Europe Watch
A massive volley of Russian missiles and drones killed at least 25 people — including two children — across Ukraine overnight in one of the biggest aerial attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale war in February 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched 476 drones and 48 cruise and ballistic missiles at his country. Ukraine’s military said six or seven missiles and nearly three dozen drones made it past Ukraine’s air defenses.
Explosions and fires were reported close to the front lines around the eastern city of Kharkiv, but also far from the front, in the western city of Lviv, which is close to Ukraine’s border with NATO-member Poland.
Most of the deaths were in the western city of Ternopil, where the Interior Ministry said two high-rise apartment blocks and energy facilities were hit. Many of Ukraine’s regions reported some loss of power, as temperatures plunge and the need for heat becomes a matter of life and death.
NATO on alert as Poland accuses Russia of ‘state terrorism’ in rail blast The Washington Post
from news.google.com
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is under heavy domestic and international pressure to fire his right-hand man, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak, after a massive corruption scandal.
Zelensky’s government is embroiled in one of its worst domestic crises since the Russian invasion in February 2022, following accusations by Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, that Timur Mindich, a close ally of Zelensky, is involved in large-scale corruption. Mindich and his associates were accused of siphoning $100 million in revenue from Energoatom, the state nuclear energy company. The affair, now dubbed “Mindichgate,” is threatening a man so powerful that analysts have drawn historical parallels with Cardinal Richelieu, a figure from the French King Louis XIII’s era.
The air forces of several NATO states were scrambled overnight to protect the airspace of the alliance along its eastern border as Russia launched one of its deadliest air strikes against Ukraine’s western regions of the war so far.
Polish, Romanian, German, Spanish, Norwegian, and Dutch fighter jets were scrambled in two deployments in airspace bordering Ukraine over Poland and Romania and the Russian armed forces hammered western Ukraine. According to Kyiv, Russia launched 476 drones, 47 cruise missiles and one ballistic missiles in strikes across the country, but particularly on Western cities Ternopil and Lviv.
At least 20 people have been found dead in Ternopil, which is approximately 225 miles west of Ukrainian capital Kyiv and 110 miles short of the Polish border. Of the killed, at least two are children, and a further 66 were wounded including 16 children in the strikes which badly damaged two apartment blocks.
Russia has launched a “wicked” attack on Ukraine overnight with 430 drones and 18 missiles, with the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying was “deliberately calculated” and “aimed at causing maximum harm to people and civilian infrastructure.”
At least four people were killed, with “dozens” wounded, including children, he said.
The attack largely targeted Kyiv, hitting “almost every district” of the capital, the head of the city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said on social media.
The British government has reportedly suspended intelligence on Caribbean drug smuggling operations with the United States to distance itself from recent air strikes on cartel boats, seemingly siding with human rights lawyer maximalism over security interests.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy of using “kinetic strikes” to prevent drugs from making it to the streets of America has apparently been rejected by the human rights lawyer-led British government, evidently prioritising adherence to United Nations rules over its relationship with the nation’s most consequential ally.
Intelligence gathered from the string of British overseas territories and UK military intelligence assets stationed in the Caribbean is no longer being shared with Washington, according to CNN. The British government has refused to confirm or deny these claims, citing the importance of secrecy in intelligence matters, but the report cites an internal British source who states the UK stopped sharing intelligence a month ago, after the U.S. started sinking drug smuggler boats, and that his decision was reached because of human rights concerns.
LONDON — A senior member of the British government on Wednesday denied he’s plotting to oust Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in a sign of deep anxiety in the Labour Party over its dire poll ratings less than 18 months after a landslide election victory.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said talk of a leadership challenge coming from Labour officials and lawmakers is “self-defeating and self-destructive.” He spoke after aides to the prime minister preemptively told British media outlets that Starmer would fight any leadership challenge.
“It’s totally self-defeating briefing, not least because it’s not true,” he told Sky News. He said “whoever’s been briefing this has been watching too much ‘Celebrity Traitors’,” referring to the hit reality TV show that pits faithful members of a group against conniving enemies within.
Vladyslav Voloshyn, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Southern Defense Forces, told public broadcaster Suspilne that troops had “completely withdrawn” from the villages of Uspenivka and Novomykolaivka.
“Very fierce fighting continues for Yablukove and several other locations,” he said. “The defensive operation is ongoing, and the contact line remains dynamic.”
Russia is taking advantage of the weather to advance in small groups, moving on foot or motorcycles, with the adverse weather preventing Ukrainian forces from deploying drones against them.
It comes as Ukraine’s government suspended its justice minister on Wednesday, amid an investigation into corruption in the energy sector.
UK’s Intelligence Freeze Risks ‘Killing’ Special US Relationship After Labour Blocks US Drug War Cooperation Conservative Post
from news.google.com
A church leader in the UK says police warned him that he may face a criminal investigation because a Bible verse displayed on the back of his campervan could be treated as “hate speech.”
The story is yet another chilling example of how far Britain’s crackdown on religious expression has gone.
Pastor Mick Fleming, 59, who runs an independent church and anti-poverty charity in Burnley, said he was approached by a police officer at a gas station on October 27.
The officer warned Fleming that the Scripture on his vehicle might be considered hateful “in the wrong context.”
The verse was John 3:16, one of the most widely known and quoted passages in the Christian faith:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
After much controversy over the doctoring of a portion of President Donald Trump’s remarks at The Ellipse on January 6th, 2021, it has been announced today that both the Director General and News CEO of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) have resigned.
Per The New York Post:
The director-general of the BBC has resigned Sunday amid scandal after the British state broadcaster shared doctored footage of President Trump speaking on Jan. 6.
…
The BBC’s boss and its head of news quit on Sunday following criticism over bias at the British broadcaster, including in the way it edited a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The BBC had been under mounting pressure after an internal report by a former standards adviser was leaked to the Daily Telegraph newspaper which cited failings in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, trans issues and a speech made by Trump.
The White House had recently denounced the broadcaster as a “propaganda machine” after its flagship Panorama program was found to have edited two parts of Trump’s speech together so he appeared to encourage the Capitol Hill riots of January 2021.
Tim Davie, who has led the British Broadcasting Corporation since 2020, said he decided to leave after “reflecting on the very intense personal and professional demands of managing this role over many years in these febrile times”.
After several busy days of Conservative Party conference lobbying politicians and darting between fringe events, I decided to venture down enemy territory lane and attend the Dignity in Dying (DiD) panel fringe event. Contrary to what the media might have you believe, fringe events were packed, people spilling out like sardines into the corridors, and I often found myself turning up a good half-hour early just to secure a standing spot, never mind a seat sandwiched between two delegates.
Upon arrival at the DiD panel, it was the first room I had walked into where the room was full of empty seats.
On the panel sat the Rt. Hon. Kit Malthouse MP, Dr. Neil Shastri-Hurst MP, David Barker (Chief Executive, Willow Burn Hospice) Nick Hoile (Board Member for Dignity in Dying) and Rebecca Gillanders, a volunteer.
THE BATTLE FOR POKROVSK: For a year and a half, Russia has committed an inordinate number of forces and suffered horrific casualties (over 1,500 dead last month) trying to take the city of Pokrovsk, located on the front lines of Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine.
The latest battlefield reports suggest Ukrainian defenders of the city — which once had 60,000 inhabitants but is now mostly deserted — may soon be overwhelmed by Russian forces who have taken about 90% of Pokrovsk and are slowly advancing in house-to-house battles.
“Russian forces are just a few km away from closing their pincer movement around Pokrovsk and neighbouring Myrnohrad and are also closing in on Ukrainian forces in Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region,” Reuters reported from Moscow.
“Moscow’s forces are now close to cutting off the main roads into Pokrovsk, with its two key supply routes already under fire from Russian drones, making it dangerous and difficult to bring in supplies and also threatening Ukrainian forces ability to withdraw,” ABC news reported.
Dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk” by Russian media, the fall of Pokrovsk would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a psychological victory and buttress his effort to seize more territory before seriously considering ending the war. It would give Putin his biggest win since the fall of Bakhmut in May 2023, and would put the last two major cities in Donetsk, Kramatorsk, and Sloviansk, in peril.
Multiple people were injured Wednesday after a driver who screamed “Allahu Akbar” after he was arrested drove through pedestrians on an island off the coast of France.
Ten people were injured, with four in critical condition, after the incident on Ile d’Oléron, according to the BBC.
The man drove between two villages, knocking down anyone who did not get out of his way, Thibault Brechkoff, the mayor of Dolus d’Oléron, said.
Islamist attack in France on the island of Oléron. Shouting “Allah Akbar”, a terrorist in a car ran over pedestrians and cyclists, injuring them pic.twitter.com/twV8x3ccdx
— Léon La Jaunais de Mivoie 🇨🇵 (@ThierryHot1) November 5, 2025
He abandoned the vehicle and set fire to it before trying to escape, Brechkoff said.
“No one has died, and we are hoping that the injured will recover,” he said, according to GB News.
JUST IN – 10 injured, 4 in critical condition in terrorist car ramming attack on the French island of Ile d’Oleron. Driver deliberately rammed into pedestrians, stepped out of car and shouted “Allahu Akbar”. pic.twitter.com/1B6IN1NKwP
Turkey Pushes To Join EU Defence Fund, Greece Threatens Veto The European Conservative
from news.google.com
The United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act was meant to keep children safe. Instead, it is keeping the public uninformed. Within days of the law taking effect in late July 2025, X (formerly Twitter) started hiding videos of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza from UK timelines behind content warnings and age barriers. A law sold as safeguarding has become one of the most effective censorship tools Britain has ever built. What is unfolding is no accident. It is the result of legislation that weaponises child-protection rhetoric to normalise censorship, identity verification and online surveillance.
The roots of Britain’s online censorship crisis go back almost a decade, to MindGeek, now rebranded as Aylo, the scandal-ridden company behind Pornhub. This tax-dodging, exploitative porn empire worked closely with the UK government to develop an age-verification system called AgeID, a plan that would have effectively handed Aylo a monopoly over legal adult content by making smaller competitors pay or perish. Public backlash killed AgeID in 2019, but the idea survived. Once one democracy entertained the notion that access to online content should be gated by identity checks, the precedent was set. The Digital Economy Act 2017 laid the groundwork, and the Online Safety Act 2023 made it law. Today, several European Union states, including France and Germany, are exploring similar legislation, each cloaked in the same rhetoric of “protecting children”. This is not conspiracy; it is the natural convergence of corporate capture and state control, wrapped in the moral language of child safety.
The BBC has upheld a complaint against the newsreader Martine Croxall after she changed the term “pregnant people” to “women” and raised her eyebrows during a news channel broadcast in the summer.
The corporation said its executive complaints unit (ECU) had upheld 20 complaints about the broadcast. It said Croxall’s facial expression “laid it open to the interpretation that it indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity”.
Under the BBC’s impartiality rules, news presenters are not permitted to express views on controversial topics. Croxall and the editorial team involved have been spoken to about the item.
Croxall received praise and criticism over the incident when when a clip of it went viral online. JK Rowling, who has made her gender critical beliefs clear, said Croxall was her “new favourite BBC presenter”.
Croxall had been introducing a news story about research on the groups most at risk during heatwaves. It was based on a study and news release by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“Malcolm Mistry, who was involved in the research, says that the aged, pregnant people … women … and those with pre-existing health conditions need to take precautions,” she said.
Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s communications regulator has recently declared that Americans are not protected from UK prosecution for violating their soviet-styled speech laws on social media reaching their citizens. So far, talk of bills being written to deal with this foreign intrusion on American sovereignty is all that’s been seen in response to this assertion by the UK.
The claim came effectively in an ongoing lawsuit in which Ofcom argued, “We also note 4chan’s claim that it is protected from enforcement action taken by Ofcom because of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. However, the First Amendment binds only the US government and not overseas bodies, such as Ofcom, and therefore, it does not affect Ofcom’s powers to enforce the Act in this case.”
The UK government’s communications regulator Ofcom is facing backlash and a federal lawsuit after asserting that the U.S. Constitution does not protect American citizens from its online censorship laws.
Under the United Kingdom’s sweeping Online Safety Act, Ofcom has been sending enforcement letters to small U.S. platforms, including 4chan and Kiwi Farms.
Ofcom is demanding compliance with British speech regulations and threatening heavy fines for noncompliance.
But the move has triggered what one U.S. attorney calls a “constitutional ambush.”
Preston Byrne, an attorney representing 4chan, Kiwi Farms, and two other American companies, said the regulator’s actions were “frankly asinine.”
“My clients are entirely American,” Byrne said.
A new advertisement from Denmark’s state broadcaster is drawing attention for its messaging about genetics and diversity, reigniting discussion about political themes in Western advertising.
The commercial, which promotes a science program titled “Evolution,” features an on-screen “expert” interrupting a white Danish couple as they flirt.
The expert explains that Denmark’s history of war introduced foreign DNA into the national gene pool, which he says “protected them from disease.”
He then compares their relationship to inbreeding because they are both white and suggests they seek partners with more “exotic” genetics.
The woman then smiles as if intrigued by the idea.
The series first aired in 2020 but is now being re-released with the same “inbreeding” advertisements in 2025.
Over the weekend, unidentified drones were detected hovering above Belgium’s Kleine Brogel air base, which his the location of a U.S. nuclear weapons storage facility, prompting investigations into a possible espionage operation.
Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken said Sunday that a jammer was unsuccessfully used during the overnight drone sightings over Belgium’s Kleine Brogel airbase, which is used by NATO forces.
“Last night, we received 3 reports of drones above Kleine Brogel, of a larger type and flying at higher altitude,” Francken wrote on X. “It was not a simple overflight, but a clear command targeting Kleine Brogel. A drone jammer was used, but without success.
“A helicopter and police vehicles pursued the drone, but lost it after several kilometers,” he added.
…Francken said on Saturday that he would meet police next week to assess the threat and take the necessary steps to find and arrest the drone pilots.
A spokesperson for Francken’s office told Reuters news agency police were investigating the incident. Government ministers will discuss the sightings this week.
🇧🇪 – A Monday and a Saturday, drones spotted over the Marche-en-Famenne military base in Belgium, Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken told VRT NWS. “It are not amateurs, but skilled drone pilots.” Barracks guard noticed drones over crucial parts of the army brigade… pic.twitter.com/wUwUa0Fc7y
The UK tops global arrests for “offensive” online posts, surpassing China and Russia.
“For the first time since records began, the United Kingdom is no longer classified as an “Open” country in a leading global ranking of freedom of expression.” (X)
Dead Girls, Islamic Terror and Government Crackdown
The truth behind the British government’s reign of political terror.
This is not Iran. This is Great Britain!
Muslims in several UK mosques worship Allah by calling for the killing of Jews.Is this what a religion of peace looks like?pic.twitter.com/v8tLwsWrWv
— Liza Rosen (@LizaRosen0000) October 3, 2025
Moscow has repeatedly accused Kiev of attacking civilian infrastructure with Western-made weapons
The UK has supplied Ukraine with additional long-range ‘Storm Shadow’ cruise missiles to enable deeper strikes into Russia, Bloomberg reported.
London first announced the delivery of the air-launched rockets – which have a range of more than 250 kilometers (155 miles) – to Kiev in May 2023.
The latest shipment of an unspecified number of Storm Shadows is meant to help Ukraine maintain its campaign of long-range attacks against Russia during the coming winter months, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing unnamed sources.
During a meeting with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that London was “accelerating our UK program to provide Ukraine with more than 5,000 lightweight missiles” in a bid to put “military pressure” on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In yet another example of the massive foreign crime wave engulfing Europe, new data shows that foreigners in Italy are vastly overrepresented in violent crimes and predatory crimes such as robbery and sexual assault.
The 2024 data shows that a significant number of arrests in Italy are targeting foreigners, making up 34.7 percent of arrests.
However, when it comes to more serious predatory crimes, the figure is much higher. For public street robberies, foreign make up 60.1 percent of suspects and for robberies in total, it is 52.3 percent. Foreigners are responsible for 61 percent of burglaries, and 69 percent of pickpocketing cases, according to new crime data analyzed by Italian newspaper Il Sole 24.
Russia says it is ready to enshrine pledge not to attack NATO, EU in future security guarantees Anadolu Ajansı
from news.google.com
Catalan party withdraws support for Spain’s coalition government Anadolu Ajansı
from news.google.com
Ukraine’s long-range strikes on refineries inside Russia have reduced Moscow’s oil refining capacity by 20%, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, citing intelligence from Western governments.
Over 90% of those deep strikes on Russian soil were carried out by long-range weapons made in Ukraine, according to Zelenskyy.
He said Ukraine needs additional foreign financial help to produce more of them.
“We just need to work on this every day,” he said in comments to the media on Monday that were embargoed until Tuesday.
Oil exports play a key role in funding Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and new sanctions from the European Union and the United States are aiming to cut into Moscow’s oil and gas export earnings.
Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump warns Putin ‘we have a nuclear submarine off your shore’ after cruise missile test The Independent
from news.google.com