First World War

Vladimir Putin declared that Russia "cannot run around the world begging for handouts with an outstretched hand," calling such dependence humiliating and pointless since, he said, no one would give Russia anything and it does not need aid. He insisted Russia's financial system and economy are doing well. The remark drew wide attention, with critics dismissing it as bravado given sanctions pressure and observers debating the true state of Russia's wartime economy.

Australian chess player Heather Richards has become the first competitor to state explicitly that she is boycotting her match against Israel at the world chess championship tournament because of what she calls Israel's genocide. Her decision is drawing attention as an unprecedented individual protest within international chess, where players normally compete regardless of national conflicts.

Lucien Lazare, a Jewish resistance fighter who operated in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War, has died at the age of 101. The news, reported by the New York Times, is prompting tributes and reflection on the dwindling generation of Holocaust-era survivors and resistance veterans whose first-hand testimony of occupied Europe is being lost.

On 1 October 1918, during the First World War, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force took Damascus from Ottoman forces, a decisive moment in the Sinai and Palestine campaign that helped end Ottoman rule in the region. The anniversary is being recalled alongside accounts of visiting the Syrian capital today, with reflections on the city's layered history and how a century of change has shaped it.

Middle East Eye has launched a new podcast aimed at bringing voices from Gaza to listeners around the world. The outlet says the series is intended to amplify first-hand accounts and perspectives from people living through the war. Details on format, contributors and release schedule have not yet been widely reported.

The Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, Poland, is being highlighted as a destination for those interested in wartime history. The museum documents the conflict's origins, course and consequences, with Gdansk itself a symbolic site as the city where the war's first shots were fired in 1939. Interest centers on the museum's exhibits and its role in preserving memory of the war.

Questions about how the First World War started are drawing attention, with discussion focused on the war's origins and the chain of events that pulled Europe into conflict in 1914. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo and the alliance system remain the standard explanations people cite when revisiting the topic.

Archival footage from 1944 shows a World War I veteran living with disabilities, offering a glimpse into the long-term toll of the First World War on those who served it decades earlier. The clip is being revisited as a historical record of how disabled veterans were cared for and portrayed during the Second World War era.