Sepia
cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42893848
The Russian occupation ‘Zaporizhzhia regional court’ has sentenced Larysa Malovychko, a 57-year-old midwife from Enerhodar, to 11 years for ‘pro-Ukrainian views’ and supposed spying. According to Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov, Larysa Malovychko was abducted back in September 2023 and held prisoner for some time both in Russia and in occupied Crimea.
Russia has imposed a near total information blockade on most occupied territory, with next to nothing more known about Malovychko, or her so-called ‘trial’. The verdict was reported on the so-called ‘court’ Telegram channel on 20 November 2025, with nothing to indicate how many (if any) hearings there were, before the predetermined guilty verdict and 11-year sentence.
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‘Spying’ or ‘treason’ charges have become extremely common since Russia first launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Such ‘trials’ are held behind closed doors, with convictions and long sentences guaranteed. Both men and women are targeted, and there are also no bars as far as age is concerned. Very young people have been seized and, later, sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for donations to Ukraine’s Armed Forces, for example, when they were underage, while equally horrific sentences have been passed against Ukrainians in their 70s. This is all of particular concern given the very real danger of being subjected to torture in Russian captivity.
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In June 2025, 74-year-old Oleksandr Markov from Enerhodar died in Russian captivity. He had been abducted on 8 May 2024, with his family knowing nothing about his whereabouts until March 2025. It was only then that they learned that a fake occupation ‘court’ had sentenced the 74-year-old to 14 years in a maximum-security [‘harsh-regime’] prison colony on ‘treason’ charges.
Dmytro Orlov reported then that at least 26 other residents of Enerhodar were illegally held in Russian captivity, including seven women. 13 of them are employees of the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, with Russia having begun abducting and torturing employees soon after it seized control of the plant in early March 2022. It is quite possible that the real figure is much higher.
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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42893098
Chinese authorities have arrested several activists and issued a stern warning to “anti-China and pro-chaos elements” amid criticism of the government’s response to Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in a generation.
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[Among ohers] authorities arrested Miles Kwan, a 24-year-old student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, after he created an online petition calling for greater transparency and accountability from the government, multiple reports said.
The petition included four demands, including the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry to probe the circumstances of the fire, including whether potential conflicts of interest may have contributed to the disaster.
Before it was removed from the internet on Saturday, the petition had garnered more than 10,000 supporters.
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China’s national security office in Hong Kong appeared to condemn the petition before its removal, accusing activists of using “the banner of ‘petitioning the people’ to incite confrontation and tear society apart.”
Hong Kong’s Office for Safeguarding National Security also accused figures with “sinister intentions” of exploiting the fire to return the city to the “black-clad violence” that erupted during mass antigovernment protests in 2019.
On Monday, a commentary in the Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper called on the public to be vigilant against “anti-government elements” with “malicious intentions”.
“They have even gone so far as to ‘act as representatives’ to establish a so-called ‘concern group,’ put forward so-called ‘four demands,’ distribute leaflets, and launch a petition, all in an attempt to incite public unrest,” the commentary said.
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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42887934
The accelerating cyber threats facing Ireland demands “an aggressive response” by the State, according to the country’s cyber bosses.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said criminal cyber gangs and hackers, aligned to states like China and Russia, pose a “significant threat” to Ireland’s national security.
This is because Ireland is a host to some of the world’s largest tech providers and cloud computing facilities as well as the worsening geopolitical situation and the threat posed to Europe resulting from Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
The centre said it “regularly observes state-aligned threat actors carrying out scanning and other reconnaissance activities” targeting Irish government and State-owned networks.
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Publishing its 2025 National Cyber Risk Assessment, the NCSC said Ireland was at risk from cyber attacks on “shared critical infrastructure”, such as gas and electricity pipelines connecting Ireland to the UK and France.
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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42880630
Moscow has increasingly turned to foreign nationals to fill its ranks as it struggles with heavy battlefield losses that Ukraine says have exceeded one million since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, a government agency that monitors and counters foreign propaganda, said ... that since the invasion began “Moscow has built a transnational system for recruiting foreigners using deceit and criminal schemes.”
“Russia has recruited foreigners from 128 countries of the world using fraudulent recruitment centers, private companies and state channels through its diplomatic and cultural institutions,” the center wrote on its Telegram channel.
“Hundreds and thousands of citizens of various countries were drawn into the aggression through deception, coercion or for money,” it added.
The center estimates that more than 18,000 individuals from 128 countries have joined Russian forces since 2022.
Dmitry Usov, who heads Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, told CNN that this figure does not include the separate contingent of around 12,000 North Korean troops deployed under a military cooperation agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang.
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According to the report, Russia has brought in 2,715 Uzbek nationals, 1,599 Tajik citizens, 1,190 from Kazakhstan and 687 from Kyrgyzstan to help wage its war, now approaching its fourth winter.
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The agency also lists 1,338 Belarusian citizens fighting for Russia. It added that around 3,300 of these foreign fighters have already been killed in combat.
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Earlier, OpenMinds, a defense-tech company specializing in information warfare, said in a report that Moscow has expanded its online recruitment campaigns aimed at foreigners to shore up its manpower, with the number of contract military advertisements rising more than sevenfold since last summer.
It added that about half of the foreign-targeted posts were directed at Russian-speaking citizens of post-Soviet states. Many of these ads falsely promised financial benefits, social guarantees and assistance obtaining a Russian passport, the report said.
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Over 200 Kenyans fighting for Russia in Ukraine, as per BBC.
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Russia is turning to African women and conscripted North Koreans to tackle its defence worker shortage, experts say.
... The military industry [In Russia] is not recruiting Russia’s women to work in most roles ... the reluctance to recruit Russian women into jobs in the defence industry does not extend to women from other countries. Around 200 women, mainly from central and west Africa, have been hired to work in defence industry factories located in the Alabuga special economic zone in Tatarstan, a Russian republic located east of Moscow. Many of these factories build drones assembled from components imported from Iran – weapons that have been used extensively by Russia in its attacks on civilians in Ukraine.
The African women employed to build drones in Tatarstan were recruited through a programme called Alabuga Start, which targets young female migrant workers ...
It is advertised extensively on social media, including through paid influencers on TikTok ...
The Alabuga Start website appears to offer an attractive package of work experience, on-the-job training, accommodation ... However, once they arrive, the young women can find themselves living very different lives to those they had anticipated. There are reports of working long hours and exposure to dangerous chemicals, with passports being withheld to prevent women from leaving. For instance, Kenya has launched an investigation into Alabuga Start, which may see the programme shut down in that country ...
cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42837641
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On Sunday, thousands of people had gathered outside the charred buildings in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district to lay flowers and leave mementos and messages such as “rest in peace” and “Hong Kong be strong.” At a plaza at the complex, people manning a local relief effort collected donations and distributed essentials such as clothing, bedding, diapers and food to residents displaced by the fire.
By Sunday evening, the donation booths were gone, replaced by police command tents.
Government authorities have stepped in with official relief measures and sanctioned mourning activities, such as flying flags at half-staff and the establishment of designated condolence sites.
Beijing’s national-security office in Hong Kong warned that any attempt to exploit the fire to create disorder would be punished by law. The office said anti‑China groups and individuals were spreading false information, undermining relief efforts and inciting resentment toward the government and its leaders.
Alleged rabble-rousers are “attempting to use the victims’ grief to advance their political ambitions, pushing Hong Kong back into the turmoil of the extradition-bill unrest and reviving the darkest days of violent unrest,” the security office said.
“Darkest days” refers to the months of protests and violent unrest in Hong Kong in 2019 that were sparked by a proposed law that would allow the extradition of suspects for prosecution in mainland China.
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A petition circulated online by activists demanded an independent investigation of the fire that goes beyond construction materials and addresses how Hong Kong is run. The list of demands in the petition echoed the protest chants of 2019.
The Hong Kong Centre for Human Rights, a group of rights advocates, said that the national-security laws may keep people from expressing opinions about what happened. “They fear questions regarding the cause and handling of the disaster could be deemed as sedition,” the group said.
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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42719582
At least 128 people have died in one of Hong Kong’s deadliest-ever blazes that broke out Wednesday and devastated a multi-block housing estate.
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But Hong Kong has been the site of many significant fires in the past, which, like the Wang Fuk Court incident, have had various specific causes, but have also often shared some factors that contributed to their deadliness. ...
Density
Hong Kong ... is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with 6,900 residents per sq km. Many buildings are built close to each other, especially in Hong Kong Island and neighboring Kowloon, making it easy for fires to spread.
However, the city also owes much of its high population density to the prevalence of subdivided flats—small cut rooms, sometimes resembling animal cages—where residents can cram and reside in for a fraction of the cost of a standard Hong Kong flat.
In April 2024, a fire involving a 60-year-old tenement block in Yau Ma Tei in the Kowloon area left five people dead and dozens injured. In an op-ed at the time about the risks associated with these homes, the South China Morning Post explained that, while a cigarette may have caused the fire, firefighters said subdivided units and “structural alterations” in the building complicated rescue efforts.
Thirteen years earlier, a fire in Mong Kok, also in the Kowloon area, left nine dead, 34 injured, and more than a hundred people homeless. Authorities then pointed out that the danger was exacerbated by the subdivided flats cutting off points of access for the building.
**Economic struggle **
Hong Kong is also among the most expensive places to live globally, and both individuals and businesses in the Chinese enclave often seek cost-cutting shortcuts that, in the case of fires, have proven immensely costly in the end.
Subdivided flats are a response to an expensive housing market, and many residents have foregone safety requirements for the sake of having a place to live.
Fireproofing is also expensive. In the 2024 Yau Ma Tei fire, the building’s owners reportedly encountered difficulties in raising funds to comply with fire safety guidelines, with a district councillor noting that “the increasingly high cost of upgrading fire prevention facilities and equipment, especially in the bidding process, had not helped,” according to SCMP.
Bamboo scaffolding, which has been linked to the latest conflagration’s devastation, is also known as a cheap alternative for construction businesses despite the city’s Development Bureau pushing to “drive a wider adoption of metal scaffolds in public building works progressively,” with a bureau official citing bamboo’s “intrinsic weaknesses such as variation in mechanical properties, deterioration over time and high combustibility, etc, giving rise to safety concerns.”
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Lax enforcement
Politicians in the city have flagged that many of the city’s buildings are rapidly aging and in need of better fireproofing.
But previous fires have shown that compliance with government orders has been poor. In the 2024 Yau Ma Tei fire, the city’s Buildings Department already issued fire safety orders to the owners of the block in question in 2008—including calling for them to replace fire doors and outfit the building with more fire-resistant material. But SCMP reported that despite the department’s follow-up, the order had not been followed ...
Latest government data show that more than 8,600 fire hazard abatement notices have been issued in Hong Kong as of January, following inspections of old, high-risk buildings. More than 300 of these notices involved prosecutions or convictions.
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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42696039
Once one of the country’s biggest growth drivers, China’s property market has been in a downward spiral for four years with no signs of abating. Real estate values continue to plummet, households in financial distress are being forced to sell properties, and apartment developers that racked up enormous debt on speculative projects are on the brink of collapse.
There was some optimism that government measures to end the crisis had been working to reinvigorate the market, but in March, government-linked developer China Vanke Co. reported a record 49.5 billion yuan ($6.8 billion) annual loss for 2024, showing just how deep the problems run. Then in August, property giant China Evergrande Group delisted from the Hong Kong stock exchange — making the shares effectively worthless — marking a grim milestone for the nation’s property sector.
China is now considering further measures to revive its struggling property sector, particularly after new and resale homes recorded their steepest price declines in at least a year in October. The slump has heightened concerns that further weakening could destabilize the country’s financial system.
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Evergrande’s downfall is by far the biggest in a crisis that dragged down China’s economic growth and led to a record number of distressed builders. Founded in 1996 by Hui Ka Yan, Evergrande’s rapid expansion was from the outset fueled by heavy borrowing. It became the most indebted borrower among its peers, with total liabilities reaching about $360 billion at the end of 2021. For a time it was the country’s biggest developer by contracted sales and was worth more than $50 billion in 2017 at its peak. Founder and chairman Hui became Asia’s second-richest person. Over the years the company also invested in the electric vehicle industry and bought a local football club.
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How did some Chinese developers get into this mess?
In 1998, China created a nationwide housing market after tightly restricting private sales for decades. Back then, only a third of its people lived in towns and cities. That’s risen to two-thirds, with the urban population expanding by 480 million. The exodus from the countryside represented a vast commercial opportunity for construction firms and developers.
Money flooded into real estate as the emerging middle class leapt upon what was one of the few safe investments available, pushing home prices up sixfold over the 15 years ending in 2022. Local and regional authorities, which rely on sales of public land for a chunk of their revenue, encouraged the development boom. At its peak, the sector directly and indirectly accounted for about a quarter of domestic output and almost 80% of household assets. Estimates vary, but counting new and existing homes, plus inventory, the sector was worth about $52 trillion in 2019 — about twice the size of the US real estate market.
The property craze was powered by debt as builders rushed to satisfy expected future demand. The boom encouraged speculative buying, with new homes pre-sold by developers who turned increasingly to foreign investors for funds. Opaque liabilities made it hard to assess credit risks. The speculation led to astronomical prices, with homes in boom cities such as Shenzhen becoming less affordable relative to local incomes than those in London or New York. In response, the government moved in 2020 to reduce the risk of a bubble and temper the inequality that unaffordable housing can create.
Anxious to rein in the industry’s debts and fearful that serial defaults could ravage China’s financial system, officials began to squeeze new financing for developers and asked banks to slow the pace of mortgage lending. The government imposed stringent rules on debt ratios and cash holdings for developers that were called the “three red lines” by state-run media. The measures sparked a cash crunch for developers that was exacerbated by the impact of aggressive measures to contain Covid-19, such as the suspension of construction sites.
Many developers were unable to adhere to the new rules as their finances were already stretched. In 2021, Evergrande defaulted on more than $300 billion, triggering the beginning of China’s property crisis. Two more property giants defaulted — Sunac China Holdings Ltd in 2022 and Country Garden Holdings Co. in 2023.
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With household debt at a high of 145% of disposable income per capita at the end of 2023, homeowners are increasingly under financial pressure. The country’s residential mortgage delinquency ratio – which tracks overdue mortgage payments – jumped to the highest in four years as of late 2023. Some homeowners are being forced to sell their properties at a discounted rate, which is only exacerbating the problem.
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Chinese banks’ bad debt — loans they no longer expect to recover — hit a record 3.5 trillion yuan ($492 billion) at the end of September. Fitch Ratings has warned the situation could deteriorate further in 2026 as households struggle to repay mortgages and other loans.
A prolonged property slump could also deepen deflationary pressures. Former finance minister Lou Jiwei recently warned that households’ worsening outlook — driven by falling home values — will affect consumption levels and intensify price declines.
According to economists at Morgan Stanley and Beijing-based think tank CF40, the property sector’s drag on inflation could even be greater than official data suggest. They argue that the methodology used to determine China’s official Consumer Price Index understates falling rents, and, by extension, the broader deflationary impact.
cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42589825
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The highly-discussed draft 28-point peace plan (now reportedly revised to 19 points) endorsed by the United States seems to address, although not resolve, all the major points, including the return of abducted children of Ukraine.
According to the available text of the initial plan, “A humanitarian committee will be established to resolve open issues,” including the return of civilian detainees and reunification of families. In the current version, such a committee will be launched after the deal is agreed upon. Such an approach is dangerous.
Russia has attempted many times to turn Ukrainian abducted children into bargaining chips. Suggestions to exchange them for POWs have been unsuccessfully floated during the Istanbul talks. The proposal demonstrates Russia’s approach to children in general: a source of leverage that can be pulled to extract concessions, muddy the waters, and delay the agreements.
Ukraine made it clear: abducted children should be returned unconditionally and before the deal is finalized with Putin. Otherwise, Russia has no incentive to return children and will take forever to give back a fraction of those who have been kidnapped. What prevents Russia from signing an agreement, having sanctions lifted, and taking ten years to find children that it has “rescued”? By that time, most children will either be adopted, drafted to the army, or brainwashed beyond the point of no return. And Russia will bear no consequences for its actions.
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The current peace plan also does not mention anything about children in the occupied territories of Ukraine. 1.6 million Ukrainian children are trapped under the Russian occupation, facing militarization and conscription into the Russian army. At least 600,000 children are of school age and forced to study in Russian schools and visit notorious military camps. Many of them want to go to Ukraine but have no safe way to do so. Many are waiting to be liberated and hope to go back to their normal lives. The current peace plan serves those children to Putin on a silver platter by giving up their homeland and omitting the need to rescue them from the Russian occupation.
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The fact that there is no mention of international legislation that regulates the issue of crimes against children (the Genocide Convention or the Convention on the Rights of the Child) is very alarming. Those documents provide concrete procedures for executing the returns and would pressure Russia to comply. Leaving them out of the deal would give Russia an upper hand in organizing the return of children. Nothing in the current deal prevents Russia from returning a dozen children and calling it even. Without third-party access to Russian records and effective monitoring mechanisms for the return process, talk of rescue risks becoming performative rather than effective.
Overall, a peace plan in its current version allows Russia to dictate the fate of thousands of Ukrainian children who have been abducted or live under occupation. This can easily turn from a humanitarian catastrophe to a national security threat. Russia will turn Ukrainian children into soldiers for future wars against NATO. The administration should reaffirm its commitment to saving children everywhere by including Ukraine in peace negotiations and making the return of children a precondition for further negotiations.
[Edit to insert the link.]
cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/42577654
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Sweden, to its immense credit, has acknowledged what the rest of Europe still resists saying aloud: if an adversary can strike you from thousands of kilometres away, you cannot deter them with weapons that can’t reach beyond your own borders.
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Sweden, long admired for its cautious diplomacy and understated pragmatism, is now moving decisively onto the European security stage.
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Stockholm’s new strategy, proposing strike systems with ranges of up to 2,000 km, is not a provocation. It is a sober, overdue recognition that Europe’s deterrent posture must modernise or collapse.
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Predictably, some critics will accuse Sweden of “escalation”, as though investing in the ability to defend one’s territory somehow invites conflict. The argument is as old as pacifism and just as flawed.
In a world where one power routinely launches strikes 1,000 km deep into a sovereign state, the only escalatory act is to remain defenceless.
Europeans must abandon the naïve notion that Russia will be placated by weakness. If anything, it is weakness that tempts Moscow, just as it has throughout its imperial history. A Europe that cannot respond to missile attacks on its own soil — or that must beg the United States for every long-range capability — is a Europe that has ceded its sovereignty without a fight.
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Deterrence only works if the adversary believes you have both the capability and the will to respond. Without long-range strike, Europe has neither. Sweden understands this. Its decision is not merely strategic; it is moral. A nation has a duty to defend its citizens — and defence today requires offensive reach.
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Meanwhile, Polish members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have urged the European Union to respond firmly and jointly to Russian and Belarusian sabotage and repeated violations of EU airspace, during a debate in Strasbourg on Wednesday.
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The discussion followed a recent explosion on a railway line in eastern Poland, which Warsaw has described as an act of Russian-backed sabotage, and a series of incursions by drones launched from Russia into the skies of several member states.
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European Commission Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu said that strengthening Europe’s ability to react to “hybrid threats” is now a priority for the European Commission, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The term “hybrid threats” is used in Brussels for hostile activity that mixes cyberattacks, sabotage, disinformation campaigns and military pressure. Mînzatu noted that in recent weeks drones or aircraft had violated airspace over Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania and Latvia.
“These incidents follow a pattern, they are not an accident. They are part of hybrid warfare,” she told lawmakers.
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Former [Polish] interior minister Mariusz Kamiński of Law and Justice argued that Russia is deliberately trying to create fear and chaos and that this method has been used consistently since Soviet times.
He said Russian special services have for months been organizing “terrorist activities” on EU territory, targeting critical infrastructure such as airports, and warned that “we are one step away from the deaths of our citizens.”
Kamiński said Belarus, under the rule of Alexander Lukashenko, has become a staging ground for Russian intelligence officers and saboteurs, and called for tougher EU measures.
He also proposed that the Commission, together with the European Council, work out a procedure to compensate damage caused by sabotage using frozen Russian assets that were blocked after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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Krzysztof Śmiszek from the Left alliance cited an estimate by Poland’s digital affairs minister Krzysztof Gawkowski that cyberattacks in Poland, including those targeting critical infrastructure, could reach 100,000 this year.
Śmiszek accused the far right in Europe of acting in the Kremlin’s interests, saying that “the Kremlin, as always, uses the mindless and ‘useful idiots,’” using a phrase often applied to people seen as advancing Russia’s agenda inside Western politics.
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On Thursday, on the sidelines of the European Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg, the Committee on Security and Defence (SEDE) is due to meet behind closed doors.
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