The Russian Foreign Ministry announced today (Thursday) that Moscow will expel an unspecified number of Hungarian diplomats in response to Budapest's expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats last month, according to Reuters news agency.
“In a reciprocal measure, a group of employees of the Hungarian Embassy in Moscow and the Hungarian Consulates General in St. Petersburg and Kazan must leave the territory of the Russian Federation within two weeks,” the ministry said.
The Hungarian Foreign Ministry stated, in a statement, that it was informed of the Russian decision, adding: “Hungary is not willing to escalate diplomatic tension.”
Hungary accused the Russian diplomats it expelled of engaging in activities incompatible with their diplomatic status, a phrase often used to refer to acts of espionage. This step was a clear signal that the pro-Russian era under former Prime Minister Viktor Orban had ended.
Orban lost power in April after 16 years in office. He had maintained close relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin even after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and continued to buy Russian oil and gas despite European Union sanctions.
New Prime Minister Peter Magyar and his center-right government have repeatedly said that Hungary's main alliances are with the European Union and NATO, and that the government seeks to rebuild trust that was eroded under Orban.
The mayor of the Ukrainian capital revealed that two Russian drones hit a major bridge linking eastern and western Kiev today (Thursday), in light of a noticeable escalation of Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital, according to Agence France-Presse.
Vitali Klitschko wrote on the Telegram application that the two drones hit a support for the southern bridge, adding: “At the present time, metro services and land public transportation that cross the bridge have stopped.”
Video clips circulated on social media, whose authenticity has not been verified by Agence France-Presse, show an explosion shaking the base of one of the towers carrying the structure's cables.
Since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022, Kiev has feared attacks targeting its vital bridges in the capital, which is bisected by the Dnieper River.
Ukrainian presidential advisor, Sergei Peskristnov, indicated on Wednesday that Russia was using jet drones equipped with a warhead designed to destroy steel structures.
He said on social media: “Today, for the first time, the enemy used a special warhead with a hollow charge on a jet drone.”
This type of warhead focuses the explosion forward with the aim of penetrating and dismembering the target. Peskristnov added: “I think the enemy is planning to attack important high-voltage electrical lines.”
French justice has turned the page on long decades of historical silence and denial, officially announcing the classification of the campaigns of arrest and mass displacement that took place in the old port of Marseille, during World War II, known historically as “Vieux-Port,” as a “crime against humanity.”
This historic decision, which was issued on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, represents a fundamental shift in the French state’s dealings with its legacy associated with the period of Nazi occupation and the complicity of its Vichy regime, putting an end to the suffering of the families of the victims and survivors who have waited for this moral and legal recognition for more than eight decades.
This notable judicial development came as a result of complex and lengthy investigations initiated by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecution Office in France since 2019, following a class-action lawsuit initiated by survivors and children of the victims who refused to resign themselves to forgetting the tragedy. The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor, Olivier Christian, explained during a press conference held in the heart of the city of Marseille that the atrocities committed in January and February of 1943, and the systematic demolitions and forced displacement that accompanied them, fully meet the strict legal conditions to be classified as crimes that have no statute of limitations, namely crimes against humanity.
The chapters of this historical tragedy go back to the beginning of 1943, specifically in the period between the twenty-second and twenty-fourth of January, when the German Nazi forces, in direct cooperation and close security coordination with the French police of the Vichy government, carried out a large-scale military and security operation that the Nazis called “Operation Sultan.”
The Nazi plan aimed to cleanse the historic neighborhoods surrounding the old port in Marseille, which was considered at the time a stronghold of popular resistance, an incubator for immigrants, the poor, and refugees of various nationalities, as well as a refuge for thousands of Jews fleeing the oppression of the Hitler machine.
The French role in this operation was not merely acquiescence to the dictates of the occupier, but was embodied in administrative and security collusion led by prominent figures in the Vichy regime, such as René Bousquet, the head of the French police at the time.
Under the cover of “cleansing” the city and its civil reorganization, security forces surrounded the old popular neighborhoods and stormed homes in the early morning hours, beginning one of the most horrific mass displacement operations in modern French history, amid an atmosphere of terror and panic that hung over the coastal city.
The limits of the crime did not stop at arrest and displacement, but rather extended to erasing the urban and social identity of the beating heart of Marseille. In the weeks following the first raids, specifically in February 1943, German forces, using explosives, completely blew up and destroyed the historic Saint-Jean neighborhood, a neighborhood dating back centuries and representing the soul of the old port.
Houses, shops, and narrow alleys turned into rubble of dust within a few days, resulting in the erasure of more than 1,500 historical buildings, and the displacement of about 20,000 citizens of the region who found themselves homeless and without an identity.
The official historical records on which the judicial investigations were based indicate that the operation resulted in the immediate arrest and deportation of more than 1,600 people to detention and screening camps.
Among these victims, approximately 800 people from the Jewish community were shipped on death trains heading directly to the Nazi extermination camps in Eastern Europe, where most of them died, and only a rare few returned, carrying the scars of the tragedy in their memory until the last days of their lives.
The French judiciary’s decision today carries very important symbolic and legal dimensions. It contributes to rewriting official history and including this issue in the collective national memory as a crime committed by the French state in partnership with the occupier.
Jurists following the file confirmed that this classification gives the families of the victims and survivors the long-awaited moral and humanitarian restoration, and restores respect to the city of Marseille, which for decades has carried a deep wound that has not healed as a result of the absolute administrative silence.
However, the French Public Prosecution announced at the same time that the case would be closed and the criminal part of it would be officially closed, for a compelling legal reason due to the end of the public prosecution with the death of all the officials, planners and direct executors of this crime, whether on the German side or officials of the French Vichy regime.
Despite the absence of criminal rulings and punishments against the perpetrators who have passed away, the judicial ruling issued today remains an eternal historical document of condemnation, and a great moral victory for memory in the face of oblivion.
