French high-tech mission reveals secrets of 16th-century shipwreck

A remotely operated submarine has begun uncovering the secrets of a 16th-century shipwreck lying 2.5 kilometres beneath the Mediterranean off southern France, where researchers are delicately recovering brightly coloured ceramic treasures from the deepest wreck ever found in French territorial waters.


Issued on: 28/04/2026 - RFI

A ceramic jug recovered from the Camarat 4 shipwreck is examined at the DRASSM laboratory in Marseille on 16 April 2026. AFP - THIBAUD MORITZ

At a secret location off Ramatuelle on France’s southern coast, the Camarat 4 sank around 500 years ago and was discovered by chance in 2025 during a French military seabed survey.

Now, Operation Calliope 26.1 is carrying out the first stage of a joint research mission on the wreck, led by Cephismer, the French Navy’s deep-sea intervention unit, and DRASSM, the Culture Ministry’s underwater archaeology department.

Its exact coordinates are being kept secret because of the sensitivity of the objects found on the seabed.

Wreck discovered of French steamship that sank in Atlantic in 1856

Deep descent

Launched this year, the project aims to further investigate the wreck and its cargo using a remotely operated underwater vehicle capable of descending to 4,000 metres.

Tethered by cable to a tugboat platform, the robot is equipped with several cameras and articulated arms. Two containers onboard allow teams to control the machine and monitor its live feed.

After two hours of sailing from the Var coast, the high-seas tug Jason reaches the site, where the machine is lowered into the water.

After an hour-long descent, it reaches the wreck site.

The ROV C 4000, a remotely operated underwater vehicle used for deep-sea exploration, is brought aboard the Jason during an archaeological mission to investigate the Camarat 4 shipwreck off Ramatuelle in southern France on 7 April 2026. AFP - THIBAUD MORITZ

“It’s extremely precise work to avoid damaging the site, to avoid stirring up the sediment,” Sébastien, head of the Calliope 26.1 mission, said. “This delicate work is also of major importance for training our sailors.”

On control screens, researchers watch the wreck emerge – the ship’s structure, a cannon and hundreds of pitchers and plates decorated with floral motifs, crosses and blue, orange and green fish.

Drone discovers 16th-century shipwreck at record depth in French waters

Merchant clues

The onboard camera captures eight images per second for three hours, producing nearly 68,000 photos to build a 3D model of the wreck.

“The visibility is excellent,” said Franca Cibecchini, a maritime archaeologist at DRASSM.

“You can’t really tell how deep it is. Thanks to this quality, we can say that it’s likely a merchant ship carrying Ligurian faience [from northwestern Italy], so perhaps from the port of Genoa or Savona.”

Researchers say the site may offer rare evidence about 16th-century trade because its depth means it was likely untouched after it sank.

“What’s also important is that this is a site where there could have been no attempt at looting after the shipwreck,” said Marine Sadania, the researcher leading operations.

“For the 16th century, we have texts that aren’t very detailed about merchant ships, so this is a valuable source of information on maritime history and transport networks.”

Several pitchers and plates were recovered during the expedition for study on land.

Marine Sadania, the researcher leading operations on the Camarat 4 mission, examines a ceramic jug recovered from the wreck at the DRASSM laboratory in Marseille on 16 April 2026. AFP - THIBAUD MORITZ

Fragile recovery

At the DRASSM laboratory in Marseille, Sadania carefully examined one of the ceramic pieces underwater.

“This is one of the deepest objects ever recovered from a shipwreck in France,” Sadania said. “For us, it’s an opportunity to test protocols for extracting these artifacts while preserving their integrity.”

Around a third of ceramics recovered from deep-water excavations later break, for reasons scientists still cannot explain.

A temporary exhibition at the Toulon Maritime Museum in November will present the mission’s first findings, while the wreck itself will remain on the seabed under Unesco conservation guidelines.

(with AFP)

French researcher cracks 4,000-year-old Elamite script from Iran

The 4,000-year-old Linear Elamite script from what is now Iran has long eluded archaeologists hoping to unlock the secrets of a near-forgotten age. French archaeologist François Desset's work on deciphering the writing system now has some comparing him to Jean-François Champollion, the famed philologist who deciphered ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.


Issued on: 28/04/2026 - 
By: FRANCE 24

An Archaemenian clay tablet written in the Elamite scripts is shown at Iran's National Museum in Tehran, May 1, 2004. © Behrouz Mahri, AFP

While a modern-day war has focused the world's attention on Iran, for French archaeologist François Desset it was a millennia-old mystery that drew him to the country.

His quest: to decipher the 4,000-year-old writing system of Linear Elamite that had long been considered impossible to crack.

"Of all the writing systems used in Iran, the only one that is truly local – developed within the territory we now call Iran – is Linear Elamite," the 43-year-old told AFP, at his office at Belgium's University of Liege.

"All the others – cuneiform, the Arabic alphabet, or the Greek alphabet – were imported from the west."

Desset's fascination with the subject was sparked in 2006 when he participated in excavations in the south of Iran that unearthed tablets written in Linear Elamite.

Made up of 77 signs – diamonds, curves, and other geometric patterns – the writing system comes from the Bronze Age civilisation of Elam that long ago vanished from the region.

'Cultural heritage belongs to all of humanity': Iranian archaeologist Sepideh Maziar

PERSPECTIVE © FRANCE 24
09:49

Rediscovered in 1903 by a French mission exploring the archaeological site of Susa, it had stumped experts who only had a handful of sources to work with.

For years after his "first physical encounter", Desset struggled in vain to make a breakthrough.

"There were so many dead ends," he said.

That changed though when he gained access to vases covered in the writing that were held by the Mahboubian collection in London, named after a family of Iranians living in exile.

"I was able to access ten new texts, and the key was in them," he recounted.

"The key to deciphering a script, as is so often the case, lies in proper names: names of places, gods, kings."

'Shilhaha'

Desset's work has seen him likened to Jean-François Champollion, the famed French philologist who deciphered ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs at the start of the 19th century.

"What did it for Champollion, was the names of rulers, Ptolemy, Cleopatra ... He identified the symbols that recorded the names of their names," Desset explained.

"My Ptolemy was a ruler named Shilhaha, who reigned around 1950 BC."

WATCH MORE Hieroglyphs and Egyptology: An enduring fascination

In a sequence of four symbols, he noticed that the last two were identical, a repetition that corresponded to the ending of the name "Shilhaha".

Following that breakthrough, Desset now has been able to work on 45 inscriptions.

Now with the expertise he has gained he wants to go back even further and start to work on tablets written in proto-Elamite, "some of the oldest written sources in the world".

But while Desset's research takes him back thousands of years in time, the dramas of the present conflict are inescapable.

READ MORE🌟The Bright Side: Ancient tomb complex discovered as Syria clears war rubble

At a time when US President Donald Trump has threatened send Iran "back to the Stone Ages", Desset hopes that his work can help highlight the country's long and rich cultural history.

"I hope that this work will have a positive impact on Iranian culture and identity once things have returned to normal," he said.

French prison guards call for strike action as overcrowding crisis deepens

France’s prisons are edging closer to a breaking point, with one of the country’s main prison guard unions calling for strike action to force what it says are long-overdue reforms.


Issued on: 27/04/2026 -  RFI

A penitentiary officer closes a door at the "Maison d'arret" (prison) des Hauts-de-Seine, in Nanterre, suburbs of Paris, on 15 January 2026. AFP - STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN

The UFAP–UNSA union announced on Monday that staff across dozens of facilities could walk out in protest at chronic overcrowding and a deepening staffing crisis – two issues that have been steadily intensifying for months.

Officials working inside prisons, from frontline guards to senior directors, have repeatedly warned that conditions are deteriorating fast.

Those concerns were amplified in January when the Council of Europe issued a stark assessment, criticising French prisons as overcrowded and often unsanitary, and cautioning they risk becoming little more than “human warehouses”.

A detainee is pictured in his prison cell at the "Maison d'arret" (prison) des Hauts-de-Seine, in Nanterre, suburbs of Paris, on 15 January 2026. AFP - STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN

Overcrowding in French prisons puts justice system under scrutiny

Overcrowding reaches new highs

The numbers underline the scale of the challenge. As of 1 March, France’s prison occupancy rate stood at over 137 percent, with 87,126 inmates housed in facilities designed for fewer than 63,500. It places France among the worst-performing countries in Europe – behind only Slovenia and Cyprus, both of which operate on a far smaller scale.

What is particularly striking is the pace at which the situation is worsening. The prison population is currently rising by around 200 inmates each week. Without swift intervention, the symbolic threshold of 90,000 prisoners could be breached in the near future.

For staff and inmates alike, the consequences are becoming harder to ignore. Overcrowded cells, many of them poorly insulated, are fuelling concerns about rising tensions, particularly as temperatures climb during the summer months.

The continued use of mattresses on cell floors – nearly 7,000 cases recorded in early March – has become a symbol of the system’s strain.

French prison crisis deepens with cells holding four times capacity

Staffing gaps add to pressure

Alongside overcrowding, unions point to a persistent lack of personnel as a critical weakness. UFAP–UNSA estimates that around 5,000 prison officer positions remain unfilled nationwide, leaving existing staff overstretched and struggling to maintain safe conditions.

The planned strike could affect around 80 prisons out of just under 190 across the country. However, not all unions are on board. FO Justice, the largest organisation representing correctional officers, has opted not to join the action for now, arguing that it is “too early” to take such steps.

Details of the disruption are expected to vary from site to site. Measures under consideration include halting prisoner transfers, tightening screening procedures, and cancelling visits – steps that would significantly disrupt the day-to-day functioning of the prison network.

The government, for its part, is working on a draft law intended to tackle overcrowding. Among the proposals is a commitment to end the use of floor mattresses, though no clear timetable has been given for when the legislation might be introduced or adopted.

French rights watchdog condemns lack of basic rights for prisoners

Proposed 'regulation mechanism'

Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin has already ruled out one controversial option – a prison regulation mechanism used in countries such as Germany, where new admissions must be balanced by releases once capacity limits are reached.

Instead, the Ministry of Justice is focusing on expanding capacity, with plans to create 3,000 additional places in modular prison units, half of them by 2027. Yet progress has been slow: fewer than a third of the 15,000 new prison spaces promised under a national plan launched in 2018 have so far been delivered.

There have been some incremental developments. Darmanin recently welcomed an increase in the deportation of foreign prisoners through conditional releases and bilateral agreements. But unions and prison officials stress that such measures affect only a small fraction of inmates and are unlikely to make a meaningful dent in the broader crisis.

(With newswires)

Nuclear non-proliferation treaty is 'eroding', UN chief warns at start of summit

Signatories of the landmark nuclear non-proliferation treaty began a meeting at the United Nations headquarters on Monday as fears of a renewed arms race escalate, with atomic powers once again at loggerheads over safeguards.


Issued on: 27/04/2026 - RFI

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during the 2022 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations in New York City on 1 August, 2022. AFP - ED JONES

In 2022, during the last review of the treaty considered the cornerstone of non-proliferation, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned humanity was "one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation."

On Monday he warned "the drivers" of nuclear weapons proliferation were accelerating.

"For too long, the Treaty has been eroding. Commitments remain unfulfilled. Trust and credibility are wearing thin. The drivers of proliferation are accelerating. We need to breathe life into the Treaty once more," Guterres said in opening remarks.

With global geopolitical friction only heightened since the last meeting, it was unclear what the two-week gathering at UN headquarters in New York could achieve.

"We should not expect this conference to resolve the underlying strategic tensions of our time... but a balanced outcome that reaffirms core commitments and set out practical steps forward would strengthen the integrity of the NPT," said Do Hung Viet, Vietnam's UN ambassador and president of the conference.

"The success or failure of this conference will have implications way beyond these halls and way beyond these next five years, the prospects of a new nuclear arms race are looming over us," he said.

Civilian nuclear projects

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), signed by almost all the countries on the planet – with notable exceptions including Israel, India, and Pakistan – aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, to promote complete disarmament, and to encourage cooperation on civilian nuclear projects.

The nine nuclear-armed states – Russia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea – possessed 12,241 nuclear warheads in January 2025, according to the latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The United States and Russia hold nearly 90 percent of nuclear weapons globally and have carried out major programs to modernize them in recent years, according to SIPRI.

China has also rapidly increased its nuclear stockpile, SIPRI said, with the G7 raising the alarm Friday over Moscow and Beijing boosting their nuclear capabilities.

What comes after the New Start nuclear treaty?

US President Donald Trump has indicated his intention to conduct new nuclear tests, accusing others of doing so clandestinely.

In March, France's President Emmanuel Macron announced a dramatic shift in nuclear deterrence, notably an increase in the atomic arsenal, currently numbering 290 warheads.

"It is obvious that trust is eroding, both inside and outside the NPT," Seth Shelden of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, told French news agency AFP.

He questioned the likely outcome of the four-week summit.

Decisions on the NPT have to be agreed by consensus, with the previous two conferences failing to adopt final political declarations.
Stumbling blocks

In 2015, the deadlock was largely due to opposition by Israel's arch-ally Washington to the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.

In 2022, the impasse was due mainly to Russian opposition to references to Ukraine's nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, occupied by Moscow.

This year's summit could fall on any number of stumbling blocks.

France draws nuclear red lines as Macron explores wider European deterrence role

The ongoing war in Ukraine, Iran's nuclear program and the war there, non-nuclear states' fears over proliferation and North Korea's developing arsenal could all be deal-breakers.

The United States along with its allies Britain, the UAE and Australia spoke out at Iran's appointment as a conference vice president.

Washington's envoy to the meeting said conferring a leadership role on Tehran was an "affront" to countries that take the NPT "seriously."

Artificial intelligence could be a prominent issue as some countries call for all sides to keep human control over nuclear weapons.

(with AFP)

THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY
France urges its citizens to quit Mali as junta faces major rebel threat

France urged its citizens on Wednesday to leave Mali “as soon as possible”, after military leader General Assimi Goïta said the country’s worsening security crisis was “under control” following major attacks by jihadists and Tuareg separatists.

Issued on: 29/04/2026 - RFI

Malian general Assimi Goïta in a televised speech to the nation, 28 April, 2026. © ORTM / AFP


France’s foreign ministry said the security situation remained “extremely volatile” after the weekend assaults on government targets in several cities, including Bamako. It told French nationals to plan a temporary departure using commercial flights still available.

Those still in Mali were urged to stay at home and remain in regular contact with family, while France repeated that travel to the country remained formally discouraged for any reason.

The warning followed coordinated attacks over the weekend that killed Defence Minister Sadio Camara and saw rebel forces take control of the northern city of Kidal.

Malian official accuses Russian forces of 'betrayal' after Kidal falls to rebels


French warning

Around 4,200 French citizens are registered with consular services in Mali, with officials estimating about 3,000 more are not registered. About two-thirds are dual nationals living in Bamako.

Goïta’s televised address on Tuesday was his first public appearance in three days, after his absence raised questions about his hold on power during one of Mali’s most serious security crises in years.

“As I am speaking to you, security arrangements have been reinforced. The situation is under control and clearing operations, search efforts, intelligence gathering and security measures are continuing,” he said.

Calling the unrest one “of extreme gravity”, he urged Malians to reject division and said the country needed “clarity, not panic”.
Major offensive

The attacks were the largest in nearly 15 years and brought together two former enemies – the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg separatist group, and the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist alliance.

They launched coordinated strikes on military positions across Mali, including around Bamako, in a major challenge to the ruling junta and its Russian military allies.

At least 23 people were killed in two days of fighting, a hospital source told the French news agency AFP. Camara, a central figure in Mali’s shift towards Russia, was among the dead.

Earlier on Tuesday, Goïta’s office released photographs of him visiting wounded soldiers and civilians, and meeting Russian ambassador Igor Gromyko, in his first public appearance since the attacks began.

Wagner replaced in Mali by Africa Corps, another Russian military group
Russian setback

Russia’s defence ministry said rebels who captured Kidal were regrouping. It also confirmed that Africa Corps, the Kremlin-controlled force sent to support Mali’s junta, had withdrawn from the city.

The loss of Kidal and reported army withdrawals from several positions in the Gao region have raised new doubts about the junta’s security strategy since Goïta seized power in 2020 promising to defeat Islamist insurgents.

Gao is one of Mali’s most important military strongholds after Kati, near Bamako, where several senior junta officials are based and which was also targeted during the weekend violence.

A spokesman for JNIM said in a video on Tuesday that militants were blockading roads into Bamako and Kati. “Anyone breaching this blockade... will face the consequences,” spokesman Bina Diarra said.

AFP said it could not independently verify whether the blockade was active by Tuesday evening.

(with AFP)

Mali's Tuareg rebels vow regime 'will fall', urge Russian forces to withdraw


A spokesperson for Mali's Tuareg rebel group Azawad Liberation Front pledged on Wednesday that the country's ruling junta "will fall" and said the group wanted to see Russian forces withdraw "from all of Mali" after weekend attacks by Islamist insurgents and Tuareg separatists targeting major cities.


Issued on: 29/04/2026 
By: FRANCE 24

A general view of Bamako, Mali, taken on April 25, 2026. © Aboubakar Traore, Reuters

Mali's ruling junta "will fall", a spokesman for the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) said Wednesday, after Islamist insurgents and Tuareg separatists launched large-scale attacks destabilising the west African country at the weekend.

"The regime will fall, sooner or later," the Tuareg separatist coalition's Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane told AFP during a visit to Paris, adding that the rebels intend to take control of Gao, Timbuktu and Menaka following the capture of the key northern town of Kidal.

Ramadane said the rebel group's "objective is for Russia to withdraw permanently from Azawad and beyond, from all of Mali".

"We have no particular problem with Russia, nor with any other country. Our problem is with the regime that governs Bamako."

The leader of Mali's military government, Assimi Goita, on Tuesday made his first public appearance since the weekend attacks, vowing in a televised address to "neutralise" those responsible.


France on Wednesday urged its citizens to leave the West African country "as soon as possible" due to the "extremely volatile" situation on the ground.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

The First Covid Indictment, Finally – OpEd

RIGHT WING ANTI FAUCI CONSPIRACY THEORY

April 29, 2026 
By Brownstone Institute


Dr. David Morens was Anthony Fauci’s long-trusted assistant at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of many subdivisions of the National Institutes of Health. He worked there for nearly a quarter of a century, a job he snagged out of his training as a virologist and his tenure at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He was loyal to his boss, clearly to a fault.
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Now he is the first lamb sacrificed in what is likely to be a long series of prosecutions.

Morens, now 78 years old, has been indicted by the Department of Justice “with conspiracy against the United States; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; concealment, removal, or mutilation of records; and aiding and abetting.”

All of this is clearly documented in emails obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests and Senate investigations, in which Morens is promised wine for his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans,” and arranged for its delivery to his home. He was also promised – very likely by Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, the recipient of Fauci’s largesse – “additional things of value, including meals at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, New York, and Washington, D.C.”

Clearly something had gone very wrong in the normal affairs of state. What was the point of all this cloak-and-dagger? To cover up what everyone suspected, that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, that benefited from funding from the US government channeled through a favored contractor, the EcoHealth Alliance. Daszak himself was involved in the coverup in those early months, even authoring a very early (Feb 28, 2020) op-ed in the pages of the New York Times.


“As the world struggles to respond to Covid-19,” Daszak wrote, “we risk missing the really big picture: Pandemics are on the rise, and we need to contain the process that drives them, not just the individual diseases.” In other words: this is just Disease Xl; blame nature, not scientists in government.

In an April 21, 2021 email to Daszak, Morens wrote: “PS, I forgot to say there is no worry about FOIAs. I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his [Fauci’s] house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.”

In preparation for his grilling by the Senate on May 22, 2024, Morens wrote Daszak: “I should be prepared to be hit with criminal charges and firing and possible jail time for using my Gmail for supposed government business.…Please come visit me in prison and help me find a job when I get out. At least if that happens I will finally have the ability to speak out and write about what has been going on. I won’t mince words.”

The best we can hope for, then, is precisely what Morens promises: that once in prison, he will sing like a bird. He certainly knows vastly more than he has thus far said, as he admits. Or perhaps he avoids prison by turning on his past associates and ratting them out not only for the lab funding and leak but for what followed: the complete destruction of the country (and much of the world) with a lockdown awaiting an inoculation with a terrible efficacy and safety profile.


This is the real nub of the issue. For six years, people have wondered why it was so crucial for Fauci and his cohorts – among whom there were many, including actors in national security agencies – to work so hard to cover up the possibility of a lab leak, even to the point of commissioning a scientific paper to make the implausible case for a zoonotic origin. The best possible explanation is that they wanted to avoid culpability.

Another conspirator on the other side of the pond, Dr. Jeremy Farrar of Wellcome in the UK, jumped the gun with his 2021 book Spiked. He was a bit too forthcoming.

“In the last week of January 2020,” he writes, “I saw email chatter from scientists in the US suggesting the virus looked almost engineered to infect human cells. These were credible scientists proposing an incredible, and terrifying, possibility of either an accidental leak from a laboratory or a deliberate release. That got my mind racing….It seemed a huge coincidence for a coronavirus to crop up in Wuhan, a city with a superlab. Could the novel corona-virus be anything to do with ‘gain of function’ (GOF) studies?”

One wonders why he even raised the possibility. He continues:


In those weeks, I became exhausted and scared. I felt as if I was living a different person’s life. During that period, I would do things I had never done before: acquire a burner phone, hold clandestine meetings, keep difficult secrets. I would have surreal conversations with my wife, Christiane, who persuaded me we should let the people closest to us know what was going on. I phoned my brother and best friend to give them my temporary number. In hushed conversations, I sketched out the possibility of a looming global health crisis that had the potential to be read as bioterrorism. ‘If anything happens to me in the next few weeks,’ I told them nervously, ‘this is what you need to know.’


What a picture of crazy times. But there seemed to be a solution on the horizon. A technology called modified mRNA had been in the works, funded by Fauci, for decades. It promised a quick turnaround from a genetic sequence. They could get this done now with a proper level of panic and thus bypass the FDA’s normal approval route plus get an easy liability shield for the product. They needed only to convince Trump that he will have his inoculation in plenty of time for the November election.

One stipulation: government needs to minimize the extent to which people get exposed and gain immunity without the shot. After all, we don’t want the inoculation to be superfluous. For this experiment to work, as many people as possible needed to retain immunological naivete to the pathogen in question. Hence: the lockdowns need to keep people isolated and separate for as long as possible. Hence: the removal of alternative therapeutics from distribution.

After Trump granted approval for society-wide lockdowns for two weeks – they said he would otherwise be responsible for the deaths of millions – they would only need to extend them. The entire apparatus of the bureaucracy will have taken hold by that time and there would be nothing Trump could do to stop them. This could continue all the way to November, which Trump would lose thanks to mail-in ballots urged by the CDC. In which case, the distribution of the vaccine could wait and the lockdowns stretched for many months.

In the meantime, Morens and Fauci cooperated on a social-distancing manifesto that appeared in Cell in August 2020. “Living in greater harmony with nature,” they opined, “will require changes in human behavior as well as other radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence, from cities to homes to workplaces, to water and sewer systems, to recreational and gatherings venues. In such a transformation we will need to prioritize changes in those human behaviors that constitute risks for the emergence of infectious diseases.”

There we have it: lockdowns are just part of a long-term plan to completely reconstitute the social order. Enjoy your new safety. And remember never to shake hands again.

Imagine: all of this to cover up the culpability of a few for the funding of gain-of-function research in cooperation with the CCP.

If you think this kind of plot seems far-fetched, that surely no one in the government could be that sadistic concerning the treatment of the civilian population, think again. From the point of view of people at the top, you can obtain several wins out of this. You get a coverup of the lab leak. You get a trial run of a new vaccination technology that is potentially worth trillions in the long run. You get Trump – and Boris Johnson – out of office, Plus media and tech will love it: more eyeballs on screens and more customers for online learning platforms.

The whole scheme seemed like a winner too. But there was a serious problem. The shot failed to work and caused more harm than any shot called a vaccine in modern history. The sheer social carnage of the lockdowns was astronomical once you consider inflation, broken supply chains, bankrupted businesses, learning loss, and civic disruptions and displacements. Indeed, the population has been in a slow-burn revolt against everything and everyone since those days.

David Morens has previously said that he would welcome time in prison provided he would be free “to speak out and write about what has been going on.” Prosecutors need to hold him to his pledge: “I won’t mince words.” Meanwhile, Anthony Fauci has already been granted a full pardon by President Biden. There is surely a reason for that. 

This article was published by the Brownstone Institute

CORONA VIRUS GENETIC CODE FROM CHINA JANUARY 2020

The Problem With Eternal Vigilance – OpEd

AMERIKAN LIBERTARIANISM

April 29, 2026 
MISES
By George Ford Smith


“Politics in all its variants, particularly the politics of political parties, is the archenemy of freedom, prosperity, and peace. Yet wherever one looks, more government is invoked as the solution.”—Antony P. Mueller, “Is Anarcho-Capitalism Viable”

People are supposed to exercise eternal vigilance to keep themselves free. How does one exercise vigilance when the entity in question can pretty much do what it wants and can back its actions with superior force? How does one exercise vigilance when nature requires him to spend his time supporting his life and the lives of those he chooses to support? How does one exercise vigilance in defending freedom when most people today would rather be the subject of a state than be free?

It is a formidable task that has little in the way of a promising future.

Imagine how life is for people in Ukraine or Gaza or Iran—or anywhere else where bombs are falling or missiles striking. Borrowing from Hobbes, you might describe their lives as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” but you’d be immediately faced with another problem. Hobbes was describing what life would be like in the absence of a state. People suffering the consequences of war are suffering at the hands of states.

Is life one vast contradiction that can only be resolved at one’s death? Is that one of the appeals of religion, that it replaces suffering with peace and good will in the afterlife? Or is it possible people still on earth can find a way to live peacefully with one another without a state?

If it is possible then anyone looking to persuade others of this position will find resistance everywhere he turns. And not just from warmongers.

More moderate positions on the state’s necessity come from thinkers who self-identify as libertarians, who promote peace, prosperity, and freedom but also claim none of it is possible without a sovereign authority to establish and enforce laws. They argue for limited government—keep the state but limit its functions to those needed to protect the Declaration’s inalienable rights.

It’s intellectually easy to criticize the state as it exists today, rather than the idea of the state itself, here understood in Oppenheimer’s sense as a predator of the producing class. Taxation is theft, inflation is deceptive theft, conscription is kidnapping—each established libertarian positions, and all attributable to the state’s aim of increasing its power. Do away with these and others, such as a standing army, and we will arrive at a version of the state that satisfies libertarians because it’s the best we can hope for. Their axiom: We will always have states. Libertarians want them as small as possible.

But even this version is alien. States grow. It’s in their nature. Their purpose is to provide security. There are always more and better ways to secure. For the state, security comes at a cost of imposing restrictions on freedom. People can turn to private security firms but they operate under state permission. If the security sought is that provided by sound money, the whole industrialized world opposes it. Fiat money, best understood as legal counterfeiting, grows the state, not sound money.

How does a state get away with growing? Usually, in response to a crisis. What is government for if not to fix or alleviate it, as FDR allegedly accomplished with his New Deal? Isn’t that how security is understood? It will require government expansion but most people are led to believe it’s worth it. Besides, under a fiat monetary regime, such as most states have, the hit on its subjects’ net worth will be mostly hidden until much later, a result of the Cantillon effect, at which time there will be market actors to blame, not the government.

Instead of demanding a flat sum immediately such as a sales tax imposes, the state has an ingenious theft installment plan of which most people are unaware. The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee has as policy an innocent-sounding target of a 2 percent inflation rate, translated as a 2 percent hit on the purchasing power of the dollar that is achieved by creating money ex nihilo—out of nothing, like a child playing make believe, only these children are considered the best and the brightest so are obliged to do it in a very circuitous way by adjusting something called the federal funds rate. Fed monetary inflation is sometimes augmented with higher taxes on the rich that slides down to the middle and lower classeswho are mostly puzzled at this outcome. As for the benefit of state expansion, the combination of welfare and warfare has worked every time. At home it helps the “needy” often on the basis of their support for the current regime, abroad it devastates lives and destroys critical infrastructure to impose political ideals on people who don’t want them, always with the threat of blowback.

All this is how the state provides protection to ensure the freedom and well-being of its subjects. For this difficult task it claims a legal monopoly on the use of force. Monopoly defined:

A situation, by legal privilege or other agreement, in which solely one party (company, cartel etc.) exclusively provides a particular product or service, dominating that market and generally exerting powerful control over it.

The “particular product or service” a state allegedly provides is protection of your status as a human being. Did you vote to be under rule by a state? No. Did you vote for the particular constitutional state now in effect? No, your ancestors did. The Constitutional US replaced the Articles US by means of a quiet coup d’etat. Pro-Constitution delegates in 1787 argued that their purpose was “to render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union [i.e., the State]” which they claimed justified ditching the Articles. In their view, an adequate government required a monopoly central state with the power to tax.

Americans have always inveighed against monopolies, usually without making a distinction between coercive and non-coercive monopolies. Problems emerge when coercive monopolies have the force of law behind them.

In the late 19th century, for example, voluntary cartel agreements couldn’t establish the market control big business wanted so they turned to the state, the mother of all coercive monopolies, to get the legal advantages they wanted.

Always, the legal establishment of monopolies that began with the creation of the federal government was done under the moral umbrella of the public interest. The Constitution’s preamble gives it away, that it was created by “We the People . . . to promote the general Welfare . . .” A person genuinely concerned with the general welfare of the country would not agree to assign that task to the state, the historical record of which is anything but a promoter of its subjects’ welfare.

The idea of eternal vigilance suggests the task of keeping the state in line, of keeping it from overstepping its boundaries. But ask yourself: what boundaries does a nuclear superpower have today? We would be far more effective in elaborating the raw essence of any state and its threat not just to our freedom but to our lives.

About the author: 

George Ford Smith is a former mainframe and PC programmer and technology instructor, the author of eight books including a novel about a renegade Fed chairman (Flight of the Barbarous Relic) and a nonfiction book on how money became an instrument of theft (The Jolly Roger Dollar). He welcomes speaking engagements and can be reached at gfs543@icloud.com.

Source: This article was published by the Mises Institute

King Charles Defends U.S., NATO Alliance During Address To Congress

A 'REAL' KING LECTURES AMERIKA ON DEMOCRACY

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump host King Charles III and Queen Camilla of the UK and Northern Ireland during a state visit, April 28, 2026. Photo Credit: White House, X

April 29, 2026 

The Center Square
By Sarah Roderick-Fitch

(The Center Square) – In honor of the United States’ 250th birthday, King Charles III delivered a joint address in Congress Tuesday afternoon, highlighting the bond between the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

The king received a warm and enthusiastic welcome in a chamber often at odds with each other, while defending the NATO alliance.

The monarch’s speech was peppered with historical references and a bit of humor, bonding the two nations through their shared values and history.

The monarch began his speech by addressing Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondence Dinner, “with unshakable resolve, such acts of violence will never succeed.”


“Whatever our differences, whatever disagreements we may have, we stand united in our commitment to uphold democracy, to protect all our people from harm, and to salute the courage of those who daily risk their lives in the service of country,” the king said.

“Standing here today, it is hard not to feel the weight of history on my shoulder, because the modern relationship between our two nations and our own peoples spans not merely 250 years, but over four centuries,” he told Congress.

“As I look back across the centuries, Mr. Speaker, emerge certain patterns, certain self-evident truths from which we can learn and draw strength with a spirit of 1776, in our minds, we can perhaps agree that we do not always agree, at least in the first instance,” he continued.

“King George, as you know, never set foot in America, and please rest assured, I’m not here as a part of some cunning rear-guard action,” the king quipped, with the chamber erupting in laughter.

“Two hundred and fifty years ago, or as we say in the United Kingdom, just the other day, they declared independence by balancing contending forces and drawing strength in diversity. They united 13 disparate colonies to forge a nation on the revolutionary idea of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Charles said. “They carried with them and carried forward great inheritance of the British enlightenment, as well as the ideals which had an even deeper history in English, common law and the Magna Carta.”

King Charles underscored the importance of the two nations uniting in leading the rest of the world.

“It is my hope, my prayer, that in these turbulent times, working together and with our international partners, we can stem the beating of plowshares into swords,” the king said.

“The alliance that our two nations have built over the centuries, and for which we are profoundly grateful to the American people, is truly unique, and that alliance is part of what Henry Kissinger described as Kennedy’s soaring vision of an Atlantic partnership based on twin pillars, Europe and America.”

Charles pointed to the challenges in the world, highlighting the current threat in Europe as the war between Russia and Ukraine continues.

“It is an era that is in many ways more volatile and more dangerous than the world to which my late mother spoke in this chamber in 1991, the challenges we face are too great for any one nation to bear alone, but in this unpredictable environment, our alliance cannot rest on past achievements or assume that foundational principles simply endure. As my prime minister said last month, ours is an indispensable partnership. We must not disregard everything that has sustained us for the last 80 years. Instead, we must build on it, renewal,” said the monarch.

The king reminded the chamber of NATO’s response following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in an attempt to defend the alliance following threats by President Donald Trump to pull out of it.


“This year, of course, also marks the 25th anniversary of 911, this atrocity was a defining moment for America, and your pain and shock were felt around the whole world….We stood with you then, and we stand with you now in solemn remembrance of a day that shall never be forgotten…In the immediate aftermath of 911 when NATO invoked Article Five for the first time, and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan and moments that have defined our shared security,” Charles said.

“Our common ideals were not only crucial for liberty and equality, they are also the foundation of our shared prosperity, the rule of law, the certainty of stable and accessible rules, an independent judiciary resolving disputes and delivering impartial justice, these speeches created the conditions for centuries of unmatched economic growth in our two countries,” he added.

The monarch also highlighted the two nations’ annual trade of $430 billon, arguing that it binds the two nations.

“The story of the United Kingdom and the United States is at its heart a story of reconciliation, renewal and remarkable partnership from the bitter divisions of 250 years ago, we forged a friendship that has grown into one of the most consequential alliances in human history. I pray with all my heart that our alliance will continue to defend our shared values with our partners in Europe and the commonwealth and across the world.”

The king ended his historic address reiterating a commitment the two leading nations have made over the last century to the safety and security of the free world.

“And so to the United States of America on your 250th birthday, let our two countries rededicate ourselves to each other in the selfless service of our peoples and of all the peoples of the world,” the king concluded.


The king’s speech marks the first time a monarch has addressed a joint session of Congress since 1991, when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, delivered an address. This marks King Charles III’s first official trip to the U.S. since rising to the throne in 2022.

A WRY WIT

'You'd be speaking French': King Charles pokes fun at Trump during state dinner

Britain's King Charles III used his speech at a state dinner at the White House on Tuesday to poke fun at US President Donald Trump who, in January, told European leaders that without US aid in World War II they would be speaking German. "Dare I say that, if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking French," Charles quipped.


Issued on: 29/04/2026 -
By: FRANCE 24

US President Donald Trump and Britain's King Charles III talk during a State Dinner in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 28, 2026. © Henry Nicholls, AFP
02:06

King Charles III gave US President Donald Trump a taste of his own medicine at a White House state dinner on Tuesday when he joked that without the British, Americans would be speaking French.

As the heads of state traded jokes during their dinner toasts, Charles referenced previous comments by Trump aimed at European allies he accuses of freeloading on defense since World War II.

"You recently commented, Mr. President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German. Dare I say that, if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking French," Charles quipped.

The king was talking about places with British and French origins in North America, where the rival colonial powers battled for control of the continent before US independence 250 years ago.


At the Davos summit in January, Trump said that without US help in World War II, "you'd be speaking German and a little Japanese."

But the king's lighthearted remark reflected the warm tone as he and Trump bonded over the "special relationship" between London and Washington, despite tensions over the war in Iran.

READ MORE  King Charles calls for US-UK unity in speech to US Congress amid Iran tensions

He made further jokes at Trump's expense, saying he could not help noticing the "readjustments" to the White House East Wing, which the former real estate tycoon has demolished to build a giant $400 million ballroom.

"I am sorry to say that we British, of course, made our own attempt at real estate redevelopment of the White House in 1814," he said, when British soldiers torched the building.

Charles also quipped that the dinner was "a very considerable improvement on the Boston Tea Party", when colonists dumped shiploads of taxed British tea into the sea in 1773.

Trump – an avid fan of the British royals whose mother hailed from Scotland – saved most of his humour for domestic targets.

THE DEBATE © FRANCE 24
42:26

"I want to congratulate Charles on having made a fantastic speech today at Congress," Trump said. "He got the Democrats to stand – I've never been able to do that."

The king meanwhile came bearing a gift, part of a British charm offensive aimed at Trump after he lambasted Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his refusal to help against Iran.

Charles presented the president with the bell from the British submarine HMS Trump, which was launched in 1944 during World War II.

"May it stand as a testimony to our nations' shared history and shining future. And should you ever need to get hold of us, well, just give us a ring," the king said to applause.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Russia: Why Did ‘Intelligence Service’ Sponsor Attacks On French Places Of Worship? – Analysis


Agoudas Hakehilos Synagogue sprayed with green paint, Paris, 31 May 2025. 

Photo Credit: Ariel Weil/X


April 29, 2026 
F18News
By Felix Corley

Three court verdicts in Serbia in December 2025 confirm that an unspecified Russian intelligence agency sponsored acts to desecrate Jewish and Muslim places of worship in and around Paris earlier in 2025. The three Serbian men pleaded guilty and were sentenced for their part in these and other attacks in France as well as Germany. One was jailed for 18 months, the other two given house arrest. Criminal cases against other members of the group continue.

As the three men had reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and the verdicts were issued on the basis of those agreements, they did not appeal (see below).

In May 2025, the three men were part of a group that sprayed green paint on three synagogues in Paris during the Jewish Sabbath. Green is a colour associated with Islam. Among those condemning the attacks was the mayor of Central Paris, Ariel Weil. “We know where ‘militant’ acts begin, but we don’t know where they end,” he wrote (see below).

In September 2025, the three men were part of a group that planted severed pigs’ heads outside nine mosques in and around Paris. Islam considers pigs to be unclean. The person in charge of the prayer room at Anwar El-Madina Mosque said he was “very shocked”. “Every time an event like this happens, worshippers wonder if they really are safe when they come to pray,” he told a local news outlet (see below).


The verdicts, which the Higher Court in Smederevo provided to Forum 18, state that the group’s actions were intended to “incite religious and national intolerance”, especially between the Jewish and Muslim communities, and to “destabilise the situation” in Germany and France (see below).

Orders, instructions and money for actions were given to the group by “structures of the intelligence service of the Russian Federation”. The verdicts do not specify which Russian intelligence agency sponsored the attacks or identify the members of the Russian intelligence service who organised this group (see below).

French intelligence obtained internal Kremlin documents showing that the Russian presidential administration had “directly approved” the desecration of Jewish monuments in May 2025, the Paris-based investigative portal Mediapart noted in December 2025. A French intelligence summary shows that “[Russia’s] presidential office is striving to heighten tensions between these two communities on [French] territory by exploiting divisive debates to sow division in French society and weaken national solidarity” (see below).

French investigators focused on the possible Russian sponsorship of the operations. “Investigators have focused on the former Unit 29155 of the GRU, even though they do not yet have concrete evidence of Russia’s involvement,” French newspaper Le Monde wrote in September 2025. GRU Unit 29155 is known to have been involved in sabotage, destabilisation operations and assassinations in a range of European countries (see below).


Forum 18 asked the Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure (DGSI), part of France’s Interior Ministry dealing with internal security:

– Whether the French authorities believe that the Russian Federation was the initiator, organiser or sponsor of any of the 2025 attacks on Jewish and Muslim places of worship;
– If so, whether this was the finding of the prosecutor’s office, the DGSI or another state agency;
– If there is not conclusive evidence, on what likelihood the French authorities believe that the Russian Federation was behind these acts;
– Whether it could share details of any findings about the incidents.

“We acknowledge receipt of your request and thank you for your interest,” the DGSI responded on 1 December 2025. “After careful consideration, we regret to inform you that we are unable to proceed further with it.”

Forum 18 wrote to Russia’s Foreign Ministry, the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Defence Ministry (on behalf of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU)), and the Russian Embassy in the Serbian capital Belgrade on 22 April 2026. It asked why the Russian state is instructing and financing the carrying out of attacks in Western Europe, including on places of worship.

The SVR’s press bureau responded on 27 April but failed to answer Forum 18’s question, stating only that “In response to your inquiry, we wish to inform you that official comments from the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) regarding current issues are regularly posted on the Service’s website (www.svr.gov.ru) in the section titled ‘The SVR of Russia Is authorised to state’. At this time, no additional information is available for publication”.

Forum 18 had received no response from the other agencies by the end of the working day in Moscow and Belgrade of 27 April.

Russian forces have destroyed places of worship in fighting in Ukraine and confiscated places of worship of communities they do not like in occupied parts of Ukraine (see below).

The 2025 attacks on the Paris synagogues and mosques are the first known attacks at Russian instigation on places of worship elsewhere in Europe. Russian-sponsored attacks – often using locally-recruited criminals – have targeted opposition politicians and sites helping Ukraine to fight against Russia and its occupation of Ukrainian territory (see below).

Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist and Russian security services expert, says the Russian intelligence agencies would attack targets such as places of worship “to raise the costs of providing security for the European security agencies”. “After such attacks, which are not very costly to organise (and they don’t need to be successful), the security agencies have no choice but to increase security measures, i.e. expand the lists of potential targets for attacks which need to be protected,” he told Forum 18 (see below).

Predrag Petrović, research director of the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, described the convictions of the three Serbian men as “a very inconvenient fact for the authorities in Serbia. They had to do something, first arrest these people, and now pass a verdict.” He pointed to “strong anti-Western and pro-Russian sentiment in Serbia” as one of the reasons he sees as to why Russian security services recruit Serbian nationals for operations such as the targeting of places of worship (see below).

3 Paris synagogues sprayed with green paint

On the night of Friday 30 May to Saturday 31 May 2025, attackers sprayed green paint onto the facades of three Paris synagogues: the Grande Synagogue des Tournelles, the Agoudas Hakehilos Synagogue and the Synagogue de Belleville. Green is a colour associated with Islam.

Also sprayed with green paint on the same night were the city’s Shoah Memorial and a restaurant in Paris’ historic Jewish neighbourhood of Le Marais, the French Interior Ministry said on 31 May 2025.

The attacks took place on the Jewish Sabbath, which runs from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.

“Whatever the perpetrators and their motives, these acts do not aim just at walls: they violently stigmatise French Jews, their memory and their places of worship,” the Representative Council of Jews in France (CRIF) declared on 31 May 2025. “The CRIF strongly condemns these acts and hopes that the perpetrators will be arrested as soon as possible.”

Then Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on X that he was disgusted by these “despicable acts targeting the Jewish community”.

Also condemning the attacks was the mayor of Central Paris, Ariel Weil. “We know where ‘militant’ acts begin, but we don’t know where they end,” he wrote on X.

Three Serbian citizens – including Bogdan Djinovic – were arrested in Antibes in south-eastern France on 2 June 2025 as they tried to leave the country. They were charged three days later over the attacks which investigators said had been designed “to serve the interests of a foreign power”.

Pigs’ heads placed outside 9 Paris area mosques

On the night of Monday 8 September to Tuesday 9 September 2025, attackers placed severed pigs’ heads outside the doors of 9 mosques in central Paris and the surrounding suburbs. Among the places of worship targeted were mosques in Paris (including Anwar El-Madina Mosque), Malakoff, Montreuil (Islah Mosque), Montrouge and Gentilly. The pigs’ heads were discovered by Muslims coming to pray.

Islam considers pigs to be unclean.

The person in charge of the prayer room at Anwar El-Madina Mosque said he was “very shocked”. “Every time an event like this happens, worshippers wonder if they really are safe when they come to pray,” he was quoted by BFM news channel on 10 September 2025.

“An investigation was immediately opened,” the then Paris Prefect of Police, Laurent Nuñez, noted on 9 September 2025. “Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of these abhorrent acts.”

French police began investigating possible links between the desecration of the mosques and Russian intelligence.

Kremlin approval for anti-Jewish operations?

French intelligence obtained internal Kremlin documents showing that the Russian presidential administration had “directly approved” the desecration of Jewish monuments in Paris in May 2025, the Paris-based investigative portal Mediapart announced on 2 December 2025.

A French intelligence summary seen by Mediapart says the Russian authorities were trying to stoke tensions between France’s Jewish and Muslim communities. The summary says that the attacks show that “[Russia’s] presidential office is striving to heighten tensions between these two communities on [French] territory by exploiting divisive debates to sow division in French society and weaken national solidarity”.

Serbian court verdicts identify Russian intelligence as sponsors

Following reports from France that a farmer from Normandy had reported Serbian citizens buying pigs’ heads, the Serbian authorities investigated possible suspects. The Serbian authorities arrested 11 suspects in the Smederevo area in late September 2025 in a joint operation by the police and the Security and Intelligence Agency, Serbia’s Interior Ministry announced on 29 September 2025. They were ordered held for 48 hours for questioning.

“They carried out these activities between April and September 2025,” the statement declared, “by throwing green paint on the Holocaust Museum, several synagogues and a Jewish restaurant, by sticking stickers with ‘genocidal’ content, by placing pig heads near Muslim religious buildings, all in the Paris area, as well as in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, by placing concrete ‘skeletons’ with written messages.”

Three of the suspects – Aleksandar Savić, Filip Petrović and Nemanja Ćevap, all from the town of Velika Plana – entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors in December 2025. Following this, the Higher Court in Smederevo found the three men guilty of espionage (Criminal Code Article 315, Part 3), inciting racial discrimination (Criminal Code Article 387, Part 4) and criminal association (Criminal Code Article 346, Part 3) in separate court decisions (seen by Forum 18) on 22 and 24 December 2025.

On 22 December 2025, the Court sentenced Savić to a year and a half in prison, according to the verdict seen by Forum 18. The Court ruled that only such a jail term could sufficiently influence the defendant not to commit criminal offences in the future, and only such a sentence would achieve the purpose of punishment. The time spent in detention, from 28 September 2025 until the verdict was pronounced and came into force, was taken into account in calculating his remaining prison term.

On the same day, 22 December 2025, the Court sentenced Petrović to one year’s house arrest. Two days later, on 24 December 2025, the Court sentenced Ćevap to six months’ house arrest.

As the three men had reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and the verdicts were issued on the basis of those agreements, they did not appeal.

The other eight suspects are not in custody, Radio Free Europe’s Serbian Service noted on 6 March 2026.

Instructions, money from “structures of the intelligence service of the Russian Federation”

The group was active from April to September 2025. Those who conducted the attacks had travel and accommodation paid for. They were also promised 1,000 Euros each for completing the various attacks in Paris in spring 2025 (including the attacks on 3 synagogues) and 1,500 Euros each for completing the attacks in and around Paris in September 2025 (including the attacks on 9 mosques). They had to photograph the sites to prove they had conducted the attacks.

The group was led by two individuals – who remained unnamed – who received instructions from Russian intelligence. One of them – identified by Police only as M.G. – was said to be a Serbian citizen. The other was identified only with the nickname “Hunter”. The verdicts do not reveal how many members the group had.

M.G. was identified as Momčilo Gajić. He was later found to be living in Moscow, Balkan Insight noted on 27 March 2026.

The Smederevo verdicts, which the Court provided to Forum 18, state that the group’s actions were intended to “incite religious and national intolerance”, especially between the Jewish and Muslim communities, and to “destabilise the situation” in Germany and France.

Orders, instructions and money for actions were given to the group by “structures of the intelligence service of the Russian Federation”. The verdicts do not specify which Russian intelligence agency sponsored the attacks or identify the members of the Russian intelligence service who organised this group.

The Serbian Interior and Foreign Ministries, the Security and Intelligence Agency, and the Russian Embassy in Belgrade did not respond to RFE’s questions about the activities of the Russian intelligence service in Serbia.

GRU involvement?

French investigators focused on a Serbian national whom they suspected led the actions against the Paris synagogues and mosques, the French newspaper Le Monde noted on 27 September 2025. Judicial sources told the paper that an arrest warrant had been issued.

The paper also noted the possible Russian sponsorship of the operations. “Investigators have focused on the former Unit 29155 of the GRU, even though they do not yet have concrete evidence of Russia’s involvement,” Le Monde wrote.

GRU Unit 29155 is known to have been involved in sabotage, destabilisation operations and assassinations in a range of European countries.

Why target places of worship?

Russian forces have destroyed places of worship in fighting in Ukraine and confiscated places of worship of communities they do not like in occupied parts of Ukraine.

The 2025 attacks on the Paris synagogues and mosques are the first known attacks at Russian instigation on places of worship elsewhere in Europe. Russian-sponsored attacks – often using locally-recruited criminals – have targeted opposition politicians and sites helping Ukraine to fight against Russia and its occupation of Ukrainian territory.

With no Russian acknowledgment that it was behind the attacks on places of worship – and other sites – in Paris it is unclear why they were targeted.

Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist and Russian security services expert, says the Russian intelligence agencies would attack such targets “to raise the costs of providing security for the European security agencies”.

“After such attacks, which are not very costly to organise (and they don’t need to be successful), the security agencies have no choice but to increase security measures, i.e. expand the lists of potential targets for attacks which need to be protected,” Soldatov told Forum 18 on 23 April. “It’s costly, both in human resources and technology. And it distracts the counterintelligence resources from dealing with Russian activities while raising the security costs in general – as a punishment for staying on the Ukrainian side in the war.”

Why choose Serbian attackers?

Predrag Petrović, August 2024

Voice of AmericaPredrag Petrović, research director of the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, says the Serbian authorities were reluctant to see the cases go to court. “This is a very inconvenient fact for the authorities in Serbia. They had to do something, first arrest these people, and now pass a verdict.” He pointed to three main reasons he sees as to why Russian security services recruit Serbian nationals for operations such as the targeting of places of worship.

Petrović told Forum 18 that the first is the “strong anti-Western and pro-Russian sentiment in Serbia”. “Under the rule of the Serbian Progressive Party, this sentiment has not only been maintained and politically exploited, but also significantly amplified through pro-government media.”

Secondly, a large proportion of Serbia’s population lives in difficult economic conditions. “Many blame this on Western-imposed liberal reforms and so-called globalist elites,” Petrović noted. “This creates a fertile ground for recruitment, as economic frustration and political resentment lower the threshold for engagement in such activities.”

Thirdly, “Serbian and Russian security services have developed increasingly close cooperation in recent years”, Petrović added. “Russian services have provided support to Serbian authorities in countering what they label as ‘colour revolutions’, that is, democratic change movements.”

Petrović describes political backing for the Serbian authorities – “helping the ruling party remain in power” – as a “significant service provided by Russian intelligence”. “In return, Serbian law enforcement responds to Russian malign operations and organised crime only when it has no other choice – typically when confronted with evidence from abroad and forced to act to avoid greater damage,” he told Forum 18.