Russian drone strike on Odesa kills married couple, injures 17 other people, Ukraine says
Two people died and at least 17 more were injured as Russian drones overnight struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, Ukrainian authorities said on Saturday (June 28, 2025).
A drone slammed into a residential tower block in the city, causing damage to three floors and trapping residents, emergency services said. The two killed in the attack were a married couple, according to regional Gov Oleh Kiper, who added that three children were among the injured.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow. According to Russia's Defence Ministry, over 40 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight and on Saturday (June 28, 2025) morning, over western Russia and Kremlin-occupied Crimea.
Long-range drone strikes have been a hallmark of the war, now in its fourth year. The race by both sides to develop increasingly sophisticated and deadlier drones has turned the war into a testing ground for new weaponry.
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Time of India
28 minutes ago
- Time of India
AI is starting to wear down democracy
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Since the explosion of generative artificial intelligence over the last two years, the technology has demeaned or defamed opponents and -- for the first time, officials and experts said -- begun to have an impact on election and easy to use, AI tools have generated a flood of fake photos and videos of candidates or supporters saying things they did not or appearing in places they were not -- all spread with the relative impunity of anonymity technology has amplified social and partisan divisions and bolstered anti-government sentiment, especially on the far right, which has surged in recent elections in Germany, Poland and Romania, a Russian influence operation using AI tainted the first round of last year's presidential election, according to government officials. A court there nullified that result, forcing a new vote last month and bringing a new wave of fabrications. It was the first major election in which AI played a decisive role in the outcome. It is unlikely to be the the technology improves, officials and experts warn, it is undermining faith in electoral integrity and eroding the political consensus necessary for democratic societies to Botan, a professor at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Romania's capital, Bucharest, said there was no question that the technology was already "being used for obviously malevolent purposes" to manipulate voters."These mechanics are so sophisticated that they truly managed to get a piece of content to go very viral in a very limited amount of time," she said. "What can compete with this?"In the unusually concentrated wave of elections that took place in 2024, AI was used in more than 80%, according to the International Panel on the Information Environment, an independent organization of scientists based in documented 215 instances of AI in elections that year, based on government statements, research and news reports. Already this year, AI has played a role in at least nine more major elections, from Canada to all uses were nefarious. In 25% of the cases the panel surveyed, candidates used AI for themselves, relying on it to translate speeches and platforms into local dialects and to identify blocs of voters to India, the practice of cloning candidates became commonplace -- "not only to reach voters but also to motivate party workers," according to a study by the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at the same time, however, dozens of deepfakes -- photographs or videos that re-create real people -- used AI to clone voices of candidates or news broadcasts. According to the International Panel on the Information Environment's survey, AI was characterized as having a harmful role in 69% of the were numerous malign examples in last year's U.S. presidential election, prompting public warnings by officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Trump , the agencies have dismantled the teams that led those efforts."In 2024, the potential benefits of these technologies were largely eclipsed by their harmful misuse," said Inga Kristina Trauthig, a professor at Florida International University, who led the international panel's most intensive deceptive uses of AI have come from autocratic countries seeking to interfere in elections outside their borders, like Russia, China and Iran. The technology has allowed them to amplify support for candidates more pliant to their worldview -- or simply to discredit the idea of democratic governance itself as an inferior political Russian campaign tried to stoke anti-Ukraine sentiment before last month's presidential election in Poland, where many Ukrainian refugees have relocated. It created fake videos that suggested the Ukrainians were planning attacks to disrupt the previous elections, foreign efforts were cumbersome and costly. They relied on workers in troll farms to generate accounts and content on social media, often using stilted language and cultural AI, these efforts can be done at a speed and on a scale that were unimaginable when broadcast media and newspapers were the main sources of political Nazari, a researcher with the Alliance 4 Europe, an organization that studies digital threats to democracies, said this year's elections in Germany and Poland showed for the first time how effective the technology had become for foreign campaigns as well as domestic political parties."AI will have a significant impact on democracy going forward," he in commercially available tools like Midjourney's image maker and Google's new AI audio-video generator, Veo, have made it even harder to distinguish fabrications from reality -- especially at a swiping the AI chatbot and image generator developed by Elon Musk, will readily reproduce images of popular figures, including tools have made it harder for governments, companies and researchers to identify and trace increasingly sophisticated AI, "you had to pick between scale or quality -- quality coming from human troll farms, essentially, and scale coming from bots that could give you that but were low-quality," said Isabelle Frances-Wright, director of technology and society with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. "Now you can have both, and that's really scary territory to be in."The major social media platforms, including Facebook, X, YouTube and TikTok , have policies governing the misuse of AI and have taken action in several cases that involved elections. At the same time, they are operated by companies with a vested interest in anything that keeps users scrolling, according to researchers who say the platforms should do more to restrict misleading or harmful India's election, for example, little of the AI content on Meta 's platform was marked with disclaimers, as required by the company, according to the study by the Center for Media Engagement. Meta did not respond to a request for goes beyond just fake content. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame found last year that inauthentic accounts generated by AI tools could readily evade detection on eight major social media platforms: LinkedIn, Mastodon, Reddit, TikTok, X and Meta's three platforms: Facebook, Instagram and companies leading the wave of generative AI products also have policies against manipulative 2024, OpenAI disrupted five influence operations aimed at voters in Rwanda, the United States, India, Ghana and the European Union during its parliamentary races, according to the company's month, the company disclosed that it had detected a Russian influence operation that used ChatGPT during Germany's election in February. In one instance, the operation created a bot account on X that amassed 27,000 followers and posted content in support of the far-right party, Alternative for Germany, or AfD. The party, once viewed as fringe, surged into second place, doubling the number of its seats in parliament.(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft , accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims.)The most disruptive case occurred in Romania's presidential election late last year. In the first round of voting in November, a little-known far-right candidate, Calin Georgescu , surged to the lead with the help of a covert Russian operation that, among other things, coordinated an inauthentic campaign on including the American vice president, JD Vance , and Musk, denounced the court's subsequent nullification of the vote itself as undemocratic. "If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousands of dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country," Vance said in February, "then it wasn't very strong to begin with."The court ordered a new election last month. Georgescu, facing a criminal investigation, was barred from running again, clearing the way for another nationalist candidate, George Simion. A similar torrent of manipulated content appeared, including the fake video that made Trump appear to criticize the country's current leaders, according to researchers from the Bulgarian-Romanian Observatory of Digital Dan, the centrist mayor of Bucharest, prevailed in a second round of voting May European Union has opened an investigation into whether TikTok did enough to restrict the torrent of manipulative activity and disinformation on the platform. It is also investigating the platform's role in election campaigns in Ireland and statements, TikTok has claimed that it moved quickly to take down posts that violated its policies. In two weeks before the second round of voting in Romania, it said, it removed more than 7,300 posts, including ones generated by AI but not identified as such. It declined to comment beyond those Hansen, a founder of CivAI, a nonprofit that studies the abilities and dangers of artificial intelligence, said he was concerned about more than just the potential for deepfakes to fool voters. AI, he warned, is so muddling the public debate that people are becoming disillusioned."The pollution of the information ecosystem is going to be one of the most difficult things to overcome," he said. "And I'm not really sure there's much of a way back from that."
India.com
an hour ago
- India.com
Ukraine accuses Bangladesh of 'theft', to appeal European Union for...
Ukraine accuses Bangladesh of 'theft', to appeal European Union for… Ukraine on Saturday approached the European Union and requested it to impose sanctions on Bangladeshi organisations that are importing wheat from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories. Kyiv stated that issuing warnings to Bangladesh has had no effect on these organisations. Hence, the war-torn country has no option but to approach the European Union. Notably, the Russian Army has captured a large part of the southern regions of Ukraine since 2014. Farmers there produce wheat that is now exported by Moscow. Most of the wheat is bought by Bangladesh. Now, Ukraine has accused Russia of wheat theft. A Russian official responded to the allegations and said that there has been no theft of grain because the areas are now part of Russia and will remain part of the country forever. Ukraine Sent Several Letters To Bangladesh As per reports, the Ukraine embassy which is located in Delhi, sent letters requesting Dhaka to reject more than 150,000 tonnes of grain allegedly stolen and shipped from the Russian port of Kavkaz. Ukraine's ambassador to India stated that Kyiv has yet to receive a response from Dhaka regarding a confidential diplomatic communication concerning grain shipments. Ukraine's intelligence suggests that Russian entities are blending grain from occupied Ukrainian territories with Russian wheat before export, prompting Ukraine to further investigate the matter. Ukrainian Ambassador to India, Oleksandr Polishchuk, stated that Dhaka has not responded to a confidential diplomatic communication regarding grain shipments. Ukraine will now further investigate, as its intelligence indicates that Russian entities are blending grain from occupied Ukrainian territories with Russian wheat before export. Ukrainian Ambassador Termed It A Crime 'This is a crime,' Polishchuk said in an interview at the Ukrainian embassy in New Delhi. 'We will share our investigation with our EU colleagues, and we will request them to take appropriate measures,' he said. Bangladesh Food Ministry Issued Statement A Bangladeshi food ministry official stated that Bangladesh would have prohibited Russian grain imports had they originated from occupied Ukrainian land. he said that the country does not import stolen wheat. It is to be noted that, amid the ongoing war with Russia, the agriculture sector remains one of the main sources of income for Ukraine, which supplies grain, vegetable oil and oilseeds to foreign markets. In April this year, Ukraine detained a foreign ship and alleged that the vessel was involved in illegal trade. EU Imposes Sanctions On 32 Ships The European Union has sanctioned 342 vessels involved in Russia's 'shadow fleet,' alleging these ships help Russia evade Western sanctions on oil, weapons, and grain exports. Russia maintains that these sanctions are unlawful.
The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
Thousands protest Bulgaria's euro adoption, call for referendum
Days before Bulgaria was expected to become the 21st member of the eurozone, opponents of the move geared up Saturday for a final battle to change the schedule. Thousands of protesters gathered on a central square in downtown Sofia to protest government plans to adopt the euro and to demand a referendum on the new currency. The European Union has given the green light for Bulgaria to adopt the euro starting January 1. The protesters, led by civic groups, nationalist and pro-Russian parties known for their opposition to the euro, declared that after the rally they intended to set up a tent camp on the central square, dubbed 'Town of the lev,' after the name of the national currency. On a platform for speakers hung a huge banner that read 'The battle for the Bulgarian lev is the last battle for Bulgaria.' The leader of the pro-Russian Vazrazhdane party Kostadin Kostadinov told the protesters that the country will be stripped of its currency. 'Someone else will decide how we spend our money, the Bulgarian budget will be approved by the European Central Bank," he said. 'This is an anti-state coup, this is treason.' Mr. Kostadinov announced that lawmakers from Germany, Lithuania, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have joined the event to support the protest. Ahead of the demonstration, Vazrazhdane submitted in Parliament a motion for a vote of no confidence in the current government, accusing it of failing to undertake necessary reforms to restore stability to public finances and working for the forceful adoption of the euro. Parliament will vote on the motion next week, but the pro-EU government coalition is expected to survive. The Balkan country joined the European Union in 2007 and is now on the final stretch of its accession to the eurozone. The last institutional hurdle is the approval from both the European Parliament in Strasbourg and the Economic and Financial Affairs Council in Brussels, scheduled for July 8. These steps come after the European Council gave its clear endorsement of Bulgaria joining the eurozone on Jan. 1, 2026. During its almost two decades-long EU membership, Bulgaria has been plagued by political instability and corruption that have fuelled euroscepticism among its 6.4 million citizens. Now, scores of false claims by opponents of the eurozone have been published on social networks feeding fears of economic changes that they say could bring more poverty. Economists say joining the euro will not bring massive change to Bulgaria's economy in the short run. That's because the government has pegged the currency to the euro by law, at a fixed rate of 1 lev for every 51 eurocents.
