Kaip neįtikėtinai tai beskambėtų, Kremliui itin rūpi, ką galvoja Rusijos piliečiai. Federalinė apsaugos tarnyba (FSO) – Rusijos vadovo Vladimiro Putino gyvybę sauganti struktūra, analogiška JAV Slaptajai tarnybai – turi savo sociologijos padalinį. Jis vykdo slaptas rusų apklausas, kurių rezultatai keliauja tiesiai į Kremlių.

Ukrainos ir Jungtinių Valstijų prezidentai susitiks Niujorke, kur kitą savaitę prasidės rudens Jungtinių Tautų Generalinės Asamblėjos sesija. Apie tai Volodymyras Zelenskis pranešė savo „Telegram“ kanale po pokalbio telefonu su Donaldu Trumpu.

Exit polls show damaging losses for Merz's centre-right CDU party in the states of Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Moscow's mayor says 450 drones were downed during the overnight barrage, in which two people died.

The billionaire businessman told the BBC he has lost confidence in the UK due to a combination of high taxes and high immigration.

Sir Ed blamed Donald Trump's war with Iran for damaging the UK economy and pushing fuel prices up.

Moscow is moving to expand its capacity to make tens of thousands of the killer drones it deploys in attacks on Ukrainian cities, according to plans from a Russian state company obtained by POLITICO. The expansion of state firm Rosatom’s Alabuga-Volokno factory in Russia’s Tatarstan region would allow Moscow to make an additional 500 tons of military-grade aerospace carbon fiber each year by 2029. The strong lightweight material is key to building the drone’s airframe. The production increase would translate to an additional 28,000 weaponized drones every year, according to one expert estimate — a 78% increase in production of weapons like the one that struck a passenger train on the Polish border this month and others that have left scores of Ukrainian civilians dead. Ukraine estimates Russia can currently produce more than 36,000 kamikaze drones, known as “Gerans,” annually. The plans underscore Russia’s commitment to weaponized drone technology to power its war machine, which it is increasingly turning against the rest of Europe. The Alabuga-Volokno factory and its parent company, Rosatom’s advanced materials division UMATEX, are sanctioned by the U.K., U.S. and multiple other Western governments. The factory is a key node in Moscow’s military-industrial supply chain and is the same one that received a disguised shipment of 46 tons of carbon-fiber chemicals from a Chinese-state corporation earlier this year, according to internal Rosatom shipping and customs documents reported earlier this month by POLITICO. Rosatom previously said the firm and its subsidiaries “operate in full compliance” with applicable laws and regulations. Police experts examine fragments of a drone which targeted a commuter train, killing one and wounding eight people, in the Kharkiv region on September 18, 2026 amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. | Sergey Bobok/ AFP via Getty Images The Chinese embassy in Washington said in a statement that it was unaware of the Russian drone production expansion plans and “strictly controls exports of dual use items in accordance with law.” Business, design and structural plans gathered from Russian sources by the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre — a Kyiv-based think tank close to the Ukrainian government — detail the factory’s expansion and schematics for its equipment and construction. Rosatom declined to comment on the documents. The U.S. House Select Committee on China has reviewed the documents and determined they are authentic, according to a U.S. government official familiar with their contents. The Ukrainian government has also reviewed the documents and confirmed their authenticity, a Ukrainian official said. Both officials were granted anonymity as they were not authorized to speak on the record. Russia’s drone war expands In May, the Russian government approved Rosatom’s plans to build the new line at its Alabuga-Volokno factory “for the production of chemical fibers and threads” to produce up to 500 tons of carbon fiber per year, according to official approval for the construction project.  Satellite images between May and July show land earmarked for the expansion project adjacent to Alabuga-Volokno’s current carbon fiber factory in Tatarstan being cleared for construction, said the Ukrainian official. The images provided by the USCC show “proof that it is already growing,” this official said. The foundation of the new factory “is being prepared,” said weapons expert David Albright, founder and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security think tank, who independently obtained satellite images of the site from August. The timeline for the factory’s completion in 2027, he said, “requires rapid construction.”  Drones allow Moscow to “launch these massive volleys and put pressure on deep targets within Ukraine at many different locations, and ensure that they can saturate the defenses,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, a former adviser in the Office of the Secretary of Defense who researches drone warfare at the Center for a New American Security in Washington. “It’s been a very good coercive tool and critical to Russia’s deep strike campaign.” Rosatom’s plans to grow its capacity to feed Russia’s demands to increase weaponized drone production isn’t just a concern for Ukraine as Moscow’s fifth year of all-out war drags into another winter. “The expansion of Alabuga and its affiliated enterprises should be viewed not merely as a problem for the Ukrainian front, but as a long-term challenge to the security of the whole of Europe,” said Serhii Kuzan, head of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre. In-housing production Moscow is working to increase its domestic carbon fiber production to reduce its reliance on imports from China as it aims to manufacture around 130,000 drones for its national “Unmanned Aerial Systems” project by 2030, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, this year. Russia plans to increase this to 350,000 by 2035. Rosatom’s Alabuga-Volokno will aid this national effort. The three key reasons for expanding the factory include “import substitution of dual-use products” and “meeting the demand of Russian strategic sectors (aviation, defense industry) for carbon fiber,” according to the Rosatom documents. The factory’s total capacity “could make 28,000 Shahed 136 drone airframes,” calculates weapons expert Albright, whose Institute for Science and International Security has conducted years of in-depth research on Russia’s drone production. Russia’s Geran-2 attack drones are based on the design of Iran’s Shahed.  “Without the carbon fiber, they can’t make the drone,” Albright said. Russia “can’t substitute for the carbon fiber in the drone and keep its weight down,” he explained, noting the material is used to strengthen the wing and internal structures, such as those for the fuel tank and engine. Moscow is not getting enough polyacrylonitrile tow — a so-called PAN-precursor — used to make high-spec carbon fiber “for all their defense needs,” Albright said. Through the factory, Moscow is attempting to reduce its reliance on imports of the fibrous chemical essential to reinforcing its drones’ airframe. The internal Rosatom plans show the firm intends to build a new “a modern PAN plant” in Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone factory complex. “The project’s primary product will be UMT42S-3K grade carbon fiber,” the documents detail, to be “used in the aerospace industry.” Metadata scraped from the document shows it was created by an employee of Russian state corporation Rosatom’s advanced materials division UMATEX at the end of last year. Drones produced in the Alabuga SEZ complex have become a key part of Moscow’s strategy of targeting both the Ukrainian military and civilians. “Monitoring, restricting the supply of critical components, sanctions enforcement, disrupting logistics chains and reducing the production resilience of this complex must be among the priorities of the joint policy of Ukraine and its European partners,” said USCC’s Kuzan. “At this stage, the Kremlin’s hybrid aggression is increasingly shifting towards direct escalation, particularly through the conduct of so-called sub-threshold actions, aimed at gauging the reaction of European countries,” he said, pointing to documented violations by Russian drones of Polish and Romanian airspace. Moscow has now also added jet engines to Russia’s design of its Geran drones — allowing it to strike further and faster. Drones manufactured in the Russian Alabuga Special Economic Zone, Kuzan warned, “are likely to become the main instrument of the Russian Federation’s future campaigns in Europe.” The Russian embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment. Europe at risk With no end in sight for the Ukraine war and as Russia increases its attacks at NATO’s eastern fringe, world leaders gather this week in New York City for the annual United Nations General Assembly. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week that Moscow is ready to restart negotiations to end its war, according to state-owned media outlet TASS. In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attends the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on September 12, 2026. | Alexander Kazavok/ AFP via Getty Images Early this month, Russia’s permanent representative to the U.N., Vasily Nebenzya, reportedly led an unsuccessful effort to remove an item titled the “Situation in the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine” from the upcoming UNGA agenda. Revelations of the carbon fiber factory’s planned expansion mean Lavrov’s overtures should be approached with skepticism, said Nicholas Fenton, associate director for the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program at CSIS. The September drone attack on the passenger train close to the Polish border and a series of examples of hybrid warfare in Europe — like sabotage and other tactics that fall below the threshold of open warfare — show Moscow has “significant appetite” to escalate the conflict both in Ukraine and Europe, Fenton said.  “No matter the political outcome over some sort of diplomatic solution to Ukraine, we don’t see Russia de-escalating when it comes to its military posture vis-à-vis NATO or vis-à-vis Europe,” Fenton said. “We believe that the current leadership of the regime in Russia is committed to confrontation with the West,” he said — even if a peace deal is struck. At the start of September, President Donald Trump dispatched U.S. special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to Moscow and Kyiv to jumpstart a peace process. These visits reaped “substantive progress including movement on scheduling additional trilateral talks,” Witkoff wrote online afterward. Yet Russia killed five people in missile and drone attacks on Kyiv just a day after Trump’s envoys left. Moscow has continued drone attacks on civilian infrastructure across Ukraine since. “The Russians are gaining momentum in the air war, continuing to iterate these systems, continuing to expand production,” Fenton said. “There’s significant concern over what might be coming.”  Graham Lanktree reported from London. Phelim Kine reported from Washington.

BERLIN — Germany’s embattled Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his conservatives suffered a second major defeat to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a regional vote Sunday — a result Merz conceded was a “disaster.”But the chancellor moved to quickly quell a rising storm of speculation that he would move to step aside following the loss, which comes only two weeks after another historic defeat to the AfD in a regional contest. He appeared before cameras just minutes after the polls closed Sunday to say he would continue to push through his reform agenda and act as an anchor of stability in turbulent times.“These reforms are the antidote to the poison of authoritarianism,” he said. “What needs to be done now requires backbone, steadfastness, and patience. I will demonstrate these qualities as chairman of the CDU and, above all, as chancellor of our country.”The AfD won around 38% of the vote in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania — the second-best result in its history, just ahead of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) on 35%, according to preliminary results. Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered its worst result in a state or national election since the end of World War II, coming in near 5%, according to a preliminary count, hovering at or below the vote threshold required to make it into the state parliament. If the party falls below the 5% threshold in the final count, it would deal an even more painful blow to the chancellor, who is already struggling to maintain support among his party’s rank and file. AfD leaders hailed their victory — party national co-leader Tino Chrupalla called the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania result a “sensation” — while also putting the pressure on a profoundly weakened Merz to step aside and abandon his party’s policy of maintaining a “firewall” around the far right.“Friedrich Merz is the wrong chancellor for the CDU and is dragging the CDU down with him,” national co-leader Alice Weidel told German public television. “So the CDU must ask itself, above all else, does it want to continue with this chancellor and with these left-wing policies?” Merz took the unusual step of convening CDU leaders at the party’s Berlin headquarters on Sunday night in an effort to rally their support ahead of what he knew would be another humiliating election defeat. Merz’s approval ratings are among the lowest ever recorded for a German chancellor at this point in their tenure, prompting internal CDU discussions about a possible change at the top—Kanzlertausch. “Of course, the mood isn’t exactly lighthearted,” Ines Claus, a CDU politician who took part in the leadership meeting, told ARD. “If you ask me now whether one might prefer to just pull the covers over one’s head, well, that might be the case. But that’s not what responsibility is about; stability is what’s required now.” Ahead of the election, one CDU official told POLITICO that “all hell breaks loose” in the party if the conservatives fail to make it into Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s state parliament — an outcome that remained distinctly possible as of 10 p.m. on election night. Just 1% of voters — and 1% of CDU supporters — said Chancellor Merz had helped his party’s election performance in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, according to a poll by public broadcaster ZDF.“We can’t sugarcoat the results in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania,” Merz said after the polls closed Sunday. “It’s a disaster.”The CDU also saw its support decline in a separate regional vote in Berlin, finishing second with around 19%, according to a preliminary count, behind the Left party, a far-left force which won 25.5% and is now poised to take over the capital’s mayoralty from Merz’s conservatives in coalition with center-left parties. ‘Reform chancellor’ Merz has staked his chancellorship on a reform agenda he argues will boost Germany’s competitiveness and restore growth to the EU’s largest economy, and has urged voters to be patient as the reforms kick in. But as Germany’s export-oriented growth model continues to suffer amid increased competition from China and U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff wars, German voters don’t appear to be giving him the benefit of the doubt. The chancellor’s agenda includes raising the retirement age to shore up the pension system, cutting some health-insurance benefits to curb rising premiums and making it harder for workers to take sick leave in an effort to boost growth. Many of those reforms impose clear costs on ordinary voters, giving the far right and far left ample opportunity to exploit public discontent. Despite the AfD’s victory in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the party has no chance of governing in the state in part due to a late, come-from-behind surge for the SPD under state premier Manuela Schwesig, who cast herself in the election as a bulwark against the far right by employing the slogan “Frau gegen Blau” — “Woman against Blue,” a reference to the AfD’s party color.Schwesig is now likely to lead a new coalition government in the state with a coalition of left-wing parties.CDU leaders blamed Schwesig’s approach for effectively turning the election in her state into a two-party race that has greatly weakened Merz’s conservatives. “The CDU fought hard, but in the end, it was crushed in the escalating confrontation between the SPD and the AfD,” Merz said.But Schwesig blamed Merz and the CDU for failing to connect with voters and was able to gain on the AfD late in the race in great part because she attacked Merz as out of touch with ordinary people and his reform drive as punishing some of the most vulnerable.“The issue of the cost of living is a very significant one, and it’s important for the federal government to take a stand in favor of greater economic development to create jobs, but also to provide relief,” she told a public television broadcaster after the vote. Still, trying to stabilize the situation, Philipp Amthor, a CDU politician from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the chancellery’s federal-state affairs chief, said it was time to end the Kanzlertausch discussion. “We have seen that what we have experienced over the past two weeks since the state election in Saxony-Anhalt has done more harm than good — namely, ongoing discussions about personnel that have completely overshadowed the discussion of the issues at hand,” he said. “In that regard, it is right to put an end to these personnel discussions now and refocus on the issues.”

Federal court in Florida to try men accused of orchestrating the transnational plot to kill Jovenel Moise from US soil.

Speaking before the UN General Assembly, Sheikh Mohammed also announces a key shift in Qatar's investment strategy.

Partial results suggest CDU may not secure parliamentary representation in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

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Russia's ruling United Russia party on Sunday was projected to win the country's tightly controlled parliamentary elections, according to exit polls. Ukraine launched a massive drone attack on Moscow, killing three people, said city officials, on the third and final day of Russia's wartime vote. 

French President ​Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on ​Sunday called for stronger bilateral ties in the face of new global threats at a meeting on Saint Pierre and Miquelon, a French territory off Canada's Newfoundland. The first-ever visit by a Canadian leader to the North Atlantic archipelago came as both countries have increasingly awkward relations with the US. 

Salvador, the capital of Bahia state, is promoting the reuse of residual palm oil from its iconic acarajé fritters — African-inspired, shrimp-filled dumplings made with peeled black-eyed peas and onions and served with sauce.

Children in Gaza are heading back to school as a new academic year begins, returning to classrooms that remain heavily damaged and lacking basic equipment after years of war.