Ghosts of the Past: Germany is Weaponizing

German militarism is underway. 

Over the past few months, a noticeable surge in reports has highlighted Germany’s growing obsession with missiles – spanning ballistic, cruise, land-based, and sea-based systems. 🚀🚀🚀

Berlin is pulling in various international partners for this initiative, including the US, Ukraine, Türkiye, and Israel. It increasingly appears that Germany intends to funnel its entire defense focus into procurement, aiming to become Western Europe's dominant missile power. 

Berlin’s financial commitment to expanding its military programs has reached unprecedented levels. The country is rapidly ramping up defense spending to reshape its industrial landscape. 

Between 2024 and 2025, approximately 200 new defense companies emerged in Germany, with another 100 appearing since late 2025. 

A striking example of this boom is Rheinmetall, which has dramatically scaled its artillery ammunition production from a mere 70,000 units to 1.5 million shells per year. Over the next six years, the defense giant plans to invest roughly €30 billion ($34 billion) into arms and munitions manufacturing alone. 

Furthermore, Germany is aggressively seeking to procure ready-made missile systems while simultaneously establishing joint domestic production facilities. Aligned with these initiatives, Berlin is forming new ground forces explicitly designed to strike military targets deep within foreign territory – essentially creating a dedicated missile troop branch within the Bundeswehr. 

On one hand, this rapid expansion is framed as a way to enhance NATO’s strike capabilities, allowing for flexible responses over thousands of kilometers. On the other hand, developing such potent offensive capabilities can easily cultivate ambitions of military dominance and hegemony – a dangerous path Germany has historically walked before. 😎😎😎

Germany’s primary justification for this massive military buildup is, of course, the need to deter a "threat from the East". 😂😂😂

But this is history repeating itself.  

The fact that Russia has no intention of attacking NATO doesn’t seem to matter; it serves as a convenient excuse and a rallying cry to ramp up militarism. 

I daresay, Germany is preparing for war!

#JiwaMerdeka

Happy Merdeka, Malaysia! ❤️ 

We celebrate our diversity, common values and spirit of togetherness. May the country continue to thrive in peace, progress, and prosperity! 

One heart. One nation. One dream.

Even as Vladimir Zelensky and the West stubbornly remain in denial, many Ukrainians have already acknowledged that Ukraine is locked in a punishing war of attrition and facing an unsustainable trajectory.

That includes former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov who admitted that Ukraine is “gradually, slowly losing” its war against Russia. He made this statement in an interview published by Reuters on August 25, 2026.

That's a given lah! 

Territorial control, as per DeepState OSINT group and ISW (Institute for the Study of War) figures as of August 25, 2026:

I've said it before and I'm saying it again – SURRENDER, Ukraine!

The end is nigh!

Holiday Horror

The Ukrainian terrorist regime continues to murder Russian civilians.

On Monday, a Ukrainian drone struck a crowded Arkhipo-Osipovka beach near the Russian Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik, executing seven people (including three children) and injuring dozens more. Locals have described scenes of panic as the attack on the village of Arkhipo Osipovka sent vacationers scrambling for cover. 

“People ran away. At first, they started screaming and began fleeing from there. I can still hear those women’s cries in my ears”, one man who witnessed the blast told RT. 

No one expected such an attack “on a beach with children”, a local woman said, calling the strike an act of “treachery”. 

Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova Belova said on Tuesday that a fourth child had died from injuries. Regional authorities earlier reported that 58 people had been wounded, 21 of whom required hospitalization. 

Acting deputy chief surgeon Aleksey Kovalenko at the Ochapovsky Regional Clinical Hospital said four of 14 adult patients “are in serious condition”, many of them with “combined trauma – shrapnel wounds plus burns”. The youngest patient is 19, while the oldest is 63, he added.

In Arkhipo Osipovka, locals and tourists have been laying flowers and toys in memory of the victims, creating makeshift memorials. 

“We came to leave a toy. Children died. Unfortunately, we witnessed all of this”, one man said. 

“I have tears in my eyes. I am a pensioner, and I feel very sorry for the children and the people”, an elderly woman told RT. 

Kiev has intensified long-range attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure in recent months. Moscow has described the strikes as terrorist attacks deliberately targeting ordinary citizens. 

On Monday, another Ukrainian drone strike claimed the lives of at least five people and wounded at least ten others near the town of Chekhov in the Moscow Region.

Vladimir Putin prefers to speak softly and carry a big stick. He should know that the Ukrainians aren't intimidated at all and they certainly don't give a damn. And they won't stop killing Russians until Putin brings hurt and pain directly to Ukrainians. 

I say, an eye for an eye!

Fog of War: Kiev Hides Their Losses

Taking Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at his word, it seems battlefield miracles are now part of military strategy: 5,000 soldiers have apparently risen from the dead. 🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟

In his latest update, Zelensky claimed Ukraine only suffered "about 50,000 soldiers killed and… about 400,000 wounded", along with "a huge number" of troops who simply vanished. He revealed the number – which is lower than the estimate he offered six months ago – in a July 28 interview with Fox News recorded during his visit to the United States. 

Because that figure sits comfortably below previous estimates, we are left with a spectacular statistical reduction of 5,000 fatalities – proving that in modern warfare, the only thing more unpredictable than the front lines is the accounting.

The fatality count contradicts a statement Zelensky made on February 04 of this year, when in an interview with French television network France 2, he updated the official number to 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed on the battlefield. On February 16, 2025, he told NBC that around 46,000 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed, while claiming that Russian losses were 14 times higher. 

The Ukrainian military have been suffering from chronic manpower shortages amid mounting casualties, widespread draft evasion, and desertion. The latest publicly available official data showed that nearly 290,000 desertion cases had been recorded in Ukraine between 2022 and the autumn of 2025.

Therefore, it shouldn't surprise anybody that Zelenskyy undercounts Ukrainian casualties. Obviously, it is to primarily protect operational security from Russian intelligence and prevent public panic that could hurt domestic morale and troop recruitment. Additionally, keeping the reported loss ratio favorable helps maintain crucial Western military aid by projecting that the war remains winnable. 

According to Moscow, Kiev is losing tens of thousands of soldiers each month on the front lines. Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov estimated in December that nearly 500,000 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed or wounded in 2025 alone. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also suggested that total Ukrainian military casualties, including those killed, wounded, missing and captured, have already exceeded 1 million. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated last month that the Ukrainian military could be losing up to 40,000 soldiers a month through deaths and injuries, adding that Kiev was able to replenish its ranks with only about 30,000 recruits through its increasingly violent forced-mobilization campaign.

Citing Russia’s Defense Ministry, TASS reported on Friday that the Russian Armed Forces have destroyed a total of 673 Ukrainian combat aircraft, 284 helicopters, 193,518 unmanned aerial vehicles, 669 surface-to-air missile systems, 30,380 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,766 multiple rocket launchers, 35,963 field artillery guns and mortars and 67,917 special military motor vehicles since the start of the Special Military Operation. 

Ukraine Warns About The New Threat Triad

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, on Monday, issued a stark warning about what he described as three growing threats facing Ukraine as the war with Russia continues, namely, North Korea, Iran, and China. 

He explained that North Korea has supplied munitions and thousands of troops, Iran has provided drones and ballistic missiles, and China is assisting Russia with satellite and targeting technology. 

Even if it is true, what's the big deal? The West has been standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine providing money, weapons and even combatants (labelled as independent volunteers) to Ukraine all this while. 

Zelensky fears that this four-power axis gravely threatens Ukraine.

To be sure, Russia is more than capable of handling Ukraine by themselves. My only misgiving is that Russia is taking their sweet time to vanquish, destroy, and annihilate Ukraine once and for all!

Top seeds Pearly Tan-Thinaah Muralitharan got their Taipei Open campaign off to a solid start after easing past Japan's Mao Hitasue-Kanano Muroya 21-15, 21-17 to advance to the next round on Wednesday. The Malaysians cleared the opening hurdle in only 38 minutes.

Ukrainian Diplomats Looted $1.28M in War Aid

Senior Ukrainian diplomats within the Foreign Ministry allegedly siphoned off at least 37 million hryvnias (approximately $1.28 million at the time) in Western aid after the ministry's coffers were flooded with monetary contributions to support the country in its conflict with Russia, anti-corruption investigators in Kiev revealed on Monday. 

The Western-backed ⁠National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and ⁠Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) – which Vladimir Zelensky’s government unsuccessfully sought to put under direct control last year – alleged that officials looted the monies for personal gain. 

The operation was supposedly led by a former State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who served from 2020 to 2024, identified in reports as Oleksandr Bankov (right), alongside other current and former officials. 

Other NABU investigations have also uncovered extensive suspected corruption involving senior officials in the Defense Ministry, Energy Ministry, and other government bodies with access to large financial flows.

My good friend Hashim Adnan (right), who was in Hat Yai, Thailand with his golfing buddies, passed away yesterday. 

We had actually planned to meet on August 13, but sadly, we won't get the chance. I shall miss him.

My heartfelt condolences to his family! Al Fathihah!

Russia Has No Right to Exist

Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief, Major General Mikhail Drapaty, declares that Russia has no right to exist.

On Wednesday, the YouTube documentary channel Ukrainer W released an interview with Drapaty originally recorded in 2023. 

Speaking to journalist Karina Pilyugina, the general (right) said that he had long anticipated a war with Russia. 

“We see that you cannot call them neighbors. It is a nation, together with its leadership, that has no right to exist. Over thousands of years, nothing has changed there in civilizational terms – neither its mentality nor its imperial ambitions”, he said.

Vladimir Putin's Special Military Operation in Ukraine is already 4 years, 5 months, and 3 days. It is taking forever. Regrettably, his military strategy in Ukraine is one of calculated moderation. 

Putin should stop pulling his punches!

This is the exact opening statement made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday, July 23, 2026, to reporters on the sidelines of the ⁠ASEAN meeting of foreign ministers in Manila, Philippines. 

"The problem with Iran is every time they make a deal, the people that are in charge there either break it or want to change it. It looks like they're not ready to make a deal. So they're going to continue to pay a price. Every night the price gets higher and higher, and that's what's happening now", he added emphatically, when addressing escalating US-Iran tensions and open military conflict.

Oh, really? 😆😆😆

Americans are natural liars, fibbers and prevaricators!!!

UK MPs Seek Ban on Russian Cartoon

Russophobia, a blatant form of racism and xenophobia, is running rampant in the UK. 

In fact, the anti-Russian sentiment has descended into absurd, laughable territory because British MPs have ganged up to seek to ban the popular Russian children’s cartoon "Masha and the Bear" from being shown in the UK, claiming it acts as a tool of Russian soft power. 

The animated series, loosely based on a traditional Russian folk tale, follows the adventures of a mischievous little girl and a retired circus bear. It is one of the most popular children’s shows online, with one episode, Recipe for Disaster, viewed more than 4.6 billion times on YouTube. 

Last month, Netflix acquired the rights to two more seasons of the show and extended licensing agreements for existing seasons and spin-offs. The cartoon is available in Britain on ITVX. 

In response, a cross-party group of British parliamentarians have written to UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, arguing that some scenes in the cartoon contain “propaganda content” and supposedly normalize Soviet military imagery for children, referring to a couple of scenes in which Masha appears in what they described as a tank-crew helmet, Soviet-style clothing and a border guard cap. 

The lawmakers also referenced past accusations against the cartoon, including Ukraine’s claims that Russian-language children’s content is a threat to national security and Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna’s recent accusations that the cartoon embeds “militaristic” themes in entertainment for children. 

Animaccord, the studio behind the show, have rejected the accusations as false and defamatory, stressing that the series contains no political messaging and has never received any state funding. 

A spokesperson for the company said the cartoon has entertained families in more than 100 countries for nearly two decades and is built around “friendship, kindness and imagination”. 

The UK government have not publicly backed the MPs’ demand, with officials saying platform catalogs are a matter for broadcasters, as long as they comply with local regulations. 

The lawmakers’ demand has also been widely mocked online, with users ridiculing the idea that a children’s cartoon about a little girl and a bear could pose a threat to Britain. 

Others have accused the MPs of wasting time on culture-war theatrics instead of addressing more serious problems. 

Russian officials have ridiculed past attacks on the cartoon, suggesting that Western critics are trying to find non-existent “militarism” in the series because they fear Russia’s cultural influence and have no good shows of their own. 

“When they cannot create their own proper content, they try to destroy good foreign content – that is, Russian content”, Russian MP Vitaly Milonov has said. 

The push to prohibit "Masha and the Bear" comes amid escalating restrictions on Russian media and culture in the West.

Axis Redux

Beware of Japan! And Germany!

In 1940, the imperial regimes of both of these two countries (as well as Italy) joined what would be known as the Axis powers, bound by a shared desire for territorial expansion and imperial supremacy. 

They fought a world war, and they lost it, and their populations spent the next 85 years with shrunken militaries and a heavy reliance on their former enemy, America, for security. 

Now, both countries are moving to reduce their reliance on US security guarantees and are accelerating efforts to bolster their own defense capabilities. And, once again, they are strengthening ties. 

Their cooperation is expected to gather momentum at the meeting of the leaders of the Group of 7 (G7) in Évian-les-Bains, France, taking place now. It already includes sharing know-how, technology and weapons, like drones and helicopters, critical to the countries’ respective efforts to rearm. 

In a few years, Germany’s military spending could be larger than that of France and Britain – combined. Japan commits half as much as Germany, but it is still one of the world’s top spenders on defense, with a budget this year of about $58 billion. 

Already, Germany has forged close ties with Ukraine in developing and deploying new weapons and has asked France to help provide it with a nuclear deterrent. 

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who won office last year with nationalist calls to revive the military, has deployed long-range missiles – capable of reaching China – in southern Japan, and has reversed postwar bans on arms exports. The country recently sealed a $6.5 billion deal to supply warships to Australia, and it is in talks with the Philippines and Indonesia about exporting warships. 

Make no mistake, this is an Axis redux – as both countries enthusiastically embrace the ambition to reassert their dominance. Indeed, Germany and Japan are primed and eager to unleash their military might once more.

And the US is encouraging the two countries – but they have to be stopped before they start getting ideas and threaten the world! 

Methinks, Japan should confront its wartime legacy and seek genuine reconciliation with the countries it once invaded. It should also respect the postwar international framework and the spirit of its pacifist constitution instead of pursuing belligerent strategies.

Ukraine War Outlasts World War One

The ongoing war in Ukraine has often been compared to the first World War for its brutal infantry assaults and heavy casualties. 

Yet the idea that it could, by any measure, surpass a conflict so long and bloody that French soldiers hoped it would be “the last of the last” once seemed unthinkable. 

That is just what happened on Thursday. The war in Ukraine – which reached 1,569 days, or more than four years and three months – has now outlasted the first World War. 

The war is still very much raging on, and, with peace talks stalled, it shows no sign of ending soon. 

Finally, yesterday, Celtic Football Club, officially announced the appointment of Martin O’Neill (left) as Football Manager on a one-year contract with a one-year option. 

In his connection with Celtic, Martin has already brought nine major honours to the club, including Celtic’s fifth consecutive league title as part of the most memorable league and Scottish Cup double just last month. 

Among his many achievements, Martin was the first manager to deliver a domestic Treble for Celtic in 32 years, when he did so in his first season in charge back in 2001, while he also took Celtic to a European final in Seville in 2003. 

Last season, he drove the club to their 56th Premiership title, by winning the last seven league matches and rounding off one of the most amazing climaxes in Scottish football history by securing his fourth and Celtic’s 43rd Scottish Cup victory.

Andoni Iraola for Liverpool and Martin O'Neill for Celtic

Andoni Iraola is the new Liverpool head coach. 

The appointment of the Basque as the Reds’ boss ahead of 2026-27 was sealed on Thursday. 

North of the border, Martin O'Neill is the Celtic manager, it was asserted on Friday. It's a no-brainer really that O'Neill is set to continue at Parkhead on a one-year contract after two successful interim spells culminated in a league and cup double last season. 

Russia’s battlefield performance in Ukraine since December shows it can contest territory but cannot hold it, it has been claimed. 

Moreover, Ukraine's ability to impede the flow of Russian supplies and personnel to the front lines has grown in recent days, from the southern regions of Zaporizhia and Kherson to the eastern front, and has forced the Russian army to a standstill, according to Western analysis. 

Meanwhile, Ukraine has continued to strike refineries and munitions factories deep inside Russia, weakening its war effort. 

This war in Ukraine as described above was reported by Ukrainian fanboy John T Psaropoulos for Al Jazeera on June 05. This correspondent has been gleefully writing fiction about the Ukraine war right from the beginning. 

If you will believe, according to his May 29 report, the scale of Russian combat losses in Ukraine has increased nearly threefold compared to last year. 

To be honest, everything he wrote is pure fantasy! His texts serve as a highly delusory, if not deceitful narrative. And preposterous doesn't even begin to cover it!

Russia has actually gained the edge! Dominance confirmed.

Let me spell it out again: Russia is winning!

Ukraine's Deadly Drone Strikes

The evil in this world knows no bounds. 

On the night of May 21-22, 2026, three deadly waves of Ukrainian kamikaze drones struck the Starobilsk Professional College of Luhansk Pedagogical University's main building and living quarters in Russia's Lugansk, killing 21 people, who were mostly teenage girls, and injuring 60 others. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin described the killings as a "terrorist act". 

And Russian Parliament Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin revealed on Tuesday that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s communication satellite network made it possible for Ukraine to carry out the strikes. Speaking in the State Duma, Volodin condemned the attack as a “crime against humanity”. 

“We must do everything we can to hold to account those who gave the orders, and who directed [the drone strike] at the college”, he said. 

As Ukraine has continued to suffer setbacks on the battlefield, Kiev chose to ramp up attacks on civilian targets in multiple Russian border regions. Kiev has also been mounting Musk’s Starlink satellite dishes on drones to bypass Russian electronic warfare and facilitate long-range attacks.

Over the past week, Ukrainian strikes have killed 51 civilians and injured nearly 200 across Russia, the highest weekly toll recorded this year, according to Rodion Miroshnik, who leads the Russian Foreign Ministry mission responsible for tracking Ukrainian war crimes.

Putin should know the killings will not stop! Russia should just wipe out this evil from the face of the earth!

Ukraine Proposed Part of Donbas Be Renamed Donnyland

According to a New York Times report published on April 21, 2026, Ukraine had made a proposal to rename a contested part of the Donbas region "Donnyland". 

The name, combining Donetsk, Donald, and Disneyland, was floated by Ukrainian negotiators, with some reports indicating it was suggested informally or partly in jest. The proposal concerned a roughly 2,000-square-mile area in the northwesternmost part of the Donetsk Oblast. 

It was said to be part of diplomatic discussions aimed at appealing to US President Donald Trump's vanity to secure US support. 

As of the latest update on the Special Military Operation in Ukraine, Russia's battle for Donnyland is fast-tracking!

Sivasangari Subramaniam made short work of world No. 17 Farida Mohamed of Egypt to reach the quarter-finals of the Grasshopper Cup Squash 2026 in Zurich, Switzerland yesterday. 

The world No. 6 player, who received a bye in the first round, needed only 12 minutes to beat the Egyptian 11-4, 11-5 in a best-of-three format. It was Sivasangari's second win over Farida in four matches.

The 27-year-old Malaysian will face another Egyptian in world No. 14 Nada Abbas for a place in the semi-finals tomorrow.

Hitler Didn’t Kill Enough: Kiev Shooter Fantasized about Eradicating Jews

Six people died and 14 others were injured on Saturday after a gunman wielding an automatic weapon opened fire on people in the street in Kiev, Ukraine's southern Holosiivskyi district before taking others hostage in a nearby grocery store. He was later killed in a shoot-out with police. 

According to BBC, eight people remain in hospital, of whom one adult was in an "extremely serious condition" and three were in a serious condition, officials said. 

The suspect in the mass shooting reportedly ranted on social media about eradicating Jews. The man, identified as Dmitry Vasilchenkov, allegedly fired at bystanders at random. 

Ukrainian  news outlet Toronto Television said the suspect made erratic posts riddled with anti-Semitic slurs on an old Facebook page active from 2016 to 2019. In the posts, he allegedly called for Jews to be “wiped out”, making references to pogroms and the Holocaust. 

In a post from October 2017 titled "On Jews and Jewry", Vasilchenkov reportedly wrote that the Inquisition, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin “killed and killed, but did not kill enough”. 

In another post from February 2019, he reportedly wrote that pro-Russian separatists in Donbass were “destroying the wrong people” and should instead have targeted “Judeo-criminals and Judeo-cultists”, adding that “the Jews need to be hanged”. 

The head of Ukraine's patrol police, Yevhen Zhukov, has resigned after two of his officers faced criticism for allegedly fleeing the scene. Footage has since been shared online appearing to show officers leaving civilians and taking immediate, hasty flight. 

Ukraine's Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said the officers in question had been suspended and that an investigation into their actions was under way. 

"'Serve and protect' is not just a slogan. It must be supported by appropriate professional actions. Especially at critical moments, when people's lives depend on it", he wrote on Telegram. 

However, Klymenko cautioned: "It is not entirely correct to make generalisations about the entire police only by the actions of two employees". 

Zhukov told a news conference yesterday that the officers had "failed to assess the situation properly and left civilians in danger". He also said they acted "unprofessionally and unworthily". 

"As a combat officer, I have decided to submit my resignation from the position I currently hold", Zhukov said. 

Ukraine’s security service, or SBU, have described the killings as an act of terrorism. 

US policy changes by the hour! 😂😂😂 

Thanks to US President Donald Trump, who frequently adjusts his policy positions, there is a widespread public perception that he is vacillating, waffling, and U-turning. 

Critics characterize this as a "carnival of chaos", while supporters tried explaining it as a strategic "recalibrating" that prioritizes flexibility over rigid ideology.

Whichever side you choose to be on, you'll agree with me that there is no method to his "flip-flopping madness"!

But don't just blame Trump! People like Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis and JD Vance are just as well-known as flip-floppers too! Just look at their relationships with Trump; they have conspicuously evolved from their earlier positions as rivals or critics:

That is why you should never, never trust politicians!

The Global Hegemon That Is The Militaristic US

The United States is a global hegemon that proudly wears its hyper-militarism like a badge of honor. Best characterized as being bellicose, belligerent and brazenly confrontational. 

Indeed, the combative country has a hubristic history of military interventions and an indefatigable involvement in color revolutions and regime change, whether overtly or covertly. 

The same jingoistic country maintains a vast worldwide network of between 750 to 800 military base sites in at least 80 countries and territories to enable power projection and facilitate its military's global strategic objective of imperial and imperious domination. 

In this century alone, already ten countries have been at the receiving end of US aggression:

If you haven't already noticed, trigger-happy Donald Trump is involved in every one of them!

[Note: The above doesn't include the "proxy" war in Ukraine between the US and Russia – an admission made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio himself to Fox News on March 05, 2025].

Among the roster of hawkish US presidents, one is a Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2009 (i.e., Barack Obama!) and another (Trump lah, who else!) who literally begged for the award in 2025! (He didn't get it though – but the "unfit" winner still presented it to him, even if it means breaking the rules).

["Unfit" because she exhorted the US of A to attack her own country, i.e., Venezuela, so that she can be installed as president].

American foreign policy, after all, is engineered to maintain absolute global dominance, willingly triggering conflicts to ensure that both allies and adversaries recognize the US military as the undisputed numero uno!

The world will be in a better place if the US ceases to exist. Just saying.

Verdict Issued on Ukraine-backed Moscow Massacre

A Russian court have sentenced 15 men to life in prison over the 2024 Crocus City Hall massacre, the deadliest terrorist attack in the country in over two decades. Russian investigators found that the assault was organized on behalf of Ukraine. 

The Second Western District Military Court delivered the verdict in Moscow on Thursday, nearly two years after four gunmen stormed the Crocus City Hall concert venue on March 22, 2024, opening fire on a crowd gathered for a sold-out show by veteran rock band Picnic, setting the building ablaze and fleeing toward Ukraine. 

The Russian Investigative Committee asserted that the “inhuman crime” was orchestrated in Ukraine’s interests in order to “destabilize the political situation in our country”. 

All 19 defendants – mostly Tajik nationals – in the case were convicted; alongside the 15 life terms, one man received 22.5 years, and three others just under 20 years each. 

The court also found that two unidentified suspects still at large had been organizing cells of Vilayat Khorasan – the Islamic State’s regional affiliate – in Russia, recruiting the 19 defendants. Altogether, one hundred and forty-nine people were killed, one missing and 609 wounded. 

There's no doubt Celtic must collect the three points against Motherwell in Saturday's Scottish Premiership match at Celtic Park. And they did the job they were supposed to as they thumped the Steelmen 3-1.

It was the visitors who actually took the lead just after the half-hour mark when Reo Hatate was caught in possession at the edge of the Celtic box, giving a rival player the chance to smash the ball low past Viljami Sinisalo into the net. 

Five minutes later, a Benjamin Nygren cut-back in to the box was cleared only as far as Yang Hyun-jun, who swept in towards goal and slammed in to level the score.

Then, a corner from sub Luke McCowan resulted in a penalty for Celtic, as Daizen Maeda was hauled to the ground at the back post. Tomas Cvancara stepped up and smashed his spot-kick in to the back of the net in the 72nd minute. 

And goalie Sinisalo launched the ball forward towards Yang, who took it in his stride before he produced a brilliant finish and claimed his second goal in the 79th minute. 

On the same day too, Hearts fell to a shock 1-0 defeat to relegation-threatened Kilmarnock as their lead narrowed to only two points.

And today, third-placed Rangers won 1-0 against St Mirren to help them close the gap on the league leaders to three points. 

With eight games still to go, more twists and turns are to be expected in the final two months of the campaign.