President Vladimir Putin said in remarks published on Sunday that Russia had sufficient strength and resources to take the war in Ukraine to its logical conclusion, though he hoped that there would be no need to use nuclear weapons.

Putin ordered thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering Europe’s biggest ground conflict since World War Two and the largest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the depths of the Cold War.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed or injured and US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the “bloodbath” that his administration casts as a proxy war between the United States and Russia.

In a film by state television about Putin’s quarter of a century as Russia’s paramount leader entitled “Russia, Kremlin, Putin, 25 years,” Putin was asked by a reporter about the risk of nuclear escalation from the Ukraine war.

“They wanted to provoke us so that we made mistakes,” Putin said, speaking beside a portrait of Tsar Alexander III, a 19th century conservative who suppressed dissent. “There has been no need to use those weapons … and I hope they will not be required.”

“We have enough strength and means to bring what was started in 2022 to a logical conclusion with the outcome Russia requires.”

Trump has been signaling for weeks that he is frustrated by the failure of Moscow and Kyiv to reach terms to end the war, though the Kremlin has said that the conflict is so complicated that the rapid progress Washington wants is difficult.

Former US President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces, which control about a fifth of Ukraine.

Putin portrays the war as a watershed moment in Moscow’s relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence.

Trump has warned that the conflict could develop into World War Three. Former CIA Director William Burns has said there was a real risk in late 2022 that Russia could use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, an assertion dismissed by Moscow.

Putin in power

Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel who was handed the presidency on the last day of 1999 by an ailing Boris Yeltsin, is the longest serving Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin, who ruled for 29 years until his death in 1953.

Russian dissidents – most now either in jail or abroad – see Putin as a dictator who has built a brittle system of personal rule reliant on sycophancy and corruption that is leading Russia towards decline and turmoil.

Supporters cast Putin, who Russian pollsters say has approval ratings of above 85%, as a savior who pushed back against an arrogant West and put an end to the chaos which accompanied the 1991 disintegration of the Soviet Union.

In the carefully choreographed state television film, which gave viewers a rare look behind the notoriously closed life of the Russian president, Putin was shown offering chocolates and a fermented Russian milk drink to Pavel Zarubin, a top Kremlin correspondent, in his private Kremlin kitchen.

Putin said that he first knelt in prayer during the 2002 Nord-Ost Moscow theater crisis, when Chechen militants took over 900 people hostage. More than 130 hostages were killed.

“I don’t feel like some kind of politician,” Putin said of his 25 years in power as president and prime minister.

“I continue to breathe the very same air as millions of Russian citizens. It is very important. God willing that it continues as long as possible. And that it doesn’t disappear.”

Eurosceptic George Simion appeared on course for victory in the first round of Romania’s presidential election re-run on Sunday, exit polls showed, after a ballot seen as a test of the rise of Donald Trump-style nationalism in the European Union.

The polls showed former senator Crin Antonescu, 65, and Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, 55, roughly tied in second place at about 21-23%, behind Simion’s 30-33%.

Exit poll data does not include the sizable vote of Romanians abroad, where Simion and Dan are popular.

Simion, 38, opposes military aid to neighboring Ukraine, is critical of the EU leadership and says he is aligned with the US president’s Make America Great Again movement.

“This is not just an electoral victory, it is a victory of Romanian dignity. It is the victory of those who have not lost hope, of those who still believe in Romania, a free, respected, sovereign country,” Simion said after the exit polls were published.

His victory, in a runoff due on May 18, could isolate the country, erode private investment and destabilize NATO’s eastern flank, where Ukraine is fighting a three-year-old Russian invasion, political observers say.

“Let’s be cautious about the exit poll results … because they are without the diaspora’s (votes). So, let’s wait for the exact vote count that will come later tonight,” Dan told supporters.

Sunday’s vote came five months after a first attempt to hold the election was canceled because of alleged Russian interference in favor of far-right frontrunner Calin Georgescu, since banned from standing again.

Simion voted alongside Georgescu, who called the election a “fraud” and urged people to take their country back. As dozens of people thronged outside the voting station chanting “Calin for president,” Simion said his vote was “to restore democracy.”

“It’s possible the diaspora vote will be enough to push Dan into the run-off,” said Sergiu Miscoiu, a political science professor at Babes-Bolyai University. “But Dan may have a harder time against Simion.”

Eastern flank

Simion is not the only MAGA-style politician seeking election in central Europe. Karol Nawrocki, the presidential candidate backed by Poland’s main nationalist opposition party in a presidential election on May 18, met Trump this week.

If elected, they would expand a cohort of eurosceptic leaders that already includes the Hungarian and Slovak prime ministers.

“Romania and Poland are two important countries for the United States,” Simion told Reuters on Friday.

“We represent partners and we represent allies, both military and politically, to the current (US) administration. This is why it is important for MAGA presidents to be in charge in Bucharest and Warsaw.”

Romania’s president has a semi-executive role that includes commanding the armed forces and chairing the security council that decides on military aid.

To date, Romania has donated a Patriot air defense battery to Kyiv, is training Ukrainian fighter pilots and has enabled the export of 30 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta since Russia’s invasion.

The country’s president can also veto important EU votes and appoints the prime minister, chief judges, prosecutors and secret service heads.

The Trump administration has accused Romania of suppressing political opposition and lacking democratic values after November’s election was canceled on what Vice President JD Vance called “flimsy evidence.”

French police rescued the father of a cryptocurrency entrepreneur from his kidnappers Saturday night, but found he’d had one of his fingers severed – the latest in a spate of abductions tied to cryptocurrency.

The victim, who has not been publicly identified, was forced into a van by four men wearing ski masks on a street of Paris Thursday morning. He was held hostage in an Airbnb 12 miles south of the French capital for two days before being rescued.

Five people between the ages of 23 and 27 were brought into police custody following the raid, according to the Paris Prosecutor’s office.

The kidnapping shares striking similarities with other recent kidnappings tied to crypto currency in France and surrounding countries.

In January 2025, David Balland, cofounder of the crypto wallet company Ledger, was kidnapped with his wife from their home in central France.

Before the couple was freed by police, the assailants cut off Balland’s finger, sending a video of the severed appendage to his business partner Eric Larchevêque and demanding ransom money.

In December 2024, the wife of crypto investor and influencer Stéphane Winkel was kidnapped from the couple’s home in Belgium. She was rescued after her kidnapper crashed his car in a dramatic police chase, Winkel wrote in a post on X.

It is unclear whether the recent spate of crypto kidnappings are connected or not.

“Obviously there’s at least a link in the modus operandi. Now, whether it’s the same team or not is for the investigators to say.” said internal security expert Guillaume Farde speaking on French television Sunday.

Police in Brazil said on Sunday that two people have been arrested in connection with an alleged plot to detonate explosives at a free Lady Gaga concert in Rio de Janeiro.

The Rio event on Saturday was the biggest show of the pop star’s career that attracted more than 2 million fans to Copacabana Beach and had crowds screaming and dancing along.

Even as Brazilian authorities said they arrested suspects in the hours before Lady Gaga’s show, the event went ahead without disruption — leading some to question the seriousness of the threat. Serious security concerns typically lead organizers to cancel such massive events — as happened with Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna last year.

Police said said nothing about the alleged plot at the time to in an effort to “avoid panic” and “the distortion of information.”

On Sunday, a spokesperson for Lady Gaga said the pop star and her team “learned about this alleged threat via media reports this morning. Prior to and during the show, there were no known safety concerns, nor any communication from the police or authorities to Lady Gaga regarding any potential risks.”

The statement added: “Her team worked closely with law enforcement throughout the planning and execution of the concert and all parties were confident in the safety measures in place.”

Security was tight at Saturday’s concert, with 5,200 military and police officers deployed to the beach where fans were reveling in the pop singer’s classic hits like “Born This Way,” which became something of an LGBTQ anthem after its 2011 release.

Rio de Janeiro’s state police and Brazil’s Justice Ministry presented the bare outlines of a plot that they said involved a group that promoted hate speech against the LGBTQ+ community, among others, and had planned to detonate homemade explosive devices at the event.

“The plan was treated as a ‘collective challenge’ with the aim of gaining notoriety on social media,” the police said. The group, it added, disseminated violent content to teenagers online as “a form of belonging.”

Homes in several states raided

Authorities arrested two people in connection with the alleged plot – a man described as the group’s leader in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul on illegal weapons possession charges, and a teenager in Rio on child pornography charges. Police did not elaborate on their exact roles in the plot or on how the group came to target Lady Gaga’s free concert.

“Those involved were recruiting participants, including teenagers, to carry out integrated attacks using improvised explosives and Molotov cocktails,” police said.

The Justice Ministry said that it determined the group posed a “risk to public order.” It said the group falsely presented themselves online as “Little Monsters” – Lady Gaga’s nickname for her fans – in order to reach teenagers and lure them into “networks with violent and self-destructive content.”

The ministry said there was no impact on those attending the open-air concert.

During a series of raids on the homes of 15 suspects across several Brazilian states, authorities confiscated phones and other electronic devices. Although police said they believed homemade bombs were intended for use in the planned attack, there was no mention of the raids turning up any weapons or explosive material.

‘Historical moment’

Lady Gaga has expressed gratitude for the enormous crowd in an Instagram post that said nothing of the alleged plot.

“Nothing could prepare me for the feeling I had during last night’s show – the absolute pride and joy I felt singing for the people of Brazil,” she wrote. “The sight of the crowd during my opening songs took my breath away. Your heart shines so bright, your culture is so vibrant and special, I hope you know how grateful I am to have shared this historical moment with you.”

Her free beach concert stood out at a time of surging ticket prices for live music around the world as concert-goers pay budget-busting costs to see their favorite artists.

Rio has done this before – last May, superstar Madonna performed the finale to her latest world tower for some 1.6 million fans on the sprawling sands of Copacabana Beach.

Hamas has executed six Palestinians in Gaza and shot 13 others in the legs for alleged looting, the militant group said in a statement, as desperation grows under a complete Israeli blockade that has now entered its third month.

In a statement issued Friday, Hamas said it would carry out more executions against “every criminal we can reach in the next two days.”

“A warning has been issued – those who ignore it bear full responsibility,” Hamas said in the statement.

The executions – and Hamas’ vow that more will follow – is a stark reminder that the militant group, even weakened after more than 18 months of war, retains power in Gaza.

As food supplies have begun running out across the coastal enclave, Palestinians have grown increasingly desperate to find whatever food remains. On Wednesday night, thousands of people stormed a UN facility and multiple warehouses across Gaza City looking for remnants of meals, such as flour or canned food, according to a journalist who witnessed one such incident.

Hamas claimed some of the alleged looters were collaborating with Israel.

On Saturday, Hamas’ Ministry of Interior and National Security claimed that “a group of outlaws, collaborators with the occupation, has emerged to threaten the lives of citizens, spreading fear and chaos in some neighborhoods, and attacking public and private properties.”

Scenes of mass hunger have become far more common as Gaza’s population of 2.1 million Palestinians edges closer to famine. Israel imposed a complete blockade of Gaza on March 2, stopping the supplies of humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, into the besieged territory.

Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra, the head of the pediatric department at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza warned over the weekend that “a looming health catastrophe is threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands.”

The US State Department said an announcement regarding humanitarian aid is possible “in the coming days” that would allow much-needed food and medicine to reach the Palestinian population without being diverted by Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

“Safeguards are finally in place. Israel remains secure, Hamas empty handed, and Gazans with access to critical aid,” a State Department spokesperson said.

The spokesperson described the project as an element of “creative thinking” but did not provide any details on how it would function in Gaza. An unnamed private foundation would manage the aid mechanism and the delivery of the humanitarian supplies into Gaza, the spokesperson said.

Since taking power in the enclave in 2007, Hamas has executed dozens of suspects including some accused of collaborating with Israel.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, is pressing on with chief of staff Eyal Zamir saying on Sunday that the IDF would issue “tens of thousands” of orders to reservists in the coming week, to ramp up its offensive in the enclave.

Khader Al-Za’anoun of Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, contributed to this story.

Brazilian police said on Sunday that they had thwarted a bomb attack planned for Lady Gaga’s historic concert that drew over 2 million people to Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday.

The Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro state, working in coordination with the Justice Ministry, said the plot was orchestrated by a group promoting hate speech and the radicalization of teenagers, including self-harm and violent content as a form of social belonging.

According to the Rio city hall, 2.1 million people attended the concert of the American pop icon.

“The suspects were recruiting participants, including minors, to carry out coordinated attacks using improvised explosives and Molotov cocktails,” the police said in a statement.

The Justice Ministry said the recruiters identified themselves as members of Gaga’s global fan base, known as the “Little Monsters.”

The operation was based on a report by the ministry’s Cyber Operations Lab following a tip-off from Rio state police intelligence, which uncovered digital cells encouraging violent behavior among teenagers using coded language and extremist symbolism.

A man described as the group’s leader was arrested in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul for illegal possession of a firearm, while a teenager in Rio de Janeiro was detained for storing child pornography.

Authorities carried out over a dozen search and seizure warrants across the states of Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul and Sao Paulo.

It’s Saturday night at a rooftop bar in downtown Atlanta, and the band Orden Activa is about to launch into a Mexican ballad.

What seemed like a shy and reserved audience suddenly transforms as the opening chords of the trotting polka begin. The crowd rises to its feet and sings in Spanish as the dance floor dissolves into a sea of cowboy hats:

“I’m the ruler of the roosters
Of the Jalisco cartel.
I’ve got fighting cocks
Who duel for my crew.”

With their gently bobbing heads, matching leather jackets and knowing smiles, their act hardly screams controversy – or at least not to the casual observer.

Yet last month, a group that sang the very same song – “El del Palenque” (“He of the Cockfighting Arena”) – was barred from the United States in an unprecedented move that critics say raises troubling questions about free speech in America.

Their transgression, according to the State Department? “Glorifying (a) drug kingpin.”

The song is a narcocorrido: a ballad about the drug trafficking underworld. The band that wrote it – Los Alegres del Barranco – landed in hot water with both US and Mexican authorities recently when they performed the tune in the Mexican city of Zapopan.

That performance, in which the group sang about the exploits of El Mencho, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, in front of a cartoon portrait of him, not only ended the band’s plans for a US tour but left them the subject of a criminal investigation on their home turf.

As one of six Mexican drug cartels the Trump administration has declared Foreign Terrorist Organizations, the Jalisco cartel is at the center of growing US-Mexico tensions over cross-border crime. Authorities in both countries took exception when video of the concert went viral.

This still from video posted by the US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau shows the Mexican band Los Alegres del Barranco performing in front of a cartoon of Mexican drug lord El Mencho.

The venue where Los Alegres del Barranco performed swiftly apologized; the Jalisco prosecutor’s office vowed to investigate; and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum warned the band may have broken the law. Then the US State Department revoked their visas.

“The last thing we need is a welcome mat for people who extol criminals and terrorists,” said US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau in a post on X. “In the Trump administration, we take seriously our responsibility over foreigners’ access to our country.” The band apologized on Facebook the next day.

While songs about the drug trade have been censored on and off in Mexico for years, observers say increasing pressure from the Trump administration to clamp down on cartels has fueled a new wave of bans on public performance of narcocorridos in several Mexican states. Even more worryingly, they say, are signs that Mexican bands are beginning to self-censor in the fear that upsetting US authorities could compromise their ability to tour.

The action against Los Alegres del Barranco is the first time the State Department has punished a Mexican band in this way, according to Elijah Wald, author of an English-language guide to the genre. Some critics paint it as the latest anti-Mexico move by the Trump administration, which has already strained ties with its immigration crackdowns and tariff policies.

“(These bands) have been saved up to now by the fact that nobody spoke Spanish,” Wald said. “And when I say ‘nobody,’ I mean the people who are enforcing this kind of silliness. The revoking of visas obviously has very little to do with the songs. It has to do with a politics of revoking visas.”

Old tradition, modern appeal

The State Department’s rebuke may have ruined Los Alegres del Barranco’s planned US tour, but it has done little to dent the popularity of either the band or the genre. If anything, it gave both a boost.

Figures from Billboard show the band subsequently gained over 2 million new listens on streaming services, proof if any were needed of the enduring modern appeal of a genre rooted in 19^th century folk music that has long romanticized outlaws, outcasts and underdogs.

Early corridos or ballads celebrated the exploits of “famous bandits, generals, sometimes horses, sometimes fighting roosters as well,” according to Sam Quinones, a writer who covers music and the drug trade in Mexico and California.

“It was almost like a musical newspaper,” Quinones said. “This became a very common kind of entrenched genre of popular music.”

During Prohibition in the 1920s, a new subgenre – the narcocorrido – emerged to tell the tales of those smuggling illicit alcohol from Mexico to the United States, explained author Wald.

A century later and that subgenre is still booming. The most popular musical artist among US YouTube users in 2023 was not Taylor Swift, but the narcocorrido singer Peso Pluma.

Corrupted art form or moral panic?

But experts say a cultural shift took place when drug traffickers began paying musicians to write songs about themselves in the mid-1980s, when the legendary “King of Corridos” Chalino Sanchez began accepting commissions.

“He wasn’t necessarily the first, but he was the key figure in that shift, which significantly changed the economics of the business,” Wald said. “It meant anybody with money could commission a laudatory corrido.”

Since then, many singers and groups “have been sponsored by or have performed for specific figures in the narco-world, and are thought of as being aligned with particular cartels,” Wald said, leading to a situation that’s “definitely dangerous for the artists.”

Case in point: Chalino Sanchez was shot dead after a concert in Sinaloa in 1992. His murder remains unsolved.

Some fans, like Quinones – who is writing a biography of Sanchez – are critical of this shift.

“The corrido used to be about a simple man going up against power, knowing he was doomed, knowing he was going to die and fighting anyway,” Quinones said. “It became corrupted, in my opinion, when it became in praise of power, in praise of these bloodthirsty men with enormous power who killed wantonly.”

Others, though, dismiss the notion that narcocorridos encourage the violence and crime they portray, likening them to gangster-rap, video games or films like The Godfather.

“People say, ‘Oh, parents, don’t let your kid play Call of Duty, or your kid’s gonna grow up to be a shooter!’” said Ray Mancias, a 19-year-old guitarist who performed after Orden Activa at the show in Atlanta.

“I think that’s the way they’re seeing (narcocorridos) as well. They think if all these kids keep listening to it, that they’re going to get influenced by it and they’re going to start doing it. But at the end of the day, the way you grow up is your parents. No music is going to change that.”

Noel Flores – one of Orden Activa’s two singers – suggests authorities that try to ban narcocorridos risk shooting themselves in the foot.

“That’s just gonna make people want it more,” Flores said.

Canceling corridos

While some Mexican states have tried to ban the songs, and the US State Department their singers, Mexico’s President Sheinbaum has taken a softer approach – ruling out a nationwide ban and proposing instead that the government promote music about peace and love as an alternative – a position that has led to some ridicule.

“She’s trying the rather comical alternative of trying to sponsor nice music that people will listen to instead, which is charming,” Wald said. “But no, that’s not going to work.”

Of course, if authorities can’t find a way through the debate, it’s not only the bands that will lose, but fans in both Mexico and the US.

“With everything going on with (Trump), as a Mexican, cancelling corridos makes us feel more ‘less,’” said Emmanuel Gonzalez, who attended the concert in Atlanta.

Other fans have been rowdier about the idea of cancelling corridos.

When the singer Luis R. Conriquez refused to play drug-themed music at an April concert in Texcoco, Mexico, citing a local ban, he told the booing audience, “There are no corridos tonight. Should we just go home?”

They answered by trashing the stage. (Conriquez later defended his decision, saying he “must follow the new rules the government has set regarding corridos.”)

Oswaldo Zavala, a professor of literature and expert on narcoculture, says many musicians are self-censoring not out of deference to Mexican authorities, but “in response to Donald Trump’s presidency… the fear that (Trump) may revoke their visas that allow them to perform and produce their music in the US.”

A few days after their Atlanta concert, Orden Activa posted a video of their performance alongside the caption: “Let’s see if they don’t take away our visa. Don’t believe it’s a joke.”

Still, amid the fears there are those that take comfort in the irony that driving underground a form of music that has always celebrated outlaws will likely make it only more popular.

As another member of the audience in Atlanta, Violet Uresti, puts it: “I like the vibe. I like the way it brings people together. If they ban it, we’re still gonna listen to it.”