Live ingestion is paused. We’re migrating our backend to a new database. The archive is up to date through Aug 16, 2026 (24 daysago). Fresh events will resume once the migration finishes — historical analysis is fully available.
Conflict Events Archive
349,752 documented events · latest Aug 16, 2026 — chronological archive with full summaries and multi-source verification.
Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv launches hundreds of drones after targeting ‘Russian starlink’
Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv launches hundreds of drones after targeting ‘Russian starlink’
Ukrainian Festival returns to Wisconsin as war continues
FRANKLIN, Wis. — Hundreds of people attended the Ukrainian Festival at Croatian Park in Franklin on Sunday to benefit those impacted by the Russia-Ukraine War. The proceeds collected will support humanitarian and medical aid efforts for those affected by the ongoing Russian invasion that has lasted for four and half years. The festival gives Wisconsinites the opportunity to experience Ukraine’s culture up close through traditional music, authentic food, live performances and more. It was started four years ago by Wisconsin Ukrainians Inc. to celebrate Ukraine’s heritage, create a welcoming space for immigrants, and support those injured in combat, like Taras Orel. “I received my injuries in Donetsk Oblast in the village of Poltavka, and there were eight people with me, and only three of us survived, and all of us sustained very heavy injuries,” said Orel. “I did not think that I would be able to make it.” But it was Revived Soldiers Ukraine that ended up saving his life. This nonprofit organization brings hundreds of severely wounded Ukrainian service members to the United States for advanced medical treatment. “We take care of their medicine, we take them to hospitals every time they need to go to their appointments,” said Tetyana Levchenko from the Chicago branch of Revived Soldiers Ukraine. “Everything is on us.” Levchenko has stood by Orel’s side every step of the way during his recovery. It’s events like this that help raise the funds needed to ensure these brave men and women get the care they need to return home healed. “The doctor was saying that we're almost there with my wrist healing,” said Orel. “As soon as I’m cleared, I’m looking forward to flying back home to Kyiv.” And to reunite with his wife and two sons after nearly a year apart so he could get the treatment he needed to survive.
Ukrainian Festival returns to Wisconsin as war continues
Ukrainian Festival returns to Wisconsin as war continues
Trump’s Latin America allies open arms to Israel
Trump’s Latin America allies open arms to Israel
Bulgaria’s Security Gaps Exposed by Explosions and Drones - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency
Former Defense Minister Boyko Noev has warned that Bulgaria has systematically underestimated the threat to its security since Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Ukraine, arguing that the country remains poorly prepared to defend its airspace against low-flying drones and has failed to properly investigate a series of explosions targeting its military industry. Noev, a diplomat and national security expert who served twice as defense minister, said Bulgaria’s main external kinetic threat could come from the east, particularly from drones. He recalled asking a former defense minister two or three years ago what was being done to protect Bulgarian airspace. “Don’t worry, NATO is protecting us,” he said he was told. According to Noev, recent incidents involving drones close to Bulgarian territory have exposed the weakness of that approach. He said Bulgaria is not currently prepared to protect its airspace below 3,000 meters, although efforts are now being made to address the gap. He pointed to the existence of Bulgarian companies producing drones and anti-drone systems and said the country should urgently join European efforts to develop joint anti-missile and anti-drone capabilities. A broader “Coalition of the Willing” is being formed in Europe, he said, offering access to technology, expertise and Ukrainian experience. NATO provides a mechanism for collective defense, but there are specific actions that each country must take on its own, Noev argued. He said the same principle applies to a second security issue that he believes Bulgaria has failed to address properly: repeated explosions at facilities linked to the defense industry. Noev described Bulgaria as “the most attacked country in Europe” when it comes to a pattern of incidents targeting its military industry and said the explosion near Tryavna should not be treated as an isolated event. While expressing respect for the police and investigators working on individual cases, he questioned whether local authorities have the capacity to handle the wider issue. He argued that the investigation into the latest explosion should urgently be taken over by the National Investigation Service and, at a minimum, by the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office. Noev pointed to the previous explosion in Lovnidol, where an unexploded device was reportedly found and its Russian origin established. He said prosecutors later terminated the proceedings on the grounds that the device had not exploded and therefore could not have caused the incident. He also challenged statements that the latest explosion was caused by an internal problem. “Yes, the explosion started from the inside. But all explosions in Bulgaria started from the inside,” Noev said, arguing that the origin of an explosion does not establish whether it was accidental or deliberate. According to him, the methods used in suspected attacks have changed over time. Until around 2015-2016, explosive devices were allegedly used, while more recent incidents have involved smoke, fire and explosions. He said the incidents at ammunition facilities in Karnobat fit the same pattern and have not been adequately investigated. “I am not a sapper or a chemist, but there is no case where ready-made new production, shells, simply self-detonated. Something caused this - something or someone,” Noev said. He recalled that in some earlier cases prosecutors themselves identified alleged Russian intelligence operatives as suspects. He also referred to investigations in the Czech Republic involving Russian military intelligence officers known as Mishkin and Chepiga, whom he linked to the GRU’s Unit 29155 and the poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal. For Noev, the accumulation of incidents provides grounds for considering deliberate attacks on Bulgaria’s defense industry as a reasonable possibility. He cited explosions at the state-owned plant in Sopot in 2015, as well as incidents involving Arsenal and the Kostenets plant, arguing that the pattern extends beyond a single company. “When something looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it is most likely a duck,” Noev said, describing the concept as a reasonable assumption in judicial practice. He questioned why such possibilities had not been properly examined in previous investigations. Noev said he had appeared as a witness in several of the cases and had seen large volumes of documentation. In his view, prosecutors have repeatedly “covered up, belittled or watered down” investigations so that they produced no meaningful results. He said the problem extends across different periods of the Bulgarian prosecution service, naming the tenures of Sotir Tsatsarov, Ivan Geshev and Borislav Sarafov. As one example, he cited the prosecutor involved in the Novichok investigation, whom he said kept portraits of Vladimir Putin and Joseph Stalin in his office. According to Noev, when this was raised, the response was that the prosecutor had the right to hold such personal beliefs. He further alleged that in some cases prosecutors and investigators focused on witnesses rather than the perpetrators of the explosions. Noev said he had reported such concerns to the State Agency for National Security and the prosecution service. He also accused the security service during the governments associated with Boyko Borisov and Delyan Peevski of working to conceal such cases and acting on political instructions. More broadly, however, he said the issue should not be reduced to individual politicians or officials. “The prosecutor’s office has a systemic problem - the infiltration of foreign interests,” Noev said, arguing that this was a key reason why explosions and poisonings had continued for years without conclusive results despite highly publicized investigations into alleged espionage networks. He said the central question for politicians and lawmakers should be why these cases repeatedly fail to reach a clear conclusion. In his view, the failure to expose and punish those responsible creates a sense of impunity and increases the likelihood of further attacks. Noev called for deep institutional reform, not only within the prosecution service but also within the security agency, which he said should be freed from improper activities. With Parliament beginning a new session, he urged lawmakers to move beyond political confrontations and focus on Bulgaria’s long-term security interests. The issue, he added, has a broader European dimension. Noev said more than 170 attacks and hybrid incidents have been recorded across Europe, including in Germany and Poland, and warned that such incidents are increasingly moving toward the center of the continent. He said a “coalition of the victims” is emerging in Europe and that Bulgaria should participate in the European “Coalition of the Willing,” using both its experience as a target and its accumulated knowledge. Noev urged lawmakers to summon the security services and ask directly what capabilities, legislative changes and institutional reforms they need to respond effectively. “We need to put our house in order,” he said, calling on Parliament to raise the issue above political divisions and the government to make national security a priority. “There is no other way to protect Bulgaria,” Noev concluded.
Bulgaria’s Security Gaps Exposed by Explosions and Drones - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency
Bulgaria’s Security Gaps Exposed by Explosions and Drones - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency
Ukraine Exposed Weakness In Russia's War Machine. Can Moscow Still Claim Military Superpower Status?
WASHINGTON -- When President Vladimir Putin sent his forces into Ukraine, the Kremlin appeared to be betting on a familiar axiom of European security: sheer Russian mass, backed by vast Soviet-era stockpiles and nuclear power, would overwhelm resistance. More than four years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion, that assumption has been all but obliterated. Ukraine survived, derailed Russia's expected quick victory, and turned the conflict into a high-tech war of attrition. It has developed an innovation cycle that Joshua Huminski, senior vice president for national security and intelligence at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, said is moving faster than anything the US or other NATO countries are doing. Yet Moscow's growing reliance on North Korea for ammunition, missiles, and troops should not be mistaken either for proof that Russia is collapsing -- or, on the contrary, that its military will emerge from the war stronger than before, experts said. The picture they draw is more complicated. Ukraine has inflicted severe damage on Russia's conventional forces and exposed profound failures in its planning and doctrine. At the same time, Moscow continues to adapt to the battlefield, expand weapons production, and learn from a war unlike any it had previously fought. “Russia's conventional ground forces in Ukraine are being consistently and severely degraded," Huminski told RFE/RL. But he warned that judging Russian military power solely through that lens would be "a mistake.” Russia's Northern and Pacific naval fleets retain important capabilities, he said, while its strategic nuclear forces have been largely untouched and Moscow still possesses capable cyber and space assets. The question, then, may no longer simply be whether Russia remains the world's second-most-powerful military. It is what Ukraine has exposed about the limits of Russian power -- and whether adaptation can prevent those weaknesses from becoming decisive. The Failed Blitzkrieg And The Race To Adapt Russia's problems began with its assumptions. Putin's intelligence services, Huminski said, had portrayed Ukraine as a "house of cards" expected to collapse quickly. Instead, Ukrainian resilience, Russian operational failures, Western assistance, and rapid adaptation produced a very different war. The defense of Hostomel, outside Kyiv, where Ukrainian forces repelled elite Russian airborne troops, became an early example of how Moscow's plans could unravel. Small-unit tactics and Western anti-tank weapons also exploited weaknesses in advancing Russian armor. Since then, the war has become a relentless contest of adaptation. Drones, electronic warfare, and long-range strikes have transformed the battlefield, making movement increasingly dangerous and helping create the heavily surveilled "kill zone" along the front. Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told RFE/RL that Ukraine has built significant technological momentum and increasingly used drones to compensate, at least in part, for manpower shortages. That advantage is real, but she did not describe it as permanent. Technological momentum has shifted several times during the war, Snegovaya said. Ukraine is currently ahead in important drone technologies, but Russia has repeatedly caught up, reverse-engineered successful innovations, and developed countermeasures. The cycle is accelerating: What once took much longer is now unfolding in a matter of months. That is why neither Huminski nor Snegovaya sees the war as a simple story of Ukrainian technological brilliance overwhelming an obsolete Russian army. Both describe a far more dynamic contest: Ukraine has gained important technological momentum and exposed serious Russian weaknesses, while Russia continues to adapt and absorb battlefield lessons even as its conventional ground forces suffer severe degradation and extraordinary losses. North Korea Is Filling Gaps Moscow's partnership with Pyongyang is perhaps the clearest illustration of the war's extraordinary demands. North Korea has supplied ammunition and missiles and sent troops, some of whom were deployed in Russia's Kursk region to help fight off a surprise Ukrainian incursion in 2024. But Snegovaya said Russia's reliance on outside help must be understood alongside its enormous domestic production effort. Moscow is fighting a war of attrition in which losses extend far beyond manpower to ammunition and weapons systems. "Russia actually has been able to produce a lot," she said, emphasizing that Moscow has "significantly scaled up its production" of systems including drones, electronic warfare equipment, air defenses, tanks, and missiles. But Russia's industry has not solved its problem. The demands of the war are so high, Snegovaya said, that even dramatically expanded production cannot fully satisfy the battlefield's needs or allow Russia to build up significant reserves. That helps explain North Korea's role. Huminski also said North Korean troops help Moscow manage a politically sensitive manpower problem. Their use can hold positions and free Russian contract soldiers for other tasks without requiring Putin to undertake a politically risky full-scale mobilization. This is therefore neither simple military collapse nor evidence of an effortless Russian resurgence. Russia is using foreign partners to fill specific gaps while straining to sustain and expand its own military-industrial base. According to Snegovaya, the Kremlin continues to expand production facilities and prepare for a long war. But that effort comes with accumulating costs. Russia's military-industrial sector is heavily financed by the state, while the economic strain of sustaining the war continues to grow. Ukraine Changed The Math -- But Drones Have Not Won The War Ukraine entered the war with a severe conventional disadvantage. It could not match Russia tank for tank, shell for shell, or soldier for soldier. Its answer has been to change the cost equation. Cheap drones and other rapidly developed systems can threaten far more expensive equipment and, Snegovaya said, Ukraine has been able to use drones to compensate to a significant degree for shortages of manpower. But she also stressed the limits of that advantage. Drones have not made soldiers irrelevant, and Ukraine's manpower problems remain serious. The defensive "kill zone" may help hold the line, but it has not won the war. Russia, meanwhile, is adapting its own methods. Snegovaya described a force combining Soviet-style approaches and legacy production capacity with drones, electronic warfare, and rapidly evolving battlefield practices. Russia is suffering extraordinary losses and facing mounting pressure on its economy. But it retains some asymmetric advantages, including the capacity to deploy drones in enormous numbers, experience in using them, and a vast amount of battlefield data accumulated by combat units and operators. Western countries “must not only look at what Ukraine is doing, but also pay attention to what Russia is doing,” what lessons it is learning, and how it is adapting, Huminski said. "If we don't, and we just see that as a conventionally degraded Russian force, that could come back to haunt us in the future." Novorossiisk Shows How The War Is Expanding Ukraine's technological adaptation is also changing the geography of the war. In the Black Sea, Ukraine has repeatedly threatened Russian naval forces and infrastructure despite beginning the conflict without anything close to a conventional navy capable of matching Russia's fleet. As Russian assets shifted away from Crimea, Ukraine's ability to strike Novorossiisk, its naval hub further east, demonstrated that moving farther from the front does not guarantee safety. "The Russian fleet is definitely very much jeopardized anywhere in the Black Sea at this point," Snegovaya said. The broader significance is strategic. Ukraine is increasingly pairing its defensive effort at the front with deep strikes against military and other targets inside Russia, seeking to impose costs beyond the battlefield. Snegovaya said the strikes have helped increase anxiety inside Russia and demand for the war to end. But she cautioned that public opinion plays only a limited role in the Kremlin's decision-making. Putin, not public sentiment, remains the decisive factor. Ukraine may currently have technological momentum, she said, but Russia is continuing to respond -- including with faster jet-powered drones and efforts to overcome other technological constraints. Degraded But Deadly The old measures of military power have been seriously challenged by the war. Prewar tank numbers and troop totals did not predict Russia's failures in 2022. But neither do Russia's enormous losses prove that it has ceased to be a formidable military power, experts cautioned. Ukraine has shattered the myth that Russian mass alone guarantees victory. It has demonstrated how resilience, rapid innovation, and relatively cheap technology can allow a smaller military to impose extraordinary costs on a much larger one. Russia, however, still has substantially greater resources than Ukraine, a large defense-industrial base, nuclear forces untouched by the war, and military capabilities extending well beyond the devastated ground formations fighting in Ukraine. That does not mean Russia is winning the process of adaptation. Snegovaya stressed that Ukraine currently has technological momentum, while Russia's economy and military-industrial network face growing strain. Nor is there, she said, an analytical consensus on whether Russia can still meaningfully be called the world's second most powerful military. The sustainability of Western support for Ukraine may ultimately be one of the most important variables. Ukraine has repeatedly punched above its weight, Snegovaya said, but its ability to sustain the fight remains tied in important ways to outside financial, technological, intelligence, and military support. Huminski's broader conclusion is that Russia and Ukraine will emerge as two of the world’s most battle-tested and battle-hardened militaries. Ukraine has battered Russia’s military, destroyed vast quantities of its equipment, and exposed weaknesses that Moscow expected to hide behind its reputation for overwhelming power. Russia is paying heavily to adapt and is far from solving the fundamental problems the war has revealed. Whether Russia’s learning is enough to compensate for its losses -- and whether Ukraine can sustain its own extraordinary pace of innovation -- may go a long way toward determining the outcome of the war.
Russia says 600 drones targeted Moscow overnight, wounding three people
Russia says 600 drones targeted Moscow overnight, wounding three people
Russia says 600 drones targeted Moscow overnight, wounding three people
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you. An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more. Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you. An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more. SIX HUNDRED DRONES targeted the Moscow region in a sustained overnight assault that wounded three people, the Russian capital’s mayor said on Sunday, as Ukraine steps up long-range attacks into Russian territory. Ukraine has been carrying out strikes deep inside Russia in recent weeks, with drone barrages targeting military, industrial and more recently e-commerce warehouses far from the front line in the war that is in its fifth year. “From yesterday evening until 6.30am today, 600 drones were flying towards Moscow region, of which 201 were destroyed in Moscow region,” Mayor Sergei Sobyanin posted on the state-backed MAX platform. Sobyanin said in an earlier post that “three people were wounded in the MKAD area and are receiving all necessary assistance”, referring to the area within the city’s ring road. Three people were killed and another wounded in Russia’s southern Rostov region, which shares a border with Ukraine, regional authorities said. Rostov region governor Yuri Sliusar said three people were killed and one was hospitalised during the overnight assault. “Doctors are providing all necessary assistance,” Sliusar said. He said Russian forces destroyed more than 150 drones and missiles over three cities and nine districts across the southern region. According to Sliusar, the attacks damaged residential and industrial buildings in the Kamensky district. Several buildings in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky city suffered roof damage, while windows were blown out in an apartment block and at the city’s railway station, he said. To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Troops from North Korea to boost Russia's Ukraine forces
Troops from North Korea to boost Russia's Ukraine forces
NATO fighter jet shoots down drone in Romania near border with Ukraine
NATO fighter jet shoots down drone in Romania near border with Ukraine
How a simple lighter has become the backbone of life in Gaza
How a simple lighter has become the backbone of life in Gaza Mothers in Gaza struggle to find lighters, which can mean the difference between cooking a meal, baking bread or heating water for their children. Gaza City — Rabab Deifallah sits inside her tent, clutching a small, battered lighter. She presses it once, then again, trying to produce a spark strong enough to ignite a pile of wood inside a stove. The mother of five has carefully looked after the lighter. Her son has repaired it several times since it became difficult to buy a new one after Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023. Recommended Storieslist of 4 items - list 1 of 4Fear and attacks grip Taybeh, the last all-Christian town in the West Bank - list 2 of 4Small-scale projects offer hope for Gaza farmers rebuilding lives - list 3 of 4Art offers young Gaza survivors solace and escape from war’s devastation - list 4 of 4Analysis: Israel’s government can’t disown West Bank settler violence Firewood has become essential for 46-year-old Rabab. She uses it to bake bread, heat water for her children, prepare food and make tea amid shortages of cooking gas and soaring fuel prices. “Our whole daily life depends on fire,” Rabab told Al Jazeera. “But getting a fire started begins with a lighter and this small object has become one of the hardest things to find in Gaza.” Before the war, lighters were so cheap and readily available that she remembers buying three for one shekel ($0.33). Today, a new lighter can cost between $27-33 and Rabab last spent $12 to repair her old lighter. “Should I spend that amount on a lighter, or should I buy a bag of flour?” she asked. Palestinians in Gaza would rather spend their limited money on food, so a single lighter is often passed around families in several tents. Some days, Rabab cannot find a lighter at all, so her family has been forced to spend days eating cold food or waiting until a neighbour has a fire burning to borrow a spark. She often sends a piece of cardboard to a neighbour to get a light off their fire and bring it home. Other times, if a neighbour is baking bread, she may ask to use their oven to prepare food for her family. The lighter is now something she guards carefully, as it is, for her, the starting point for fire, food, bread and hot water. A second struggle Nearby, Hasnaa Mansour, 43, faces the same problem but from a different angle. Displaced from Jabalia refugee camp, Hasnaa sits beside a clay oven she had treasured since her family’s financial situation deteriorated during the war. Her husband previously worked as a tailor and the family lived relatively comfortably, but due to a lack of business, Hasnaa now bakes and sells food to help support their six children. Hasnaa has repeatedly repaired her lighter because buying a new one is beyond her means. But a shortage of cooking gas has made the problem even worse. “With gas, all you need is a small spark to light it. But with the oven, I need a real fire,” she said. “I’ve been sitting here since the morning and by 10 o’clock I still couldn’t light the oven. I sent my young daughter with a piece of cardboard to look for someone who had a fire burning, but she couldn’t find anyone.” Restrictions and shortages The lighter shortage comes amid Israel’s continued siege on Gaza. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says restrictions on the movement of goods and closures of crossings have contributed to shortages and rising prices of essential supplies. OCHA also says items classified by Israeli authorities as “dual-use” face additional difficulties in obtaining approval to enter Gaza. The Gaza Chamber of Commerce and Industry said in June that restrictions on crossings and the mechanisms for bringing commercial shipments into Gaza continued to limit the flow of goods. It said that more than 30,000 trucks entered Gaza during the first five months of 2026, an average of no more than 191 trucks a day – still far below the territory’s daily pre-war needs. In an earlier publication, the chamber of commerce documented the emergence of lighter-repair work during the war, saying lighters were among items prevented from entering Gaza. That is why lighters are now so valuable and families spend relatively large amounts to fix them rather than buy a new one. Sharing a single lighter For Shadi Abu Shamlah, a displaced father living with his family at Al-Karmel School west of Gaza City, the shortage means sharing a lighter among tents. “The whole school here… you wouldn’t find more than four lighters,” he said. The few available lighters move from one tent to another as families try to cook, heat water or prepare hot drinks. “The lighter today is the backbone of life. If you have a lighter in your tent, you’re okay. If you don’t have one, you’re stuck,” he said. “The simplest things need fire. You want a cup of tea, you want to cook, you want to make milk for a child… you need fire.” Abu Shamlah says his family sometimes goes to bed without dinner because they cannot light a fire. Repairing lighters has also become difficult. He says a lighter flint can cost 25 to 30 shekels ($8–$10), while people have resorted to using gas from larger cylinders to refill lighters, sometimes causing burns. Tamer Al-Shawish, who worked as a driver before the war, turned to fixing lighters to help provide for his family. On a small stall near Al Karmel school camp, the 24-year-old father of two says his new profession was previously unheard of. “The war has forced us into jobs and work we never knew before. I started repairing lighters so I could provide for my family’s needs,” he told Al Jazeera. A new profession “Before the war, no one needed to repair a lighter. They were cheap and available. When the gas ran out, we would throw it away and buy another one.” “People come to repair the lighter because it is cheaper than buying a new one, especially with the high prices and shortages of basic goods,” Tamer said. He salvages parts from damaged lighters to repair others. “Even an old lighter has value now. We take parts from damaged lighters and use them to repair other lighters, so they last longer.”
How a simple lighter has become the backbone of life in Gaza
How a simple lighter has become the backbone of life in Gaza
Poland, Tusk: "Our army will soon be the largest in Europe" - Lapresse.US
Poland, Tusk: "Our army will soon be the largest in Europe" - Lapresse.US
What would a North Korean troop surge mean for Ukraine war?
What would a North Korean troop surge mean for Ukraine war?
Marco Rubio has unique power to promote peace in the world. Why isn’t he doing his job? | Simon Tisdall
Marco Rubio has unique power to promote peace in the world. Why isn’t he doing his job? | Simon Tisdall
Marco Rubio has unique power to promote peace in the world. Why isn’t he doing his job? | Simon Tisdall
Viewed from the state department in Washington DC, the world is on fire – but record heatwaves are not to blame. The unresolved Iran war has badly burned Donald Trump. His military campaign conclusively failed, energy and food prices are still rising, and a Republican rout in November’s midterm elections looms. Humiliatingly, Israel this week flatly rejected his latest Gaza peace proposals, days after Trump congratulated himself on a “historic breakthrough”. In Europe, Russia’s attacks on Nato allies grow increasingly brazen, threatening a wider escalation. The Ukraine war, which Trump vowed to end, is now well into its fifth year, with civilians on both sides caught in the killing fields. And these are just the bigger firestorms. There are plenty more. Rarely has the need for effective, professional diplomacy been more pressing. So step forward Marco Rubio, US secretary of state and chief American diplomat. These are challenges that, if successfully tackled, could propel the 55-year-old son of Cuban immigrants and the former US senator for Florida into pole position in the 2028 Republican presidential nomination race. Here is a chance for Rubio to defy critics who dismiss him as a lickspittle and Trump dogsbody, and transform himself into respected global statesman. His boss mocked him as “little Marco” and a “loser” when they were election rivals in 2016. (Rubio called him a conman.) Now is Rubio’s opportunity to go big, be brave and prove he’s a winner. Or maybe not. Rubio is unlike recent US secretaries of state – heavyweights such as Hillary Clinton and Antony Blinken, or John Kerry, famed for his high-energy shuttle diplomacy. Rubio has little time for “peace processes”. Instead, he projects brute US power to impose take-it-or-leave-it “solutions” that advance US interests, as defined by Trump. It’s a modern form of imperialism. Target countries have a choice: become client states, like Venezuela and, prospectively, Cuba and Greenland, or be crushed. In Iran, the policy is not regime change, let alone democratic renewal. It’s regime compliance. Rubio behaves less like a peace-broker, more like a pith-helmeted colonial viceroy demanding fealty from obsequious satraps. Speaking in Munich in February, Rubio aired his hawkishly retro doctrine of US primacy. He lamented the decline of “the great western empires … accelerated by godless communist revolutions and anti-colonial uprisings” and warned Europe faced “civilisational erasure”. The US didn’t want milksop allies “shackled by guilt and shame” about their imperial past, he said. “We want allies who are proud of their culture and heritage … and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it.” Here was a familiar assertion of US hegemony, but one stripped of bogus altruism and pretence. It sounded a death knell for diplomacy. Trump has attacked eight countries in the past year. Cuba, Rubio’s obsession, could be next. Rubio’s reluctance to get personally involved in peacemaking may be partly explained by his other, contradictory role, as Trump’s national security adviser. He has accepted the White House’s outsourcing of negotiations over Ukraine and Palestine to amateur envoys of limited ability – namely Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and business crony Steve Witkoff. Broadly speaking, Rubio has steered clear of direct involvement in the Iran talks, too, leaving JD Vance, the vice-president and his main potential rival in 2028, to take the flak. Rubio’s arm’s length approach smacks of calculation. Or maybe he’s just out of his depth. Maybe he has no clear idea what he, Marco, really thinks about any of these issues and simply does Trump’s erratic bidding. This perception of a political chameleon lacking firm principles, consistent opinions and a strong moral compass is reinforced by his record. His biographer, Manuel Roig-Franzia, believes Rubio’s personal and political slipperiness – he once became a Mormon, then reverted to Catholicism – is rooted in a childhood need to belong, to be on the winning side, no matter the price. Senator Rubio was a China hawk. Now he toes Trump’s ingratiating line on Beijing. He used to castigate Russia; now he’s an appeaser. He championed overseas assistance but, in office, has gutted USAID and seeks to dismantle the international criminal court, a keystone of global order. He blasted Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. Now he backs an accord that would offer additional concessions to Tehran. Accused by the Vatican of waging an immoral, unjust war, he travelled to Rome and set the pope straight. The irony, or tragedy, of the Rubio conundrum is he has the power to do great good, if only he would stand up and be counted. Russia’s Vladimir Putin, losing on the battlefield and at home, is weaker than at any time since 2022. Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy is short of missile interceptors, soldiers and political support. A ceasefire deal freezing the conflict is there for the making by the only country – the US – that can meaningfully squeeze both sides. Likewise, in Israel, the architect of the Gaza genocide and disastrous wars with Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah – Benjamin Netanyahu – faces defeat in October’s elections. Here’s a rare opportunity to quietly shelve Trump’s Board of Peace idiocies, halt Jewish settler violence in the West Bank and make a fresh, inclusive start based on UN resolutions. Rubio could also do the Middle East, the global economy, American consumers and himself a power of good by taking charge of moribund peace talks with Iran and resuscitating the June memorandum of understanding that Tehran insists is the only route out of the strait of Hormuz logjam. In doing so, Rubio would have the enthusiastic backing of most Americans, European and Gulf state governments, energy producers and businesses, and Maga supporters who rightly fear Trump has dragged the US into another forever war. Even Trump may be grateful. He knows he’s in a hole. He needs someone to dig him out. The fact that Rubio, despite his ostensibly uniquely powerful position, is unlikely to do any of the above marks him out as the most dangerous man in the US administration after Trump himself. He is dangerous because he enables and facilitates Trump’s worst instincts – and neglects his duty. He is dangerous because he provides pseudo-intellectual respectability to far-right fantasies about unfettered US supremacy. More so than the impetuous Vance, indulging in puerile name-calling on social media, and the “secretary of war” Pete Hegseth, a ranting ultra-nationalist, Rubio is dangerous because he can look and sound reasonable. He stands a fair chance of becoming Trump’s chosen successor and heir to the Maga brand. Maybe, before that happens, he will change again. Maybe he will rediscover a few principles, find a diplomatic backbone, extinguish a few fires. He has shown repeatedly that his views are infinitely fungible. Rubio could yet do great things. Or he could become a problem as great or greater than Trump. - Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
Inside Five Years Of Taliban Rule Since US Chaotic Exit
Inside Five Years Of Taliban Rule Since US Chaotic Exit
Inside Five Years Of Taliban Rule Since US Chaotic Exit
Inside Five Years Of Taliban Rule Since US Chaotic Exit
Inside Five Years Of Taliban Rule Since US Chaotic Exit
Inside Five Years Of Taliban Rule Since US Chaotic Exit