分类： politics

Residents of the Crimean Peninsula are navigating a devastating, rapidly deteriorating situation in the wake of sustained military strikes carried out by Ukrainian forces, according to on-the-ground accounts from local communities. As the long-running conflict between Ukraine and Russia continues to escalate beyond previously established front lines, the strategically located peninsula has emerged as a key focal point for Kyiv’s military operations, turning daily life for its civilian population into a struggle for survival.

PARIS (AP) — As France waits for a key appeals court ruling on Tuesday that could derail Marine Le Pen’s fourth — and most competitive — bid for the country’s presidency, the far-right National Rally party already has a potential successor lined up: 30-year-old party president Jordan Bardella, who has spent years stepping out of his mentor’s shadow to carve out his own political identity. Yet for all his alignment with Le Pen’s core populist agenda, Bardella is far from a carbon copy of the leader who came closer than any other far-right candidate to winning the French presidency in 2022. The most consequential difference, analysts agree, is that he does not carry the Le Pen name — a legacy that has haunted Marine Le Pen throughout her decades-long political career.

The Le Pen name is deeply polarizing for much of the French electorate, especially left-leaning voters. Marine Le Pen inherited the party, originally founded as the National Front in 1972, from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose virulent far-right rhetoric, repeated criminal convictions for hate speech, and well-documented Holocaust denial made the name anathema to huge swathes of public opinion. After decades of working to detoxify the party’s image — a process that included renaming it the National Rally in 2018, expelling Jean-Marie Le Pen from the party, and walking back divisive policies like France’s withdrawal from the European Union and a return to the franc — Marine Le Pen handed the day-to-day party leadership to Bardella in 2022. Today, the National Rally holds the largest number of seats in the National Assembly, France’s lower parliament, a testament to its steadily growing popularity over the past decade.

On core policy, the ideological gap between Le Pen and Bardella is narrow. As party president, Bardella has remained a fierce advocate for the National Rally’s flagship anti-immigration platform, arguing that France is being overwhelmed by migration primarily from African nations, and that many native French citizens no longer recognize the country they once loved. Where the two diverge is in policy emphasis and voter outreach: Le Pen has long centered her messaging on working-class voters, focusing on pocketbook issues like purchasing power and supporting state intervention in the economy, while Bardella has adopted a more pro-business tone designed to win over entrepreneurs and wealthy conservative voters.

For political analysts, the absence of the Le Pen name is Bardella’s biggest strategic advantage if he is thrust into the presidential race next year. Constitutionally, incumbent two-term President Emmanuel Macron cannot run for re-election, so the 2027 race is already wide open. Luc Rouban, a senior researcher at Sciences Po in Paris who specializes in French far-right politics, notes that a Bardella candidacy would symbolically mark a clean break from the toxic legacy of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the old National Front. That legacy has been a persistent vulnerability for Marine Le Pen, with critics and historians constantly highlighting her father’s ties to World War II Nazi collaborators and his long record of hate speech. As the first National Rally leader from outside the Le Pen family, that historical baggage is far less likely to attach to Bardella on the campaign trail. “Jean-Marie Le Pen’s legacy is a very heavy burden to carry,” Rouban explained. “If you move beyond the Le Pen family, you’re entering different territory.”

Bardella also brings a key asset that the 57-year-old Le Pen cannot match: youth and digital fluency. Le Pen herself has highlighted the pair’s complementary strengths, saying recently, “We are complementary. I have a certain experience, but Jordan has an absolutely incredible dynamism; he has the strength and energy of his youth.” Bardella has leveraged that youth to build a far larger social media following than his mentor: he has nearly double Le Pen’s Instagram follower count, and his 2.3 million TikTok followers outpace Le Pen’s 1.5 million. That digital presence puts him in a stronger position to mobilize Generation Z voters, a demographic that has increasingly disengage from national electoral politics over the last two decades. France’s national statistics agency data shows that only 17% of 18 to 29-year-olds cast ballots in all rounds of the 2022 presidential election, when Macron defeated Le Pen for a second time, down from 31% in 2002.

Yet Bardella’s youth also comes with a clear drawback: a relative lack of political experience compared to Le Pen, who was born into politics and has been running for office for more than 30 years. Born into a political family, Le Pen joined the old National Front as a teenager, earned a law degree, and first ran for legislative office at just 24 years old in 1993. While Bardella has served as a lawmaker in the European Parliament, he has never led a national campaign, and some analysts warn that his thin resume could turn off older, more traditionally minded voters. Critics and some political observers even speculate that Bardella could falter under the intense pressure of his first presidential campaign.

Still, Victor Mallet, author of *Far-Right France: Le Pen, Bardella and the Future of Europe*, warns that ruling out Bardella based on experience alone is a mistake. He points to former U.S. President Donald Trump as a parallel, noting that many political experts dismissed Trump’s chances of victory because of his lack of prior governing experience — a miscalculation that has echoes in the current conversation about Bardella. “A lot of people thought the same thing about Donald Trump,” Mallet said. “They thought, you know, this guy has no experience of government, his policies don’t make any sense, and he was elected twice.”

Associated Press journalists Sylvie Corbet and Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris contributed to this report.

LONDON – As Britain prepares for Prince Harry’s long-awaited return to his home country this week, British media has erupted with fevered speculation, far overshadowing the official charitable purpose of his trip. The Duke of Sussex is set to kick off a slate of charity engagements on Tuesday, timed to mark one year out from the Invictus Games — the adaptive sporting event he founded to support wounded military veterans across the globe in their recovery journeys. But for royal observers and tabloid outlets alike, the charity work has become secondary to two burning questions: will his wife Meghan Markle join him, and more critically, will their two young children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, travel to the UK to build a relationship with their grandfather, King Charles III?

That question remains completely unresolved, tied directly to a years-long dispute over state-funded security protection for Harry and his family. Since Harry and Meghan stepped back from formal working royal roles and relocated to California six years ago, the British government has held that the prince no longer qualifies for publicly funded police protection, with security arrangements assessed on an individual, trip-by-trip basis, consistent with protocols for any high-profile public figure. The final ruling on Harry’s latest request for protection falls to the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (Ravec), a little-known government body that oversees security for at-risk individuals.

Initial media reports that Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, would travel to the UK quickly unraveled after outlets including the Daily Telegraph revealed Ravec had once again rejected Harry’s appeal for taxpayer-funded security. The Times of London reported Harry was left “distraught” by the decision, telling close contacts he would never allow his children to be hounded by paparazzi on London’s streets. As of Sunday, it was confirmed Meghan and the children would not join Harry when he arrives in London on Monday, though a last-minute join later in the trip has not been completely ruled out.

Adding another layer of drama to the visit, a major legal milestone is also set for Tuesday: London’s High Court will deliver its verdict in Harry’s privacy invasion lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail, a case that has already stoked further tensions between the prince and the British tabloid press.

For Harry, the core personal goal of the trip extends far beyond charity appearances and legal proceedings. Since stepping back from royal duties, relations between Harry and the rest of the House of Windsor have grown increasingly fraught, reaching a breaking point after the 2023 publication of his explosive memoir *Spare*, which included damning accusations of internal toxicity, media manipulation, and fractured relationships within the palace. Most notably, Harry levied sharp criticism against Queen Camilla, claiming she leaked private conversations to the press to improve her public image following her decades-long relationship with Charles before he became king.

Despite this rift, Harry has openly stated he is desperate to reconcile with his 77-year-old father, who is currently undergoing treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer. The two children last saw Charles during the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022, when they were too young to retain clear memories of the meeting. Harry has emphasized he wants Archie and Lilibet to get to know their grandfather while they are old enough to remember the time together, telling the BBC recently: “I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore. I don’t know how much longer my father has.”

The security dispute has also created a tricky political and public relations bind for both the government and the royal family. The monarchy has already spent months weathering negative press surrounding the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s connections to Prince Andrew, Charles’ brother, who stepped back from public life over the scandal. Royal commentator Tina Brown noted on social media platform X that amid ongoing anxiety over further revelations tied to Andrew, both Ravec and senior palace figures are terrified of public backlash if they agree to use public funds for Harry’s family protection. “The issue is not a hill that either the king or the government wants to die on, and who can blame them?” Brown wrote.

With just days to go before Harry’s first public event, almost nothing about the visit is confirmed. As the Telegraph put it, for Archie and Lilibet to meet the king, this opportunity may be “now or never.”

As U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to depart for the 2025 NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, his primary objective is clear: hold alliance members accountable to the sweeping defense spending commitments they agreed to at last year’s gathering, a deal he secured after years of pressure on European partners.

A year ago in The Hague, Trump won a major diplomatic victory when most NATO members acquiesced to his demand to adopt a target of spending 5% of annual gross domestic product on defense by 2035, with 3.5% allocated to core defense activities and the remaining 1.5% covering related security infrastructure and costs. That agreement marked a historic shift for the alliance, underscoring the extent to which Trump has reshaped NATO’s priorities to align with his longstanding critique that the U.S. carries an unfair share of the bloc’s defense burden. Now, the Ankara summit will serve as the first official check-in on member progress toward that ambitious goal.

“President Trump fully expects that all allies will step up immediately and get on the path to 5% and do it with urgency,” U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker told reporters during a pre-summit briefing, laying out the Trump administration’s core message for the gathering.

Trump, who departs Washington Monday evening, has spent the days leading up to the summit reigniting longstanding grievances over alliance defense contributions, even after NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte attempted to preempt criticism last month during an Oval Office meeting. During that encounter, Rutte presented large custom charts highlighting what he dubbed “The Trump Trillion” — the cumulative $1 trillion in increased defense spending commitments allies have made since Trump took office in 2025, a deliberate effort to acknowledge the president’s role in driving the shift.

Washington-based conservative think tank Hudson Institute senior fellow Luke Coffey framed the Ankara gathering as nothing less than a “first report card” for the alliance following last year’s landmark spending agreement. “If NATO members play their cards right — if the leaders show up demonstrating a commitment and a reasonable plan to meet these spending targets — then it’ll allow President Trump to take a victory lap,” Coffey explained.

Beyond defense spending, the summit will tackle a series of pressing global security issues, chief among them the five-year-long war in Ukraine. The White House confirmed that Trump will hold a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the summit’s sidelines Wednesday, following separate phone calls Trump held with both Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 4. At last month’s G7 summit in France, Trump secured broad backing from fellow leaders for a preliminary interim agreement to de-escalate the Iran war, and participants also agreed to ramp up security assistance for Kyiv, a outcome Trump hailed as a demonstration of alliance unity.

Trump also plans to hold a separate meeting with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, whose rebel forces recently ousted longtime former president Bashar al-Assad. While the White House has not publicly outlined specific goals for the talks, the meeting comes after Trump publicly suggested Syria should take a larger role in combating Hezbollah in Lebanon — a proposal al-Sharaa has already rejected. The president will also hold one-on-one talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the summit’s host, whom Trump has repeatedly described as a close personal friend. Notably, no other bilateral meetings with other NATO leaders are currently on Trump’s official schedule.

That absence of additional talks comes as no surprise, given that Trump reignited multiple feuds with allied leaders immediately following the comparatively positive tone of last month’s G7 summit. Shortly after returning to Washington, Trump publicly predicted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer would step down, arguing Starmer had “failed badly” on immigration and energy policy — a prediction that came true days later. He also sparked a major diplomatic row with Italy after claiming that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had “begged him for a photo”; Meloni’s team issued a ferocious public denial, and Italy canceled a planned visit by its foreign minister to the U.S. in retaliation. Trump doubled down on the clash over the weekend, posting a photo of Meloni smiling at him on social media with the caption “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED.”

Tensions also remain high between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and while French President Emmanuel Macron sought to charm Trump with a lavish state dinner at the Palace of Versailles last month, relations between the two leaders have historically been fraught.

To counterbalance Trump’s often caustic approach to the alliance, a bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators is traveling to Ankara alongside the official presidential delegation, aiming to highlight the broad, cross-partisan support for NATO that exists on Capitol Hill. “They are our best allies, they are our best trading partners, they are critical to our national security, to our economic success, and we need to encourage those relationships,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat leading the delegation. “That’s part of what Congress understands that the administration doesn’t seem to.”

The summit arrives as the Trump administration pushes its vision for “NATO 3.0,” a strategic restructuring that calls for European members to take on full primary responsibility for their own security, allowing the U.S. to reorient its military focus to other global hotspots. The framework was first laid out earlier this year by U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby during a meeting of NATO defense ministers. Last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amplified that pressure in a sharply worded speech to fellow defense ministers, announcing the U.S. would launch a six-month comprehensive review of all American forces deployed in Europe — a move that caught many alliance members off guard, as they had expected a more coordinated transition of force posture with the new administration.

Trump himself added to widespread uncertainty earlier this year when he sent conflicting signals on U.S. force levels in Europe, announcing he would deploy 5,000 additional troops to Poland just weeks after ordering 5,000 existing troops to withdraw from the continent.

Shaheen argued that the NATO 3.0 concept reflects a persistent failure by the Trump administration to recognize the direct threat Russian President Vladimir Putin poses to European security, and by extension, to U.S. national security.

While most member states have moved to increase spending in line with last year’s agreement, not all have embraced the 5% target: Spain immediately stated it could not reach the threshold when the target was adopted, and several other countries have privately voiced reservations about the ambitious timeline. Even among those that have increased commitments, experts warn that most European states remain heavily dependent on U.S. military backing to honor Article 5, NATO’s core principle that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

“This is the reality for most Europeans,” said Liana Fix, senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Most are far from being able to defend themselves without the United States, even if they’re starting to develop all that.”

Beyond defense spending, NATO has already adjusted a number of its initiatives to align with Trump’s priorities. Earlier this year, the alliance launched “Arctic Sentry,” a large-scale military exercise focused on countering Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic region. The exercise also addresses Trump’s repeated threats to annex Greenland, the semiautonomous Danish territory that Trump has insisted the U.S. must acquire for strategic security purposes.

Associated Press correspondents Michelle L. Price in Washington and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed reporting to this article.