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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6632613

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Polina Azarnykh, a 40-year-old former teacher, uses a Telegram channel to lure young men, often from poor countries, into joining Russia's military.

The former teacher's smiling video messages and upbeat posts offer "one-year contracts" for "military service".

The BBC World Service has identified nearly 500 cases where she has provided documents, referred to as invitations, which allow the recipient to enter Russia to join the military. These have been for men - mainly from Syria, Egypt and Yemen - who appear to have sent her their passport details in order to enlist.

But recruits and their relatives have told the BBC that she misled men into believing they would avoid combat, failed to make clear they could not leave after a year and threatened those who challenged her. When contacted by the BBC, she rejected the allegations.

Twelve families told us of young men they say were recruited by her who are now dead or missing.

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Azarnykh's Telegram channel has 21,000 subscribers. Her posts have often told readers wanting to apply to join the Russian military to send her a scan of their passport. She has then posted invitation documents, sometimes with a list of names of the men they are for.

The BBC has identified more than 490 such invitations that she has sent over the past year to men from countries including Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Ivory Coast and Nigeria.

Her posts have mentioned recruitment for an "elite international battalion" and made it clear that people in Russia illegally - including those whose visas have expired - are eligible.

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Many felt Azarnykh had misled or exploited recruits. They told us the men knew they were joining the military, but did not expect to serve on the front line. Several, like Omar, felt they had inadequate training or thought they would be able to leave after a year.

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Azarnykh became "one of the most important recruiters" for Russia's army, says Habib, another Syrian who has served in Russia's military. He was willing to be filmed but spoke under a pseudonym for fear of repercussions.

Habib says he and Azarnykh "worked together for around three years on visa invitations to Russia". He gave no further details and we have not been able to confirm his role in the process. An image from social media in 2024 shows him alongside her.

Azarnykh, who is from Russia's south-western Voronezh region, ran a Facebook group helping Arab students come to Moscow to study, before starting her Telegram channel in 2024.

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Azarnykh's posts from mid-2024 begin to note that recruits will be "participating in hostilities" and mention foreign fighters who have died in combat.

"You all understood well that you were going to war," she says in one video in October 2024. "You thought that you could get a Russian passport, do nothing and live in a five-star hotel?... Nothing happens for free."

In another case, in 2024, the BBC has heard a voice message sent by Azarnykh to a mother whose son was serving in the military. Azarnykh says the woman has "published something horrible about the Russian army". Using expletives, she threatens the son's life and warns the woman: "I'll find you and all your children."

The BBC made multiple attempts to contact Azarnykh. Initially she said she would do an interview with us if we travelled to Russia, but the BBC declined for safety reasons. Later, when asked in a voice call about claims that recruits were promised non-combat roles, she hung up. In voice notes sent afterwards, she said our work was "not professional" and warned of potential defamation proceedings. She also said: "Our respected Arabs can stick their accusations up their arses."

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6632133

Chinese officials are using a ‘highly specific’ interpretation of EU rules to suggest Taiwanese figures should not be granted visas, EU officials say.

Archived version

Chinese officials have been pushing “legal advice” on European countries, saying their own border laws require them to ban entry to Taiwanese politicians, according to more than half a dozen diplomats and officials familiar with the matter.

The officials made demarches to European embassies in Beijing, or through local embassies directly to European governments in their capital cities, warning the European countries not to “trample on China’s red lines”, according to the European diplomats and ministries who spoke to the Guardian.

The manner of the approaches varied – some to individual countries and some as groups, some by written note verbale (a semiformal diplomatic communication) and others in person. They occurred in November and December, and were at least partly in response to recent European trips by Taiwanese officials including its current vice-president and foreign minister, and a former president.

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Beijing said it “respects the sovereignty of the European side in introducing and implementing visa policy”, but an “institutional loophole” had allowed frequent visits by Taiwan politicians.

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The officials’ suggestion, the Guardian understands, was that allowing Taiwanese officials to enter a European country would threaten that country’s international relations with China.

In some cases they also referred to the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, or suggested the European countries follow the UN’s example and bar all Taiwanese people from government buildings, the Guardian was told.

“Beijing’s application and interpretation of this regulation is bold,” said Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, assistant professor at Taiwan’s National Dong Hwa University, when told about the moves. “It is Beijing’s interpretation that EU-Taiwan ties threaten EU-China ties. This is not at all the perception or reality in Europe.”

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The [Chinese] note verbale said European countries should reject any “so-called diplomatic passports” issued by Taiwan, and “prohibit Taiwanese personnel from entering Europe to seek official contact and exchanges and trample on China’s red line”.

“China hopes the EU institutions and European countries will, out of the larger interests of China-EU relations and bilateral relations, make the political decision of refusing the entry of Taiwan’s so-called president or vice president (former ones included),” it said, also listing other officials.

The note cited visits by the officials to Belgium, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy, Australia, Germany, Lithuania, Denmark, Estonia and Ireland, saying they “seriously undermine China-EU relations”.

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“The European side … even indulged [vice-president] Hsiao Bi-khim to speak at the building of the European parliament and promote ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist claims,” it said, referring to a speech given by Hsiao to the annual summit of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac) in Brussels.

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A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office said: “Permission to enter the UK is determined solely by our own laws and immigration rules, which apply equally to those travelling from Taiwan.”

Taiwan’s foreign ministry said officials’ visits to Europe were “entirely unrelated to China, and China has no right to interfere”.

“On the contrary, China’s use of various coercive measures against other countries and its threats of force against Taiwan, which undermine global and Indo-Pacific peace and stability and threaten the direct interests of the EU, is the real force damaging European international relations,” the spokesperson told the Guardian.

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“I see this as another way to generate unease among member states that their relations with the [People’s Republic of China] might be at risk … and Beijing knows well that some EU member states are very keen to attract Chinese investment at present,” said Ferenczy.

The EU does not take a position on Taiwan’s status, and while it has formal relations with Beijing it also maintains “solid” unofficial relations with Taipei through parliamentary diplomacy and trade. Several European countries and the EU have trade offices that act as unofficial embassies in Taipei.

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However in recent years the bloc has come under increasing pressure from Beijing, which claims Taiwan as a province of China, and intends to annex it – by force if necessary. Among its strategies to coerce Taiwan into accepting unification without conflict, Beijing puts intense diplomatic pressure on the international community to isolate Taipei from multilateral engagement.

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In short: The National Socialist Network says it will disband in response to proposed new hate speech laws by the federal government.

A statement from the group says the decision was made to prevent members from being arrested and charged.

The group says it will close down by January 18.

Already facing chronic power shortages in freezing temperatures, Kyiv's energy infrastructure was once again the target of Russian drones, cruise, and ballistic missiles overnight on Jan. 13 which came just four days after the last mass attack.

Ballistic missile explosions rocked Ukraine's capital at around 1:10 a.m. local time on Jan. 13, according to Kyiv Independent journalists on the ground. Additional explosions were also heard around 8:30 a.m. local time.

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According to Ukraine's Air Force, Russia launched 18 ballistic missiles, seven cruise missiles, as well as 293 Shahed-type drones. Energy infrastructure in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts were also targeted.

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An Indian rocket carrying 16 loads of equipment and experiments including an earth surveillance satellite went off track after liftoff on Monday in a fresh setback to the workhorse launch vehicle of the Indian Space Research Organisation.

The PSLV-C62 lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the island of Sriharikota ‍at 10:18 a.m. (04488 GMT) carrying the EOS-N1 observation satellite and 15 other payloads developed by startups and academic institutions in India and abroad.

The Swedish defense company Saab has released a promotional video showcasing the RBS-15 missile, which, much like the Ukrainian Neptune, has evolved from a purely anti-ship weapon into a versatile system designed to engage a wide range of targets.

Although this capability is not new, as the RBS-15 Mk4 Gungnir was ordered by Sweden's Ministry of Defence back in 2017 as an upgrade to a missile in service since 1984, the new video clearly demonstrates the types of adversaries the missile is intended to counter.

The video features two representative target sets engaged by a total of six RBS-15 missiles. Two are launched from a Visby-class corvette, two from a notional ground-based launcher, and two from a JAS 39 Gripen fighter.

One source said the talks revolved around the sale of JF-17 jets, a multi-role combat aircraft jointly developed by Pakistan and China, and drones designed for surveillance and striking targets. The other two sources said the talks were in an advanced stage and involved more than 40 JF-17 jets. One of them said Indonesia was also interested in Pakistan's Shahpar drones.

U.K. ministers are warning Elon Musk's X it faces a ban if it doesn't get its act together. But outlawing the social media platform is easier said than done.

The U.K.'s communications regulator Ofcom on Monday launched a formal investigation into a deluge of non-consensual sexualized deepfakes produced by X's AI chatbot Grok amid growing calls for action from U.K. politicians.

It will determine whether the creation and distribution of deepfakes on the platform, which have targeted women and children, constitutes a breach of the company’s duties under the U.K.’s Online Safety Act (OSA).

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Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces continue to systematically dismantle Russia's air defense network deep behind the front line, demonstrating a growing ability to strike high-value targets at operational depth. On January 12, 2025, Ukrainian drone operators destroyed three key enemy systems across the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk directions in what was described as a single coordinated combat episode.

The targets eliminated included Russian P-18 Prima early-warning radar, Tor short-range surface-to-air missile system, and Tunguska gun-missile air defense system. Together, these assets form a layered air defense cluster intended to protect Russian forces from aerial threats, particularly drones and precision-guided munitions.

These strikes marked the ninth, tenth, and eleventh enemy radar and air defense systems destroyed between January 1 and January 12 alone. This pace highlights a deliberate campaign aimed not at random attrition, but at the systematic degradation of russia's integrated air defense system in temporarily occupied territory.

As Kyiv faces prolonged blackouts and subzero temperatures, officials and energy experts warn that the city's infrastructure is nearing its limits. Although the number of buildings without heat has decreased since the Jan. 9 mass missile and drone attack, the broader impact of the crisis on daily life is only deepening.

According to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, about 800 residential buildings in the capital remain without heating as of Jan. 12 — a significant drop from the 6,000 buildings left in the cold following a massive overnight assault on Jan. 9 that targeted critical infrastructure and killed at least four people.

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Three Palestinians have been killed in the southern Gaza Strip in Israel’s latest violation of October’s ceasefire in its genocidal war on the besieged enclave, according to sources in Gaza, as an anti-Hamas militia has claimed an attack that has killed a senior security officer.

An Israeli quadcopter drone struck down three Palestinians in Khan Younis on Monday, the sources told Al Jazeera.

According to the sources, a woman was also wounded by Israeli gunfire in the al-Batn al-Sameen area of Khan Younis.

LONDON (AP) — Iran’s leadership is under incredible pressure as the largest protests in years against the Islamic theocracy shake the country.

Government hard-liners have threatened to attack the U.S. military and archrival Israel over support for the demonstrators, though for now President Donald Trump says Iran has signaled it wants to negotiate with Washington.

There is no sign that a Venezuela-style U.S. military intervention is coming.

Here’s a look at the fragility at the top as the protest death toll rises into the hundreds in the crackdown and as connections to the outside world remain cut.