London’s Metropolitan Police said 53 arrests were made during the UEFA Champions League final at Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday.

Five people were arrested for invading the pitch and the “majority of others for attempts to breach security,” the police force said in a statement.

The pitch invasion occurred during the first minute of the game between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund.

Footage of the incident shows Borussia Dortmund midfielder Marcel Sabitzer helping to stop one of the invaders from running around the pitch.

A spokesperson for Wembley Stadium condemned the pitch invaders.

“It is illegal to enter the field of play at Wembley Stadium, and we strongly condemn the actions of those who interrupted the UEFA Champions League Final shortly after kick-off,” a Wembley Stadium spokesperson said in a statement issued Saturday.

“All of the individuals have now been arrested. We will support the relevant authorities to ensure appropriate action is taken,” the Wembley Stadium spokesperson added.

While five people were arrested in connection with the pitch invasion, Metropolitan Police Commander Louise Puddefoot said in a statement that most of the arrests were for attempts to breach security, as some fans had tried to force their way into the stadium.

“We are confident that the overwhelming majority of attempts to unlawfully gain access to Wembley this evening were unsuccessful thanks to the efforts of officers, stewards and other stadium staff,” Commander Puddefoot said.

“There is a robust policing operation in place to support the Wembley security plan and officers have worked closely with stewards and stadium staff to maintain security throughout.

“Videos shared online showing groups running into entrances do not necessarily represent successful attempts to enter the stadium. There are typically multiple further levels of security beyond an initial entrance.”

Real Madrid went on to win the match 2-0, giving it a record-extending 15th European Cup.

China’s Chang’e-6 lunar lander successfully touched down on the far side of the moon Sunday morning Beijing time, in a significant step for the ambitious mission that could advance the country’s aspirations of putting astronauts on the moon.

The Chang’e-6 probe landed in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, where it will begin to collect samples from the lunar surface, the China National Space Administration announced.

China’s most complex robotic lunar endeavor to date, the uncrewed mission aims to return samples to Earth from the moon’s far side for the first time.

The landing marks the second time a mission has successfully reached the far side of the moon. China first completed that historic feat in 2019 with its Chang’e-4 probe.

If all goes as planned, the mission — which began on May 3 and is expected to last 53 days — could be a key milestone in China’s push to become a dominant space power.

The country’s plans include landing astronauts on the moon by 2030 and building a research base at its south pole – a region believed to contain water ice.

Sunday’s landing comes as a growing number of countries, including the United States, eye the strategic and scientific benefits of expanded lunar exploration in an increasingly competitive field.

Samples collected by the Chang’e-6 lander could provide key clues into the origin and evolution of the moon, Earth and the solar system, experts say – while the mission itself provides important data and technical practice to advance China’s lunar ambitions.

Chang’e-6 touched down within an impact crater known as the Apollo Basin, located within the sprawling, roughly 2,500-kilometer-diameter South Pole-Aitken Basin, according to Chinese state media Xinhua. It had orbited the moon for about 20 days as part of a larger probe, which is composed of four parts: an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a re-entry module.

It is now expected to use a drill and a mechanical arm to gather up to 2 kilograms of moon dust and rocks from the basin, a crater formed some 4 billion years ago.

The probe will spend two days on the far side of the moon, and 14 hours to collect moon soil samples, Xinhua reported.

To complete its mission, the lander will need to robotically stow those samples in an ascent vehicle that made the landing with it.

The ascent vehicle will then return to lunar orbit, where it will dock with and transfer the samples to a re-entry capsule, according to mission information provided by the China National Space Administration.

The re-entry capsule and orbiter will then travel back to Earth’s orbit and separate, allowing the re-entry capsule to make its expected return later this month to the Siziwang Banner Landing Site in China’s rural Inner Mongolia region.

The technically complex mission is made more challenging due to where it is being conducted. The far side of the moon is out of range of normal communications, which means Chang’e-6 must also rely on a satellite that was launched into lunar orbit in March, the Queqiao-2.

China plans to launch two more missions in the Chang-e series as it nears its 2030 target of sending astronauts to the moon.

Multiple nations are expanding their lunar programs, with a growing focus on securing access to resources and further deep-space exploration.

Last year, India landed a spacecraft on the moon for the first time, while Russia’s first lunar landing mission in decades ended in failure when its Luna 25 probe crashed into the moon’s surface.

In January, Japan became the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon, though its Moon Sniper lander faced power issues due to an incorrect landing angle. The following month, IM-1, a NASA-funded mission designed by Texas-based private firm Intuitive Machines, touched down close to the south pole.

That landing – the first by a US-made spacecraft in over five decades – is among several planned commercial missions intended to explore the lunar surface before NASA attempts to return US astronauts there as soon as 2026 and build its scientific base camp.

China’s support to Russia will extend the war in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday, as he called on countries across the Asia-Pacific to join an upcoming peace summit he accused Russia of trying to thwart.

Zelensky made the comments in Singapore during a surprise appearance at a meeting of defense chiefs from across the Asia-Pacific, including China and the US. It comes ahead of the international peace conference on Ukraine slated to be held June 15-16 in Switzerland.

“With China’s support to Russia the war will last longer. That is bad for the whole world, and the policy of China – who declares that it supports territorial integrity and sovereignty and declares it officially. For them it is not good,” Zelensky said during a press conference.

China claims neutrality in the conflict and has said it is a proponent of peace, even as it has emerged as a key economic lifeline and tightened its already close strategic and diplomatic partnership with Russia since the country’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The US has also alleged that China’s export of dual-use goods to Russia is powering the warring country’s defense industrial base and warned Beijing of consequences for such support – a claim Beijing has refuted, saying it has not provided weapons to either side and maintains tight export controls on dual use goods.

Zelensky alluded to such support in comments Sunday, saying certain elements that make up parts of Russia’s weaponry “come from China.”

The Ukrainian leader also warned that Russia was attempting to pressure countries not to join the upcoming international peace summit – with China’s help.

“Russia is trying to disrupt the peace summit and that is true … (Russia) is now traveling around many countries in the world threatening them with the blockade of the agricultural goods, of the food products, of chemical products … it is simply pushing the other countries of the world so that they’re not present on the summit,” Zelensky said after delivering an address at the defense conference.

When asked later about China’s statement it would not attend the peace summit, the Ukrainian leader accused Russia of using Chinese diplomats to disrupt it.

“Regrettably, it is unfortunate that such big independent powerful country as China is an instrument in the hands of Putin,” Zelensky said, speaking through an interpreter.

The Ukrainian leader added that he had not had any meetings with Chinese representatives in Singapore, despite interest on the Ukrainian side for more dialogue.

China last week said it would not send a delegation to the peace summit, saying any international peace conference should have “recognition by both Russia and Ukraine, equal participation by all parties, and fair discussion of all peace plans.”

Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun in an address earlier Sunday said China had been “promoting peace talks with a responsible attitude.”

Dong also appeared to respond to US allegations that China is bolstering Russia’s defense industrial base with dual-use exports, saying in his remarks that China has not provided weapons to either side in the conflict and had put “stricter control” on dual-use exports.

US defense chief Lloyd Austin raised those transactions with Dong during a sideline meeting Friday, where he warned of consequences for any Chinese support of Russia’s military.

‘Time is running out’

The Ukrainian leader’s in-person appeal at the Shangri-La Dialogue comes as Ukraine’s troops scramble to repel a major Russian advance into its northeast region of Kharkiv amid shortages of weaponry and manpower more than two years into Russia’s invasion – raising the urgency for Kyiv to bolster international support for its peace plan.

Zelensky’s plan calls for the full withdrawal of Russian forces and a restoration of Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders. The Ukrainian leader has previously said he won’t negotiate with Russia until its forces withdraw.

“Time is running out” including for Ukrainian children taken by Russia, Zelensky told a packed hall during an address on the closing day of the three-day security meeting.

The summit, he said, would address three points of his peace formula, including “nuclear security, food security, and the release of prisoners of war,” as well as “Ukrainian children abducted by Russia” and enable countries to come to a consensus on peace in Ukraine that could be “passed to Russia.”

The International Criminal Court in The Hague last year issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.

Russia has referred to the peace conference as “trickery” designed by the United States, with a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson last week saying the “real ‘peace formula’” was for Western countries to stop providing Ukraine with weaponry.

So far more than 100 countries and international organizations have committed to join the gathering, Zelensky said.

The upcoming peace summit and Ukraine’s defense were also key topics for Zelensky as he held sideline meetings since arriving in Singapore on Saturday.

Those included talks with US Defense Secretary Austin, Indonesia’s President-Elect Prabowo Subianto, and Timor-Leste’s President José Ramos-Horta, as well as a delegation of American lawmakers.

In his meeting with Zelensky Sunday morning, Austin reiterated “unwavering US support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression” and provided an update on American security assistance to Ukraine, according to a readout from Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder after the meeting.

Zelensky said in a post on Twitter that the two sides discussed “the defense needs of our country, bolstering Ukraine’s air defense system, the F-16 coalition, and drafting of a bilateral security agreement.”

Iran’s hardline former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has registered to run for president in the country’s June 28 election, organized after the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month, Iran’s state television reported on Sunday.

However he could be barred from the race: the country’s cleric-led Guardian Council will vet candidates, and publish the list of qualified ones on June 11.

Ahmadinejad, a former member of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, was first elected as Iran’s president in 2005 and stepped down because of term limits in 2013.

He was barred from standing in the 2017 election by the Guardian Council, a year after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned him that entering was “not in his interest and that of the country.”

A rift developed between the two after Ahmadinejad explicitly advocated checks on Khamenei’s ultimate authority.

In 2018, in rare criticism directed at Khamenei, Ahmadinejad wrote to him calling for “free” elections.

Khamenei had backed Ahmadinejad after his 2009 re-election triggered protests in which dozens of people were killed and hundreds arrested, rattling the ruling theocracy, before security forces led by the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) stamped out the unrest.

Removing a long-time defense minister from his post is nothing out of the ordinary. Arresting five of his senior staff, however, is clearly more than just a search for fresh blood — especially in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

After the shock ouster, two weeks ago, of Sergei Shoigu as the minister for defense, a wave of arrests has gutted the defense ministry’s top brass under the guise of an anti-corruption campaign.

The timing is as intriguing as the arrests and reshuffle. After almost three years of failure on the battlefields in Ukraine, Russia has just gained the upper hand. It has, in recent weeks, launched a largely successful offensive in the north, toward Kharkiv, coupled with victories in the Donbas region in the east, too.

Ukraine’s crippling manpower shortage and dwindling ammunition supplies — exacerbated by months of stalling in the US Congress to approve a military support package — have also helped reverse Russia’s fortunes.

So the question then is, why shake up the ministry in charge of winning the war now?

Prigozhin message from the grave

Hanging over this shake-up is the ghost of Yevgeny Prigozhin, boss of the Wagner mercenary group, who was also formerly known as “Putin’s Chef.”

Before his death, he had expressed hatred for Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, through profanity-laden tirades, accusing them and the ministry of corruption and incompetence.

Prigozhin led a mutiny on Moscow that was supposed to end with the overthrow of Shoigu and Gerasimov. Instead, he put the president in an awkward position and challenged his authority. Putin responded by describing Prigozhin as a traitor and stripped him of his assets, all before he died in a suspicious plane crash, alongside his most senior advisers.

Since then, Putin has kept the inefficiencies of the ministry’s weapons procurement, as well as its bungled invasion of Ukraine and corruption allegations, out of the public eye, keen to show he would not make any knee-jerk reactions following the mutiny. Doing so might question his authority and strength to the Russian people.

Putin was likely awaiting his reelection by the Russian people in March before making moving in on the defense ministry. The changes came shortly after Victory Day celebrations on May 9, which Putin and Shoigu attended, side by side, in a seemingly amicable appearance.

Despite his removal as defense minister, Shoigu will remain in Putin’s orbit after being moved sideways to a new role as secretary of the security council.

Putin’s interests: Ukraine

Putin’s interest is in keeping his house in order but, more pressingly, achieving victory in Ukraine. The defense ministry is central to how that war ends.

With Putin installing a civilian economist, Andrey Belousov, as the new defense minister, he has signaled he wants the ministry, with its vast budget, to procure weapons more quickly and economically.

Russia’s 2024 budget shows it is seeking to spend 6% of GDP on defense, the highest in modern Russian history, and will outpace social spending — a sign of the country’s transition to a wartime economy.

The corruption in question – Shamarin and Ivanov

Last Friday, Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, chief of the Main Communication Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces, was charged with “receiving a bribe on an especially large scale,” of 36 million rubles (around $393,000) from a factory that supplies the ministry with communications equipment. In exchange, he is alleged to have awarded the company lucrative government contracts.

Shamarin has pleaded not guilty, according to Russian state media.

Russian state media has also played a role in communicating the Kremlin’s crackdown on the ministry. Following Shamarin’s arrest in May, state-run Ria Novosti reported that his wife had purchased a Mercedez-Benz GLE in 2018 for 20 million rubles (about $218,000) at a time when his income was no higher than $34,000. A separate report found her income that year was 872,000 rubles ($9,740).

The highest profile of the five officials arrested was Timur Ivanov, the deputy defense minister. He was put under house arrest in late April, also on suspicion of taking bribes.

Ivanov had become a focus of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, founded by Alexey Navalny, who was killed in a Russian prison in February. He and his organization exposed the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by Ivanov’s partner — visiting invite-only jewelers, wearing couture clothing and owning a chalet in the chic ski resort of Courchevel in France. They questioned how she afforded such a lifestyle when her husband’s salary was officially $175,000 a year.

Russian state media reported that Ivanov maintains his innocence, citing its own source.

There can’t be overlap, but corruption will still remain

For Stanovaya, the reasons for replacing figures such as Ivanov and Shamarin are simple. “Part of Putin’s logic is that you can’t field someone in this position (as defense minister) where there are significant interests of the previous.”

To help clean up the ministry, Putin has appointed Oleg Savelyev, a former auditor at the Russia Accounts Chamber, as the deputy minister of defense. He will be “aware of the corruption that already exists in the defense sector,” Komin said.

Prigozhin’s final wish

Given the sweeping changes made by the president, rumors have swirled about the position of the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, the other target of Prigozhin’s rants.

Stanovaya said, “There are so many rumors now that he [Gerasimov] might be dismissed soon,” but the fact he has so far been spared gives Gerasimov “a window to start fighting for his own interests,” she added. “Gerasimov is fighting against his enemies, trying to secure his future,” Stanovaya said.

Komin agreed that Gerasimov may keep his position for now, as Putin has said he does not intend to make any other changes.

Crucially, Komin suggested that Gerasimov’s luck may be that there lacks a position, similar to Shoigu’s where he can publicly be moved aside without completely tarnishing his reputation, “it’s not a big deal to find the new guy. It’s more a big deal to find the place for the previous guy.”

In Putin’s Russia the president remains laser focused on winning in Ukraine, but recent overtures have shown that the supporting cast may change and the president is ready to be ruthless in his search of victory.

Russia’s brutal ongoing invasion of Ukraine has provided US intelligence services with a rare opening to recruit Kremlin insiders furious with the handling of the war.

“Disaffection creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us,” said CIA Director Bill Burns last year during a speech in the United Kingdom. “We’re very much open for business.”

“That business is the exchange of information that the asset or agent would provide for something that they want,” said David McCloskey, former CIA officer and author of Moscow X. “We want people who have some sense of what [Russian] leaders’ priorities are – what they’re trying to accomplish.”

The ongoing recruitment effort is far from a state secret. The CIA has released Russian-language videos on social media appealing to the patriotism of disaffected Russians with access to information that could be helpful to the US.

The effort highlights the evolution of an intelligence service that has historically conducted its essential mission of countering national security threats and informing policymakers under a shroud of secrecy.

Indeed, until the CIA’s internally unpopular and short-lived director, James Schlesinger, finally posted a sign on a highway marking the site of the ultra-secret organization’s Virginia headquarters in 1973, its very location had been shielded from the public.

Fast forward to today, when the spy agency is not only ubiquitous across social media platforms, it is actively using its newfound public-facing presence to accomplish one of CIA’s primary objectives: recruiting foreign spies to steal secrets.

Posts have included step-by-step instructions for would-be Russian informants on how to avoid detection by Russia’s security services by using virtual private networks, or VPNs, and the Tor web browser to anonymously and through encryption contact the agency on the so-called Dark Web.

The FBI launched a similar effort aimed at recruiting Russian government sources in the US, including geo-targeting social media ads to phones located near Russia’s embassy in Washington.

“This direct appeal is an unusual approach, but one which could prove effective in reaching a Russian populace with few options to express their discontent,” said Douglas London, a former CIA station chief posted abroad. “Russians angry with the Kremlin’s state-sanctioned corruption and abuse, with no way to act openly, are left with few alternatives other than finding external support.”

But while the technology is new, espionage has underpinned, and often undermined, US-Russian relations for decades.

With never before heard interviews from Cold War spies and the traitors who sealed their fate, “Secrets and Spies” tracks the operatives who worked behind the scenes to steal and share vital intelligence as the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.

Like the Cold War of the past, espionage remains a vital tool for both sides of the latest conflict, as evidenced by tech-savvy US intelligence officers attempting to recruit new assets in plain sight, and Russian-linked operatives reportedly increasing operations across Europe.

While espionage is illegal in every nation in the world, and undercover operatives have certainly been used for nefarious purposes such as sabotage, assassination, and election interference, “Secrets and Spies” pulls back the veil on a lesser-known, historically critical function of spying: to reduce uncertainty and miscalculation among nuclear-armed adversaries.

As the documentary underscores, the espionage lessons of the Cold War could very well determine future global stability.

Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton – who was convicted of killing six women and confessed to killing dozens more – died after being attacked earlier this month by another inmate, prison authorities said.

Pickton is one of the most notorious serial killers in Canadian history, bringing his victims to his pig farm and feeding their remains to his animals.

The 74-year-old had been serving a life sentence at Port-Cartier Institution in Canada’s Quebec province after being convicted for six counts of second-degree murder in 2007.

He sustained injuries from an assault involving another inmate on May 19 and died in hospital Friday, Correctional Service Canada (CSC) said.

Pickton’s next of kin has been notified and registered victims have also been contacted, CSC added, who said an investigation was underway.

At least 65 women disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighborhood in British Colombia province between 1978 and 2001 before Pickton was arrested.

Pickton had been operating a pig farm in the nearby city of Port Coquitlam, where police found the remains of 33 women.

However, Pickton confessed to murdering 49 women when talking to an undercover police officer in a jail cell.

The case became the largest serial killer investigation in Canada’s history and Pickton’s pig farm became the largest crime scene in Canadian history, with investigators taking 200,000 DNA samples.

Many of his victims were indigenous women, with police accused of not taking their cases seriously as many of those missing were prostitutes or drug addicts.

In its release, CSC said, “We are mindful that this offender’s case has had a devastating impact on communities in British Columbia and across the country, including Indigenous peoples, victims and their families. Our thoughts are with them.”

The news brought mixed emotions to the families of Pickton’s victims.

Cynthia Cardinal, whose sister Georgina Papin was murdered by Pickton, told Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail that she was “really happy,” but noted that she was “really sad” some families did not have their cases heard in court.

Michele Pineault, the mother of Stephanie Lane, who was killed at age 20 but whose death Pickton was not charged for, told the newspaper that she was “elated” by the death of “this animal” as “there was no justice” for her daughter.

In 2016, a book allegedly written by Pickton and smuggled out of prison was published and offered for sale on Amazon but was quickly withdrawn following a public backlash.

North Korea has ramped up its trash-balloon operations, with Seoul officials reporting about 600 of the airborne waste deliveries floating into South Korea, littering parts of the country with cigarette butts, paper and scraps of cloth.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said “no substances harmful to safety have been found” among the balloons that reached the country on Saturday evening – unlike just a few days ago when used toilet paper was found in some of the about 150 balloons that crossed the border.

The latest photos released by the JCS show a large sack containing what appears to be paper left on the roadside, while other images show officers inspecting the garbage strewn on the ground. Others showed burned-out cigarette butts.

According to images released by authorities, the packages are conveyed by large, gas-filled balloons.

South Korea said its military is working with the police, local government, safety ministry, and the United Nations Command to safely retrieve the balloons and the debris. The balloons were found in the capital Seoul, as well as the provinces of Gyeonggi and Chungcheong. Some were even spotted more than 300 kilometers (over 185 miles) south of the capital, in Gyeongsang province.

The two neighboring countries have been cut off from each other since the end of the Korean War in 1953 with an armistice. They are still technically at war.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong – a senior official in the reclusive regime – called the balloons “sincere presents,” and vowed to send more, according to a statement by state-run Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday.

She compared North Korea’s actions to South Korea’s years-long practice of sending balloons with anti-North Korea leaflets the other way.

North Korea is almost completely closed off from the rest of the world, with tight control over what information gets in or out. Foreign materials including movies and books are banned, with only a few state-sanctioned exceptions; those caught with foreign contraband often face severe punishment, defectors say.

Earlier this year a South Korean research group released rare footage that it claimed showed North Korean teenagers sentenced to hard labor for watching and distributing K-dramas.

Restrictions softened somewhat in recent decades as North Korea’s relationship with China expanded. Tentative steps to open up allowed some South Korean elements, including parts of its pop culture, to seep into the hermit nation – especially in 2017 and 2018, when relations thawed between the two countries.

But the situation in North Korea deteriorated in the following years and diplomatic talks fell apart – prompting strict rules to snap back into place.

Taiwan is pursuing independence incrementally and those who support it will “end up in self-destruction,” China’s new defense minister warned Sunday in a wide-ranging speech at a security summit in Singapore where the extent of regional tensions was on stark display.

Minister of National Defense Adm. Dong Jun made the comments in a roughly 30-minute speech which comes days after Beijing staged major military exercises encircling the island of Taiwan after it inaugurated its new, democratically elected president last month.

“We will take resolute actions to curb Taiwan independence and make sure such a plot never succeeds,” Dong said speaking through a translator, while slamming “external interfering forces” for selling arms and having “illegal official contacts” with Taiwan, in an apparent reference to the United States, which maintains close, unofficial ties with Taiwan.

“China stays committed to peaceful reunification. However, this prospect is increasingly being eroded by separatists for Taiwan independence and foreign forces,” Dong warned.

His comments come as there has been heightened concern in the region over Beijing’s military and economic intimidation of Taiwan, which has grown more pronounced under Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

In a meeting with Dong on Friday, US defense chief Lloyd Austin called on China not to “use Taiwan’s political transition — part of a normal, routine democratic process — as a pretext for coercive measures.”

China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy as its own, despite never having controlled it and has vowed to “reunify” with it, by force if necessary. Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te and his party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), are both openly loathed by Beijing for championing Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Lai has said he favors the current status quo, proclaiming that “Taiwan is already an independent sovereign country” so there is “no plan or need” to declare independence. The US also by longstanding policy does not support Taiwan independence nor the unilateral change of the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.

“The DPP authorities in Taiwan are pursuing separation in an incremental way. They are bent on erasing their Chinese identity of Taiwan and severing social, historical and cultural links across the Taiwan Strait,” Dong said, reiterating Beijing’s rhetoric that they would be “nailed to the pillar of shame in history.”

Polls show growing numbers of the island’s people – especially young people – view themselves as distinctly Taiwanese and have no desire to be part of China, an authoritarian one-party state compared to Taiwan’s democracy. Less than 10% now support an immediate or eventual unification, and only 3% identify primarily as Chinese – while 67% see themselves as primarily Taiwanese.

Taiwan called Dong’s comments in Singapore “provocative and irrational.”

“Any… coercive actions that disregard public opinion run contrary to democracy and human rights, or any resort to war will eventually be counterproductive,” Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement.

Dong, a former naval commander, is making his debut at the Shangri-la Dialogue security summit after being appointed to his position late last year following a surprise shake-up at the top of China’s Defense Ministry.

The gathering plays out amid a contentious security landscape across the region, where China is widely seen by its neighbors as using its military might to assert disputed territorial claims and bid for military prominence in a part of the world where the US has deep security ties.

Chinese vessels and aircraft have been widely documented patrolling and making aggressive maneuvers against others operating in international waters and skies as it asserts disputed claims in the East and South China Seas.

But Dong painted a different vision of China in his speech, framing it as a benign power whose military “never acts from the so-called position of strength,” while taking oblique aim at the US saying, “we will not allow anyone to bring geopolitical conflicts or any war, whether hot or cold to our region.”

A ‘limit’ to restraint

The Chinese defense chief also said there was a “limit to” China’s restraint when it comes to “provocations” in the South China Sea, making an apparent reference to US treaty ally the Philippines, which Dong did not name directly.

A “certain country” was “emboldened” by outside powers and had “made mediated provocations,” Dong said, while indirectly referencing the deployment of an American missile system during military drills in the Philippines in April.

China has militarized islands in the disputed South China Sea, and in recent months its coast guard has fired water cannons and sought to counter Philippine vessels operating in disputed areas, further ratcheting tensions in the key strategic waterway.

China claims historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea, despite a 2016 ruling at an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines against that claim.

Dong’s comments come after Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr on Friday denounced illegal, coercive and aggressive actions in the South China Sea at the opening of the same defense forum in Singapore. He also warned that the death of any Filipino citizen at the hands of another country in the South China Sea would be “very close” to an act of war.

The Chinese defense chief also pushed back against concerns voiced by the US that dual-use exports from China are bolstering Russia’s defense industrial base as it wages war in Ukraine.

“We have never provided weapons to either party of the conflict. We have put stricter control on the export of dual-use items and have never done anything to fan the flames,” Dong said.

The issue was raised during a meeting between Dong and US counterpart Austin – the first face-to-face talks between US and Chinese defense since 2022, with Austin indicating to China that there would be consequences if Beijing continues to support Russia militarily.

Dong said China “stays open to exchanges and cooperation with the US military.”

The annual security forum in Singapore – which is hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) – is a rare gathering of senior military officials from across the Asia-Pacific region, including those who are geopolitical rivals or view each other warily.

It is also a rare opportunity to hear from, and pose questions to, senior Chinese military leaders.

Many of the questions directed at Dong from delegates revolved around China’s increased assertiveness throughout the region, particularly towards Taiwan and in the disputed South China Sea.

“The strategic environment in Asia has actually got more tense and I think we saw that in the Chinese defense minister’s speech today,” Ward said.

“The tone was far harder this year than it was last year,” he added.

Meanwhile a senior US official had the following assessment.

The UK ambassador to Mexico was quietly fired earlier this year after pointing a rifle at a local embassy employee, the Financial Times reported Friday. The incident was captured in a video shared on social media.

The five-second video, published May 26 on an X account called Subdiplomatic, appears to show Jon Benjamin sitting in the front passenger seat of a vehicle, picking up a rifle, and pointing it toward a person sitting in the back. At least one person is heard laughing in the video during the episode.

People familiar with the matter told the Financial Times that Benjamin was reportedly fired soon after the incident occurred during an official trip to the Mexican states of Durango and Sinaloa in April.

The UK government website indicates that Benjamin is no longer an envoy. His biography page reads: “Jon Benjamin was UK Ambassador to Mexico between 2021 and 2024” – and that position is listed under a section titled “Previous roles in government.” The site does not explain why he no longer holds that role.

Mexico – which holds presidential, national and local elections Sunday – faces rampant violent crime, with sky-high crime and homicide rates.