Pakistan

In a shocking display of might from the Pakistani government, dozens of Indian diplomatic staff have been expelled from the country with accusations of “unlicensed espionage.” Declared persona non grata and followed by Pakistani police day and night, dozens of embassy and consular staff left, while six others were arrested and formally charged with unlicensed espionage.

What might have been concerning for the Pakistani government; a resurgent Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, has either been neutered or empowered based on who’s view you take to heart. In what amounts to a coup but plays out more akin to a gangland operation, the radical islamist leadership of the TTP was ousted overnight as Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud found himself outmanned and outvoted, quickly replaced by a new Mufti that was ardently pro Afghani-Taliban and a Pashtun nationalist. It is no doubt that the Islamic Emirate was behind this.

Russia

T-14 maintenance temporarily stopped after Uralvagonzavod factory managers were given large bribes by individuals later identified as Finnish embassy staff. The delays recalled two T-14s and kept them in maintenance for four months longer than what was expected, with another undergoing costly and unnecessary repairs that were recommended by the factory’s managers. Three Finns have been arrested for bribery and two Russians for accepting bribes.

Russian Billionaire and Putin ally Oleg Deripaska is in critical condition at the N.N. Burdenko Central Military Hospital after he was shot twice in the back by an unknown assailant. The attack occurred while Deripaska was leaving his dacha to meet an old football friend for lunch at one of Russia’s finest restaurants, and the culprit is still at large. Deripaska, after regaining consciousness, issued a ₽10,000,000 reward for any information on the attack.

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani intelligence has identified several army colonels and opposition leaders that have been in contact with Armenia. These allegations have been publicly named in a press leak.

Thailand

A Vietnamese businessman has been shot and killed while on vacation in Thailand. No suspects have been arrested yet. He had on him technical documents for the new Nghi Son Refinery, which are considered state secrets.

Iran

Several Azerbaijani operatives have been identified contacting Azerbaijani NGOs in Iran, establishing a network of connections both within NGOs and civic organizations such as sports teams. Large donations opened the doors to Azerbaijani leaders, and Turkish and Israeli gifts paved the way to soccer players and Azerbaijani local celebrities. One of the Azerbaijani state operatives has been arrested by Iranian security services, and confessed to Israeli and Turkish funding.

Taiwan

Republic of China Army figures and some political leaders have come out with remarkably pro-PRC statements, especially by the island’s standards. Emphasizing the legacy of Sut Yat Sen and his collaboration with the communists against the fascists and pointing to the PRC’s recent economic development and improvements to quality of life, this subset of society could indicate a shift towards a more “what can we learn from them” attitude towards the mainland.

Transnistria

Ukrainian border guards have been recorded by a Tranistrian villager loading large unmarked packages into trucks crossing the Transnistrian border in the dead of night. The villager, who had discretely been recording the Ukrainians, noticed that they only moved these packages when two particular Transnistrian border guards were on duty, and that after each truck crossed the border, the Ukrainians passed yellow envelopes to the Transnistrians.

Greece

Euroscepticism is on the rise in Greece, as anti-immigration sentiments rise alongside the coming of more Afghan refugees. The failures of the Hungarian government to quell the tide of foreigners, in the minds of the Greek right, has shown how failed and corrupt of a system the EU truly is.

Senegal

The President of Senegal was struck by a bus in the capital city of Dakar. He is in critical condition but expected to survive. The bus, which had Senegalese plates, was found burnt to a crisp thirty miles north of Dakar.

Ukraine

Ukraine’s great embarrassment of last year has been investigated and Ukrainian authorities have confirmed many suspicions – that Russia was behind it all. A paper trail linked to known Russian assets in Ukraine (in fact, some of whose identities were leaked in the leak) showed that the Kremlin was beyond a doubt behind the leak. Or was it? SZR Chairman Valeriy Kondratyuk’s replacement seemed to follow in the footsteps of his forerunner as he accidentally sent a confidential email to a journalist rather than one of his agents. The email included the line “I don’t care what you find, just make sure it’s Russia. Change Kyiv to Kiev in emails if you have to, just prove what we all already know.”

The Ukrainian intelligence services were further marred by scandal when a minor Russian politician who had resigned from GRU earlier this year to pursue politics from the town of Belgorod went on a TV talk interview and asserted, “the Ukrainians are idiots, we’re playing them like amateurs. It is Spassky playing against children. You know their government is crawling with our people? Everywhere, there’s Russian cops, there’s Russian border guards, Russian taxi drivers. Hell we’ve put Russians in their intelligence agency for God’s sake!” he went on to quote information that Ukraine [internally] confirmed he could only know from inside information.

Further troubles plagued Ukrainian as much of their military equipment malfunctioned in the East. Radars gave phantom pings, remote targeting systems blacked out and had to be restarted, and several communications systems were down for hours at a time or filled with overwhelming feedback and faint classical music signatures. The source is unknown, though some analysts ascribe it to faulty/old equipment.

Ukrainian drones flying over the occupied areas provided a rough estimate of rebel troop concentrations and defenses, though Russian and rebel air radar was able to detect the drones and they will likely reorganize their lines following this realization.