Europe

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After the mass shooting of Hanukkah celebrants on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, the Kremlin-linked disinformation network known as “Matryoshka” has been promoting claims of an alleged “Ukrainian trail” and frightening Europeans with threats of new terrorist attacks. The watchdog Bot Blocker project (@antibot4navalny), which has been monitoring the network, shared its findings with The Insider.

One video circulating on Twitter (X) and Bluesky is disguised as content produced by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). It claims that experts found markings on the shotguns used by the attackers in Sydney that are supposedly applied to weapons delivered to Ukraine. The video falsely claims that Ukraine has become the “largest source of weapons for the black market.”

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Another video, produced in English, uses the symbolism of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst). It begins with real information about planned terrorist attacks in German cities during the Christmas holidays, then mentions the shooting on the Australian beach — while claiming the perpetrators were connected to “representatives of Ukraine.” The video contains an error revealing poor fact-checking: it states that both shooters in Australia were killed, whereas only one was shot dead, while the second was wounded and detained. A similar video following the same template includes French subtitles and the symbols of French government agencies.

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The bots are also spreading images of alarming graffiti that, supposedly, appeared in Berlin. The images depict a Christmas tree with a time bomb beneath it, as well as the date 25.12.2025. One of the posts, posing as an Instagram story from the BBC, read “Graffiti warning of a terrorist attack appeared in three boroughs of Berlin.”

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The attack in Sydney took place on Sunday, Dec. 14, the first day of Hanukkah. The attackers opened fire on people gathered on Bondi Beach for an event organized by the Chabad movement. Fifteen people were killed and several dozen were wounded. According to police, the shooting was carried out by 50-year-old Sajid Akram, who was shot dead at the scene, and his 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram, who was wounded and is currently hospitalized. Flags of the terrorist organization Islamic State were found in their vehicle.

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The G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and the High Representative of the European Union, condemn the prosecution of Jimmy Lai under the National Security Law (NSL) in Hong Kong that has led to his guilty verdict on December 15, 2025.

The group calls on the Hong Kong authorities to end such prosecutions and to release Jimmy Lai immediately.

In a written statement, the EU calls Jimmy Lai's prosecution "politically motivated and emblematic of the erosion of democracy and fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong."

Op-ed by Boris Bondarev, former Russian diplomat who resigned in protest of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

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The Belarusian authorities have released 123 political prisoners following negotiations with the United States. From a humanitarian standpoint, this decision can only be welcomed: every drop of freedom regained is meaningful. Yet these releases did not occur in a vacuum and were accompanied by the relaxation sanctions on the regime.

Though the deal did not lift all sanctions, the exemptions and waivers granted reopened access to critically important export revenues. What we are therefore dealing with is not a humanitarian gesture, but a transactional bargain with long-term strategic consequences.

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From a human perspective, freeing political prisoners is an unmitigated good. But in politics, the mechanism matters as much as the outcome.

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Make no mistake, striving to free political prisoners is a moral imperative. But it cannot be the ultimate goal of policy. Political prisoners are a symptom of the disease — the repressive dictatorial regime — and dismantling that regime must be the primary strategic task. Policymakers must aim to make the very phenomenon of political prisoners disappear from reality. Not by offering palliative care, but by curing the disease itself.

[Edit typo.]

On Wednesday, MEPs endorsed a European citizens’ initiative to improve access to abortion care for women in Europe through a voluntary opt-in financial solidarity mechanism.

Since returning to the White House on Jan. 20, Donald Trump has imposed one-sided tariffs on the European Union, forced the bloc to commit to buying vast quantities of American natural gas, and effectively threatened annexation of Greenland. The latest indignity for Europe includes a White House National Security Strategy that calls on far-right parties to muster patriotic resistance to European policies. Instead of standing up to this blatant foreign interference, EU leaders have repeatedly tried to appease Trump and avoid any possible escalations of tension — even at the cost of their dignity. Examples include European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen weakening EU environmental and digital regulations in line with American demands, and NATO Secretary General Marc Rutte addressing Trump as "daddy" in front of the world's media. Trump may be the proximate cause of this annus horribilis for the EU. But the reasons for subservience run far deeper, says Dave Keating, a broadcaster and the author of a new book, The Owned Continent. A key factor is US command and control over the NATO military alliance, which Europe has relied on for protection from Russia for nearly eight decades. Trump and Maga are now openly exploiting that military dependency, amid Russia's assault on Ukraine, to block European regulation of tech oligarchs and fossil fuels. "Never before has there been an explicit connection from the US government between the military protectorate and EU policy," says Dave, who says the extortion is "a first" for the Trump administration. Another factor behind the European reluctance to treat the US in a more adversarial fashion, even as Maga amps up its belligerence, is the pervasiveness of American culture through cinema, news media, social media and streaming platforms. "Europeans are inundated by American culture from birth" says Dave. That also makes it "hard to accept that the US is a threat." Freeing Europe from its long vassalage is a strategic priority that starts with creation sovereign EU defense capabilities, says Dave. But that would require acknowledging that France was right to resist reliance on US military systems and hardware. It also would require Europe to make a decisive break with Atlanticism, an ideology that prioritizes NATO and that remains deeply entrenched among EU elites and in Poland and the Baltics. But Atlanticism may be an increasingly hard sell. It relies on increasingly implausible assumptions: that the US will keep large numbers of troops in Europe and uphold its mutual defense commitment under the NATO treaty despite abundant evidence otherwise. "At what point do citizens say, 'enough is enough, we've had it with these centrist European leaders lying to us, gaslighting us'?" Dave asks. "If Europeans keep electing these people, then they are signing their own death warrant as a sovereign continent." 

SOMO report on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

The Authoritarian Stack project on the threat posed by tech billionaires.

Mp3: https://www.buzzsprout.com/178148/episodes/18370429-ep-123-owned-extorted-and-gaslit.mp3

Nazi salutes such as “Heil Hitler” or “Sieg Heil” are illegal in Germany. Members of the AfD, which Germany’s counterintelligence service described in May as a demonstrably right-wing extremist party, have faced a number of scandals in the past over using Nazi salutes or slogans.

[Alternative for Germany (AfD) MP Matthias] Moosdorf’s case happened in June 2023 when, according to the public prosecutor’s office, he greeted his colleague in the Nazi manner by clicking his heels together and raising his right arm at the entrance to the locker room area of the lower house. The public prosecutor’s office has now charged him with using unconstitutional symbols.

The Bundestag has already stripped 60-year-old Moosdorf of his immunity from prosecution. [He] is described by critics as particularly pro-Russian.

Since the start of Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moosdorf has opposed weapons aid to Kyiv, claiming that opposing Russia means that Germany will end up like it did “in 1945”. The Soviet Union and the Western Allies defeated Nazi Germany that year.

Last year Moosdorf also became a target of criticism even within his own party after he accepted an honorary professorship at the Moscow Academy of Music [he is a Cellist]. Until June this year he held the post of the party’s foreign policy spokesperson.

Moosdorf’s predecessor in that position was Petr Bystroň, who is of Czech origin. Bystroň now faces suspicions of accepting bribes from the pro-Russian “Voice of Europe” news server.

Germany prohibits the distribution or public use of symbols of unconstitutional groups, in particular, flags, forms of greeting, insignia, slogans, and uniforms. Among other things, the ban applies to Nazi greetings, as well as to the farewell phrase “with German regards” (mit deutschem Gruß), which the Nazis also abused.

The EU has once again launched its Galileo satellites on a European rocket, after years of being dependent on the Russians and Americans.

At the end of October 2025, the international tribunal in The Hague heard testimony from Olena Yahupova, a resident of the town of Kamianka-Dniprovska in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Region. Recently, Yahupova shared additional details with The Insider, describing how she was abducted by Russian soldiers and detailing the torture and abuse she endured at their hands.

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Archived version: https://archive.ph/qopoo

The Swedish public prosecutor said on Thursday that the investigation into the murder of former prime minister Olof Palme, who was killed nearly 40 years ago, will not be reopened, but cast doubt over the evidence provided for naming the chief suspect.

Palme, a Social Democrat, was fatally shot on a Stockholm street shortly before midnight on February 28, 1986, while on his way home from the cinema with his wife, who suffered a graze wound.

In 2020, investigators were finally certain they could name the alleged perpetrator: a man who had long since died, named Stig Engström, often referred to in Sweden as the "Skandia man."

However, because Engström had been dead since 2000, no charges could be brought against him.

In late September, prosecutors received a request to reopen the investigation given the possibility of new DNA technology that could be used to analyse samples from Palme's coat.

On Thursday, Director of Prosecution Lennart Guné said in a statement that "there are currently no circumstances known to me that have the potential to lead a reopened investigation to prosecution and conviction."

"I have found that I do not have grounds to reopen the investigation in order to conduct renewed analyses and samples of Olof Palme's coat," Guné said in the statement.

Nonetheless, he said that after reviewing the evidence against the deceased suspect, it is "not sufficient to form the basis for identifying him as the designated perpetrator."

Guné said that while the case would not be reopened, the reason for closing the inquiry would be changed: "Based on the investigation material that is now available, it is not possible to prove who the perpetrator is and further investigation cannot be assumed to change the evidence in a decisive way."

An afternoon press conference on Thursday could reveal more details.

A Swedish trauma

The crime and the subsequent slow-moving investigation were a great trauma for the Swedish nation.

The case is considered Sweden's biggest criminal case of the past century and is to the Scandinavian country roughly what the assassination of John F Kennedy was to the United States. International interest was also enormous.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43863123

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Kenyan authorities have secured the return of 18 citizens who were recruited inside Russia to take part in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Nairobi-based outlet The Standard reported. In total, at least 82 Kenyans have appealed to the country’s embassy in Moscow for help returning home.

The Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation reported that some of those who have been repatriated sustained serious injuries during the war in Ukraine. According to the report, the Kenyans traveled to Russia after being offered what they believed were civilian jobs. Most of those recruited into the Russian army had no prior military experience, Daily Nation said.

The Kenyan government has revoked the licenses of more than 600 fraudulent agencies that had been sending Kenyans to Russia and is also holding talks with Ukraine on the release of Kenyan prisoners of war. According to available data, more than 200 Kenyans may have been recruited into the Russian military.

The Insider has reported on the deceptive methods that are used to lure citizens of African countries into the Russian army, most notably in the article Lost in translation: How African migrants are tricked and threatened into Russian military service, as well as the video report “They took my passport and gave me a gun”: How Russia recruits Africans for its war against Ukraine.

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The initiative invites the Commission “to propose a regulation that establishes a standardised oversight of human rights across its areas of competence in its external action with third countries". According to the organisers, the "regulation should ensure that the Commission monitors, evaluates, and responds to human rights violations in a manner that is transparent, consistent, effective, proportionate and timely.”

Following today's registration, the organisers have six months to open the 12-month period of signature collection. If an ECI receives at least one million statements of support during that time, with minimum numbers reached in at least seven Member States, the Commission is required to react, and decide what, if any, action it will take in response to the initiative, justifying its decision.

Italian authorities may not withdraw all support, including accommodation and food, from an asylum seeker merely because the person refuses transfer to another reception centre, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Thursday.

The EU-Latin America trade deal has been in the making for a quarter of a century. Though Germany's chancellor called for its completion, France and Italy said it would be "premature" to sign.

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The German Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) and the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (FE) have released their annual threat assessment reports, prepared against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine war. Both documents note a further deterioration of the security environment for NATO and EU states.

The intelligence agencies of these countries reach similar conclusions: Russia remains the primary source of military, espionage, and hybrid risks. MAD notes that the Bundeswehr continues to be a priority target for Russian intelligence due to its role as a NATO logistical hub and its support for Ukraine. FE emphasizes that Moscow is already conducting hybrid warfare against NATO. Danish military intelligence assesses the risk of Russian sabotage against its armed forces as “high” and considers the possibility of a conflict with Russia in the Baltic region likely.

China is identified in the reports as a long-term strategic threat. Beijing’s intelligence activity encompasses technological and scientific espionage, infiltration of European defense and research programs, and the use of economic and political influence tools. According to MAD, in 2024 the number of Chinese intelligence incidents in Germany increased by 15% compared to 2023, and Chinese intelligence systematically recruits its citizens for espionage activities.

The deepening of Russia-China interaction is considered an additional risk factor. FE highlights China’s supply of components to the Russian defense industry, enabling Moscow to increase its weapons production.

The intelligence agencies also forecast a further rise in hybrid threats. Focus areas include more extensive disinformation operations, economic pressure, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, and attempts to destabilize European armed forces.

The published reports confirm a persistent trend: Russia’s hybrid activities are intensifying, while China is gradually expanding its tools of influence over European states.

One of the leaders of the pro-Russian Koos party and Estonian citizen Aivo Peterson was sentenced to 14 years in prison for treason by Harju District Court on Thursday.

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The trial, which began in November 2023, dealt with allegations of treason against Estonian citizens Peterson and Dmitri Rootsi, as well as claims that Peterson and Russian citizen Andrei Andronov acted to undermine Estonia's independence.

The charges were connected to meetings with Russian politicians, aligning policy positions, the organization of an independent civil defense organization, and a Russian-funded press trip to occupied Ukraine.

According to the indictment, Peterson and Rootsi, based on instructions received from Russia, knowingly and in an organized manner assisted Russia and people acting on behalf of Russian authorities in non-violent activities directed against the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Estonia from October 2022 to March 10, 2023.

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