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Since at least the 3rd Plenum last year when rumors of Xi’s health problems had started taking off, the general consensus of many China watchers was that the party elders had grown tired of Xi’s continued adventurism in foreign affairs and attempts to consolidate his undisputed power over the CCP, and were trying to use his alleged ill-health to ease him out of power into an “honorable” retirement.
The person who had the most to lose in this coming confrontation, Zhang Youxia (one of the two vice chairmen of the CMC that actually controls China’s military), decided to strike first this past Friday when he essentially decapitated Xi’s control over the military by purging 9 generals that were Xi’s closest collaborators..
On October 17, 2025, just two days ahead of the Fourth Plenary Session, the Ministry of National Defence of the Communist Party of China made a surprising announcement that sent shockwaves through both domestic and international circles, delivering a powerful political message.
In the afternoon of the 17th, spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang officially reported that the Central Military Commission's Discipline Inspection Commission had initiated an investigation into nine senior generals.
This news hit like a bombshell, instantly capturing the attention of the public both at home and abroad.
All nine generals are, without exception, core loyalists or trusted confidants of Xi Jinping within the military.
This indicates that Zhang Youxia has broken free from the usual party constraints and is directly targeting Xi Jinping's inner circle. All of these officials who have fallen from grace were trusted aides promoted by Xi Jinping from the 31st Army, and their downfall signifies a complete disintegration of Xi Jinping's control over military power. It somehow seems particular fitting that Zhang is using Xi’s old tactic of accusing those he wished to purge of corruption.
51 percent of all Germans with a migrant background are highly or extremely afraid of plans for mass deportations. This was the result of a representative survey commissioned by the ARD magazine Panorama.
A curious fact: according to recent polls, the right-wing extremist AfD is Germany's strongest party. In eastern Germany, it dominates in all of the federal states there.
However, if you google AfD in German, you will find dozens of press articles and public statements that view the AfD negatively. Why do the press/public opinion, and the popular views seem to contradict each other?
Perhaps media and observers still adhere to the old democratic ways of thinking, while the German population has largely moved away from them and prefers new right-wing extremist views. This would not be surprising, as similar trends can be seen in France, Austria, and Italy. A shift to the right in Europe? Not necessarily, if you think of Spain and the UK. There is no question that Germany is heading toward a right-wing extremist government. At the federal level, the "dams" against AfD built by the democratic parties are still holding. But how long will they last?
Germans are funny I
The number of people in Germany with right-wing extremist views has more than tripled over four years, according to a 2023 study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. (Tagesspiegel)
6% support a dictatorship with a single strong party and leader. 6% agree with the statement “There are valuable and worthless lives.” 11% believe women should focus more on their roles as wives and mothers. 15% place themselves to the right of center. 16% claim that Germany is a superior nation. 23% believe that the AfD is a party like any other. 26% believe that “we should come to an agreement with Russia and purchase more gas and oil from them again.” 30% believe that “the ruling parties are deceiving the people.” 32% believe that the media and politicians are in cahoots. 34% believe that refugees in Germany are exploiting the social welfare system. 38% hold conspiracy theories. 53% advocate a return to nationalism in times of crisis. 65% believe that more citizen participation is needed in the energy transition. 68% advocate solidarity with the weakest in times of crisis.
Here we are:
Only one in twelve Germans professes right-wing extremist views (says he or she), but a full 53% of Germans advocate a return to nationalism in times of crisis.
When it comes to right-wing views, German opinion polls must be interpreted with caution. Right-wing extremism still seems to suffer from the legacy of the Third Reich. Because of Germany's terrible past, people tend to hide their true extremist beliefs, which only come to light in the voting booth.
Italy and France are in a better position, because their right-wing extremists are trying to smooth over their rough edges and give themselves an appearance of normality, perhaps even a touch of democracy. Not so the AfD. It seems to be comfortably cultivating its radicalism, because in this way it continues gaining the approval of its voters. As long as its approval ratings continue to rise, there is no sign of the AfD moderating its program.
Therefore the problem is not the party, but rather the stance of its voters/sympathizers: the Germans, who are agreeing with AfD's views it in ever-increasing numbers. However, in its hubris, the AfD is its own worst enemy. Its radicalism is blocking the path to possible coalitions and normal parliamentary proceedings. Its all-or-nothing strategy will perhaps save German democracy. At least for the time being.
Ihsan al-Tawil
A Russian submersible?
The deputy leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Markus Frohnmaier, is planning a trip to Moscow. Politicians from the CDU/CSU and SPD are warning against the leakage of confidential information and Russian influence. “The AfD has always been a threat to national security because a large proportion of its members have acted submissively towards enemies of our democracy – especially Vladimir Putin,” said Marc Henrichmann (CDU), chairman of the Bundestag's intelligence oversight committee. The AfD regularly acts as a “mouthpiece and extended arm of the Kremlin.” “Russia deliberately uses pro-Russian parties such as the AfD for disinformation, influence, and division in Europe,” warned CDU foreign policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter. SPD domestic politician Sebastian Fiedler said he had “no doubt” that AfD deputy leader Frohnmaier “maintains continuous contacts with Russia and is part of Russia's broad influence operation.”
Eastern Germany, Poland and the Baltic states were for long decades directly or indirectly ruled by Russia viz. the Soviet Union. As a result, Poland and the Baltics became thoroughly russophobe whereas the Eastern Germans enthusiastically adopted the russophile and ukrainophobe AfD party. Why this divergence of attitudes? What made the Eastern Germans love Russians and despise Ukrainians? They are, however, not alone in this. Slovaks and Bulgarians also tend to take a positive view of Russia.
A Pew Research Poll showed that 73% of Bulgarians and 60% of Slovaks had a favourable view of Russia (quora).
East Germans and Bulgarians share a feeling that they were shortchanged when Western liberalism replaced the Soviet style system. While new governments hurried to westernize East Germany and Bulgaria, the population remained poor, lacking the level of individual accumulated wealth customary in western countries. East Germans may have caught up with western standards in terms of wages and salaries but remained poor as regards private ownership and wealth. Bulgaria remained the poorest EU country, with its people migrating westward in droves where they could watch western standards of wealth without being able to attain them.
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Fighting for Russia
He says that the new recruits usually die during their first combat mission. Ruslan describes himself as "a saboteur by trade" (likely a member of a DRG, a sabotage and reconnaissance group). "There are six of us left: there were seventy, now there are six."
5/ He describes how the battlefield is littered with Russian corpses that have not been recovered and are falling apart from decay, or are trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings:
6/ “You drive over corpses—there's no other way. It's like that, you just can't tell who you're driving over... We've got three brigades buried under slabs.
7/ "Those in the basement—they simply can't be pulled out, and those who lived on the first floor—they were all blown to pieces…
8/ "The road of life—it's strewn with corpses, the fields are just littered with them. Why don't they pull them out? They could be pulled out, but even if you wanted to pull them out now, they're all falling apart. You pull on his leg, and the leg comes off."
9/ According to Ruslan, his commanders have banned the men from collecting documents from fallen soldiers, because so many have been killed that it's too expensive to pay their relatives compensation for their deaths:
10/ "We used to go out and collect documents. Not corpses, but documents. Then we would bring them to the battalion commander and hand them over. Later, we were forbidden from doing this because it wasn't profitable for the Ministry of Defence…
11/ "Personally, when I had time, I would collect 70–80 military ID cards a day. Imagine that, in a single day. Just imagine — that's millions [of rubles in compensation], and there were about fifteen of us...
Russian soldiers were handcuffed to trees and left to die after defying orders to advance into Ukrainian territory, video footage recorded near the front line claims.The four soldiers, abandoned without food or water, were found by Ukrainian troops in the strategically vital zone near Lyman, which separates the opposing sides in Donetsk.It is understood the group had been abandoned by their commanders because they refused to advance again after the remainder of their unit was killed attempting to gain ground.
Russian army chiefs torturing and executing soldiers
Verstka, an award-winning independent Russian news outlet now operating in exile and founded by some of the country’s most respected investigative journalists, also documented cases of soldiers being tortured to death.
Troops who disobeyed orders were reportedly thrown into pits covered with metal grates, doused with water and beaten for hours or even days. The investigation found that in some instances, they were forced to fight each other in what witnesses described as gladiator-style battles to the death.
One such case appeared in a video circulated in May 2025 by Ukrainian groups monitoring Russian forces. The footage shows two shirtless men in a pit as a voice off-camera says: “Commander Kama basically said whoever beats the other one to death gets out of the pit.”
