RT @BBCBreaking: Royal Navy service member charged with spying for unnamed foreign country, police say bbc.in/3TOGaN3
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) Oct 8, 2026
Month: October 2026
‘Too many lies’: Netanyahu’s ex-military secretary challenges October 7 account haaretz.com/israel-news/isra…
— @haaretzcom Oct 8, 2026
Germany’s former intelligence chief August Hanning is under investigation over suspected links to Chinese intelligence.
Investigators are examining whether Hanning shared sensitive information with Chinese Major General Wang Jianzheng, a former military attaché in Germany. The two maintained contacts for years, including meetings in China and involvement in joint projects.
Hanning and his former office manager were arrested on October 6. Prosecutors allege the aide supplied Hanning with nearly 2,000 internal BND documents, many classified, which he could use for his private consulting business.
Hanning is also suspected of preparing an intelligence analysis for an Azerbaijani intelligence official.
Source: DER SPIEGEL
— @clashreport Oct 8, 2026
++++Breaking++++ Former BND chief charged with treason suspected to have leaked secret information to China, too (in addition to Azerbaijan, too) Exclusive @derspiegel spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/a…
— @FideliusSchmid Oct 8, 2026
Der neue SPIEGEL ist da:
📍 Ex-BND-Chef: August Hannings Festnahme erschüttert die deutsche Sicherheit
📍 Manuela Schwesig ist die neue starke SPD-Frau
📍 Ein Streifzug durch das geteilte Berlin nach den WahlenMorgen am Kiosk, jetzt online: bit.ly/4yEl8QE
— @derspiegel Oct 8, 2026
Our European values 🇪🇺
Europe Calls Trump the Orange Plague.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😜— @Germania_Freyja Oct 8, 2026
BREAKING:
A Russian glide bomb just struck a bus in Kramatorsk.
12 Ukrainian civilians were killed and 14 wounded.
— @visegrad24 Oct 8, 2026
PUTIN’S NUCLEAR THREATS ARE LOSING THEIR POWER 🇷🇺🇺🇦🇬🇧🇺🇸🇨🇳🇮🇳🇮🇷🇮🇱🇵🇰🇫🇷🇯🇵🇰🇷
Russia 🇷🇺 has again told NATO it is prepared to use its full arsenal, including nuclear weapons, to defend what it considers its territory. Vladimir Putin repeated that warning over Kaliningrad on October 1.
According to Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman, the striking part is how little impact those threats now seem to have.
Early in the war, nuclear escalation fears shaped Western decision-making. The U.S. 🇺🇸 and its allies were more cautious about what weapons they supplied to Ukraine 🇺🇦, while China 🇨🇳 and India 🇮🇳 reportedly warned Moscow against nuclear use. Washington is also believed to have signaled that a Russian nuclear strike could trigger direct Western intervention.
Over time, however, many of the boundaries once considered too dangerous were crossed.
Tanks, fighter aircraft and long-range weapons capable of striking targets inside Russia were all once treated as unacceptable escalation risks. Ukraine has since received all three.
Then came Operation Spider’s Web in 2025, when Ukrainian drones struck Russian strategic bombers tied to the nuclear deterrent. Russian doctrine had identified attacks on such assets as potentially justifying nuclear escalation.
No nuclear response followed.
Former NATO deputy secretary-general Rose Gottemoeller summarized the problem bluntly: “Nuclear deterrence is not working.”
Russia is not alone in facing this broader challenge. Iran 🇮🇷 has fired missiles and drones at nuclear-armed Israel 🇮🇱, while India and Pakistan 🇵🇰, both nuclear powers, have exchanged strikes across their territories.
But for Moscow, the stakes may be higher. Russia’s nuclear arsenal remains one of the central pillars of its claim to great-power status, and maintaining it is enormously expensive.
Rachman argues that Moscow is therefore looking for other ways to restore deterrence, including sabotage, assassinations, drone incursions and intensified attacks on Ukrainian cities. Those tools may create fear, but they also increase the risk of miscalculation and escalation.
The bigger strategic danger is that if nuclear threats stop being believed, conventional war may begin to look less risky too.
Putin spent years using the nuclear card to make the West hesitate.
The question now is what happens when the card is played so often that nobody flinches anymore.
— @WW3finalboss Oct 8, 2026
Открытие комплекса по производству электрических батарей • Президент России kremlin.ru/events/president/…
— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) Oct 8, 2026
Germany’s ex-spymaster admits holding files but denies treason ft.trib.al/nQsbFZJ
— @FT Oct 8, 2026