This isn’t a cult—this is a day in the life of a modern-day WNBA player.
That last indignity on the list? It’s a sports betting strategy that’s been getting increasing play over the course of this WNBA season, which is wrapping up as the Las Vegas Aces and Phoenix Mercury face off in the finals. Dozens of dedicated gamblers online are making bets on players’ potential performance based on their “predictions” (or, rather, assumptions) about their menstrual cycles. Some actually call it “blood money,” because … of course they do.
One prominent figure making and predicting these wagers, who goes by FadeMeBets online, has garnered thousands of likes and shares on Instagram for his menstrual cycle betting strategy. He claims he’s been correct on 11 out of 16 of his period-related predictions, with about 68.75 percent accuracy. “What’s kind of good, but also kind of bad, is it brings more people to watch the WNBA, but, on the downside of that, it’s usually just all gamblers,” says FadeMeBets, who declined to be named, citing privacy concerns.
This WNBA season has been a record-breaker—more fans in the stands, more eyes on the screen, more viral moments. The league announced that attendance passed a historic 2.5 million earlier this summer. Meanwhile, high-profile players like Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, and Caitlin Clark have added a boost and become household names.
The newfound interest in the league has more men watching the sport than women, and the overwhelming rise of sports gambling means some of them are betting on the games—and the players’ periods—which experts warn isn’t just pseudoscientific, but sexist, too.
“Not every woman is the same. Yes, there’s the traditional 28-day cycle, but everyone’s is different, and it varies person to person, month by month,” says Amy West, a sports medicine physician. “Someone being able to predict that? Someone who’s not very close to the menstruating person? It’s actually kind of silly.”
Methods to the Madness
FadeMeBets admits that predicting WNBA player performance based on menstrual cycle assumptions is more art than science. His typical menstrual cycle prediction videos all start with the vaguely menacing phrase: “We’ve got a victim, boys.” (By this, he says the victim is the betting line—the odds set out by sportsbooks that determine a person’s payout—not the player herself.) He then shares predictions about whether a specific player is menstruating, ovulating, or in their late luteal phase, which occurs after ovulation and before the period comes. For instance, he said this summer of Clark: “She is on the end of her late luteal phase, meaning a decrease in cardio, decrease in strength, decrease in aerobic system, she’s going to be tired more often than in a normal game.”
FadeMeBets told viewers to “bet the under” on Clark that game, projecting that she’d score lower than the number predicted by oddsmakers on sports betting apps, and, in this case, Clark did.
High School Playbook Show: Watch Week 3 recaps, highlights and game scores
STARTS NOW. ALL RIGHT. THERE THEY ARE. CAN ONLY MEAN ONE THING. WELCOME TO KCRA 3’S HIGH SCHOOL PLAYBOOK SHOW. I’M DEL RODGERS DURING THE NEXT 13 FRIDAYS, WE’LL BRING YOU EVERY ASPECT THAT MAKES UP THE HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL EXPERIENCE FROM THE BANDS, THE FANS, CHEERLEADERS, GAME OFFICIALS, AND EVEN THE PARENTS IN THE STANDS. TONIGHT IT’S WEEK THREE OF THE FOOTBALL SEASON. WE BEGIN WITH A BATTLE BETWEEN TWO UNDEFEATED TEAMS CHAVEZ TITANS OUT OF STOCKTON, AND THE UNDEFEATED FRANKLIN WILDCATS OF ELK GROVE. ELK GROVE KICKS OFF TO CHAVEZ. JOEL O’DONNELL TAKES THE KICK AND NOW IT’S A TRACK MEET. JD OUTRACES EVERYBODY WHO’S ANYBODY ON THE FIELD. AND AFTER A FEW NEAR MISSES, JOEL O’DONNELL TAKES THE KICKOFF BACK TO THE HOUSE FOR A CHAVEZ TITANS TOUCHDOWN AND THE LEAD. BUT FRANKLIN WOULD RESPOND. QB ONE BRAYLON ROBINSON THROWS A DART TO CADEN BOWERS. TOUCHDOWN, FRANKLIN! BUT THE WILDCATS DID NOT HAVE THE POWER TO KEEP UP WITH CHAVEZ TONIGHT, AS THE TITANS FROM STOCKTON TAKE DOWN THE FRANKLIN OF ELK GROVE. FINAL SCORE 39 TO 26. WELL, THE MARQUEE GAME OF THE NIGHT SAW THE UNDEFEATED BELLARMINE COLLEGE PREP AT THE JESUIT MARAUDERS. KCRA 3 MICHELLE DAPPER HAS THE ACTION. JESUIT HEAD COACH MARLON BLANTON GOING FOR WIN NUMBER 100 WITH THE MARAUDERS AS THEY HOST BELLARMINE PREP. BIG RED UP 28. NOTHING AT THE HALF. JESUIT DOMINATES IN EVERY PHASE OF THIS FOOTBALL GAME. DUNCAN BROCKTON WITH THE SACK AND THE LOSS OF 12 YARDS ON THE NEXT MARAUDERS DRIVE, TEDDY RIOS GOES DEEP, FINDS NOAH BRISENO ALL ALONE UP TOP. HE TAKES IT IN FOR THE 88 YARD TOUCHDOWN. TWO TD PASSES FOR RIOS IN THIS BALL GAME, A 35 NOTHING LEAD. JESUIT WASN’T DONE IN THE FOURTH, 109 YARDS RUSHING AND TWO SCORES FOR BRODY QUINN, INCLUDING THIS EIGHT YARDER. AND JESUIT DELIVERS WIN NUMBER 100 TO COACH BLANTON IN DOMINANT FASHION, 42 TO 7. A COOL MOMENT CAPPED OFF WITH AN EVEN COOLER GATORADE BATH. WE GOT THOSE HELMETS CRACKING AND TOUCHDOWNS GOING DEFENSE FOR SURE. STOPPING SEVEN POINTS IN TWO GAMES. COULDN’T ASK FOR A BETTER DEFENSE. JUST SEEING THE GUYS CONGRATULATE YOU. YOU’RE DEVELOPING MEN HERE AS WELL AS FOOTBALL PLAYERS. I AM SO GRATEFUL AND THANKFUL FOR ALL THE YOUNG MEN AND MY COACHING STAFF AND THE COACHES THAT I’VE WORKED WITH. INSTITUTION FOR ALLOWING ME TO BE ABLE TO DO THIS AND HELP THEM BECOME THE BEST OF THEMSELVES. AND THEY MAKE ME BETTER. AND IT’S A GREAT THING TO BE A PART OF. SO COACH BLANTON LOOKS TO MAKE IT 101 WINS NEXT WEEK. AND IT’S HOLY BOWL WEEK AGAINST CHRISTIAN BROTHERS AT HUGHES STADIUM IN CARMICHAEL, MICHELLE DAPPER FOR HIGH SCHOOL PLAYBOOK. ALSO TONIGHT, A PAIR OF WINLESS TEAMS MET ON THE ARTIFICIAL TURF. THE GOLDEN VALLEY COUGARS AND THE ELK GROVE THUNDERING HERD, TRYING TO SECURE THEIR FIRST WIN, GOLDEN VALLEY TRIED TO STRIKE WITH THEIR AIR ATTACK AS THEIR QB. ONE DJ TERRY, DUMPS IT OFF TO TJ DENNIS FOR THE GOLDEN VALLEY COUGARS FIRST DOWN, BUT IT WAS ELK GROVE IN THIS ONE. HUDSON HALL HANDS OFF TO ALFONSO MOORE JUNIOR AND HE WILL NOT BE DENIED. ALFONSO FINDS A QUICK SIX FOR THE THUNDERING HERD. ELK GROVE OVER GOLDEN VALLEY. FINAL SCORE TONIGHT, 55 TO 19. OUR PLAYBOOK CAMERAS WERE ALSO IN EL DORADO AS UNION MINE TOOK ON THE BEAR RIVER BRUINS FROM GRASS VALLEY TONIGHT FOR THE UNION MINE. DIAMONDBACKS MAXIME ESTEVE TAKES THE HANDOFF, BREAKS THROUGH THE LINE, AND THEN MAXIMUM HITS MAXIMUM SPEED 75 YARDS LATER, HE’S IN THE LAND OF QUICK SIX FOR UNION MINE. BUT TONIGHT BELONGED TO BEAR RIVER. THE BOYS FROM GRASS VALLEY KNOW HOW TO PLAY BIG TIME HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL. THE BRUINS FORCED THE TURNOVER AND THEN CORBIN, DAGANG SCOOPS AND SCATS, BRINGING IT BACK TO THE HOUSE. 56 YARDS FOR BEAR RIVER. BRUINS WIN AT UNION MINE. FINAL SCORE 30 TO 8. NOW TO OUR KCRA THREE HIGH SCHOOL PLAYBOOK. ENVISION MOTORS, MERCEDES BENZ OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA GIRLS VARSITY FLAG FOOTBALL FEATURED GAME OF THE WEEK, AND IT WAS A BATTLE BETWEEN TWO DEFENDING SECTION CHAMPS. LAST YEAR’S D1 CHAMPS DILAURO TAKING ON LAST YEAR’S D-2 CHAMPS PONDEROSA. THIS YEAR, THE CIF HAS CLEARED THE WAY FOR THE BEST GIRLS FLAG FOOTBALL TEAMS TO COMPETE FOR A STATE CHAMPIONSHIP. PONDEROSA HAD A HARD TIME FINDING THE END ZONE, BUT ON THIS PLAY, THINGS WENT WELL. ELIJAH CRUZ FINDS ROHAN THOMAS FOR THE TEN YARD BRUINS TOUCHDOWN, THEN HONDO LOOKING TO DO MORE DAMAGE. THEY GO TO THE AIR. THE BALL IS TIPPED AND HEIDI HERSHBERGER IS THERE FOR THE INTERCEPTION. HEIDI BRINGS IT BACK, HITS THE JETS ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE HOUSE FOR A PICK SIX DEL ORO OVER PONDEROSA. THIS IS A CLOSE ONE. 13 TO 6. TWO GREAT PROGRAMS. I’M VERY HAPPY WITH OUR DEFENSE. WE ONLY LET UP ONE TOUCHDOWN AND WE WERE ABLE TO DENY THEIR EXTRA POINT, WHICH KIND OF BROUGHT OUR CONFIDENCE UP INSTEAD OF BEING TIED. SO I WAS VERY HAPPY WITH EVERY GAME WE’RE LEARNING. YOU KNOW, EVERY DAY I TELL THE GIRLS OUR GOAL IS TO GET A LITTLE BIT BETTER EACH GAME. SO IF WE GOT A LOT BETTER FROM OUR PREVIOUS GAME, IF WE CAN GET BETTER FROM THIS GAME TO THE NEXT WEEK, I KNOW WE’RE GOING TO HAVE SUCCESS. ALL RIGHT, AS WE DO EVERY WEEK, IT’S TIME TO SHOW OFF OUR HIGH SCHOOL PLAYBOOK. GREAT CLIPS, CATCH OF THE WEEK FOR WEEK THREE, OUR HIGH SCHOOL PLAYBOOK, GREAT CLIPS CATCH OF THE WEEK WAS TURNED IN BY BEAR RIVER HIGH SCHOOL QUARTERBACK JAYDEN BROCK DROPS BACK ON THE PLAY ACTION, SLINGS IT DOWNFIELD TO TY CREEK, WHO CLIMBS THE LADDER AND BRINGS IT DOWN. THAT’S A ONE HANDED INCREDIBLE CATCH THAT SECURES A FIRST DOWN FOR THE BRUINS. TY CREEK FROM BEAR RIVER TURNS IN OUR GREAT CLIPS CATCH OF THE WEEK. WELL, TO KEEP OUR PROMISE OF BRINGING YOU EVERY ASPECT OF FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL, IT’S TIME TO INTRODUCE YOU TO OUR SHRINERS CHILDREN’S OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA CHEER TEAM OF THE WEEK. IT’S A 23 MEMBER VARSITY CHEERLEADERS FROM CASA ROBLE HIGH SCHOOL FROM ORANGEVILLE. THE CHEERLEADERS TOLD ME THEY LOVE TO MAKE THEIR FANS IN THE STANDS, STAND UP AND CHEER EVERY GAME AS THEY LOVE CONTROLLING THE EMOTIONS OF EVERYONE DURING THEIR HOME AND AWAY GAMES. THAT DOES IT FOR THE FIRST HALF OF THE PLAYBOOK SHOW, COMING UP AFTER A QUICK COMMERCIAL BREAK. I’VE GOT OUR FAN OF THE WEEK PLUS OUR GAME OF THE WEEK, BUT FOR NOW, IT’S TIME TO MEET OUR HIGH SCHOOL PLAYBOOK GAME OFFICIALS OF THE WEEK. THERE’S NO FOOTBALL WITHOUT THOSE GUYS. THE VARSITY CREW AND THE CREW CHIEF AND THE WHITE CAP. MY MAIN MAN, GREG LARSON, HE’S BEEN REFEREEING HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL GAMES FOR 21 YEARS. AND WHEN GREG LARSON ISN’T ON THE FIELD, HE’S BEEN SELLING REAL ESTATE FOR 4
High School Playbook Show: Watch Week 3 recaps, highlights and game scores
KCRA 3’s High School Playbook show is sharing the highlights from Friday Night Lights.Watch Del Rodgers give a recap of the third week of games across the Sac-Joaquin Section in Northern California on Sept. 5.Part 1 of the show is in the video above with game recaps, Catch of the Week and more.You can watch part 2 with Game of the Week coverage and more in the video below.See more high school football scores below:Did you miss week 2? Catch it here.Vote for Week 4’s Game of the Week here.
KCRA 3’s High School Playbook show is sharing the highlights from Friday Night Lights.
Watch Del Rodgers give a recap of the third week of games across the Sac-Joaquin Section in Northern California on Sept. 5.
Part 1 of the show is in the video above with game recaps, Catch of the Week and more.
You can watch part 2 with Game of the Week coverage and more in the video below.
Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage.
Donald Trump dominated the news cycle this weekend. Everybody’s talking about the outrageous things he said at his rally in Dayton, Ohio—above all, his menacing warning of a “bloodbath” if he is defeated in November. To follow political news is to again be immersed in all Trump, all the time. And that’s why Trump will lose.
At the end of the 1980 presidential debate, the then-challenger Ronald Reagan posed a famous series of questions that opened with “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
Why that series of questions was so powerful is important to understand. Reagan was not just delivering an explicit message about prices and wages. His summation also sent an implicit message about his understanding of how and why a vote was earned.
As a presidential candidate that year, Reagan arrived as a hugely famous and important person. He was the champion of the rising American conservative movement, a former two-term governor of California, and, before that, a movie and television star. Yet when it came time to make his final appeal to voters, candidate Reagan deflected attention away from himself. Instead, he targeted the spotlight directly at the incumbent president and the president’s record.
I have not had the experience the president has had in holding that office, but I think in being governor of California, the most populous state in the Union—if it were a nation, it would be the seventh-ranking economic power in the world—I, too, had some lonely moments and decisions to make. I know that the economic program that I have proposed for this nation in the next few years can resolve many of the problems that trouble us today. I know because we did it there.
Reagan understood that Reagan was not the issue in 1980. Jimmy Carter was the issue. Reagan’s job was to not scare anybody away.
Reagan was following a playbook that Carter himself had used against Gerald Ford in 1976. Bill Clinton would reuse the playbook against George H. W. Bush in 1992. By this playbook, the challenger subordinates himself to a bigger story, and portrays himself as a safe and acceptable alternative to an unacceptable status quo.
Joe Biden used the same playbook against Donald Trump in 2020. See Biden’s closing ad of the campaign, which struck generic themes of unity and optimism. The ad works off the premise that the voters’ verdict will be on the incumbent; the challenger’s job is simply to refrain from doing or saying anything that gets in the way.
But Trump won’t accept the classic approach to running a challenger’s campaign. He should want to make 2024 a simple referendum on the incumbent. But psychically, he needs to make the election a referendum on himself.
That need is self-sabotaging.
In two consecutive elections, 2016 and 2020, more Americans voted against Trump than for him. The only hope he has of changing that verdict in 2024 is by directing Americans’ attention away from himself and convincing them to like Biden even less than they like Trump. But that strategy would involve Trump mainly keeping his mouth shut and his face off television—and that, Trump cannot abide.
Trump cannot control himself. He cannot accept that the more Americans hear from Trump, the more they will prefer Biden.
Almost 30 years ago, I cited in The Atlantic some advice I’d heard dispensed by an old hand to a political novice in a congressional race. “There are only two issues when running against an incumbent,” the stager said. “[The incumbent’s] record, and I’m not a kook.” Beyond that, he went on, “if a subject can’t elect you to Congress, don’t talk about it.”
The same advice applies even more to presidential campaigns.
Trump defies such advice. His two issues are his record and Yes, I am a kook. The subjects that won’t get him elected to anything are the subjects that he is most determined to talk about.
In Raymond Chandler’s novel The Long Goodbye, the private eye Philip Marlowe breaks off a friendship with a searing farewell: “You talk too damn much and too damn much of it is about you.” When historians write their epitaphs for Trump’s 2024 campaign, that could well be their verdict.
Sean and Amanda are joined by Joanna Robinson to react to Wonka—what works, what doesn’t work, musicals in the 2020s, and whether a movie can subvert its early reputation as a meme (1:00). Then, Sean is joined by Jonathan Glazer and Johnnie Burn, the director and sound designer, respectively, of The Zone of Interest (1:12:00). They discuss recreation in film, interpretive sound design, their other collaborations, and more.
Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Jonathan Glazer, Johnnie Burn, and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner
Elon Musk said on Saturday that he will file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against non-profit watchdog Media Matters and others, as companies including Disney, Apple and IBM reportedly have paused advertising on X amid an antisemitism storm around the social media platform.
Media Matters, a U.S. group that describes itself as “a progressive research and information center” that monitors “media outlets for conservative misinformation,” published earlier this week research showing that X has posted ads appearing next to pro-Nazi posts.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino previously said that brands are now “protected from the risk of being next to” potentially toxic content on the platform.
“The split second court opens on Monday,” Musk said in a post on X on Saturday. “X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company,” he said.
Musk also posted a statement with the headline “Stand with X to protect free speech” where he said that Media Matters “completely misrepresented the real user experience on X.” He also said that “for speech to be truly free, we must also have the freedom to see or hear things that some people may consider objectionable” and added that “we will not allow agenda driven activists, or even our profits, to deter our vision.”
Musk, owner of Tesla and Space X, who bought Twitter last year and renamed it X, was already under fire for tolerating and even encouraging antisemitism on the social media platform. The latest episode was this week when Musk endorsed an antisemitic post on X as “the actual truth” of what Jewish people were doing.
The antisemitic post said that “Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.
The companies suspending advertising on X include Disney, IBM, Apple, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Lionsgate and Warner Bros. Discovery, according to media reports.
Western governments are urging Israel to show restraint in its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, as fears grow that the conflict could spiral out of control.
On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and French President Emmanuel Macron combined their support for Israel’s right to retaliate with a warning: That response must be fair.
“Israel has the right to defend itself by eliminating terrorist groups such as Hamas through targeted action, but preserving civilian populations is the duty of democracies,” Macron said on Thursday night. “The only response to terrorism is always a strong and fair one. Strong because fair.”
On Thursday, for the first time the United States hinted at Israel’s responsibilities. Speaking alongside Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference, Blinken said that while “Israel has the right to defend itself … how Israel does this matters.”
In a call with Netanyahu late Thursday evening, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak “reiterated that the UK stands side by side with Israel in fighting terror and agreed that Hamas can never again be able to perpetrate atrocities against the Israeli people,” according to a Downing Street readout. But the readout also added: “Noting that Hamas has enmeshed itself in the civilian population in Gaza, the Prime Minister said it was important to take all possible measures to protect ordinary Palestinians and facilitate humanitarian aid.”
These concerns were privately echoed by other Western officials, who warned that the world is facing a precarious moment.
As Israel scales up its powerful counteroffensive in Gaza, the fear in some European governments is that a full-blown regional war could erupt.
“Whatever Israel and the Palestinians do now risks contributing to the increasing bipolarization over the conflict,” one French diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly. “One big worry is the risk that the conflict spreads to the region.”
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, already called the Hamas attacks and the subsequent kidnapping of civilians “Israel’s 9/11.”
But the 2001 attacks on the U.S. also led Washington to launch a global “War on Terror,” with American-led military involvement in Afghanistan and, two years later, Iraq, with the loss of many lives. The unified international support the U.S. enjoyed in the days and weeks immediately following 9/11 splintered over President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
“Israel clearly sees this as a casus belli [an act that provokes or justifies war],” one EU official said. “There is a real danger Israel simply uses this for a major ground offensive and wipes out the whole of Gaza.”
Shock and fury
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis even publicly warned about making the same mistake.
“The shock and fury in Israel are reminiscent of the emotions in the US after 9/11,” he said on X. “That provoked a display of American unity and power. It also led to a misconceived and self-destructive war on terror. Israel may be heading down the same dangerous path.”
Hamas’ attacks against Israel last weekend, which left more than 1,200 dead, led to an incomparable wave of sympathy and outrage across the West. The Israeli flag was projected across the European Commission’s headquarters and Berlin’s Brandenburger Tor.
But already, Israel’s retribution against Hamas is being scrutinized. Its counteroffensive has killed more than 1, 500 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and put the coastal strip of land under “complete siege.”
The United Nations has already sounded the alarm. Just two days after the attacks, Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” at Israel’s announcement of a siege on Gaza. He also warned Israel that “military operations must be conducted in strict accordance with international humanitarian law.” This was echoed by the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
NGOs and Western governments now fear a humanitarian crisis, with the Red Cross warning that Gaza hospitals could turn into “morgues” without electricity.
So far, Israel seems to be doubling down.
On Thursday, Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said there would be no humanitarian exception until all hostages were freed and that nobody should moralize.
Talking about Israel’s retaliatory measures in the Gaza Strip, Prosor said Israel decided to move “from containment to eradication” of Islamic jihadists. “This is civilization against barbarity. This is good against bad.”
Haim Regev, the Israeli ambassador to the EU, acknowledged on Tuesday that there were few critical voices so far. “But I feel the more we will go ahead with our response we might see more.”
Abdalrahim Alfarra, the head of the Palestinian Mission to the EU, told POLITICO on Thursday that a change in atmosphere is already underway. “It’s starting, since [Wednesday] there are several voices in the European Union itself that have started to ask Israel and Netanyahu’s government to at the least open up a passage for food aid to stop the Israeli aggression and war against the Gaza strip,” he said.
Gordian knot
Just like the U.S. response to 9/11, the escalation of the conflict risks destabilizing the entire region, Western diplomats fear.
“This whole conflict is a Gordian knot,” said one EU diplomat, describing the risk of escalation toward other countries in the region. The diplomat said the focus should now be on stabilizing the situation and to getting the parties back to the negotiating table.
“The Middle East conflict has the danger of escalating and bringing in other Arab countries under the pressure of their public opinion,” former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned, while pointing to the lessons learned from the 1973 Yom Kippur War, during which an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria attacked Israel.
Despite the historical peace efforts of the U.S. in the region, Washington is far from a neutral broker, as it has been traditionally a strong supporter of Israel. In previous crises in the region, Washington appeared to give Israel carte blanche in its response, but over time ramped up pressure to compel the Israeli government to agree to a cease fire.
The EU official cited above doubted whether Washington will follow that playbook this time. “Biden has no more room for maneuvering domestically after the Hamas attacks,” the EU official said. “He has to support Netanyahu all the way.”
Eddy Wax, Suzanne Lynch, Sarah Wheaton, Elisa Braun, Jacopo Barigazzi and Laura Hülsemann contributed reporting.
This article has been updated with a readout from U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s call with BenjaminNetanyahu, and to reflect the Palestinian death toll.
BUDAPEST — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accused other European leaders of fearmongering over the threat of climate change at the expense of ignoring the problem of falling birth rates.
“Europe is acting out of fear and fear makes us defeatist,” said the right-wing leader on Thursday. “We say there’s no future, and as such, this is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Hungary is one of a number of Central and Eastern European countries that are trying to reverse falling birth rates. All countries across the European Union have fewer than the 2.1 children per woman needed to keep the population stable without migration.
This aging population raises thorny questions for governments around how to fund the welfare state as the number of older people increases and the proportion of people of working ages falls.
In his address at the two-day Budapest Demographic Summit, a pro-family conference organized by the Hungarian government, Orbán said that “Western elites” were ignoring the question of demographics, and were instead busy with “carbon quotas.”
“They require people to live in fear of an approaching Armageddon,” he said.
Orbán’s government has made birth rates a key political priority, investing around 5 percent of the country’s GDP into family-creation policies like tax breaks and subsidized loans for new houses. Hungary’s birth rate is no longer the lowest in the EU, where it was a decade ago, instead hovering a little above the bloc’s average.
On Thursday, the Hungarian leader ramped up these policies, announcing that the government would lower the threshold for women to receive a lifetime exemption from paying tax from four children to three.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who attended the summit in Budapest, praised Hungary’s efforts to encourage families to have more children and warned that demographic change is an existential risk for her country.
“In our view, demography is not just another of the main issues of our nation. It is the issue on which our nation’s future depends,” she said. “We need the courage to say that demographers’ projections for the future are very worrying.”
Europe has registered birth rates below replacement level for decades, but it’s an issue that has been gaining more attention, especially in Silicon Valley. Elon Musk recently cited Orbán’s efforts approvingly.
Katalin Novák, Hungary’s president and the organizer of the conference, echoed Orbán’s messaging on misguided European priorities. She said that while “alarm bells are ringing about climate change, little attention is being paid to the real problem.
“The demographic winter is turning into an Ice Age,” she said.
Russia’s General Sergei Surovikin is no stranger to mass murder and spreading terror.
In Chechnya, the shaven-headed veteran officer, who has the physique of a wrestler and an expression to match, vowed to “destroy three Chechen fighters for every Russian soldier killed.” And he’s remembered bitterly in northern Syria for reducing much of the city of Aleppo to ruins.
The 56-year-old air force general also oversaw the relentless targeting of clinics, hospitals and civilian infrastructure in rebel-held Idlib in 2019, an effort to break opponents’ will and send refugees fleeing to Europe via neighboring Turkey. The 11-month campaign “showed callous disregard for the lives of the roughly 3 million civilians in the area,” noted Human Rights Watch in a scathing report.
Now he is repeating his Syrian playbook in Ukraine.
Two weeks ago, Vladimir Putin appointed Surovikin as the overall commander of Russia’s so-called special military operation, to the delight of Moscow’s hawks. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov praised Surovikin as “a real general and a warrior.” He will “improve the situation,” Kadyrov added in a social media post.
But reversing a series of stunning battlefield Ukrainian victories and shifting the tide of the war may be beyond even the ruthless Surovikin. Ukrainians have shown throughout the year they’re made of stern stuff and aren’t going to be intimidated by war crimes — and they’ve endured bombing and bombardments before by equally unscrupulous Russian generals.
But Western military officials and analysts note there are already signs of more tactical coherence than was seen under his predecessor General Alexander Dvornikov. “His war tactics totally breach the rules of war but unfortunately they proved effective in Syria,” a senior British military intelligence officer told POLITICO. “As a war strategist he has a record of effectiveness — however vicious,” the officer added.
Surovikin and other officials point to the targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with a massive wave of attacks the past week. Strikes at the weekend resulted in power outages across the country leaving more than a million households without electricity, the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidency, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said Saturday.
“These are vile strikes on critical objects,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “The world can and must stop this terror,” he said. “The geography of this latest mass strike is very wide,” Zelenskyy added. “Of course we don’t have the technical ability to knock down 100 percent of the Russian missiles and strike drones. I am sure that, gradually, we will achieve that, with help from our partners. Already now, we are downing a majority of cruise missiles, a majority of drones.”
Intercepting a majority of what’s being fired by the Russians at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, though, isn’t enough to halt the disruption Surovikin is endeavoring to provoke with the strikes. The scale of the damage caused to Ukraine’s power system at the weekend exceeded what was inflicted in the first wave of strikes on energy infrastructure on October 10, according to a Telegram post by Ukrenergo, the state grid operator.
Cheap shots
Around a third of the country’s power stations have been destroyed since the attacks started, Ukrainian authorities say.
And for Russia the cost of the aerial assault is cheap, relying as it does on Iran’s Shahed-136 unmanned aerial vehicles, basically flying bombs nicknamed “kamikaze drones” because they are destroyed on impact.
Russian President Vladimir Putin with then-PM Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Surovikin in 2017 | Pool photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
The drones, which have a flying range of 2,500 kilometers, loiter over a target until ordered to attack. With a wingspan of 2.5 meters they can be difficult to identify on radar and cost only an estimated €20,000 to make, compared, say, to cruise missiles costing up to €2 million to produce.
Last week the White House said Iranian drone experts — trainers and tech support workers — have been deployed on the ground in Russia-annexed Crimea to help launch attacks on Ukraine. “Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground, and through the provision of weapons that are impacting civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine,” said national security spokesman John Kirby.
But turning to Iran for assistance also demonstrates a Russian weakness, says a Pentagon adviser. That they are using Iranian drones suggests they really are running out of missiles. “I don’t think their capabilities are anyway as good as they claim. I’ve always thought that the Russians were a bit of a hollow force. They don’t have depth in range with capabilities and they can’t really apply them very effectively. The fact that they’re going to Iranians for drone technology, that’s a pretty sad statement about the once vaunted Russian military-industrial or Soviet military-industrial complex,” the adviser told POLITICO.
And while the drones are helping to cause considerable damage, their light explosive payloads at 36 kilograms present the Russians with a problem – they are not powerful enough to cause “decommissioning” damage to big power stations and so are being aimed at smaller sub-stations instead. Eventually, too, Western and Ukrainian experts will find ways to jam the GPS system the drones depend on to shift them off target. So, they may have a short shelf life of effectiveness, say Western officials.
Not having sufficient depth in terms of capabilities isn’t the only problem facing Russian generals. One of the most debilitating problems for the Russians has been the lack of small-unit leadership and competent supervision on the battlefield.
Ukrainian servicemen and police officers stand guard in a street after a drone attack in Kyiv on October 17, 2022 | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
The Ukrainians since 2014 have been steeped in U.S. military doctrine and training, which focuses on building a professional corps of corporals and sergeants who understand the big picture and are given the delegated authority to make decisions on the battlefield as they lead their units, according to John Barranco, an analyst at the Atlantic Council who oversaw the U.S. Marines’ initial operations in Afghanistan after the 9/11 terror attacks and served in Iraq.
The failure of the Russians to build up such a cadre has plagued them in Ukraine and it isn’t a deficiency Surovikin has time to rectify. In fact, the situation is likely to worsen with the Kremlin now throwing into inadequately battle-trained conscripts from Putin’s partial mobilization order.
Russian retreat
After just a handful of days’ training, conscripts are already dying. And draftees are being sent to what is now the crucial front in this stage of the war — the southern port city of Kherson — where Russian authorities have ordered all residents to leave ahead of a closing advance by Ukrainian troops.
Kherson city is the only regional capital Russia has managed to seize since the invasion began. It was a key prize in establishing a land bridge between Crimea and Ukraine’s south, as well as opening the way for a potential assault on the major Black Sea port of Odesa.
But a Ukrainian counteroffensive that started in the summer is now bearing down on Kherson city. Russia’s tactical position in the area is highly compromised, with units of paratroopers dug in on the west bank of the Dnieper River, where they are highly vulnerable. “From a battlefield geometry point of view, it is a terrible position for the Russians,” Jack Watling, a land warfare expert at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, told POLITICO.
Watling, who’s been conducting operational analysis with Ukraine’s general staff, says the Russians on the west bank are among their most capable troops but can’t be resupplied reliably “at the scale needed to make them competitive” and they won’t be able to counterattack.
“The Ukrainians have the initiative and can dictate the tempo,” Watling said. “From a purely military point of view, the Russians would be much better off withdrawing from Kherson city and focusing on holding the river [from the east bank] and then putting the bulk of their forces on the Zaporizhzhia axis, but for political reasons they have been slow to do that and seem to ready to fight a delaying action.”
A view taken on October 19, 2022 shows a road sign reading “Kherson” in the town of Armyansk in the north of Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula bordering the Russian-controlled Kherson region in southern Ukraine | AFP via Getty Images
That seems in line with what Ukraine’s general staff reported at the weekend. Russian troop movements have been occurring in the Kherson region with some units preparing for urban combat, while others have been withdrawing.
In short, Surovikin is being forced to try to pull off one of the most difficult of military maneuvers — an orderly retreat to reposition forces, including draftees with scant training and units that have no cohesion. When more experienced Russian troops tried the same move near Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine last month, they suffered a rout.
Thuggery alone won’t save Russian conscripts from motivated and agile Ukrainian forces. Whether Surovikin has the tactical skills to navigate a dangerous retreat will be what counts.
