标签： Europe

U.S. President Donald Trump is gearing up for a high-profile two-day visit to the Republic of Ireland next September, blending diplomatic commitments, a major ceremonial event, and a personal passion for golf at his own coastal resort. The upcoming trip, which marks Trump’s first return to Ireland since his first presidential term in June 2019, has already triggered extensive security planning across both the Irish capital Dublin and rural County Clare, where his Trump International Golf Links is located.

According to details obtained by BBC News Northern Ireland, the working itinerary for the visit sees Trump arriving in Dublin first aboard Air Force One, before moving to high-level diplomatic meetings. The confirmed first engagement is a bilateral discussion with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin at Farmleigh House, the Irish prime minister’s official state guesthouse located within Dublin’s Phoenix Park. A second meeting with Irish President Catherine Connolly at her official residence Áras an Uachtaráin, also situated within Phoenix Park, remains unconfirmed, a key point of note given Connolly has publicly criticized Trump on multiple occasions in the past.

One of the core ceremonial events of the Dublin leg will be the sod-turning ceremony for the new U.S. Embassy facility in Dublin’s upscale Ballsbridge neighborhood. The groundbreaking event marks a key milestone in the long-planned relocation of the United States’ diplomatic mission in Ireland, drawing attention to ongoing U.S.-Irish bilateral relations. After concluding his engagements in Dublin, Trump will travel west to County Clare to fulfill his long-stated goal of attending the 2025 Irish Open, which is being hosted at his own Trump National Golf Club Doonbeg.

An avid golf enthusiast, Trump first publicly confirmed his intention to attend the tournament during a pre-recorded video address to the U.S. Embassy’s Fourth of July celebration earlier this summer. In the remarks, broadcast to the crowd on a large screen, Trump highlighted the deep ties between the United States and Ireland, saying, “There’s nothing better than Irish-American friendship and I have a beautiful place over there – it’s one of the best, most beautiful golf courses anywhere in the world.” He added that he was eager to watch top-ranked competitors including Rory McIlroy, the defending Irish Open champion and 2025 Masters winner, and top Spanish golfer Jon Rahm, a standout on the European Ryder Cup team. “It’ll be something very, very special,” he said of the tournament.

The 2025 Irish Open will run from September 10 to 13 at the Doonbeg course, with a stacked field that includes many of the world’s top golfers. McIlroy, who will defend the title he claimed at the tournament in 2024, previously played a round with Trump at the course in early 2025. Security officials across Ireland are already preparing for the visit, which will require large-scale coordinated operations in both County Clare – a region Trump has visited multiple times before – and the capital Dublin, as authorities work to secure all venues on the president’s working itinerary. While final adjustments to the schedule are still being made, the trip stands as a notable example of high-level bilateral engagement between the U.S. and Ireland, blending diplomatic business with the U.S. president’s personal interests.

A prominent Russian opposition figure who built his political profile on an anti-war platform has left Russia for exile in France, becoming the latest critic of Vladimir Putin’s government to be forced out of the country amid a sweeping crackdown on dissent.

Boris Nadezhdin, 63, announced his new location in a video message posted to Telegram on Monday, filmed in front of Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower. “Hi everyone. I have some good news. I’m alive and free. Unfortunately, I’m not in Russia at the moment,” he told viewers in the clip, adding that he would outline his future plans after taking time to assess his situation. “Right now, I need to get my bearings and figure out what to do next. I’ll write about my plans later.”

Nadezhdin first rose to international attention two years ago when he launched a bid for the Russian presidency, centering his entire 2024 campaign on a call to end the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. His platform also pushed for a reset of diplomatic relations between Russia and Western nations, and he argued that millions of Russian voters already opposed the Kremlin’s current trajectory of authoritarianism and militarism.

Though his criticism of Putin was relatively measured, leading some political analysts to speculate he might be permitted to run to lend a veneer of legitimacy to the election, the Russian Central Electoral Commission ultimately blocked his candidacy just weeks before voting began. Officials claimed more than 15% of the voter signatures submitted with his application were invalid, a ruling Nadezhdin contested unsuccessfully. He was not the only opposition voice sidelined: all credible alternative candidates were barred from the 2024 race, which Putin won in a landslide to secure a fifth term in office. A 2020 constitutional amendment reset the Russian president’s term limits, clearing the way for Putin to stay in power until 2036, with the next presidential election scheduled for 2030 when he will be 78.

Earlier this year, Nadezhdin announced he would launch another campaign, this time running for a seat in Russia’s lower parliamentary chamber, the Duma, in the upcoming September elections. That move triggered a fresh wave of legal and regulatory action from the Russian government. Last month, the country’s Ministry of Justice designated Nadezhdin a “foreign agent” — a designation that would have automatically barred him from running for office, and comes with widespread social and economic restrictions for anyone labeled under the law.

The accusations against Nadezhdin included claims he spread misinformation about the Russian government and encouraged public participation in unapproved anti-government protests. He also faced a separate charge of “displaying extremist symbols” linked to an image of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny that appeared for 10 seconds on a reposted video on his social media accounts in November 2023. Nadezhdin has dismissed the charge as absurd.

Weeks before his departure, Nadezhdin spoke to BBC Russian from an undisclosed location, describing his political prospects as “vague” after he was forced to abandon his parliamentary campaign. He argued at the time that for any active politician, participating in elections is the core of political engagement: “If you’re a politician, you should participate in politics while you have the opportunity. How do you participate in politics? By participating in elections.”

Nadezhdin also previously told the BBC that as the Russian economy has fallen into deeper crisis and the Kremlin has expanded internet restrictions for millions of domestic users, ordinary Russians are increasingly connecting their daily hardships — from rising food prices to failing healthcare to restricted digital access — directly to Putin’s policy choices.

Today, the Kremlin maintains almost complete control over Russia’s political landscape, with virtually no space allowed for legitimate opposition to challenge the country’s current leadership. Nearly all major opposition figures who could offer voters an alternative to Putin’s rule have been imprisoned, forced into exile, or killed.

On Monday, 63-year-old Russian opposition figure Boris Nadezhdin, a vocal critic of Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine who attempted to challenge President Vladimir Putin in the 2024 presidential election, announced he has departed Russia for exile in Paris. The exit comes after a year of escalating official crackdowns that blocked him from participating in this fall’s national parliamentary election.

In a video message posted to the messaging platform Telegram, Nadezhdin stood in front of Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower to share the news of his departure. “Good news: I’m alive and free. Unfortunately, not in Russia for the time being,” he stated, noting that he now plans to assess his options and map out his next steps moving forward.

Nadezhdin’s path to exile began in early 2024, when he launched a long-shot presidential campaign centered on an explicit call for an end to the war in Ukraine. He managed to gather the thousands of voter signatures required to appear on the March 2024 ballot, but Russia’s Supreme Court ultimately disqualified him by ruling that more than 9,000 of his submitted signatures were invalid. The ruling left Putin with only nominal opposition in the election, which he won handily to secure a fifth presidential term.

A veteran of Russian politics who first entered government in the 1990s as an adviser to current top Putin aide Sergei Kiriyenko, Nadezhdin went on to serve as a national lawmaker and later a municipal councilor. Before his exit, he was one of the last high-profile critics of the Kremlin still residing within Russian borders.

Following his disqualification from the presidential race, Nadezhdin launched a bid for a seat in the State Duma, Russia’s lower parliamentary house, vowing to continue his opposition campaign even after the Russian Justice Ministry branded him a “foreign agent” in July 2024. The designation subjects recipients to heightened government surveillance and carries severe social stigma in Russia.

Later that same month, a Russian court levied a fine of roughly $13 against Nadezhdin on charges of displaying “extremist symbols” — a charge Nadezhdin dismissed as entirely baseless. The charges stemmed from a 2023 online video that briefly included an image of Alexei Navalny, the late opposition leader who was convicted of extremism in a case widely condemned by international observers as politically motivated.

The combination of the foreign agent label and the extremism-related conviction formally barred Nadezhdin from running in September’s parliamentary election, a contest widely expected to be tightly controlled by the Kremlin. The ruling United Russia party is seeking to retain its overwhelming majority in the Duma, with its only nominal opponents being small parties that consistently align with the Kremlin on key policy matters.

This electoral cycle comes amid growing signs of public fatigue with the ongoing war in Ukraine, as widespread fuel shortages and deepening economic strain erode public support. Observers note this shifting public mood has led Russian authorities to narrow their tolerance for even token political opposition, leaving little space for dissenting voices to participate in the formal political process.

Before his exit, Russian police briefly detained Nadezhdin over the extremism charge, and he was formally barred from leaving the country at the time. It remains unclear from Monday’s video announcement whether the travel ban has since been lifted, or if Nadezhdin crossed the border despite the restriction.

Nadezhdin’s exit adds to a growing wave of dissent that has been driven out of Russia since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In the wake of the invasion, Russian authorities dramatically expanded a nationwide crackdown on anti-war speech and political dissent, targeting independent media, human rights groups, civil society organizers, and critics of the Putin government. Hundreds of dissidents have been imprisoned on politically motivated charges, while thousands more have fled the country to avoid prosecution.

A deadly bombing that ripped through an upscale Moscow restaurant over the weekend has sparked a sharp diplomatic accusation, with Russia’s Embassy in Rome placing responsibility directly on Ukrainian authorities on Monday. The Saturday evening attack on the Balzi Rossi restaurant, a popular dining spot located on the ground floor of one of Moscow’s iconic Stalin-era skyscrapers, has left five people dead and 19 others injured, according to the Russian Embassy’s statement.

In the scathing public statement, the diplomatic mission labeled the attack as the work of “Kyiv terrorists,” framing the incident as a deliberate campaign to intimidate Italian citizens working in Russia. The bombing was intended, the embassy argued, to send a clear message that Italians based in Russia are intentional targets and could face violence as the next victims. The statement also noted that the restaurant’s Italian head chef and his team escaped unharmed, crediting the vigilance and self-sacrifice of a Russian security guard for their survival.

Initial official reports from Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee, the inter-agency body that oversees domestic security responses, put the death toll at three immediately after the blast, with 21 people reported injured. The committee confirmed that the explosive device was brought into the venue by a female attacker, who died alongside a security guard that intercepted her and a restaurant guest. It did not, however, identify a suspected mastermind or state who the intended target of the attack was. To date, the Russian Foreign Ministry has not responded to requests to clarify the discrepancy between the updated death toll and the initial official count, nor has it issued an independent statement confirming the embassy’s claims. Ukraine has not issued any immediate comment in response to Russia’s accusations.

Unconfirmed local media reports have circulated in the hours after the attack claiming that the strike targeted a senior Russian military general celebrating a birthday at the restaurant. Multiple Russian outlets have named the alleged intended target as Colonel-General Alexander Chaiko, recently appointed to lead Russia’s aerospace forces. These claims have not been verified by independent third-party observers.

This latest bombing fits a pattern of targeted attacks on Russian soil that Moscow has repeatedly blamed on Kyiv since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Following a string of earlier strikes on senior military and political figures earlier this year, Russian federal security officials announced sweeping measures to tighten protective security for high-ranking government and military personnel.

The list of high-profile attacks stretches back more than two years. In December 2024, a scooter bomb killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, commander of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces — one of the few such attacks that Ukraine openly acknowledged responsibility for. That same year in April 2025, a car bomb that Russia blamed on Kyiv killed Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy chief of the Russian General Staff’s main operational department; Ukraine did not claim the attack but suggested it was behind the strike. In December 2024, a car bomb attack in southern Moscow killed Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff’s Operational Training Directorate, which Ukraine did not comment on. Earlier this year, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, survived an assassination attempt that left him shot three times at his Moscow apartment, an attack Ukraine denied involvement in.

Beyond senior military officials, two other high-profile figures linked to the Kremlin have been killed in attacks on Russian soil: Daria Dugina, daughter of prominent ultranationalist thinker Aleksandr Dugin, and Vladlen Tatarsky, a widely followed pro-Kremlin military blogger. Ukraine denied any role in Dugina’s death and has declined to confirm or deny involvement in Tatarsky’s killing.