“Intense Solar Radiation” Corrupted A320 Flight Systems, Airbus Rushes Emergency Update
Airbus warned Friday that “intense solar radiation” may have corrupted critical flight data in an incident involving an A320 narrow-body aircraft. While the company did not disclose which flight was affected, it was likely last month’s JetBlue Flight 1230, which suddenly dropped in altitude while en route from Newark to Cancun.
Airbus issued an Alert Operators Transmission to all airlines operating A320 Family aircraft, warning that an urgent fix is required.
The company believes this is the first time this specific problem has emerged in its fleet and says it has “proactively worked with aviation authorities… keeping safety as our number one and overriding priority,” according to CNN.
“Airbus acknowledges these recommendations will lead to operational disruptions to passengers and customers,” Airbus wrote in a statement.
Airbus told CNN on Saturday that most of the narrow-body aircraft can be repaired in a matter of hours by simply reverting to the previous software. It said about 900 older aircraft would need more complicated fixes.
Here’s more from the report:
American Airlines has about 209 of the aircraft which need to be updated, less than the 340 it had earlier predicted, according to a statement from the airline.
. . .
Delta Air Lines said fewer than 50 of its A321neo aircraft will be impactedand the work should be complete by Saturday morning.
. . .
JetBlue, which operates a fleet mostly made up of A320 and A321 aircraft, did not say how many of their planes needed to be fixed, but told CNN in a statement it has already started repairs.
. . .
Southwest Airlines does not have any of the impacted aircraft. Meanwhile, in the Asia-Pacific, Jetstar Airways Australia, Air New Zealand, IndiGo and Air India Express have also taken precautionary measures.
At cruising altitude, commercial jets are exposed to 100 to 300 times more solar radiation than at ground level, and a major solar storm can push that even higher.
High-energy particles can disrupt modern avionics processors, including corrupting memory or causing a logic error. While Airbus hasn’t specified which exact flight systems were affected, here are the likely candidates:
Zelensky’s Sacked Top Aide ‘Escapes’ To Front-Line To ‘Hide’ From Corruption Investigators
Andriy Yermak, the man who until just over 24 hours ago was Zelensky’s right hand man and the president’s top most powerful aid as chief of staff, and Ukraine’s appointed chief negotiator with the US on the peace process, is going to the front lines, apparently to “fight”.
After his home and offices were raided by Ukraine’s anti-corruption investigators Friday related to the ongoing massive energy sector kickback scandal, Yermak announced by text message to The New York Post, “I’m going to the front and am prepared for any reprisals.” He followed with, “I am an honest and decent person.”
The Post added further, “He then apologized if he no longer answers calls. He did not say when or how he intended to go to the frontlines of the war against Russia.”
He appears to still be rejecting allegations he was involved in the graft probe, centered on at least $100 million being siphoned off by corrupt Ukrainian officials amid a series of payoffs and kickbacks.
The narrative in his defense is being spun by the same NY Post report, which suggests this is all merely ‘political’ due largely to jealously and growing rivalries related to the enormous decision-making influence Yermak was coming to wield:
Despite his towering frame, you might not always have spotted him. Yet, wherever President Volodymyr Zelensky was, Yermak was often not far away.
As his chief of staff, Yermak wielded enormous power at the top of government and was even trusted to negotiate on Ukraine’s behalf at peace talks with the US.
But as his influence grew, so did public resentment of the power this unelected official held. His political career came to an abrupt end on Friday, hours after anti-corruption investigators raided his home in Kyiv.
But clearly his dramatic declaration of “going to the front lines” is meant to signal a sense of self-sacrificial patriotism and induce feelings of sympathy.
Oleksandr Dubinskyi, a rare and controversial oppositional lawmaker in Ukraine’s parliament who has long called for Zelensky’s impeachment, has a very different take based on his sources. He detailed in an X post a series of specific claims, the chief of which is that Yermak is ‘hiding’ from anti-corruption investigators:
I have learned where exactly he is going to “serve.”
Fact: Yermak, with his security detail, was brought to the location of commander nicknamed Madjar – one of the most media-prominent Ukrainian fighters, known for harsh Telegram rhetoric and the “Drone Wall” project. Unit commanders refuse to assign Yermak to their ranks.
He is physically present but has no tasks, no role, and no assigned position. Yermak is hiding from NABU anti-corruption investigations in a zone where detectives cannot serve him a notice of suspicion or court summons.
Separate detail: Madjar accepted Yermak only after a personal request from Zelensky. For Yermak, the front is not service. The front is a hideout. And it is interesting how people will meet Yermak – the man who organized the forced rounding-up of people in the streets of Ukraine.
Interestingly, when the teams of NABU and SAP agents searched his office on Friday, this was just meters away from President Zelensky’s own office.
He’s Zelensky’s powerbroker so his downfall could undo the already shaky alliance between the armed forces, the oligarchs, the secret police, and parliament that keeps Zelensky in power, thus pressuring him into peace, especially if his warmongering grey cardinal is no longer pushing him to keep fighting.
One geopolitical source, known on X as The Islander, agrees: this is largely the result of the Trump administration finally bringing real pressure to bear on the Zelensky regime at a moment a clear, workable peace plan is on the table – which much to Kiev’s chagrin features territorial concessions in the Donbass and Crimea.
The fall of Andriy Yermak – Zelensky’s fixer, enforcer, gatekeeper, and indispensable ally, isn’t a “corruption scandal.” It’s Washington slapping the table. NABU, the U.S.-trained attack dog of Ukrainian politics, didn’t raid the Presidential Office by accident.
It raided to remind Zelensky that the war isn’t his to command, the peace process isn’t his to veto, and the leash around Bankova Street is held in Washington, not Kiev and certainly not European chihuahuas. Because the real story isn’t Yermak’s resignation. The real story is the West turning on itself over how to end a war Russia has already won.
The fall of Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s most loyal ally and the de facto power manager of Ukraine, is not a scandal. It is a strike from above. NABU, the U.S.-funded, U.S.-trained anti-corruption bureau, didn’t raid the home and office of Ukraine’s most powerful unelected official by coincidence. And in any other country, his resignation after a corruption raid would be a political scandal. In Ukraine, it’s a geopolitical detonation.
Yermak wasn’t just a chief of staff, he was the shadow architect of the regime, the man through whom every appointment, every oligarchic negotiation, every Western request, and every wartime decision had to pass. And the speed of his resignation makes clear this was less about corruption, and more about pressure — engineered, timed, and executed by the one actor that can pull such a lever, Washington.
For months, the U.S. has been split between the neocons clinging to fantasies of a battlefield reversal, and the rising bloc of realists (JD Vance et. al) who have finally accepted what the frontlines have shown for over a year, Russia has already won. Ukraine’s army is shattered, NATO’s ammunition reserves are exhausted, and American voters are done with a war that offers no victory and no strategy.
The realists now want a controlled, face-saving diplomatic exit, that locks in territorial losses quietly while Washington claims it “secured peace.” Zelensky has resisted every inch of this pivot because peace ends his power. And Yermak was the immovable pillar of that resistance, insulating Zelensky from any pressure to negotiate, the filter preventing unwanted messages from reaching the president. By purging him through a NABU raid, the U.S. has isolated Zelensky.
Meanwhile, the EU is panicking. European leaders fear peace more than war because peace forces accountability… why did they destroy their own industries, torch their energy security, plunge their economies into recession, and funnel hundreds of billions into corruption for a war Washington itself is now preparing to fold?
Brussels supported Zelensky unconditionally not out of conviction but out of sheer self-preservation. If the war ends, they must answer for the ruin they inflicted on their own populations. Europe needs perpetual conflict to postpone the political reckoning. Washington, by contrast, wants a face saving offramp. This is the real EU–US divide: Brussels wants to delay the inevitable, Washington wants to manage it, and Kiev wants to deny it. Only one of them has the power to dictate the timeline, and it isn’t Europe.
Moscow sees the Western fracture, senses the desperation, and understands its advantage. Putin’s message has been cold and consistent: either negotiations occur on terms that reflect the battlefield reality and addreses the root cause of the conflict, or Russia will continue grinding down NATO’s proxy forces until nothing remains to negotiate with.
For Russia, both paths lead to victory. Russia has no reason to rush, it is the West running out of time, weapons, unity, and credibility. And when European publics finally realize their leaders sacrificed prosperity, stability, industry, and geopolitical autonomy for a war that ended exactly where Moscow predicted it would, the political reckoning will be seismic. Yermak’s fall is not the end of an era, it marks the beginning of the collapse for the EU.
Already, President Zelensky has on Saturday announced a delegation headed by security council secretary Rustem Umerov was on its way to Washington continue talks on the Trump-proposed deal to end the war.
And how is Mr. McFaul supposed to keep working now without his co-chair Yermak in the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions? 🥺
Umerov has been put in charge of the Ukrainian delegation at a moment Yermak is on the run toward the front lines. This is all happening very fast, and the White House can now more easily impose its will on an increasingly disunified and somewhat panicked Zelensky government.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) has long performed a key role for many on the left. When there is an argument barred by decency or decorum, Wasserman Schultz is happy to make it, from attacking journalists in her defense of censorship to attempting to rig an election and bar Republicans from ballots as part of her defense of democracy. However, on Friday, the Florida representative set a new low in American politics: attempting to assign some of the blame for the shooting of two National Guardsmen on President Donald Trump.
On CNN’s “News Central,” Rep. Wasserman Schultz declared that
“This is a deeply concerning situation, but, you know, it’s one that I think we have to — it begs the question, would an individual have flown across the country to target law enforcement officers in Washington, D.C.? And, I mean, the answer is likely no. So why wasn‘t the president‘s first thought, ‘Wow, you know, maybe I should reconsider deploying military troops in the nation‘s capital or in any city?’ Particularly not when they haven‘t coordinated closely with the leadership of these cities and when we have law enforcement that are quite capable of handling the criminal justice issues that are — that we need law enforcement to focus on, and not our military.”
There is a good-faith debate over the deployment of National Guard personnel in cities. However, the mayor of Washington, D.C., has worked with the Administration on that deployment, and crime has fallen in the Capitol. They have been coordinating with the city.
Nevertheless, Wasserman Schultz pressed on:
“I just think, you know, the president looks everywhere except inward to blame his own policies. We need to make sure that we don‘t have our military deployed in our cities, doing — handling law enforcement responsibilities. And we need to make sure that we address gun violence. We certainly need to make sure we always have the proper and appropriate and tight, tight vetting processes, and those should be reviewed. But it‘s never the president‘s fault or his policies when it comes to his reaction, and it’s pretty disgusting.”
D.C. has some of the strongest gun control measures in the nation. Moreover, this is a crime committed with a handgun brought from another area with strong gun control, Washington State.
Wasserman Schultz is also assuming that it was the deployment that motivated the shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national. Lakanwal entered the U.S. on September 8, 2021, under Operation Allies Welcome, a program established by former Democratic President Joe Biden after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
The father of slain Guardsman Staff Sgt. Darin “Taylor” Hoover blamed the “feckless Biden Administration” for the death of his daughter the day of Wasserman Schultz’s statement.
Wasserman Schultz, however, does not blame former President Biden for Lakanwal’s presence in the United States. (Lakanwal, a former member of a CIA unit in Afghanistan, was reportedly granted asylum under the Trump Administration in April).
Investigators are still working to discover the motive of Lakanwal for murdering one soldier and critically wounding another. However, Wasserman Schultz feels entirely comfortable in suggesting that it was the deployment of the Guard in cities over Democratic objections. Of course, a few other possibilities come to mind. First, it could be an act of religious-based terrorism. Second, it could be an act of mental illness. Third, it could be a personal grievance with the U.S. government.
Killing soldiers in the nation’s Capitol can be appealing for any of these motivations or a combination of motivations. It is not obvious that someone travels across the country because this is where you can find personnel on the streets. After all, there are also troops deployed in other states closer to Washington state. There are also large bases in Washington state where military personnel are present in large numbers in public areas.
A shooter with any of these motivations could view the location as amplifying his grievances against the government. Wasserman Schultz seems to suggest that Trump is responsible for making troops targets due to the controversial use of the Guard and supplying targets for a terrorist.
The most important point for Wasserman Schultz is a familiar one: Trump did it.
Yet, blaming the deployment is like blaming the Republican members for the mass shooting at the 2017 softball field. After all, if they had not made themselves targets, James T. Hodgkinson would not have gone there. Hodgkinson, a former Bernie Sanders supporter, hated Republicans and would have found another gathering to carry out his murderous plan. In the same way, Lakanwal may have been on the hunt for any soldiers as a symbol of the United States in the Capitol.
The point is that we do not know. The effort to use this tragedy for political purposes is to dishonor the victims and capitalize on their deaths. Few would feel comfortable getting into the head of a homicidal madman without any evidence or support. However, that appears to be a unique skill set for Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Trump Declares Airspace Above Venezuela “To Be Closed In Its Entirety”
President Trump said on Saturday on X that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela will “be closed in its entirety.”
“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP,” Trump wrote on X.
To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
Earlier this month, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned pilots to “exercise caution” near Venezuela’s airspace due to the “worsening security situation and heightened military activity.
The Pentagon has been deploying warships and other military assets in the Caribbean this year. The deployment centers around bolstering Hemispheric Defense, and the Trump administration has formally characterized Nicolás Maduro as the head of a terrorist organization and considers his government illegitimate.
Joint Special Operations Command has ordered numerous airstrikes on speed boats carrying narcoterrorists. The intent is to stop drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narcoterrorists that are part of a sophisticated network pumping drugs into America, resulting in the drug death overdose crisis that kills 100,000 Americans per year – one that the Biden-Harris regime ignored by opening borders to the third world.
On Friday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth dismissed fake news from corporate media about recent lethal kinetic strikes.
Hegseth explained:
As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.
As we’ve said from the beginning, and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be “lethal, kinetic strikes.” The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narcoterrorists who are poisoning the American people. Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization.
The Biden administration preferred the kid gloves approach, allowing millions of people — including dangerous cartels and unvetted Afghans — to flood our communities with drugs and violence. The Trump administration has sealed the border and gone on offense against narcoterrorists. Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them.
Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.
Our warriors in SOUTHCOM put their lives on the line every day to protect the Homeland from narcoterrorists — and I will ALWAYS have their back.
As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.
As we’ve said from the beginning, and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically…
The new Democrat Party’s appeal to the public these days is that the failure of a free enterprise system has made America unaffordable and that all Americans need government help! This sort of emergency plea to the public has been made before.
In order to make housing more affordable in the early 2000s, Fannie and Freddie Mac, US government mortgage guarantor companies, began pressuring mortgage lenders to widen their rules for mortgage lending, even to include NINJA loans—No Income, No Job, No Problem—for purchasing real estate properties; then Fannie and Freddie married that expansion with marketing Adjustable Rate Mortgages, which would float according to Federal Reserve rates.
The outcome was the real estate and stock market crash of 2008. Since then, between 2009 and 2016, the fed rate was kept arbitrarily low at .75%, which inflated real estate prices; from 2020 to 2022, the fed rate was pushed down again to .25%, with the result of further increasing the average home price from $220,900 in 2010 to $420,000 in 2024. At the same time, the Federal Reserve has pushed up interest rates to 5.5%, so the average American has to pay more and borrow at higher rates for real estate, thanks to the government’s interventions to make housing more affordable.
During the Obama presidency, there was a grand push to make a university education more affordable; that is when the whole student loan industry was taken over by the federal government. In 2010, the total US student loan debt was $772 billion; today, the total debt is $1.750 trillion.
The average student graduating today carries $30,000.00 in debt. The average price of a university education has risen from $20,000 in 2010 to $31,000 per year today, or 59% higher since the Democrat Party took over the US university financing system. The average college education costs $120,000 these days; that does not sound affordable. It sounds like every single student needs a loan…
In the mid-1960s, the Democrat Party dominated Washington, D.C., and as part of the Great Society, decided to make healthcare (you got it!) more affordable.
With that, Medicare was created at an initial cost of $3 billion in 1967. Since 1967, the cost of Medicare has increased 370X, to an annual cost to the taxpayers of $1.12 trillion per year. Medicaid began as a $1 billion program and has since increased to $909 billion per year today. Even with this government control and expenditure, the average cost per capita is $13,432 per year, compared to the average cost per capita of other developed nations of $7,393. Aren’t costs supposed to go down or remain stable when the government creates affordability?
Even with the government’s control and expenditure, by 2010, healthcare in America was still deemed “unaffordable” to the Democrat Party. In answer to the problem, the Obama administration created the Affordable Care Act, which went into effect in 2014. In 2013, the average consumer paid $232 for their monthly premium, with an average deductible of $2,425. Today, that same consumer must pay $621/month or $7,452/year while having $6,000 in deductibles. Premiums and deductibles are expected to increase by 25% again in 2026. The Affordable Care Act is becoming more unaffordable by the day.
In 2020, the Biden administration decided the Earth could not afford the use of fossil fuels any longer, so it began an all-out effort to strangle the fossil fuel industry through regulations and executive orders that made land leases and drilling unaffordable, giving rise to a 38% inflation spike in the costs of energy products.
Inflating the costs of energy affects literally everything in an economy that is produced, warehoused, or delivered: think of the factories and machines that do the manufacturing, the warehouse heating or cooling needed to store product, and the ships, trains, and trucks needed to get product to the stores, then what about the light, heat, and refrigeration… Strangling the energy sector of an economy creates a gusher of inflation affecting every single product from fruits and vegetables to meats and dairy. During Biden’s administration, inflation rose 20%.
An inflation rate of 20% also means that every person who had put away savings of $100,000 by 2020 was worth $80,000 by 2024.
Midway through Biden’s term, the administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which pushed trillions of dollars into green energy “investments” and expansions of healthcare payouts, none of which helped to reduce inflation.
It turned out to be just another Democrat act that neither the taxpayer nor the consumer could afford.
Now we have the new mayor of New York, claiming that socialist policies will make life more “affordable” by taking over rental properties, grocery stores, transportation lines, and utility companies.
The fact is, the Democrats create our nation’s unaffordability problems by advancing (quasi-socialist) government control of energy, healthcare, education, finance, and housing sectors. And then Democrats propose to solve the problems their policies create with the solution of the government taking the same sectors over entirely through socialism.
What has proven to be unaffordable for over half a century in this country is pseudo-socialism. Apparently, the Democrat Party believes in the aspiration of advancement through failure. We, as voters, need to let the Democrats know we understand and reject their policy failures.
What is no longer affordable are Democrat policies that pervert the virtuous American free enterprise system, which has been the cornerstone of this nation’s prosperity since its founding.
Bessent Set To Pull The Plug On Federal Benefits For Illegal Aliens
Under President Trump’s direction, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is “working to cut off federal benefits to illegal aliens and preserve them for U.S. citizens.”
“Treasury announced that it will issue proposed regulations clarifying that the refunded portions of certain individual income tax benefits are no longer available to illegal and other non-qualified aliens, covering the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Additional Child Tax Credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit, and the Saver’s Match Credit,” Bessent wrote late afternoon on Friday.
At @POTUS@realDonaldTrump‘s direction, we are working to cut off federal benefits to illegal aliens and preserve them for U.S. citizens.@USTreasury announced that it will issue proposed regulations clarifying that the refunded portions of certain individual income tax benefits… https://t.co/pn2MXoxDHC
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) November 28, 2025
Bessent’s move to cut federal benefits to illegal aliens comes hours after President Trump’s lengthy X post that describes a national crisis driven by nation-killing open borders. Trump claims there are 53 million foreign-born residents, many of whom supposedly rely heavily on welfare and contribute to rising social dysfunction such as crime, school failures, hospital strain, housing shortages, and deficits.
A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at, along with certain other foolish countries throughout the World,…
“A migrant earning $30,000 with a green card will get roughly $50,000 in yearly benefits for their family. The real migrant population is much higher. This refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America, something that did not exist after World War II (Failed schools, high crime, urban decay, overcrowded hospitals, housing shortages, and large deficits, etc.),” the president said.
The failures of the Democratic Party are piling up, and the consequences are growing, spanning fraud, terrorism, and rising public outrage:
Don’t stop at cutting off funding to illegal aliens. It’s time for Bessent’s team to go after the dark-money billionaire-funded NGOs and leftist activist groups that helped facilitate the nation-killing migrant invasion.
Representatives of European Union member states reached an agreement on Wednesday in the Council of the EU to move forward with the controversial “Chat Control” child sexual abuse regulation, which paves the way for new rules targeting abusive child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on messaging apps and other online services.
“Every year, millions of files are shared that depict the sexual abuse of children… This is completely unacceptable. Therefore, I’m glad that the member states have finally agreed on a way forward that includes a number of obligations for providers of communication services,” said Danish Minister for Justice, Peter Hummelgaard.
The deal, which follows years of division and deadlock among member states and privacy groups, allows the legislative file to move into final talks with the European Parliament on when and how platforms can be required to scan user content for suspected child sexual abuse and grooming.
The existing CSAM framework is set to expire on April 3, 2026, and is on track to be replaced by the new legislation, pending detailed negotiations with European Parliament lawmakers.
EU Chat Control laws: What’s in and what’s out
The EU’s efforts to make scanning of private messages compulsory suffered a setback earlier this month, when mandated client-side scanning was removed from the latest proposal draft. Wording was also added to ensure that providers were not unduly burdened with detection obligations:
“Nothing in this Regulation should be understood as imposing any detection obligations on providers.”
In its latest draft, the EU Council keeps the core CSAM framework intact, but service providers would also have to cooperate with a newly established EU Centre on Child Sexual Abuse to support the implementation of the regulation.
While the latest EU Council text removes the explicit obligation of mandatory scanning of all private messages, the legal basis for “voluntary” CSAM detection is extended indefinitely.
A compromise that satisfies neither side
To end the Chat Control stalemate, a team of Danish negotiators in the Council had worked to remove the most contentious element: the blanket mandatory scanning requirement. Under previous provisions, end-to-end encrypted services like Signal and WhatsApp would have been required to systematically search users’ messages for illegal material.
Still, it’s a compromise that leaves both sides feeling shortchanged. Law enforcement officials warn that abusive content will still lurk in the corners of fully encrypted services, while digital rights groups argue that the deal still clears the way for broader monitoring of private communications and for mass surveillance, according to a Thursday Politico report.
Lead negotiator and chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs in the European Parliament, Javier Zarzalejos, urged both the Council and the Parliament to enter negotiations immediately. He stressed the importance of establishing a legislative framework to prevent and combat child sexual abuse online, while respecting encryption.
“I am committed to work with all political groups, the Commission, and member states in the Council in the coming months in order to agree on a legally sound and balanced legislative text that contributes to effectively prevent and combating child sexual abuse online,” he said.
The Council celebrated the latest efforts to protect children from sexual abuse online; however, former Dutch Member of Parliament Rob Roos lambasted the Council for acting similarly to the “East German era, stripping 450 million EU citizens of their right to privacy.” He warned that Brussels was acting “behind closed doors,” and that “Europe risks sliding into digital authoritarianism.”
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov pointed out that EU officials were exempt from having their messages monitored. He commented in a post on X, “The EU weaponizes people’s strong emotions about child protection to push mass surveillance and censorship. Their surveillance law proposals conveniently exempted EU officials from having their own messages scanned.”
Privacy on trial in broader global crackdown
The latest movement on Chat Control lands in the middle of a broader global crackdown on privacy tools. European regulators and law‑enforcement agencies have pushed high‑profile cases against crypto privacy projects like Tornado Cash, while US authorities have targeted developers linked to Samurai Wallet over alleged money‑laundering and sanctions violations, putting privacy‑preserving software into the crosshairs.
Session president Alexander Linton told Cointelegraph that regulatory and technical developments are “threatening the future of private messaging,” while co-founder Chris McCabe said the challenge was now about raising global awareness.
A Ukrainian MP recently made an unsubstantiated claim that there were 400,000 open and ongoing cases of desertion from the Ukrainian military since the invasion by the Russian Federation in 2022. It may have been hyperbole, or they may have had a source in the judiciary.
However, the General Prosecutor’s office wrote to the New Voice of Ukraine in early November that 310,000 criminal cases related to unauthorized absence from a military unit or place of service (AWOL) and desertion are currently registered, 162,000 of which came just this year. There have been over 21,000 desertions in October 2025 alone, claims journalist and former lawmaker Ihor Lutsenko – now commander of a Ukrainian drone unit.
“This is a record. A very bad record. Every two minutes, someone runs away from our army. By the time you finish reading this post, another soldier will have put on skis. Ukraine will be weaker by one defender, and the enemy will become stronger by one,” he wrote, according to the New Voice.He stressed that these are just official figures, and that the real number is only likely to be higher.
Suddenly, the widely dismissed total of 400,000 doesn’t seem impossible, and if a Ukrainian soldier downs his tools every 2 minutes, it leaves quite a lot of time for 400,000 to be reached by the end of the year.
The news comes as a 28-point plan for a lasting peace (later condensed to 19 points) in Ukraine was recently proposed by the Trump Administration in an effort to capitalize on talks with Vladimir Putin held during a summit in Alaska, and to bring the Ukrainians back to the table. Both Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have admitted that within the proposed plan points lies the framework discussed between the leaders in Anchorage without actually endorsing it. Both also acknowledged the “long pause” between the summit and the completion of this new document.
On the other hand, Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev told Axios, that published a full version of the agreement last Thursday, that he was “optimistic” and that “we feel the Russian position is really being heard”.
Military analysts skeptical of the Ukrainian army’s ability to withstand Russia for much longer have said that Russia will never agree to the US plan; they apparently include existing deal-breakers, and new demands including that Russia and Ukraine must implement tolerance and anti-racism education programs towards other nations and ethnic groups. The plan would give Ukraine a security guarantee akin to NATO membership, while also barring through constitutional amendment an attempt by Ukraine to join NATO.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could visit Trump at the White House in the next few days “to complete final steps and make a deal,” according to Ukraine’s national security chief. Meanwhile, US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll was recently in talks with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi.
One of the initial 28 points states that the Ukrainian armed forces must be limited to 600,000 soldiers, and Axios claimed the current strength to be 800,000, citing official sources. Ukrainian war correspondent Yuri Butusov put the number of Ukrainian war dead at 70,000 at the end of 2024 based on public notifications to next of kin. Conflicts of a similar nature to this have produced a 1-3 wounded-killed ratio, so it’s reasonable to assume some 300,000 killed and wounded since the start of the war.
If a number greater than 310,000 and lower than 400,000 have already fled, and 300,000 have become casualties, the idea that Ukraine maintains an 800,000-man army beggar’s belief.
France Launches New Military Service Plan To Counter Supposed Russian Menace
Amid persistent confrontationalist rhetoric and determination to prolong the West’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday announced a new avenue of voluntary military service for 18- and 19-year olds with the goal of gradually bolstering both active duty and reserve strength. In a critical sweetener for would-be recruits who are wary of dying in Ukraine, those who enlist under the new program will only serve in the French mainland and French territories abroad.
“A new national service is set to be gradually established, starting from next summer,” said Macron in a speech delivered at the Varces military base in the French Alps. Under the program, the 18- and 19-year-old volunteers will receive a month of training, followed by nine months of service in a unit. After that, they’ll be assigned to a reserve unit with the idea that they’d start a civilian career or take the next step in their education. The scheme will go live next summer with an initial round of 3,000 young volunteers, ramping up to 10,000 by 2030 and 50,000 a year by 2035. France hasn’t drafted soldiers since 1996, and Macron says there’s no intention to restart conscription.
When discussing the new service scheme, Macron has also stressed that he isn’t creating a conveyor belt that will carry French troops into Russia’s Ukraine meat grinder. “We must, in any case, immediately dispel any confusion that we are going to send our young people to Ukraine,” Macron said earlier this week. “That’s not at all what this is about.”
“It’s good, it’s a difficult path,” Retired Gen. Jean-Paul Paloméros, a former head of the French Air Force, told AP, referring to the fact that training and equipping the new troops would require higher spending and create new demands on existing resources. “But nevertheless I think it was needed somewhere to make sure that the young generations understand that freedom and peace are not taken for granted and it doesn’t come as a free lunch.”
The French move is part of rising militarism across NATO’s European member states. Poland has started its own voluntary service program, with a goal of training 100,000 service members a year starting in 2027. Earlier this month, we coveredGermany’s moves toward potentially reinstating military conscription, which the country abandoned in 2011. The initial steps center on mandatory questionnaires and medical exams that will feed a database detailing each young man’s fitness, aptitude and willingness to serve.
Promoting the new French avenue of military service, Macron stoked fears that Russia is keen on marching into Paris. “The day that you send a signal of weakness to Russia — which for 10 years has made a strategic choice to become an imperial power again, that’s to say advance wherever we are weak — well, it will continue to advance,” Macron toldRTL last week. As is the standard for leaders of NATO countries, Macron’s rhetoric is pure gaslighting, as NATO’s own empire-building set the stage for the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Antifa Mob Mobilizes Terror Campaign Against AfD Event
A wave of chaos continues to spread across the Western world by the far-left extremist group Antifa.
In the U.S., this group of unhinged leftists is classified as domestic terrorists for their attacks on federal buildings and personnel. In Europe, these far-left extremists have launched an ongoing campaign of terror against the rising Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
On Saturday, Antifa unleashed chaos near an AfD youth organization event in the western German city of Giessen. AfD aims to engage young voters and elect the first leader of the newly formed youth wing. Antifa rioters attempted to derail the event.
Die Situation in Gießen eskaliert zusehends. Auf der Autobahn kommt es zu Auseinandersetzungen. Linksradikale werfen mit Pyro. Im Ort Heuchelheim sollen Wasserwerfer auffahren. https://t.co/Knh2W63gOv#gi2911pic.twitter.com/zfhxnT0fOX
#Gießen gleicht derzeit in Teilen einem Bürgerkriegsgebiet!
Um wieder Herr der Lage zu werden, muss die Polizei Wasserwerfer einsetzen, um die Massen gewaltsuchender Antifa-Aktivisten von den Zufahrtswegen zu räumen.
Bis zu 40.000 gewaltbereite Mitglieder der terroristischen #AntiFa werden heute in #Giessen erwartet. Gerufen vom Staat und den Medien um Mitglieder, Mitstreiter und Unterstützer der #AfD zu bedrohen und einzuschüchtern! So etwas hat es seit dem NS Regime in Deutschland nicht… pic.twitter.com/4dJvA4e2q5
“Antifa” is not actually anti-fascist. It is a Marxist-leaning, decentralized group of radical people who often display signs of psychological instability and have been weaponized by liberal elites to undermine populist movements across the West ever since Trump’s victory in 2016. Hence, the targeting of AfD.
As AfD rises in popularity, the wave of terror by Antifa increases:
NGO and statecraft expert Mike Benz explains more about the global Antifa network sowing chaos across the West.
Antifa is a global network. From Germany against AfD, to France against Le Pen, to Spain against Vox, to Hungary against Orban, to Belarus against Lukashenko, to Syria against Assad, Antifa’s actions — violent shutdown of speech & events of targeted political groups, ecoterrorism… pic.twitter.com/5x8n9RUOk6
The Left is not defending democracy. The Left has been defending corrupt globalists by weaponizing far-left militant groups against right-wing populist movements ever since Trump was elected in 2016.
Even The Atlantic, a longtime mouthpiece for the Deep State, can no longer hide the surge in left-wing terrorism. And the trajectory is alarming: it’s about to get a lot worse.
