Europe

EU migrant ‘return hub’ plans risk rights abuses

Amnesty International warned that plans by five European Union member-state governments for migrant "return hubs" in Rwanda and Uganda risk creating "cruel black holes for human rights." The warning comes as the EU Return Regulation, approved by the European Parliament in June but still awaiting final approval by the European Council, is set to provide the legal basis for such hubs. (Photo: Sara Creta/TNH)

Europe

UN: drone warfare threatens Ukraine aid response

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher warned that the recent rise in the use of drones poses a risk for aid operations in multiple conflicts around the world. He emphasized that international humanitarian law, which prohibits attacks on humanitarian workers and civilians, continues to apply to drone warfare regardless of how sophisticated or autonomous the weapons become. Fletcher spoke during a visit to Ukraine for World Humanitarian Day. After two days in Kherson, he described the city as "saturated by the use of drones against civilian areas." He said that humanitarian workers as well as civilian residents live under the constant peril of these weapons. Fletcher observed that as remote pilots move farther from their victims, so do accountability and justice. (Photo: Bahareh Asadi via Wikimedia Commons)

Europe

Russia sentences anti-war politician to prison

A Russian court sentenced politician Lev Shlosberg to 11 years and one month in a penal colony on charges of "discrediting" the Russian military and spreading "false information." Amnesty International called the charges "blatant reprisals for exercising his right to freedom of expression to call for peace," and demanded his immediate and unconditional release. Shlosberg, 63, is deputy chair of Yabloko, the only registered Russian party openly opposing the war in Ukraine. On the same day as his sentencing, Russia's Supreme Court rejected Yabloko's appeal of its removal from the upcoming State Duma ballot on dubious charges of campaign finance violations. (Photo: Yabloko via Amnesty International)

Europe

Russian strike hits historic Kyiv cathedral

The Pechersk Lavra, one of the most important historical and religious sites in Ukraine, was hit in Moscow's latest barrage of drone and missile attacks on Kyiv, in what President Volodymyr Zelensky called "one of Russia's most serious crimes against Christian culture to date." Images circulating on social media show flames rising above the UNESCO World Heritage site, which contains structures dating from between the 11th and 18th centuries, including the gold-domed Dormition Cathedral. The head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epiphanius, confirmed that the roof of the cathedral caught fire in the attack, calling the strike another Russian crime "against humanity, against history, against Christianity." Some 42,000 Kyiv residents spent that night in the capital's metro stations to escape the aerial assault on the city. (Photo via Wikipedia)

Europe

Greco-Albanians protest Trump-linked development scheme

Protesters clashed with security forces at the site of a planned luxury resort on Albania's Adriatic coast linked to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the daughter and son-in-law of US President Donald Trump. The site, at Zvërnec, is one of the last nearly pristine coastal zones in the entire Mediterranean, and is located within Albania's southern Greek-speaking region. The project has raised serious concerns among local ethnic Greek residents over the loss of their traditional lands. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Europe

Russia unlawfully seizes civilian property in Ukraine

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports that Russian authorities are unlawfully seizing civilian property belonging to Ukrainians in occupied areas of the country, in violation of international law. HRW analyzed some 8,000 cases involving property seizures filed in 25 courts in occupied areas, with court records showing "consistent disregard of evidence of ownership and efforts by owners to assert their rights." The seizure of property has affected millions of displaced Ukrainians or those who refuse to re-register their properties under Russian law, as they are stripped of shelter, income, or the means to sustain their lives. (Map: PCL)

Europe

Ukraine: fund to repair drone-damaged Chernobyl shield

With aid from the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD), Ukraine has opened a special fund for the restoration of the protective structure over the entombed reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The €30 million agreement was signed on April 26 during a Chernobyl International Conference on Recovery & Nuclear Safety, actually held at the site of the disaster that took place on that date in 1986. The "New Safe Confinement" structure has since 2016 provided a second layer of protection over the "sarcophagus" that Soviet authorities built to entomb the exploded reactor after the disaster. It was breached by a Russian drone strike on the site in February 2025. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Europe

Ecological devastation in Great Game for Russian oil

A $106 billion EU emergency loan is now on its way to Ukraine, following the fall of Hungary's strongman Viktor Orban, who was holding it up. However, as a condition of the loan, Kyiv is obliged to re-open the war-damaged Druzhba pipeline, which sends Russian oil through Ukrainian territory to Hungary, Poland and Germany. Kyiv is cooperating in getting the pipeline operational again—but is meanwhile drone-bombing Russian oil facilities on the Baltic and Black seas, in hopes of diminishing how much petrol Moscow will have to export through that pipeline. The strikes have caused "apocalyptic scenes" in the Black Sea port of Tuapse—air thick with toxic fumes, a huge column of smoke blotting out the sun, black rain falling from the sky. Russia, unwilling to sacrifice its own oil revenues but seeking to punish Europe for backing Ukraine, has announced that it will cut off the flow of oil from Kazakhstan through the Druzhba pipeline. (Image: Soviet postage stamp celebrating oil pipeline. Via Wikipedia)

Europe

Ukrainian robots break through Russian lines

Ukrainian forces have captured a Russian position using only drones and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), President Volodymyr Zelensky boasted, describing the operation as a milestone in the evolution of modern warfare. "For the first time in the history of this war, an enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms—UGVs and drones. The occupiers surrendered, and this operation was carried out without the participation of infantry and without losses on our side," Zelensky said in a video statement. The video showed Zelensky speaking in a room full of various drones and UGVs. He did not give a precise location for the territory taken in the operation. (Photo via Nashaniva.com)

Europe

Russia: UN experts decry repression of civil society

UN Special Rapporteurs condemned an ongoing strategy by Russian authorities to silence dissent, human rights advocacy, and anti-war expression. They warned that this represents a "systematic dismantling" of civil society under the guise of protecting national security and public safety. Over 343 organizations have been deemed "undesirable," 1,173 individuals and groups have been designated as "foreign agents," and 830 organizations and 20,813 individuals have been put on "terrorist" and "extremist" watch lists. This has recently escalated with the targeting of several key Russian human rights organizations, feminist groups and advocates for indigenous peoples. (Photo: Pavel Kazachkov via Wikipedia)

Europe

EU expands migrant detention and deportation rules

The European Union took a significant step toward adopting a Trump-like approach to migration when the EuroParliament approved a new law expanding the power of security agencies to track, detain and deport migrants. Amnesty International criticized the revised "Return Regulation" as "punitive" and a threat to fundamental rights. The law also allows for people to be deported to countries other than their country of origin—a controversial policy used by the Trump administration. Greece, an EU member, is even working directly with US officials to ramp up deportations. (Photo: Sara Creta/TNH)

Europe

Podcast: the other Russia —from Tolstoy to Komyagin

Eclipsed from the headlines by the war in the Middle East, Russia launches a new offensive in Ukraine with an unprecedented wave of drone and missile strikes across the country—even hitting an historic monastery in Lviv. Meanwhile, two young Russian poets, Artyom Kamardin and Yegor Shtovba, remain imprisoned on "state subversion" charges related to public readings of anti-war poetry. They join other imprisoned poetic anti-war activists, such as Daria Kozyreva, and numerous artists and activists imprisoned for opposing the new dictatorship of Vladimir Putin. The recently passed Russian rocker Nikolay Komyagin, frontman for the post-punk band Shortparis, was also an icon of artistic resistance. Long known for their defiant sound, after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine they released the music video "Apple Orchard," on an anti-war theme—getting them being blacklisted from major venues in Russia. In Episode 320 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg places these courageous voices in the context of a dissident tradition in Russia under the dictatorships of the czars, the Soviets, and now Putin—from Leo Tolstoy to Shortparis. (Composite image by CounterVortex from Ilya Efimovich Repin via Wikimedia Commons and Sasha Braulov via Instagram)