Europe

Slovenia on Thursday imposed an arms embargo on Israel citing the European Union's failure to take action to stop Israel's assault on Gaza.

"At the initiative of Prime Minister Robert Golob, the Slovenian government confirmed a decision prohibiting the export and transit of military weapons and equipment from or through the Republic of Slovenia to Israel, or the import from Israel to Slovenia," a government statement read.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/45360460

The New York Times on Saturday quoted two unnamed senior Indian officials as saying there had been no change in Indian government policy, with one official saying the government had "not given any direction to oil companies" to cut back imports from Russia.

Jaiswal added that India has a "steady and time-tested partnership" with Russia, and that New Delhi's relations with various countries stand on their own merit and should not be seen from the prism of a third country.

Police in the south-western German state of Baden-Württemberg are to be allowed to use the analysis software from US firm Palantir, which is controversial among data protection advocates

The software was specifically developed for security agencies and is used by intelligence services, the military and police.

Palantir was founded in 2003 in the United States, notably by tech billionaire Peter Thiel. He is known for his libertarian and conservative positions, his closeness to US President Donald Trump and his criticism of liberal democracies.

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Serbia: Arrests of former ministers, officials over alleged corruption and inflating invoices for Chinese consortium about Novi Sad’s deadly November accident

Six people, including a former minister, were arrested on Friday over their involvement in reconstruction of a railway station, whose roof collapsed last November killing 16 and triggering Serbia's biggest anti-government protests in decades.

The office of the prosecutor for organised crime said Tomislav Momirovic, former infrastructure minister, was among those arrested.

The six are suspected of inflating invoices from a consortium of the two Chinese companies - China Railway International Co and China Communications Construction Co - who were given the task of reconstructing both the railway station at Novi Sad and tracks, the statement said.

They are suspected of damaging the state budget by $115.6 million, the statement said, and also said that by inflating invoices the Chinese consortium benefited by $18.8 million, but gave no further details.

In December 11 people, including Momirovic's successor Goran Vesic, were detained on suspicion of committing a criminal act against public safety.

Months of protests across Serbia following the roof collapse, including university shutdowns, have rattled the rule of President Aleksandar Vucic, a former ultranationalist who converted to the cause of European Union membership in 2008.

The protesters, who blame corruption for the disaster, demand early elections that they hope would remove Vucic and his party from power after 13 years.

They accuse Vucic and his allies of ties to organised crime, violence against rivals and curbing media freedoms. Vucic denies the accusations.

Sounds a bit bizarre, but hey, so are the times we live in....

The European Commission allowed key text messages between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer’s CEO to vanish during COVID-19 vaccine talks, a letter to the New York Times reveals.

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In a significant development that reinforces claims of genocide against Russia, Ukrainian intelligence officials have reportedly obtained a massive trove of files detailing the forced deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children.

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The documents, allegedly hacked from servers in Russian-occupied Crimea, are being hailed by legal experts as a potential “smoking gun” that could prove a systematic, state-sponsored campaign to erase Ukrainian national identity.

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The files reportedly include personal records, details on forced changes of guardianship to Russian citizens, and new addresses for the abducted children across Russian-controlled territory.

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Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence (HUR), said these files have been turned over to law enforcement, calling the abductions “one of Russia’s largest war crimes.”

This new evidence provides powerful support for a crime that has already drawn international condemnation. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants in 2023 for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, specifically over these deportations.

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Kristina Hook, a genocide scholar and lead author of a New Lines Institute report on Russian genocide, argues that the new documents add to an already “overwhelming body of proof.”

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Hook further asserted, “Millions of Russians are involved in this machinery of terror, including the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children. Every day, we see a level of radicalization and cruelty that only makes sense if the goal is national extermination. It’s time for our leaders to publicly name this crime, as Ukraine’s children are being abducted by extremists who also openly threaten America and our allies.”

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Dr. Michael Cecire, a researcher at the RAND Corporation, described Russian doctrine as fusing “kinetic destruction with population control,” with a goal of “demographic erasure.”

He argues that the forcible transfer and “Russification” of Ukrainian children are not incidental but a key part of a “coherent, state-directed, and multi-domain approach to eliminate the viability of the Ukrainian nation in contested regions.”

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Open-source intelligence analyst Kyle Glen:

“The total number of ‘Shahed’ and ‘Gerbera’ decoys launched into Ukraine in July stood at 6,297, an increase of 1,378% compared to July 2024 (426 launched). With 6,297, July has seen approximately the same number of drones as the entirety of Jan-Oct '24."

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In June 2025, Russia exceeded the 5,000-drone mark for the first time. July now sets a new record—the first time over 6,000 drones have been launched in a single month.

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On July 31, at least 28 people were killed, including 3 children, aged three, six, and 17, while some 159 others were wounded in the a Russian attack on Kyiv.

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Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) has published personally identifiable information of a Russian war criminal and commander of one of the brigades of the Russian forces that regularly launches Shahed attacks on Ukraine.

Details: Lieutenant Colonel of the Russian Armed Forces Ruslan Negrub is the commander of a separate UAV brigade HROM Cascade (military unit No. 35666-B, based in the town of Korenovsk, Krasnodar Krai).

This brigade launches Shahed UAV attacks on the territory of Ukraine. The Russians use them to attack civilian and humanitarian infrastructure and terrorise the civilian population.

DIU reported that war criminal Ruslan Negrub was born on 4 January 1983. His ID information is series 9002 No. 447425, issued on 17 April 2003 by the Mozdok District Department of Internal Affairs, Republic of North Ossetia–Alania. He graduated from the Stavropol Higher Military Aviation Engineering School.

Ruslan Negrub is married to Nadia Negrub, born on 8 March 1981.

The couple are parents to a 20-year-old son. Their registration/residence address is Stavropol Krai, Budyonnovsk, Microraion Severnyi Street 1, apt. 76.

Op-ed by Nataliya Gumenyuk, an Ukrainian journalist and founder of the Public Interest Journalism Lab. The text is based on Ms. Gumenyuk's intervention at the Helsinki Debate on Europe in May 2025.

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Ukrainian human rights defenders and journalists have spent over a decade documenting Russia's political violence.

Initially, their work echoed the moral legacy of the Helsinki Accords, pressing authoritarian regimes to acknowledge human dignity.

But meanwhile, they increasingly believe there is only one way to protect people in occupied territories: liberation by force. After Russian troops were pushed out of Bucha, Kherson and Izyum, the persecutions of the local population stopped.

Many Ukrainians have come to a painful conclusion: international law cannot stop atrocities. It cannot save lives.

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For us Ukrainians, who live in an aggravated reality, everything around us automatically undergoes a reality check, particularly our values and ideals.

But we also need to consider another recent shift in political reality. Before, the fight against hypocrisy used to belong to idealists. There was a time when autocrats pretended to follow international rules. Today, they boast about breaking them. Instead of hiding their wrongdoings, they commit so many that it's hard not to be overwhelmed, learning about the scale of atrocities, resulting in a feeling of powerlessness.

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Helsinki has not recorded a single traffic fatality in the past 12 months, city and police officials confirmed this week.

The city's most recent fatal accident occurred in early July 2024 on Keinulaudantie in the city's Kontula district.

Authorities are calling the situation exceptional.

"A lot of factors contributed to this, but speed limits are one of the most important," said Roni Utriainen, a traffic engineer with the city's Urban Environment Division.

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According to Utriainen, more than half of Helsinki's streets now have a speed limit of 30 km/h. Fifty years ago, that proportion featured 50 km/h limits.

Earlier this summer, Helsinki decided to lower speed limits near schools to 30 km/h, a measure that is set to take effect as the academic year begins.

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The statement was delivered on Thursday by John Kelley, Acting U.S. Alternate Representative to the United Nations, according to Ukrinform's correspondent in New York.

"China, as its representatives has pointed out, does not directly provide weapons to Russia. Nevertheless, China has become the decisive enabler of Russia's war effort by being the most important supplier of Russia's war industrial machine," Kelley said.

He noted that specifically, China has provided Russia with significant quantities of machine tools, microelectronics, optics, UAV and cruise missile technology, and nitrocellulose, which Russia uses to make propellant for weapons.

"If China were serious about helping to end the war, it would stop providing these critical components to Russia," Kelley said.

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A revised trade deal between Brussels and Kyiv opens the door to legalising food import bans imposed by some EU countries, according to the legal text of the agreement.

Ukraine’s agricultural sector, represented by UCAB, denounced the criteria as “extremely vague” and “vulnerable to political manipulation by protectionist farmer organizations and populist politicians.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/39639198

Russian lawmakers have passed a new law introducing fines for those who search for “extremist content” online. [A violation is punishable by an administrative fine ranging from RUB 3,000 to RUB 5,000, about $35-50.]

The move has sparked concerns both from opposition figures and from pro-government voices, as the official list of what qualifies as “extremism” in Russia, compiled by the Ministry of Justice, includes over 5,000 items, most of which ordinary citizens are not even aware of.

For example, Meta, the company behind Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, is officially designated as an extremist organization, which makes online searches about those apps illegal. The same extremist label has been applied to the “LGBT movement.” However, the law offers no clear explanation of what specific content is prohibited. The slogan “Glory to Ukraine” has also been registered as extremist. Some books and songs are on the list, including a song featured in Alexei Balabanov’s film War, which is still allowed to be shown in Russia.

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Internet users are wondering how they are supposed to know which materials are considered extremist. Sergei Boyarsky, head of the Duma’s IT committee, posted a video on Telegram clarifying that “accidental exposure,” for example, hearing or seeing something unintentionally, will not be punished. However, “deliberate” searches are now punishable under the law.

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Investigative journalist Andrei Zakharov speculated that security agencies may use Russia’s System for Operative Investigative Activities (SORM) to monitor web traffic. He also warned that phones could be searched at border crossings, during home raids or even random stops on the street.

“The last scenario is the most disturbing,” Zakharov wrote on his Telegram channel.

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The law has also stirred debate among typically loyal Kremlin supporters. One of the most vocal critics is Yekaterina Mizulina, founder of the so-called Safe Internet League, which is known for reporting internet users, artists and others whose online activity deviates from the Kremlin’s agenda to the security services. She noted that her own work may now fall under the ban, as reporting illegal content requires first locating it.

“The most interesting thing is that, according to the bill, even the activities of Interior Ministry officials monitoring such information could also be deemed illegal. And any person who reports the discovery of such materials to law enforcement, for example, about Columbine groups, also risks getting fined,” Mizulina wrote on her Telegram channel.

Margarita Simonyan, the head of the infamous Russia Today, posed a similar question, surprising her followers by opposing the government initiative. She wrote on her Telegram channel, “how are we supposed to investigate and shame all the different extremist organizations like the Anti-Corruption Foundation, if we are banned from even reading them?”

Germany's armed forces reported a 28% surge in soldier recruits from January to late July, compared with the same period last year, bolstering plans to boost NATO defences in response to what it sees as an increased threat from Russia.

The Defence Ministry said on Thursday more than 13,700 people had joined the Bundeswehr - the army, air force, navy and other forces - in that period, in what it said was the steepest rise for years.

Germany wants to have 260,000 active soldiers by the 2030s, from 183,000 now, to meet new NATO force targets and strengthen its defences - part of a planned surge in military spending underpinned by this year's decision to loosen budget constraints.

Interest in joining the armed forces also rose, with initial consultations rising by 11% and applications by 8%, while civilian sector applications jumped by 31%, the ministry said.

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