province are the responsibility of the federal government.
Meanwhile, students will march in groups organized by student unions or independently, just as they did during the four previous mobilizations. Some university faculties are preparing measures to support the protest. At the UBA’s Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, an assembly voted to occupy the building at Puan 480 from 7:00 PM on Tuesday until Thursday, the day of the mobilization.
Emergency Decree (DNU) 70/23 and the legislative debate
The march also aims to pressure the Chamber of Deputies to reject Emergency Decree (DNU) 70/23, signed by President Javier Milei. The lower house is scheduled to debate the decree, although achieving a quorum to hold the session remains uncertain.
The legislative debate was called after the Supreme Court overturned a ruling that had declared Article 154 of the decree—which concerned the repeal of the Land Law—unconstitutional. As of this writing, that law remains in effect. Nevertheless, the organizers are proceeding with the mobilization, maintaining that the protest should not depend on judicial decisions.
The La Plata Center for Malvinas War Veterans (Cecim), which had filed the legal challenge, confirmed it would be present at Plaza de los Dos Congresos, stating: “The homeland is not for sale. We are marching on the 15th regardless, because DNU 70 is a crime against the people.”
The two CTA labor confederations also announced their participation. The CTA Autónoma announced it would return to the streets to demand that the Chamber of Deputies repeal the decree and move forward with declaring it unconstitutional.
"El decreto 70/23 no es ni más ni menos una forma de LIQUIDAR SOBERANÍA NACIONAL, no hay forma de verlo desde otro lugar"
— 💛🇦🇷 🅟🅐🅜🅟🅐 🇦🇷💙 (@Pampa139) October 11, 2026
Hay que impedir que vendan el país entero, porque dejaron en claro que no les importa pic.twitter.com/je4wq44qQD
Emergency Decree (DNU) 70/23 repealed the Rental Law, which had mandated three-year contracts and six-monthly rent adjustments. Consequently, tenants’ organizations will join the march to demand the decree’s rejection. The group Organized Tenants (Inquilinos Agrupados) called for a gathering outside Congress, declaring: “Down with Decree 70. We will have a rental law.”
Peronist and leftist leaders also confirmed their participation. Gabriel Solano—a former Buenos Aires City legislator representing the Workers’ Party (Partido Obrero) within the Left and Workers’ Front-Unity (FIT-U)—called for intensified mobilization to reject the decree and secure an increase in the university budget.
The rally will thus bring together demands for higher education funding and opposition to the repeals enacted by the decree regarding land and rental regulations. The outcome of the debate on the decree will rest with the deputies, while protesters seek to voice their grievances outside Congress.
Kyiv just cleared the important roadblock for Budapest, which stood between Kyiv and EU membership talks. Ukraine’s parliament has passed a bill on schooling in minority languages, meant to finally lift Hungary’s block on the country’s path toward EU membership, with 266 of the 450 lawmakers voting in favor, UNIAN reports.
Hungary has been the lone EU member blocking the opening of four of Ukraine’s negotiating clusters, stages of the membership process, over how Kyiv treats the Hungarian minority in Ukraine's Zakarpattia region. Roughly 80,000 ethnic Hungarians live in it, and Budapest had tied Ukraine’s entire EU course to their language rights.
Lawmakers have instructed the parliament’s speaker to sign the law without delay and send it to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The bill keeps Ukrainian as the main language of education, but guarantees classes in minority languages where they exist. Minorities may study in the official languages of EU member states alongside Ukrainian, and pupils may use their language in other forms of communication on school grounds.
A school can gain the status of a national-minority institution if more than half of its pupils study in that minority language, provided that language is an official EU language. Parents of at least two-thirds of a minority class can also ask the school to expand the list of subjects taught in Ukrainian.
Ukraine’s 2017 education law and 2019 language law narrowed minority-language schooling and required more Ukrainian in secondary grades, which then-Hungarian leader Viktor Orban treated as an attack on the Hungarians of Zakarpattia, blocking Kyiv’s NATO and EU steps for years, EUalive reports. Kyiv’s position was that the laws applied to all minorities and excluded Russian.
Hungary’s newer government, in office since spring 2026, inherited the veto. Budapest lifted it on the first cluster, which the EU opened in June, Ukraine’s first since gaining candidate status in 2022, but made the rest conditional on this law.
With the bill passed, Hungary is set to allow the EU to open two more clusters, on the internal market and competitiveness, at a Council meeting in Luxembourg on 13 October. Kyiv aims to open all its clusters by year’s end.
Montenegro and Albania are preparing for another round of European Union accession negotiations this week, with meetings in Luxembourg scheduled to advance their membership bids as Brussels considers substantial changes to the conditions under which future countries will join the bloc.
Montenegro’s 29th accession conference will take place on Monday, 12 October, followed by Albania’s tenth conference on Tuesday. The meetings come less than a week after the European Commission presented a package of proposals intended to prepare the EU for enlargement while strengthening its ability to respond to breaches of democratic standards by newly admitted members.
For Montenegro, the immediate objective is to continue closing negotiating chapters after years of institutional and legal reforms. Albania’s meeting has a more precisely defined agenda: the provisional closure of Chapter 20, covering enterprise and industrial policy.
Both countries have made progress towards membership, but the Commission’s latest proposals indicate that the terms of accession could become more demanding as the EU considers admitting several new members.
Montenegro is widely regarded as the most advanced candidate among the Western Balkan countries.
Accession negotiations began in 2012, and all 33 negotiating chapters have been opened. Progress towards closure has accelerated as the government seeks to complete the process and secure an accession treaty.
At the end of 2025, Montenegro provisionally closed five chapters covering services, capital movements, company law, agriculture and fisheries.
As EU Today reported following that conference, the agreements brought the number of provisionally closed chapters to twelve at that stage, while the EU continued to emphasise the importance of judicial reform and sustained implementation.
Subsequent accession conferences have continued the negotiating process, with the 29th conference scheduled for 12 October.
The Commission has identified Montenegro as a country capable of concluding accession negotiations by the end of 2026, provided sufficient progress is maintained.
That objective does not mean membership would follow automatically. A completed negotiation must still lead to an accession treaty, which requires approval by all existing member states and ratification under their constitutional procedures.
Outstanding questions include the independence of the judiciary, enforcement of anti-corruption legislation and the capacity of state institutions to apply EU law consistently.
Albania’s accession process has also gained momentum, supported by renewed EU interest in incorporating the Western Balkans into European political and economic structures.
The conference scheduled for 13 October is expected to provisionally close Chapter 20, which covers enterprise and industrial policy.
The chapter concerns the legal and institutional environment in which businesses operate, including industrial competitiveness, entrepreneurship and policies supporting small and medium-sized enterprises.
Provisional closure would represent further progress in Albania’s alignment with EU legislation and policy, although it would not constitute a final agreement on accession.
As with Montenegro, the negotiating framework requires sustained progress on the fundamentals of membership, notably judicial independence, fundamental rights, corruption and organised crime.
The latest accession conferences follow the European Commission’s proposals of 6 October, which address the institutional consequences of admitting new countries.
The Commission argues that enlargement can be accommodated within the existing treaties, but that the EU will need additional safeguards and improvements to decision-making.
Among the most consequential proposals is the possibility of suspending a new member state’s voting rights in the Council if it commits serious breaches of the Union’s fundamental values or the principle of sincere cooperation.
Such provisions would be incorporated into future accession arrangements, making some membership conditions enforceable after a country has joined.
The proposal reflects concerns that the EU’s existing mechanisms for responding to democratic backsliding can be slow and politically difficult to apply.
In June, EU Today reported on proposals advanced by five member states seeking stronger protections against governments that might undermine common decisions after accession.
The Commission’s October package develops that argument into a broader programme of institutional preparation.
The debate extends to Ukraine and Moldova, whose membership applications have acquired greater strategic importance following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Commission is examining how candidate countries can progressively participate in EU policies and programmes before obtaining full membership.
These arrangements could include greater integration in energy, transport, defence and selected areas of the single market, subject to the implementation of relevant reforms.
Brussels is also considering transitional arrangements affecting agricultural support, financial transfers and sensitive sectors of the economy.
The political challenge is to provide candidate countries with credible membership prospects while reassuring existing members that enlargement will not weaken common decision-making or create unsustainable budget commitments.
For Montenegro and Albania, the October conferences therefore take place at a pivotal point in the accession process.
Both governments are moving through the technical stages of membership negotiations while the EU is still determining how its next enlargement will operate.
The outcome will depend not only on their progress towards meeting accession conditions, but also on whether the existing 27 member states can agree on the institutional changes required for a larger Union.
The EU’s annual rule of law report, tackling advancements in corruption and fundamental rights, shares overly optimistic improvement that is far from the reality on the ground, a civil liberties group revealed.
Presented on a sweltering Friday in July, the EU commission’s 2026 rule of law report failed to avoid scrutiny, with NGO Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) observing a gap between professed achievements in member states and the reality of a significant lack of implementation of Brussels’ recommendations.
“This year’s Report shows continued positive progress across many Member States. And that is precisely why our Rule of Law Report matters. It has become a reference point, helping to shape national debates and drive reforms across our Union,” EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said back then in a statement.
But of all recommendations in the July report, Liberties’ Gap analysis report revealed that only four percent had been fully implemented, while 54 percent show limited to no progress.
“The Commission’s Rule of Law Report has the potential to be one of the EU’s strongest tools for preventing democratic backsliding,” said Kersty McCourt, Liberties’ rule of law expert. “But when recommendations are repeatedly issued without being implemented, and new threats are not identified early enough, the system loses its power”.
The report, published on Monday (12 October) and shared in advance with EUobserver, found that almost all recommendations issued in 2026 were regurgitations of those given in previous years, with only seven new recommendations being introduced this year.
The commission’s annual report “fails to unpack why some problems remain so entrenched,” Liberties said.
In its own study, the Berlin-based NGO suggested the reasons for slow movement to be bound from a lack of willingness from member states, a vacuum in the EU’s enforcement mechanisms, or issues becoming “so entrenched that progress is effectively impossible.”
This reduces the function of the report as a warning system for identifying early signs of democratic backsliding, since recommendations on emerging issues remain unaddressed and even if are formally adopted, often don’t translate into effective implementation.
Liberties observed this to be evident in the example of Nordic countries, which have grown to be exempt from scrutiny due to their traditionally strong reputations.
This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership
Two Ukrainian defense-tech firms, The Fourth Law and Odd Systems, have joined forces to mass-produce thermal imaging sensors in Europe and the US, The Fourth Law told Militarnyi. The goal is to wean Western militaries off foreign suppliers, chiefly China, for the core part of every thermal camera.
Amid Russia's daily attacks, Ukrainian drone makers have been shifting production to allied countries. Linza and Zoom drones are now built in Germany, and another top manufacturer has taken its technology to Canada and Finland. Sensor plants would move a core component west, not just finished drones.
The project, called Project Foundation, will build long-wave infrared sensors, known as microbolometers. These chips register heat, so a camera can pick out a person or vehicle at night or through smoke. The aim, The Fourth Law said, is to "ensure the sovereignty of Western countries in the field of thermal imaging technology."
The project will run two sites, First Foundation in Europe and Second Foundation in the US, from a headquarters in Eindhoven, a Dutch semiconductor hub. Mass production is due to start in 2027. Within three years, the partners want to quadruple Europe's output of these sensors and double America's.
Ukraine's front line burns through sensors faster than Europe can make them. "Europe currently produces less than 500,000 such sensors per year, while Ukraine consumes this amount in about five months," Odd Systems co-founder Yaroslav Azhniuk said in February, when he first announced plans for a plant able to make one million sensors a year. European sensors cost about five times as much as Chinese ones and are hard to buy at all, because Europeans need them too, he added.
Factories working for Ukraine abroad have already become sabotage targets. In March, an arson attack in Pardubice, Czechia, destroyed nearly all the production capacity of a plant making drones and thermal sights for Ukraine's army. Czech investigators are looking into a possible Russian trail behind the attack.
Committee recognises work of South African who chaired UN commission that concluded Israel was guilty of genocide in Gaza
The Nobel peace prize has been awarded to Navi Pillay, the South African former UN human rights chief who chaired the UN commission that concluded Israel was guilty of genocide in Gaza.
The Norwegian Nobel committee said Pillay, who is serving as a judge at the international court of justice (ICJ), has “shown that legal measures can help prevent acts of war and violence”.
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© Photograph: Australian Associated Press/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Live News.
© Photograph: Australian Associated Press/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Live News.
© Photograph: Australian Associated Press/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Live News.
EU governments were allowed to water down targets in their post-Covid pandemic recovery plans after they had already asked Brussels for the money, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) said on Thursday (8 October).
Of 20 milestones and targets the auditors examined, 13 were amended after the member state had already submitted its payment request. In nine of those cases, the change itself was requested after the payment application had already been made.
The revised targets were “aligned with actual achieved outputs, which made the payment possible,” the auditors wrote in their annual report on the 2025 EU budget.
Ireland, for example, asked for a payment in December 2024. But in January 2025 it requested to cut the target for ICT graduates down from 12,450 to 10,900, citing a high administrative burden.
This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership
Depuis plusieurs années, nos dirigeants politiques, refusant d’accepter leur perte de puissance, recourent dans l’arène internationale à des faux et à des mensonges répétés. Petit à petit, ils perdent de l’influence, mais à force de jouer, ils provoquent les conditions nécessaires pour débuter une Troisième Guerre mondiale. Elle ne surviendra pas par erreur, ni par hasard, elle sera le fruit de leur obstination.
par Thierry Meyssan
Nous savons tous que, si les guerres se déclenchent lorsque des évènements particuliers surviennent, elles ont des causes profondes, bien distinctes. Il s’agit généralement de conflits de territoire ou d’influence. La Troisième Guerre mondiale pourrait être déclenchée par une escarmouche en Ukraine ou au Moyen-Orient, mais elle aura pour véritable cause un affrontement entre deux visions de l’ordre du monde : d’un côté, la grande majorité des États, réunis autour de la Russie et de la Chine, souhaite respecter le droit international, tandis que, de l’autre, « l’Occident politique », soucieux de ne rien perdre de ce qu’ils ont gagné en écrasant les peuples du Sud, préfère s’en remettre aux « règles » qu’ils ont imaginées au G7.
Cela fait huit ans, que Sergueï Lavrov, ministre russe des Affaires étrangères, a mis en évidence ce choix. Huit ans que « l’Occident politique » le poursuit comme si de rien n’était.
Le 28 septembre 2018, à la tribune de la 73° session de l’assemblée générale des Nations unies [1], il posa ce constat : « nous assistons tous à une collision de deux tendances opposées. D’une part, nous voyons le renforcement des principes polycentriques de l’ordre mondial, le développement constant de nouveaux centres de croissance économique, l’aspiration des peuples à préserver la souveraineté et à choisir des modèles de développement qui sont cohérents avec leurs identités nationales, culturelles et religieuses. D’autre part, nous voyons le désir de plusieurs États occidentaux de conserver leur statut autoproclamé de “leaders mondiaux” et de ralentir le processus objectif irréversible d’établissement de la multipolarité. »
Il poursuivait : « Nous observons l’offensive du révisionnisme belliqueux contre le droit international moderne. Les attaques ont été lancées contre les principes fondamentaux du règlement du Moyen-Orient, le Plan d’action global conjoint sur le programme nucléaire iranien, les engagements dans le cadre de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce, l’accord multilatéral sur le climat et beaucoup d’autres. »
Et plus loin : « Il est révélateur que les attaques agressives contre les institutions d’information s’accompagnent de tentatives de “privatiser” les structures de secrétariat [de l’ONU] et de leur accorder les mêmes droits qu’aux organes intergouvernementaux dans l’espoir de les manipuler plus tard. »
Il est difficile d’imaginer que certains puissent s’accrocher à leurs privilèges indus au point de provoquer une apocalypse. Et pourtant…
Toujours en 2018, après le retrait unilatéral des États-Unis de l’accord sur le nucléaire iranien (JCPoA), trois anciens empires européens, l’Allemagne, la France et le Royaume-Uni (E3), ont d’abord souhaité compenser le retrait US puis, vu leur incapacité à violer les règles de leur suzerain, ont affirmé que les sanctions antérieures contre l’Iran s’appliquaient encore.
Ils avaient pourtant voté la résolution 2231 du Conseil de sécurité [2] qui y a mis fin.
Commence alors une longue période durant laquelle l’Allemagne, la France et le Royaume-Uni (E3), faisant preuve d’une constante mauvaise foi, ont, à de nombreuses reprises, tenté de réimposer les sanctions contre l’Iran antérieures au JCPoA. Ces trois États ont prétendu qu’ils pouvaient revenir en arrière car l’Iran ne respectait plus ses engagements en ignorant que ce sont les États-Unis les premiers qui n’ont pas respecté les leurs.
Les échanges de lettres entre les différents négociateurs du JCPoA se sont intensifiés. Cependant, jamais les E3 n’ont accepté de reconnaître, ainsi que l’exigeaient les deux autres, la Chine et la Russie, que le traité ne permettait pas de revenir en arrière sans examen du non-respect par les États-Unis de ses engagements.
C’est bien là le cœur du problème : « l’Occident politique » refuse de reconnaitre ses torts et tente de maintenir les situations où il disposait d’un avantage.
Le 19 septembre 2025, conscients qu’ils ne pouvaient pas appliquer seuls les fameuses « sanctions », les E3 ont demandé au Conseil de sécurité de les rétablir. La Chine et la Russie leur ont opposé leur veto et ont proposé de relancer les négociations du JCPoA. Mais les anciens empires européens ont préféré corrompre des fonctionnaires internationaux. Ces derniers ont publié deux faux comptes-rendus de la réunion du Conseil, afin de faire accroire que le rejet de la proposition sino-russe suffisait à rétablir les sanctions [3]. Pis : contre l’avis du Conseil, le secrétaire général a publié des instructions les rétablissant [4]. La remarque de Sergueï Lavrov, en 2018, sur la « privatisation » des Nations unies se trouvait vérifiée.
Ne croyez pas que les choses en soient restées là.
Le Royaume-Uni a repris les « sanctions » contre l’Iran, en janvier, puis les États-Unis, fin mars 2026. Ces décisions ont été mal interprétées par la presse qui y a simplement vu un épisode de l’actuelle guerre du Golfe alors qu’il s’agissait de la reprise de ce que les États-Unis n’avaient pas osé faire lorsqu’ils se sont retirés unilatéralement du JCPoA, puis les E3.
Rappelons que le terme de « sanction » ne peut, en droit international, que désigner une décision prise par le Conseil de sécurité après un débat contradictoire. Ce à quoi nous assistons sont des « mesures coercitives unilatérales », adoptées sans débat contradictoire et violant la Charte des Nations unies.
Le président allemand, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a qualifié la guerre israélo-états-unienne contre l’Iran, le 22 mai 2026, « d’évitable ». Il a déploré le retrait unilatéral des États-Unis du JCPoA, disant : « Il aurait été préférable de maintenir cet accord. Les conséquences que nous constatons aujourd’hui ne se seraient pas produites. » Pour conclure : « Cette guerre est inutile ».
Ce faisant, Frank-Walter Steinmeier manifeste sa conscience de la responsabilité franco-britanno-germanique dans l’actuelle guerre du golfe. Bien que, simultanément, il manifeste la même supériorité que ses complices en parlant de guerre « évitable » ou « inutile », deux qualificatifs qui n’ont pas leur place en droit international.
Il y a trois semaines, le 17 septembre 2026, les E3 ont convoqué une réunion du Conseil de sécurité sur « la non-prolifération ». Ils ont, à nouveau, tenté de faire rétablir les sanctions contre l’Iran et se sont heurtés à nouveau aux vétos chinois et russe [5]. La presse occidentale ne s’en est pas fait l’écho, elle aurait dû reconnaître la mauvaise foi de ses gouvernements.
Faire usage de faux documents, mentir effrontément et veiller à camoufler ses fautes, c’est rendre la guerre possible.
Constatant qu’ils ne pouvaient plus progresser aux Nations unies, les États-Unis et les E3 les ont contournées. Ils ont activé la Proliferation Security Intitiative (PSI), un réseau étatique, créé en 2003 par le président George W. Bush, sur les conseils de John Bolton [6]. Celui-ci a trouvé une quarantaine d’États — dont les E3 — pour signer, le 2 octobre 2026, une déclaration absurde [7] : elle réaffirme que Téhéran ne remplit pas ses engagements du JCPoA, sans dire qu’il en est dispensé depuis le retrait unilatéral des États-Unis. Puis, elle pose que ce manquement justifie l’opération Economic Outcast (« Paria économique »), que Washington vient de lancer contre Téhéran.
Par cette opération, le secrétariat au Trésor tente d’affamer le peuple iranien. La Chine et la Russie ont déjà dit qu’ils s’y opposeraient. Les signataires, au contraire, annoncent qu’ils l’appliqueront.
Certes, seuls un gros tiers des États qu’ils avaient sollicités ont signé ce texte. C’est déjà bien assez pour faire une guerre.
Pour la première fois dans un texte de ce type, les auteurs affirment, sans rire, leur « adhésion à l’ensemble du droit international et des cadres pertinents, y compris les résolutions du Conseil de sécurité ». Oui, vous avez bien lu, c’est au nom de la résolution 2231 et de la réunion du conseil du 17 septembre dernier que les signataires feront le contraire de ce qui a été décidé collectivement.
Comme nos dirigeants ont conscience de jouer avec le feu, ce texte est absent de leurs sites officiels. Il faut aller sur celui de la Proliferation Security Intitiative (PSI) pour le trouver.
À l’évidence, à force de faux et d’usage de faux, à force de mensonges et de menaces, nous provoquerons, sans le vouloir, la Troisième Guerre mondiale qui nous emportera.
Publié à l’origine par voltairenet.org
[1] « Remarks by Sergey Lavrov to the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly », par Sergueï Lavrov, Réseau Voltaire, 28 septembre 2018.
[2] « Résolution 2231 », adoptée le 20 juillet 2015.
[3] « Le Conseil de sécurité s’oppose au maintien de l’allégement des sanctions de l’ONU contre l’Iran » et « Nucléaire iranien : le Conseil de sécurité entérine le retour aux sanctions de l’ONU contre l’Iran en rejetant une prorogation de la résolution 2231 de 2015 », Nations unies.
[4] « Le secrétariat général rétablit les sanctions contre l’Iran », ONU (secrétariat général), Réseau Voltaire, 27 septembre 2025.
[5] « Compte-rendu de la réunion du 17 septembre 2026 », Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies.
[6] « John Bolton et le désarmement par la guerre », Réseau Voltaire, 30 novembre 2004.
[7] « Déclaration commune à l’occasion de l’anniversaire du rétablissement des restrictions des Nations Unies imposées à l’Iran et liées à ce pays », Réseau Voltaire, 2 octobre 2026.
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
Benjamin Netanyahu likes to translate Israel’s grief into American. At the United Nations last month, he took the dead of October 7 and multiplied them by the ratio of America’s population to Israel’s. The 1,200 Israelis killed that day, he said, were “equal to 40,000 innocent Americans slaughtered in less than 24 hours. That’s 16 times 9/11.”
Per-capita comparisons are a perfectly legitimate tool. A small country feels a massacre more than a large one, and Americans should understand what October 7 meant to Israelis. But a method is only honest if you’re willing to apply it to everyone. So let’s apply Netanyahu’s method to the people his army has been killing for three years.
Gaza had about 2.2 million people before the war. The United States has about 341 million, roughly 155 times as many. Take a conservative figure of 75,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, slightly above the Gaza Health Ministry’s latest count of more than 73,000. Multiply it by Netanyahu’s own logic, and you get about 11.6 million Americans.
Eleven point six million. That is roughly the population of Ohio. It is more than ten times the number of Americans killed in every war the United States has ever fought, from the Revolution to Afghanistan. It is about 15 times America’s deaths in the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in the nation’s history.
Measured in the unit Netanyahu chose, it is about 3,900 September 11ths.
Run the numbers in Israel’s own terms and the result is the same. Seventy-five thousand dead in a population of 2.2 million is the equivalent of about 340,000 Israelis. Netanyahu built a speech, a war and a foreign policy on 1,200. Imagine what he would say about 340,000.
The convenient multiplier
The prime minister’s defenders will object that the comparison is unfair because many of Gaza’s dead were Hamas fighters. Fine. Subtract every combatant the Israeli military claims to have killed, and apply the multiplier to what remains. Even 50,000 dead becomes nearly 8 million Americans, about 2,600 9/11s. You can argue over every death in the ledger, and the result is still measured in millions.
Netanyahu’s arithmetic has problems even on its own terms. Forty thousand Americans divided by the 2,977 who died on September 11 comes to about 13.4 9/11s, not 16. When the rhetoric needs a bigger number, it seems, the calculator rounds up.
But the real problem isn’t the rounding. It’s the selectivity. Netanyahu’s multiplier is designed to work in one direction only. It enlarges Israeli dead into an American catastrophe so that American audiences will feel what Israelis felt. Applied to Palestinians, it produces numbers so large they would make any American audience ask what, exactly, it has been paying for. That is why he never applies it to them.
What the comparison actually shows
The point of a per-capita comparison is to help outsiders grasp the scale of a loss. Netanyahu wants Americans to imagine 40,000 of their countrymen murdered in a day, and to understand everything Israel has done since as the natural response. Very well. Ask Americans to imagine 11.6 million of their countrymen dead, in a territory sealed off from escape, and to call it self-defense.
No American president would describe 11.6 million American dead as a proportionate response to anything. No American would accept that the dead deserved it because some of them were armed. And no one who has run the numbers can accept the premise of Netanyahu’s arithmetic, which is that Israeli lives scale up and Palestinian lives do not.
The method is Netanyahu’s. So is the answer it produces: by his own measure, the catastrophe in Gaza is about 290 times larger than the one he asks the world to remember.
Original article: sonar21.com
Russian forces attacked Kramatorsk, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, at approximately 10am local time on 8 October, hitting an area where two scheduled passenger buses were carrying civilians.
The Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office initially reported 12 fatalities and 14 injuries. In a subsequent update, prosecutors raised the death toll to 30 and the number of injured to 18.
The attack was also confirmed by the Kramatorsk City Council and Vadym Filashkin, head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration.
According to preliminary findings from Ukrainian investigators, Russian forces may have used a UMPB D-30SN guided aerial munition. The precise weapon and circumstances of the attack remain under investigation.
The two buses were operating regular passenger services when the strike occurred. Ukrainian authorities said passengers were on board, although detailed information about the victims, including their ages and identities, has not yet been released.
Photographs published by the regional prosecutor’s office show the aftermath of the attack, including severely damaged passenger vehicles. Emergency personnel and law enforcement officers were dispatched to assist the wounded, recover victims and document evidence.
The strike raises questions about the selection of the target and precautions taken to protect civilians. Under international humanitarian law, civilian vehicles and their passengers are protected from deliberate attack unless a vehicle becomes a military objective under the applicable legal rules.
The circumstances of Thursday’s strike, including whether the buses were directly targeted or struck during an attack on another location, have not yet been independently established.
Kramatorsk remains one of Ukraine’s principal administrative and logistical centres in the part of Donetsk region still controlled by Kyiv. The city has faced repeated Russian bombardments as Moscow continues its military campaign to capture the remaining Ukrainian-held territory in Donetsk.
Its transport infrastructure serves residents who have remained despite years of fighting, including those travelling between neighbouring communities and those attempting to leave the region.
Regional officials have repeatedly urged residents to evacuate to safer areas of Ukraine as Russian bombardments continue. However, civilians remain in Kramatorsk and surrounding settlements, where everyday services, including public transport, continue to operate despite the danger.
Russian forces have used guided aerial bombs against Ukrainian-controlled settlements near the front line. Such weapons can be released from aircraft at distances that reduce Russian pilots’ exposure to Ukrainian air defences.
The UMPB D-30SN, provisionally identified in the Kramatorsk attack, is a guided munition designed to reach targets beyond the immediate position of the launching aircraft. Its suspected use against an area containing occupied passenger buses will form part of the investigation.
Investigators will need to establish the intended target, the weapon used and the information available to those who planned and carried out the strike. These findings are relevant to determining whether the attack violated the laws of war.
The Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office is collecting evidence concerning the bombardment, including the type of munition used and the circumstances in which the buses were struck.
Establishing whether the vehicles were deliberately targeted, or whether the attack resulted from an indiscriminate or disproportionate strike, will be central to any assessment under international humanitarian law.
The identities of the victims and the full extent of the damage have yet to be established publicly. As of the updated figures issued by Ukrainian prosecutors on 8 October, 30 people were reported killed and 18 injured.
Hovering over this combustible mixture is Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The leader of La France Insoumise (LFI) insists that his movement neither controls nor directs France’s extraordinary wave of student protest. He has now explicitly advocated non-violent methods. That defence deserves to be recorded.
But it does not dispose of an uncomfortable political question: who benefits when legitimate teenage frustration is transformed into a wider revolt against the French state?
For Mélenchon, the answer is potentially obvious. The disturbances began with genuine grievances. Pupils complained about teacher shortages, overcrowding, poor facilities and the pressures of the French education system. The original protests in Créteil appear to have been spontaneous rather than the creation of a political party. That distinction matters. France’s teenagers should not collectively be caricatured as revolutionaries simply because some demonstrations subsequently descended into violence.
But what followed was something quite different. Schools were attacked and fires started. Cars were torched. Explosive fireworks and other projectiles were directed at police. By October 1st, Reuters reported hundreds of arrests and incidents of arson in several French cities. French intelligence agencies, according to a source close to the prime minister cited by Reuters, told a government crisis meeting that hard-left politicians had played a role in initiating the spreading protests. LFI emphatically denied the allegation.
That dispute should not obscure what is visible. LFI politicians have been remarkably eager to place themselves alongside the protesters. MPs Clémence Guetté and Louis Boyard appeared at the original Créteil mobilisation; Boyard turned his intervention into a TikTok video reportedly watched 1.5 million times. Other LFI representatives have similarly appeared around demonstrations. Le Monde describes the party as closely following protests and notes that this proximity simultaneously strengthens LFI’s relationship with young voters and leaves it associated with the movement when violence erupts.
France is heading towards the 2027 presidential election. Younger voters are potentially one of Mélenchon’s greatest political assets, but also one of his greatest organisational problems: sympathy does not automatically become votes when younger citizens disproportionately abstain.
Recent polling reported by Le Monde put Mélenchon above 40 per cent among 18-to-24-year-olds in some presidential scenarios. LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard has openly acknowledged the opportunity, saying the movement has enormous room for growth among young people.
One hardly requires Machiavelli to understand the calculation. A generation of teenagers that believes itself ignored by government is politically interesting. A generation persuaded that it is being oppressed by government is considerably more useful.
The transformation is crucial. The original argument concerned teachers, classrooms and school buildings. The developing political narrative encompasses police violence, racism, inequality, Palestine, the far right and hostility towards the political establishment.
Mélenchon did not invent all these causes, nor is there evidence that he commands the young protesters like troops. But LFI understands political insurgency extremely well. Its political vocabulary depends upon conflict between ordinary citizens and an allegedly discredited establishment.
A spontaneous youth rebellion therefore offers almost perfect terrain. Mélenchon initially called upon supporters to “interpose” themselves against what he described as police savagery. Only as images of burning schools, vandalism and violent confrontation became increasingly politically toxic did he place greater emphasis upon non-violence, telling supporters that setting things on fire undermined their cause.
Perhaps that was sincere. But it also illustrates the danger of playing political games with youthful anger. It is relatively easy to tell teenagers that authority is their enemy, the far-left have sung this tune since the 1960’s. It is considerably harder, however, to regain control when confrontation develops its own momentum.
For years, public discussion of “political violence” has often been dominated by the threat from the extreme right. That threat is real and should never be minimised. Indeed, British Prevent statistics for the year ending September 2025 provide an important corrective to anyone claiming that extremism as a whole is overwhelmingly left-wing: 2,103 referrals concerned extreme-right ideology, compared with only 32 categorised as left-wing extremism.
But terrorism statistics and street politics are not the same thing. Europe also has a long-established tradition of violence emerging from anarchist, autonomist and revolutionary-left protest cultures: black-bloc tactics, attacks on police, destruction of property, arson and attempts to turn demonstrations into confrontations with the state. The current French disturbances make it legitimate to ask whether this form of political violence receives the same sustained political scrutiny as violence associated with the extreme right.
In Britain, too, claims of ideological double standards should be examined rather than assumed. Violence and intimidation occurring around demonstrations should be judged according to conduct, not according to whether those responsible march beneath banners fashionable on the Left or Right.
The correct principle is remarkably uncomplicated: political violence is political violence.
Throwing an explosive firework at a policeman does not become morally superior because the person throwing it considers himself anti-fascist. Burning a school does not become progressive because the person holding the match claims to oppose inequality. Intimidation does not become activism merely because its perpetrator believes his politics virtuous.
Nor, conversely, should peaceful demonstrators be branded extremists because violent individuals attach themselves to their cause.
This is a particularly important point in France because there is evidence that radical groups have attached themselves to genuine student grievances. Education Minister Édouard Geffray has distinguished protesting pupils from violent “ultra-left” elements. Former environment minister Delphine Batho, herself once a school-student union leader, has warned of the movement being taken over by the far left and urged pupils to preserve their independence.
Those pupils would do well to heed the warning. Their complaints may be legitimate. They have every democratic right to demonstrate. And allegations of disproportionate police violence must themselves be investigated: teenagers have suffered serious injuries and France has opened internal investigations into police actions.
Mélenchon wants political change. He wants young voters mobilised. LFI wants to convert social discontent into an electoral force capable of reshaping France.
There is nothing inherently illegitimate about that ambition. Every political party attempts to convert public dissatisfaction into votes. The troubling point comes when politicians discover that confrontation itself is electorally useful.
The French government undoubtedly has incentives of its own to emphasise LFI involvement. By presenting the crisis primarily as an extremist public-order problem, ministers can divert attention from the failings in schools that produced the original demonstrations.
But that does not absolve Mélenchon. A responsible politician confronted by angry teenagers should attempt to reduce the temperature while addressing their grievances. An opportunist sees an emerging political constituency.
The danger for France is that its young people cease being participants in a legitimate argument about education and become raw material in somebody else’s struggle for power.
Once that happens, the classroom has ceased to be the issue, and barricades become the political objective.
Paris Attack: Europe Must Not Allow Ideological Violence to Become the New Normal
The European Commission has set out a new framework for enlargement that would allow the European Union to impose restrictions on recently admitted countries for up to 15 years after accession if they retreat from commitments on democracy, the rule of law or other fundamental EU principles.
The measures form part of the Commission’s new pre-enlargement policy review, published on Tuesday, which examines how the EU’s institutions, budget and policies would have to change before another round of expansion. Brussels says the Union could accommodate additional members without rewriting its treaties, but would need stronger safeguards to prevent enlargement from making decision-making more difficult.
Under the proposals, accession treaties could contain an institutional safeguard allowing action against a new member that seriously breaches the values contained in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union or the principle of sincere cooperation. In the most serious cases, Council voting rights could be suspended.
The Commission’s public summary describes those arrangements as temporary, targeted and reversible. Reporting on the underlying proposal indicates that the enhanced safeguard could remain available during the first 15 years of membership.
The proposal addresses a problem that has moved steadily up the enlargement agenda: how to ensure that a country continues to meet membership conditions after it has entered the EU.
Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg had already raised the issue earlier this year. As EU Today reported in June, the five governments called for mechanisms capable of restricting some rights of new members if democratic standards deteriorated after accession.
The Commission has now turned that political argument into a wider institutional proposal.
The change is particularly relevant to Ukraine, Moldova, Montenegro and Albania, which Brussels identifies as the four candidates currently furthest advanced. The Commission says it will prepare indicative roadmaps for each country provided reform momentum continues.
Ukraine and Moldova may also make further progress within days. EU Today reported earlier on Tuesday that two more negotiating clusters could potentially be opened next week if Ukraine’s parliament passes legislation dealing with minority-language education.
Alongside stronger rule-of-law safeguards, the Commission wants candidate states to be integrated gradually into parts of the EU before full membership. Energy, transport, digital policy and defence are among the sectors identified for deeper participation.
Brussels is also proposing greater use of qualified-majority voting during the accession process, including for decisions to open negotiating clusters. At present, individual governments can delay progress at several stages because unanimity is required.
Another proposed safeguard would require a newly admitted state, for a limited period, not to block subsequent enlargements because of bilateral disputes. The measure reflects long-standing difficulties in the Western Balkans, where disputes between neighbouring states have repeatedly entered accession negotiations.
Ukraine’s agricultural sector presents a separate challenge. The Commission says transitional arrangements could be used for agriculture, sensitive products, EU funding, the movement of workers and participation in common systems. Reporting on the package indicates that unrestricted access by Ukraine to existing Common Agricultural Policy support is unlikely immediately upon accession because of the scale of Ukrainian farming.
That question is politically important for existing agricultural beneficiaries, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, where Ukrainian grain and food imports have already caused disputes.
The institutional proposals do not guarantee membership for any candidate. Accession remains dependent on meeting the EU acquis, completing negotiations and obtaining the agreement of existing member states.
Nor has the 15-year safeguard yet become EU law. The Commission has asked the European Council and European Parliament to take forward discussions, and the eventual provisions would have to be reflected in future accession arrangements.
What has changed is the shape of the enlargement debate. Brussels is no longer concentrating solely on what candidate countries must do before joining. It is also designing mechanisms governing what happens after they enter.
For Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans, that could produce a more credible path towards membership, but one accompanied by conditions extending well beyond accession itself.
This article is paid for by Council of the Notariats of the European Union (CNUE).
An address rented in a European capital, an electronic signature obtained online, a 48-hour waiting period.
Under the proposed regulation establishing a 28th company law regime, known as ‘EU Inc.’, this could be enough to establish a company with legal personality throughout the European Union.
No share capital would be required. The founder could complete the entire process without appearing, even digitally, before a public authority or another person entrusted with preventive legal control.
There would be no personal verification of their legal capacity, of whether they understand what they are signing, or of whether they are acting on behalf of someone who wishes to remain invisible.
The company could then open bank accounts, enter into contracts, own assets and employ people across the European Union. If the company later fails to meet its obligations, creditors and employees may find that there are no assets to recover and that the person formally responsible for it was acting merely as a front man.
This scenario illustrates the serious concerns raised by the proposal for a Regulation on ‘EU Inc.’ put forward by the European Commission and currently being examined by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
The preventive checks set out in Article 14 of the commission’s proposal are largely limited to formal requirements.
There is no independent and impartial scrutiny of the founders’ legal capacity, of the lawfulness of the articles of association, or of whether the transaction complies with substantive legal requirements. Transfers of shares and capital transactions are also not subject to substantive control. Liquidation is treated primarily as an administrative formality, even though it can directly affect creditors and employees.
The consequences may extend far beyond company law.
Companies own real estate and are entered in land registers. If it is no longer possible to establish reliably who owns a company, it also becomes more difficult to establish who ultimately owns the real estate held by that company. Reliable company information therefore matters for the transparency of property ownership.
If the information in a register has not been reliably verified, others have to verify it themselves. Banks, business partners and investors may need additional legal opinions, audits and insurance. Costs that a preventive check avoids at the outset may therefore arise repeatedly at a later stage.
This would represent a shift from the European tradition of public preventive legal control towards a model that relies more heavily on resolving disputes after they arise.
Delaware is a prominent example of such an approach, supported by specialised courts and a correspondingly prominent role for litigation. Transplanting it to Europe would place additional demands on national judicial systems that lack the necessary resources.
The proposal also raises questions with regard to the recent European efforts to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
The creation of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) is the latest milestone in this process. To create, at the very same time, a legal form with significantly reduced checks risks severely undermining these efforts.
The same applies to sanctions: their enforcement depends on knowing who is really behind a company – especially when shares are transferred. Without reliable legality control of share transfers, corporate ownership can change unnoticed and become a vehicle for sanctions circumvention.
The amendments required are straightforward. The acquis of European company law, as established by Directive (EU) 2017/1132 and recently reinforced by Directive (EU) 2025/25, should also apply to EU Inc. companies.
This means reliable identification of founders and directors, public oversight of legal compliance at the time of formation and at subsequent stages, and reliable business registers.
These safeguards exist for a reason.
They protect not only the parties to a transaction, but the public at large. Because they serve a public purpose, they must remain a public responsibility. Private service providers cannot replace independent preventive control carried out under public responsibility.
How these checks are organised differs between member states. In some member states, public authorities carry them out directly. In others, the state entrusts notaries with this public function.
Notarial involvement therefore does not add another layer of control: the same public function is simply carried out by different public authorities. In many member states, a company can already be formed digitally within 48 hours, with full legal verification carried out by a public official.
The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union will decide their positions in the coming weeks.
There is still time to improve the legislative framework of EU Inc. significantly and to make it a success.
This requires digital and efficient procedures without compromising legal certainty. The rule of law is one of the European Union’s strengths. EU Inc. should build on that strength, not weaken it.
The Commission is “going a bit too fast” in unlocking €4.2bn and restarting the Erasmus+ student exchange programme in Hungary, according to budget committee MEPs.
The EU froze its financial assistance to Hungary in 2022 due to concerns about rule of law breaches and misappropriation of funds by Viktor Orbán’s government.
Green MEP from Germany, Daniel Freund, told EUobserver he “would have taken a more staged approach to not release everything in one go,” admitting that the reform agenda of Péter Magyar’s new government still has some way to go.
The commission’s proposal to unlock part of the €16.4bn in funds available to Hungary requires the green-light from the EU council, representing member states, one month after its announcement on 23 September.
Freund said that he was “happy about the changes we have seen” following his visit to Hungary on 1 October.
“Hungary needs this money, I also want Hungarians to have this money, since for years it was just going to Orbán and his cronies,” he said on Tuesday (6 October).
However, Freund and other MEPs on the fact-finding mission found that “the same risks of corruption exist,” and “there are new laws that are still fragile in their implementation,” French socialist and democrat Jean-Marc Germain told reporters in Strasbourg on Monday.
The Parliament can serve as a pressure point, although the decision on funds is largely in the hands of the commission and the council.
“There is no real political pluralism in Hungary, which may in the long run be a reason for worrying,” he said, adding that most companies are still owned by the same few people as during Orbán’s rule.
The tone is different on the other side of the political spectrum.
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Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
Who asked, and who decided
There are phrases which, on their own, say more about a state than a Defence White Paper. One such phrase appeared in the Corriere della Sera on 4 October, in an interview with the Chief of the Army General Staff, Lieutenant General Carmine Masiello: “On the eastern flank, we were asked to deploy units capable of providing a real deterrent: we are leading the multinational battlegroup in Bulgaria and are present in Latvia and Hungary. War does not ask for permission, and the contingent must be ready to respond.”
A few lines earlier, the same general had opened the interview as follows: “We are at war. A hybrid war, but war nonetheless.” The attentive reader will pause to consider three words. We have been asked. By whom? Real deterrence. Compared to what deterrence, until now, has been unreal? We are at war. Who has declared it? These are questions that the Italian public debate should ask itself seriously, without indulging either in the caricature of the warmongering military or in the conditioned reflex that treats every doubt as enemy propaganda. The argument put forward in these pages is simple: the idea of direct involvement by Italy and European countries in an armed conflict with Russia is strategic folly, and the bellicose rhetoric that is making it seem conceivable protects no one. It makes the situation worse.
It is best to start with the facts, because the controversy surrounding the interview has misrepresented some of them. The contingents mentioned by Masiello are not a development from the past week. Italy has been participating in NATO’s forward presence in Latvia since 2017 and, since 2022, has been leading the multinational battlegroup in Bulgaria – established following Russia’s conflict with Ukraine alongside those from Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. The Madrid Summit in June 2022 then committed the allies to strengthening these groups to brigade level ‘where and when required’. The general’s statement that ‘we were asked’ therefore has a clear source: the Alliance’s planning, approved by the North Atlantic Council, to which the Italian government has given its consent.
Parliament, too, has formally expressed its view. Law 145 of 2016 stipulates that the government must approve international missions annually and that Parliament must authorise them. For 2026, the Council of Ministers’ resolution is dated 14 May; the Chamber of Deputies approved the authorisation resolution on 28 July, for missions valid from 1 January to 31 December. On closer inspection, this situation is more serious than the mere omission denounced by many commentators. Parliament was not bypassed: it was called upon at the end of July to ratify what had been in progress for seven months, as part of a single package bringing together dozens of different missions, from Lebanon to the Horn of Africa. Voting against the eastern flank means, in this context, voting against the whole package. It is a procedure that produces consensus without generating debate.
The problem, then, is not strictly legal. It is political, and concerns the quality of the decision. It is one thing to maintain a contingent in an allied country for reassurance purposes. It is quite another to publicly declare that that contingent must provide ‘real deterrence’ and be ‘ready to respond’ to a war that ‘does not ask for permission’. This shift in function – from a symbolic presence to combat readiness – has not been the subject of any specific parliamentary debate. Italians learnt of it from an interview published at the weekend, in a tone one might use to describe the modernisation of barracks.
A war that no one has authorised
Article 78 of the Constitution is so clear that it sounds almost embarrassing today: ‘The Chambers shall declare a state of war and confer upon the Government the necessary powers.’ Article 11 adds that Italy repudiates war as an instrument of aggression and as a means of resolving international disputes. In this context, the phrase ‘we are at war’, uttered by the head of the Armed Forces, is not merely a lexical detail. Neither House has declared a state of war. No government has been granted extraordinary powers. If words have any meaning, that phrase describes a condition that is not recognised by the legal system.
The contrast with Masiello’s own words from two and a half years ago is striking. In May 2024, in another interview, the general had been unequivocal in the opposite sense: ‘Let’s be clear: we are not at war,’ he had said, referring to a ‘sub-threshold’ conflict. The material reality described then and now is essentially the same: cyber-attacks, sabotage, disinformation, airspace violations. What has changed is the verbal framework. And in international politics, the framework is never neutral. Those who repeat every day that we are already at war accustom public opinion to the idea that actual war is merely the next step on a path that has already begun. This is precisely the process that the literature on threat construction describes as securitisation: a problem is shifted from the ordinary political sphere to that of emergency, where the usual rules – including debate – appear to be a luxury.
It is no coincidence that, in that very interview, the priority highlighted is the distribution to military personnel of a ‘cognitive self-defence manual’ against disinformation. The stated aim is to protect personnel. The side effect is to delimit the scope of what is conceivable: if every voice that questions the necessity of conflict can be interpreted as an emotional lever wielded by the enemy, dissent becomes a security issue. A democracy that fears manipulation should respond with more debate, not less.
Deterrence that produces what it fears
The strategic crux of the matter is the very concept of deterrence. Deterrence works when the adversary perceives our stance as both defensive and credible. It ceases to work – and indeed becomes counterproductive – when the measures a state adopts to feel secure are interpreted by the other as offensive preparations. This is the security dilemma: in a system without a higher authority, many of the means by which a state increases its own security reduce that of others, triggering a spiral that neither actor had intended.
The eastern flank is where this spiral is most visible. From Moscow’s perspective, allied brigades permanently deployed a few hundred kilometres from St Petersburg and the Belarusian border, exercises in the Baltic and attempts to stop Russian ships in transit are signs of encirclement. Putin stated this explicitly at the Valdai Forum in early October, describing the Western manoeuvres in the Baltic as an escalation. One might regard that interpretation as self-serving, and in part it is. But deterrence is not measured by our intentions: it is measured by the perceptions of those who are to be deterred. Ignoring them does not make them go away.
There is also one factor that should be of the greatest concern, and it is Masiello himself who articulates it. In hybrid warfare, the general explains, the risk is ‘not only to suffer, but to slip, by mistake, into an open confrontation’. This is a valuable admission. It means that the Italian military leadership considers the possibility of an unintended war – arising from an accident, a misinterpretation or a chain of automatic responses – to be very real. Thomas Schelling referred to this mechanism as ‘the threat that leaves something to chance’: the more forces are in contact and ready to react, the more control over the crisis slips from the hands of political decision-makers. If the main risk is error, the rational response is to reduce friction and increase the number of communication channels. Yet whilst the readiness of troops near the border is being stepped up, the tone of rhetoric is moving in the opposite direction.
In Moscow, Putin spoke clearly
At the Valdai Forum, Putin reiterated that Russia has no intention of attacking anyone ‘neither in 2029, nor in 2030, nor in 2050’, adding that in the event of an attack, Moscow would respond with all means at its disposal, including nuclear weapons. A few days earlier, in St Petersburg, he had said that Russia is in no way preparing to go to war with Europe. The usual response in the Italian press is that these reassurances are worthless: Formiche pointed out, for example, that even the 1994 Budapest Memorandum contained written commitments that were subsequently breached.
This argument deserves a serious response, not a slogan. No one is obliged to take the statements of a head of state – be they Russian or American – at face value. But mistrust of others’ words does not justify abandoning diplomacy: it makes it all the more necessary. Public statements serve precisely this purpose: to establish commitments that can be verified, negotiated, translated into measures of mutual trust, limits on troop deployments, notifications of military exercises, and direct military lines of communication. This is precisely what Europe did during the decades of the Cold War, with the Helsinki Final Act and the subsequent Vienna documents, when mistrust of Moscow was at least as great as it is today. Responding to every overture by increasing military readiness amounts to choosing not to verify. And those who fail to verify their adversary’s intentions end up planning for the worst-case scenario, which, by dint of being planned for, becomes the most likely outcome.
The reverse is also true. If it is genuinely believed that Russia is preparing an act of aggression against an EU member state, then the matter is of such gravity as to demand a public and parliamentary debate commensurate with its importance, based on the available evidence, intelligence assessments and the alternatives under consideration. Not an interview. The two things are mutually exclusive: either the threat is existential, in which case the nation must be mobilised; or it is not, in which case the language of imminence is a mistake.
To die for whom and for what?
The question currently circulating on social media – whether Italians are prepared to die for the Baltic states or for Zelensky – is phrased brutally, but it hits upon a real issue. European public opinion, and Italian public opinion in particular, has never given an explicit mandate for direct military confrontation with Russia. Surveys in recent years have consistently ranked Italy amongst the European countries most opposed to sending troops and most in favour of a negotiated solution. A democratic system that prepares for war against the prevailing will of its citizens, without even consulting them, accumulates a debt of legitimacy that would be called in at the worst possible moment: precisely when national cohesion is most needed.
Nor is there any need to demonise the Baltic states to recognise the problem. Their perception of the threat has historical roots that a Western European struggles to fully comprehend. The point is another: in a thirty-two-member alliance, the most hardline positions tend to set the tone for the whole, because no government wants to appear the least supportive. Italy has different geopolitical interests, focused on the Mediterranean, Africa, the Balkans and its energy ties with the East. A country in that position has everything to lose from a conflict in the Baltic and nothing to gain. Its historical role, from Andreotti to Prodi, has been that of a mediator, not an outpost. To abandon this role in order to align with the hardline stance is a choice that someone should openly advocate, rather than letting it seep out through an interview.
Finally, there is the practical reality, which the general himself does not hide. Masiello speaks of the return of the ‘importance of mass’: forces are quickly worn down, and without the capacity to replenish them, a prolonged conflict cannot be sustained. In short: a conventional war with Russia would be a war of attrition, fought with ammunition stocks that Europe does not possess and with an industrial base that would take years to reconvert. Against a nuclear power that has just reiterated that it regards nuclear weapons as part of its defence. There is no rational interpretation of Italy’s national interest in which this scenario is acceptable.
Alternatives do exist and do not require naivety. The first is institutional: to separate missions on the eastern flank from the annual budget and subject them to a specific vote, preceded by a public hearing of military and government leaders on the nature of the mandate. If Italian soldiers are asked to be ‘ready to respond’, Parliament has the right and the duty to know to what, under what rules of engagement, and within what limits.
The second concerns language. The military leadership has a responsibility to prepare the forces, not to influence public opinion on the underlying political judgement – namely, whether or not Italy is at war. That assessment is the remit of the constitutional bodies. A return to verbal restraint is not a concession: it is the condition for deterrence to remain defensive even in the eyes of those observing it from Moscow.
The third is diplomatic. Any Russian declaration of non-aggression should be taken at face value in the technical sense of the term: put to the test with concrete proposals for risk reduction, starting with the Baltic, where the density of ships, aircraft and units in close proximity makes an incident more likely than elsewhere. Rome has the credibility and the history to champion such an initiative at European level. The fact that it is not doing so, and that the issue emerges only from the words of a general, is the real cause for alarm in this affair.
The enemy to be feared is not a country a thousand kilometres from our borders. It is the habit – which is taking root here – of deciding on the most serious matters without discussing them, and of presenting them as if they were inevitable; a psychopathology that is dramatically eroding the last remnants of common sense.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry renewed its warning to foreign diplomats and other foreign nationals on 3 October, urging them to leave Kyiv and saying Russian forces would continue large-scale strikes against targets in the Ukrainian capital and elsewhere. The warning said those who remained were exposing themselves to “mortal danger”, while Moscow sought to place responsibility for any consequences on the individuals and governments choosing to remain.
The military threat behind that warning is not theoretical. Russian missile and drone attacks on Kyiv have intensified, striking transport infrastructure, energy facilities and residential districts. EU Today has documented a succession of such attacks, including a September missile and drone barrage that killed three people and damaged residential and public buildings and a later jet-powered drone strike on the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv. Air alerts and attacks on the capital are now a routine part of the security environment in which foreign missions operate.
The significance of Moscow’s latest statement, however, goes beyond the question of physical safety. By telling foreign governments that their diplomats should leave and suggesting that those who stay must accept the consequences, Russia is attempting to change the political calculation surrounding Kyiv. If Western states began moving their embassies to Lviv or across the border into Poland, Moscow would have achieved something that continued military pressure has so far failed to deliver: a visible reduction in the international diplomatic presence in the Ukrainian capital.
That has not happened. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry says it has received no request or notification from a foreign diplomatic mission indicating that it intends to relocate. Reports that some Western governments have considered contingency arrangements appear to concern emergency planning rather than decisions to withdraw, which is hardly surprising for embassies operating in a capital subjected to repeated missile and drone attacks. The distinction is important because preparing evacuation options is standard risk management; implementing them would be a political signal.
The European Union has gone further than simply denying evacuation plans. EU Ambassador Katarína Mathernová said that the EU Delegation, the EU Advisory Mission and all 25 EU member states maintaining embassies in Kyiv would remain in the capital. Her response was deliberately public, making clear that the Russian warning would not alter the diplomatic footprint of the EU or its member states in Ukraine.
Moscow has tried this before. In May, Russia issued a similar warning to diplomats and foreign nationals, prompting Brussels to summon the Russian chargé d’affaires. EU Today reported at the time that European officials viewed the warning as a threat against the foreign diplomatic community in Kyiv. Mathernová subsequently said that the EU would remain in Kyiv despite Russia’s renewed warnings, describing the pressure as an attempt to generate fear and isolate Ukraine.
The October warning has produced much the same result. One day later, Chancellor Friedrich Merz travelled to Kyiv, accompanied by Economy Minister Katherina Reiche and a German business delegation. His arrival was particularly difficult to reconcile with suggestions that European governments were preparing to abandon the capital. EU Today reported that the visit brought more than €1.3 billion in new German defence and energy commitments, while the German government presented the trip as a demonstration of continuing support for Ukraine.
Washington has taken a similar position. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States would make its own assessment of whether it was safe for American diplomats to remain in Kyiv and noted that Russia had been issuing such warnings for months. The US embassy has continued operating, while the State Department has maintained its highest-level travel warning for American citizens because of the continuing war. That distinction — between advising private citizens not to travel and maintaining an official diplomatic presence — reflects the different responsibilities involved.
There is also a legal dimension to Moscow’s attempt to shift responsibility. Russian statements create the impression that once diplomats have been warned, the consequences of any subsequent attack fall on those who chose to stay. International law does not support such an interpretation. The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations establishes the inviolability of diplomatic premises and personnel, although the immediate obligation to protect foreign missions rests principally with Ukraine as the receiving state.
Russia’s conduct of military operations is governed primarily by international humanitarian law. Diplomats remain civilians, while diplomatic buildings remain civilian objects unless they are being used in circumstances that would make them military objectives. Warnings can form part of an attacker’s obligation to take precautions, but they do not transfer legal responsibility to civilians who remain in place. The International Committee of the Red Cross makes clear that civilians who stay after an advance warning continue to enjoy protection, and an attacking force must still comply with the rules of distinction, proportionality and precautions.
That legal point is relevant because the wording used by Moscow appears designed to establish a different political narrative. Russia can warn foreign governments that further strikes are coming, but such warnings cannot provide advance immunity for the way those attacks are conducted. Nor do they relieve Russia of responsibility if attacks unlawfully damage civilian or diplomatic property.
The continued presence of embassies in Kyiv also has practical significance for Ukraine. Foreign missions give governments direct access to Ukrainian institutions and their own assessment of political, military and economic conditions on the ground. Their diplomats meet ministers, military officials, civil society representatives and businesses, reducing governments’ dependence on second-hand reporting and allowing them to judge developments for themselves.
Relocating those missions would therefore have consequences beyond symbolism. Diplomatic relations could continue from Lviv, Warsaw or elsewhere, but Moscow would inevitably portray any large-scale withdrawal from Kyiv as evidence that foreign governments no longer regarded the Ukrainian capital as sustainable as a diplomatic centre. That helps explain why European governments have answered the latest warning so publicly and why maintaining a visible presence has itself become part of the political response.
Russia has increasingly sought to combine physical attacks with wider political effects. Its missile and drone campaign places pressure on Ukraine’s electricity system, transport network, air defences and civilian population. The warnings to foreign missions extend the same logic to Ukraine’s international relationships: increase the perceived cost of remaining in Kyiv and encourage foreign governments to reduce their presence.
So far, that strategy has not produced the intended result. The EU says all of its embassies are staying, Germany’s Chancellor travelled to Kyiv immediately after the warning and Washington has made clear that it will take its own decisions about the security of its mission. Russia can make the Ukrainian capital more dangerous, but it has not persuaded Ukraine’s principal partners to treat Kyiv as a city they must leave.
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