Valery Gerasimov, who has led the Russian troops in the Ukraine conflict since 2023, received the decoration for “bravery and selflessness”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has awarded Chief of the General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, the ‘Order of Courage,’ according to a presidential decree published on Tuesday. The state decoration, established in 1994, recognizes selfless acts of courage and valor.
The official notice said the award was given to Gerasimov “for courage, bravery and selflessness shown in the performance of military duty.”
The 70-year-old general has headed the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces since 2012 and also serves as First Deputy Minister of Defense. Since 2023, he has commanded the Joint Group of Russian troops fighting Ukrainian forces.
Commenting on the campaign in late August, Gerasimov said the “strategic initiative” now rests “entirely with the Russian troops,” while Kiev has been forced to shift its most combat-ready units “from one crisis direction to another to plug holes.” Russian forces are carrying out a “non-stop offensive” across almost the entire front line and will continue this course through autumn, according to the commander.
Gerasimov has held the ‘Hero of Russia’ title since 2016. He has also received numerous decorations, including the Order of St. George, 3rd degree (2017), the Order of St. George, 4th degree (2015), and the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland,” 1st degree (2021).
Falling birth rates and a shrinking population have prompted new initiatives to discourage terminating pregnancies
A college in Russia has introduced an abortion-prevention course. The Primorsky Vocational College in Crimea said on its website this week that the experimental program will run through the 2025-2026 school year, with two events scheduled each month.
The aim of the course is to raise students’ awareness of the legal and ethical repercussions of terminating a pregnancy and to educate them on reproductive health. The classes will be conducted by a psychologist and a class teacher.
Among the planned events are a debate titled ‘Abortion is legalized infanticide’, a lecture titled ‘Abortions are harmful’, and an interactive lesson on preventing early sexual activity among adolescents. A class hour on reproductive health and lifestyle choices, ‘Honor. Conscience. Traditions’, is scheduled for later this month.
Abortions remain legal in Russia and are covered by national health insurance. Terminations are permitted up to 12 weeks on request, up to 22 weeks for social reasons such as rape or the death or disability of the husband, and at any stage for medical reasons.
However, falling birth rates and a shrinking population have pushed Russian lawmakers to propose measures to discourage abortions. Earlier this year, St. Petersburg lawmakers advanced a bill to fine individuals and organizations that pressure women into having abortions. Similar laws have been adopted in more than ten regions, while authorities in Murmansk and Pskov suggested alternatives such as paying doctors bonuses for persuading women to continue pregnancies.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said earlier this year that abortion-prevention efforts led to roughly 40,000 women carrying their pregnancies to term in 2024. However, she later warned of a looming fertility crisis, noting the number of women of childbearing age has reached a historic low and is projected to decline further in the coming decade.
Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) reported 1.2 million births in 2024, the lowest annual total since 1999. To address the trend, the government has introduced various support measures for families, including lump-sum childbirth payments and expanded maternity benefits. The Soviet-era ‘Mother Heroine’ award, which offers cash rewards to women who have more than ten children, has also been revived.
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Dmitry Kuleba has said he had to escape the country “like a thief in the night”
Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has claimed he managed to “run away” from the country shortly before Vladimir Zelensky enacted a decree barring former diplomats from foreign trips.
Kuleba, who is currently in Poland, made the remarks in an interview with Corriere della Sera published on Monday. The ex-diplomat said he left Ukraine mere hours before the travel restriction took effect on September 3.
“I never thought I would have had to run away from my country like a thief in the night,” Kuleba told the Italian newspaper.
The former minister claimed that the decree was aimed directly at him and a handful of other former diplomats.
While the measure is officially linked to broader travel restrictions placed on military-age Ukrainian men, Kuleba claimed the limits do not apply to him as former diplomatic officials are not obliged to serve.
“The truth is that Zelensky and his entourage don’t want us to go abroad and say things they believe might be contrary to the government’s line,” he claimed. “I’ve calculated that there are about twenty of us subject to this measure. I don’t think I suffer from persecution mania, but I know for sure that this decree is aimed at blocking me and a few others.”
Kuleba blamed the latest measure taken against the ex-diplomats on the purported “Soviet mentality” still persisting in “certain palace circles.”
For such officials, “if you go abroad as a free citizen, you automatically become an agent who plots against the state,” Kuleba claimed without naming anyone in particular. He added that he personally “in general” tends to defend Kiev’s actions during his overseas trips.
The former minister’s press service, however, attempted to tone down the remarks, stating to Ukrainian outlet Hromadske that the Italian newspaper had presented Kuleba’s words “incorrectly.” According to the press service, the ex-minister did not leave the country for good but rather embarked on a scheduled trip to South Korea and is set to return to Ukraine on September 20.
Kuleba held the foreign minister post from March 2020 before his tenure abruptly ended a year ago in a major cabinet reshuffle. According to Ukrainian media reports at the time, Zelensky had grown increasingly dissatisfied with Kuleba over his allegedly lackluster efforts to secure more arms supplies from Western sponsors.
A black man kills a white woman in an American city, and the mainstream media gives it zero coverage. Imagine if the races were reversed.
The US mainstream media tends to operate by encouraging a certain prefabricated outrage. Sensationalized narratives are cultivated along predictable tracks. But no less egregious is what the media chooses to ignore. Few events of late have better exposed the ideological underpinnings of the media – and of the elite whose narratives it plugs – than the recent brutal and shocking murder of a young Ukrainian woman on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina.
On August 22, a career criminal, Decarlos Brown Jr., casually walked up behind 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, who was seated on a train minding her own business, and stabbed her three times in the neck in cold blood, killing her. He sauntered away, still clutching the knife dripping blood.
The mindless and savage attack was captured on surveillance footage, but Charlotte’s Democratic Mayor Vi Lyles pushed for it not to be released, ostensibly out of respect for the victim’s family. But the footage did eventually surface, and the story spread like wildfire. But this was a wildfire that couldn’t reach the impervious redoubt of the mainstream media – even after Elon Musk gave it the push into viral territory by chiming in on an End Wokeness thread pointing out the stunning media silence.
In fact, not a single major legacy outlet – the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Reuters, CNN, Wall Street Journal, and others – picked it up. One would think that, by sheer chance, one of these esteemed outlets would have bucked the trend. But that didn’t happen because, as Matt Taibbi once brilliantly pointed out,
“Reporting is done in herds, no one wildebeest can break formation without screwing things up for the others. So, they’ll all hold the line, until they all stop holding the line.”
As of this writing, it seems the media herd is starting to reluctantly skate to where the puck is going. And that means that some version of the story, however sanitized, will soon appear everywhere.
So what exactly has given this story its irresistible momentum? Let’s start with the blatant double standard about reporting interracial crime. A white victim and a black perpetrator, as was the case in this instance, is usually a circumstance that tips the scales in favor of silence. When an instance of black-on-white crime cannot be avoided, the respective races of the individuals involved are not mentioned, and the tone is more along the lines of “aww shucks, what a tragedy.” When the racial roles are reversed, the media coverage is extensive and sensational, and the race angle is established immediately and runs throughout the ensuing coverage like an electric wire.
Given such highly distorted media coverage of interracial crime, one would be forgiven for assuming that it is blacks who are perpetually in mortal danger of racist attack by whites in the US. This view was a large part of the impetus behind the Black Lives Matter movement. However, the actual statistics on interracial crime, which are not easy to find, show otherwise. Buried inside this Department of Justice (DOJ) report from 2020 is a rather remarkable admission: “[In 2019], there were 5.3 times as many violent incidents committed by black offenders against white victims (472,570) as were committed by white offenders against black victims (89,980).” Such stark wording was not repeated in subsequent reports under the Biden DOJ, but there is no reason to believe anything has changed in the streets.
Zarutska’s murder certainly comes at a time of record-low American trust in the mainstream media. Instances of misreporting and factual disasters have become such a recurrent theme as to not require individual examples. The media’s efforts at narrative formation have also become so heavy-handed that identifying the establishment cause being promoted in almost any piece of reporting is now a parlor game.
But – and I venture into very risky terrain here – the uproar over this senseless killing also points to a deeply ensconced taboo slowly starting to unravel: Many white Americans are tired of being denied the right to display even the slightest and most tentative hint of the type of racial solidarity that other groups are extended so liberally. It is a story being played out on a different stage with different actors in Great Britain.
There’s another angle here, and it is one that has already been remarked upon in numerous places. The victim was a citizen of a country that the US has spent enormous treasure and effort ostensibly defending since 2022. The roughly $130 billion in aid that Washington has coughed up for Kiev comes out to some $3,500 per Ukrainian citizen. Certainly enough for a bodyguard on train rides.
And yet the silence from the pro-Ukraine crowd has mirrored that of the media at large. This certainly confirms what has been abundantly clear throughout the war and remains so today: Ukrainian deaths that don’t advance a Western elite media narrative are dismissed and ignored. But this lack of reaction also casts in sharp relief the reality that pro-Ukraine sentiment in the US is largely a cause bundled in with the rest of the progressive agenda, underpinned by the uniform mouthpiece of a jaded media. The Ukrainian flags one sees out and about rarely reflect a principled stance but rather deference to elite cues.
It will be said that all sides have merely assumed their positions on the barricades to score political points on this deeply human tragedy. We will all be accused of coming to praise Caesar rather than to bury him. This young woman’s death is indeed a human tragedy and a particularly painful one. But to see it as only a tragedy is to dismiss its larger context and to refuse to draw any conclusions. That is willful ignorance.
When a tragedy unveils such a confluence of two deep ideological biases, what it does is reveal the contours of the magnet moving underneath the pattern of American life.
The US president can call up members of his administration at any time of day or night, according to his VP
US President Donald Trump works almost without resting, Vice President J.D. Vance has claimed, noting that the American leader frequently contacts his aides and cabinet members at any time of the day or night.
Speaking in an interview with Fox News host Lara Trump, Vance explained that the president can call up his team at 12:30 am or 2 in the morning and then be on another call at 6 am. “It’s like, ‘Mr. President, did you go to sleep last night? Like, what is going on here?’” Vance said.
“One thing I’ve learned just working with him every day is, he doesn’t have an off switch,” he said.
Media reports have long described Trump as a light sleeper who averages less than five hours of rest each night. Members of his administration have echoed similar experiences. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in July that Trump often telephones him shortly after midnight. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. also told reporters last month that Trump calls him “three or four times a week” about health policy matters.
Vance’s comments come as speculations about Trump’s health have increased in recent weeks. Observers have pointed to his minimal rest and photographs showing bruises. The White House has attributed these to frequent aspirin use and a condition known as chronic venous insufficiency, dismissing claims of more serious health issues.
Last month, rumors spread online that Trump had supposedly died after a brief absence from public events. Hashtags such as #TrumpIsDead gained traction on social media. However, the president soon reappeared in public.
Paris has little chance of reining in its finances amid ongoing “political destabilization,” the German state media network has reported
France’s ballooning sovereign debt coupled with political infighting could threaten the fiscal stability of the Eurozone, Deutsche Welle has reported, citing an expert.
France has one of the highest national debts in the EU, currently standing at €3.35 trillion ($3.9 trillion) — about 113% of GDP. The ratio is expected to climb to 125% by 2030. Its budget deficit is projected at 5.4–5.8% this year, well above the bloc’s 3% limit.
Friedrich Heinemann of the ZEW Leibniz Center for European Economic Research in Mannheim, Germany, told the outlet in an article published on Saturday “we should be worried. The eurozone is not stable at this point.”
A drastic austerity plan proposed by French minority government Prime Minister Francois Bayrou triggered a no confidence vote that he lost on Monday evening. The plan involved slashing public sector jobs, curbing welfare spending, as well as axing two public holidays. The right-wing National Rally, the Socialists, and the leftist France Unbowed vehemently opposed the proposal.
An Elabe poll ahead of the vote also showed most respondents were against the measures.
Heinemann told DW he doubts France will find a way out soon, given the bitter political infighting.
In July, Bloomberg, citing ING Groep NV experts, similarly claimed that France’s rising debt could be a “ticking bomb” for EU financial stability.
Despite the considerable budget deficit, France plans to hike military spending to €64 billion in 2027, double what the country spent in 2017.
President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly cited a supposed Russian threat. The Kremlin has consistently dismissed the claims as “nonsense,” accusing the EU of rapidly militarizing.
In May, member states approved a €150 billion ($169 billion) debt program for arms procurement.
Prime Minister Francois Bayrou has been ousted by the National Assembly in a no-confidence vote
The French government has fallen after Prime Minister Francois Bayrou lost a crucial confidence vote in parliament on Monday. Bayrou is the second consecutive prime minister under President Emmanuel Macron to be ousted, throwing the nation into political and economic turmoil.
A no-confidence motion in the National Assembly requires at least 288 votes to pass. Monday’s motion received 364 votes, with the left-wing New Popular Front and the right-wing National Rally uniting in opposition to end a months-long standoff over Bayrou’s austerity budget.
Having previously survived eight no-confidence motions, Bayrou called this vote himself, in a bid to secure backing for proposals that forecast almost €44 billion ($52 billion) of savings to ease France’s debt burden before the budget is presented in October.
The prime minister, who has repeatedly warned that France’s national debt poses a “mortal danger” to the country, appeared to acknowledge his fate. In a bitter remark on Sunday, Bayrou lashed out at rival parties that he said “hate each other” yet joined forces “to bring down the government.”
Bayrou is the second French prime minister in succession to be brought down following Michel Barnier’s ejection last December after just three months in office – and the sixth to serve under Macron since he was first elected in 2017.
Bayrou’s ouster reportedly leaves the French president to choose between appointing a Socialist prime minister to steer a budget through parliament, effectively ceding control of domestic policy, or call snap elections that polls suggest favour Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. With Macron’s approval ratings already hitting historic lows, either choice risks further weakening his presidency. Analysts warn that if markets lose confidence in France’s ability to rein in its deficit and mounting debt, the country could face turmoil reminiscent of the UK during the brief Liz Truss premiership.
Public discontent with Macron’s leadership has deepened, with the latest Le Figaro poll showing nearly 80% of French no longer trust the president. Thousands marched through Paris at the weekend demanding Macron’s resignation and carrying placards reading ‘Let’s stop Macron’ and ‘Frexit.’
The Hungarian prime minister says Ukraine should be split into areas controlled by Russia and the West, separated by a buffer zone
Partitioning Ukraine into Russian and Western zones of influence is the likely outcome of the conflict and the only reliable guarantee of the EU’s security, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.
Kiev has pressed its Western backers for security guarantees as a precondition for a settlement with Russia, first pushing for NATO membership and later floating ideas such as ‘peacekeepers’ and a buffer zone with Western military patrols. Moscow has rejected Ukrainian membership in NATO or Western troops on its territory, stressing that any settlement must include Kiev’s neutrality, demilitarization, and recognition of Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye as Russian territory.
Orban, however, has suggested it is time for the West to acknowledge Russia’s “inevitable” military victory and to begin deciding how Ukraine should be partitioned.
”Europeans all so elegantly talk around security guarantees, but the security guarantee actually means the division of Ukraine,” Orban told guests at the annual Civic Picnic in Kotcse on Sunday. “The first step has already been taken – the Westerners have accepted that a Russian zone exists.” He referred to earlier remarks by US President Donald Trump that Ukraine regaining Crimea was “impossible.”
“The result would be a Russian zone, a demilitarized zone and, eventually, a Western zone…The only question is how many kilometers away from the border of the Russian zone a demilitarized zone should be established,” he stated.
Orban noted the outcome would only slightly differ from the pre-conflict balance, when Ukraine itself acted as a buffer between Russia and NATO with “50% influence” each in the country. He said this division would help end the conflict and benefit all sides, particularly the EU, which he warned is on the verge of “collapse” and lacks the means to fund the conflict further.
The Hungarian leader has long criticized Brussels over its “warmongering” stance on Russia and support for Ukraine. In his speech, he repeated his warning that Ukraine’s EU accession would trap the bloc in a permanent conflict with Moscow, calling instead for an EU-Russia security pact.
The US president has urged the Palestinian militant group to accept a deal to release Israeli hostages in Gaza
US President Donald Trump has issued a “last warning” to Hamas, demanding the Palestinian militant group release Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
Trump warned of unspecified consequences if Hamas refuses to cooperate, in a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday.
“The Israelis have accepted my terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well. I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning,” the US president said without providing further details.
Hours after Trump made the remarks, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened Hamas with annihilation and demanded the Palestinian militants lay down their arms.
“This is a final warning to the Hamas murderers and rapists in Gaza and in luxury hotels abroad: Release the hostages and put down your weapons – or Gaza will be destroyed and you will be annihilated,” Katz wrote on X.
Hamas has signaled readiness to “immediately sit at the negotiating table” after hearing what it described as “some ideas from the American side aimed at reaching a ceasefire agreement.”
The latest “last warning” echoed a threat made by Trump in March, when he urged Hamas to immediately release all the living hostages and turn over the bodies of the deceased or end up “dead.”
Hamas took around 250 people hostage during the October 7, 2023 surprise attack on southern Israel that left at least 1,200 people dead and prompted the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The group is believed to still hold in custody nearly 50 of them, with around half presumed to still be alive.
The conflict, which has dragged on for nearly two years, has taken a heavy toll on the Palestinian enclave, leaving at least 64,000 dead, according to the local health authorities. Israeli military ground operations and heavy artillery and aerial bombardment caused widespread destruction across Gaza and displaced most of its residents.
