Britain’s Princess Eugenie has given birth to a boy, she announced on Instagram.

The princess, who is 11th in line to the British throne, is King Charles III’s niece. She’s the daughter of the monarch’s younger brother Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

Princess Eugenie said Monday that she and husband Jack Brooksbank welcomed their second child, Ernest George Ronnie Brooksbank, on May 30.

“Jack and I wanted to share the news that we had our little boy, Ernest George Ronnie Brooksbank on 30th May 2023 at 8.49 weighing 7.1lbs,” she said in the Instagram post.

“He is named after his great great great Grandfather George, his Grandpa George and my Grandpa Ronald,” it continues.

The couple have another boy, August Philip Hawke Brooksbank, born in February 2021.

“Augie is loving being a big brother already,” said Eugenie in Monday’s post.

The princess married Brooksbank at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle in October 2018, a few months after Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex tied the knot there.

Eugenie was born on March 23, 1990. The princess’ parents announced their separation when she was two and divorced in 1996, sharing joint custody of Eugenie and her older sister Beatrice.

One of two giant rubber ducks on display in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor was deflated on Saturday to protect it from sweltering temperatures.

Organizers said they made the decision to deflate the duck just one day after the pair arrived in the harbor, after an inspection found that its surface had stretched in the hot weather.

The deflated duck will be sent for repairs, while its friend will remain in the harbor as part of a pop-art installation dubbed “Double Duck.”

Locals and tourists had gathered at the waterfront in the scorching sun to catch a glimpse of the artwork – with some left disheartened at only seeing one duck.

One Hong Kong resident, 35, explained that she had brought her child out specially to see the oversized bath toys.

“Today, we originally planned to bring my child to see the yellow duck. We saw it 10 years ago as well. Back then, there was only one yellow duck, but today we came to see double ducks.

“However, unexpectedly, there is only one duck now. We don’t feel disappointed though. As long as the children are happy, that’s enough.”

A tourist from Thailand explained that her sister is a “big fan” of the giant ducks.

“So, she was super sad, because she can see just only one.”

Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s “Rubber Duck” initially appeared in Victoria Harbor a decade ago.

Conceived in 2001 before debuting in France six years later, the installation appeared in cities including Osaka, Sydney and Sao Paolo before arriving in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory in May 2013.

The artwork’s previous arrival in Victoria Harbour made a splash worldwide — in part because it mysteriously deflated overnight before being reinflated days later.

The pop art installation returned to the harbor on Friday, this time with not one, but two ducks. At 18 meters (59 feet) tall, they are slightly larger than the one that made global headlines 10 years ago.

“Double duck is double luck,” artist Hofman said in a statement. “The work emphasizes friendship and getting connected … ‘Double Ducks’ is not about looking into the past but enjoying the moment together!”

Deep inside a makeshift bunker, residents of Orikhiv await an aid delivery while artillery shakes the ground above.

“It’s comfortable here,” 72-year-old Olga Shumska says, unfazed by the commotion outside. The town in the Zaporizhzhia region sits just five kilometers away from a frontline where Ukrainian forces have been making a recent push.

“I’m not afraid, I’m used to it and I don’t want to go anywhere from here. I tell myself that soon the war will end and we will live normally.”

But this is far from normal. Months of shelling have destroyed most of the town’s infrastructure, leaving Orikhiv without electricity, gas or water.

“It is very dangerous. We had people killed and wounded and there is a lot of destruction,” Shumska explains. “In August last year my house was also destroyed.”

Most of the town’s 1,400 remaining residents, down from a pre-war population of 14,000, now live in basements and these bunkers — so called ‘invisibility centres’ — are the only place they are able to shower, do laundry, charge their phones or eat a warm meal.

“We’re here almost every day, because it is safe here, our friends are here,” Shumska’s neighbour Nina Sokol says. “Tomorrow there will be a church service until noon. So we’ll be here for 3 to 4 hours and after the service, we will have dinner and go home.”

An unfathomable existence for most, but not for Sokol.

“What is there to be afraid of?,” the 71-year-old asks. “There are no two deaths. There is only one death.”

The trick, she says, is to try and delay it, an increasingly difficult task for the residents of Orikhiv, who rely on deliveries from aid agencies to survive.

Today they’re getting a box of long shelf life foods that should last them for a week or two. But deliveries like these are not easy.

“Orikhiv is one of the most dangerous places in Zapoprizhzhia region,” says Vitaliy Kubushka from the Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) and the Howard Buffett Foundation, the organisation behind the aid. “The town is shelled every 24 hours.”

And with the Zaporizhzhia frontline becoming more active because of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, aid deliveries may become more rare.

The Zaporizhzhia front

For most of the 60 km journey down from Zaporizhzhia to Orikhiv, you’d be forgiven for forgetting Ukraine is a country at war. The idyllic route is flanked by stunning yellow colored meadows, interrupted only by the occasional line of trees.

But on the approach to Orikhiv, the sense of danger starts to creep in.

The bucolic fantasy fades away as the abrupt, repetitive swoosh of a Ukrainian grad firing rockets towards Russian positions break the silence.

The Ukrainian military has built somewhat of an exclusion zone around the Zaporizhzhia front, hoping to retain the element of surprise as it continues to probe Russian defenses along the Southern front.

It has also encouraged civilians not to share any photos or videos of military operations, releasing a slick video ending with the line “plans love silence.” Journalists are also rarely allowed through the checkpoints down south.

Once through, the military presence is felt – and heard – all around the region, but most of the hardware is hidden away from prying eyes and Moscow’s sights.

Activity in the region suggests Ukrainian forces have begun probing attacks on Russian positions, but the videos shared by the Ministry of Defense in Moscow suggest Kyiv may be facing more resistance than initially anticipated.

“We will be celebrating victory”

Down in the school basement, Shumska and Sokol pack their food boxes. They bring them up and out of the bunker, despite calls by volunteers for people to take shelter after a shell lands nearby.

With their age comes frailty, but, they say, wisdom too. And nothing happens around town without them being well aware of it, even if that is a top-secret Ukrainian counteroffensive.

“Our soldiers, it seems they all went for the counteroffensive,” Sokol says, longing for the day she can once again see her relatives, who are stuck inside Russian-occupied territories.

“They are already starting to push [the Russians] away from us,” she says. “They will push them step by step, until they drive them out. Until there is a complete victory of Ukraine.”

Shumska, more measured, says she is only praying for a win.

“I only hope that we will win and are able to live on our land, that we win and live freely,” she says.

She straps the food box to the back of her bike and – just before she cycles away – Ukrainian forces somewhere outside of town are heard firing a shell towards Russian positions.

Unfazed but slightly emotional, with a sparkle in her eye, she says one last thing: “Come back soon, we will be celebrating victory.”

Melted ice cream, cockle popcorn and a no-egg-white omelet are among the most unusual hotel room service requests from travelers across the globe, according to a recent study.

Hotels.com’s first-ever room service report surveyed over 470 hotels with in-room dining available in 10 countries including the US, Canada, France and South Korea, according to a news release.

Among the quirkiest hotel requests: bison, boiled bottled water, a fish caught by a traveler who wanted it cooked to order and a rice bowl for a dog, the report found.

Burgers in bed, anyone? The dish isn’t just the most popular room service order stateside, where 49% of hotel survey respondents said it was the top request. Burgers also beat out pizza, tacos, fries and club sandwiches at hotels globally, according to the report.

When it comes to ordering in, 27% of US hotels reported some guests go all out and pay an average of over $100 for the perk, with champagne and steak ranking as the priciest room service menu items.

If guests really want to explore their eccentric side, hotels across the world are willing to oblige.

The Ashford Castle in County Mayo, Ireland, allows guests to request a Lego butler that will deliver the Lego sets of one’s choosing on a silver tray to their rooms, according to the report.

And fans of the “Home Alone” films can satisfy their sweet tooths at New York City’s Plaza Hotel, which serves guests a 16-scoop, topping-layered ice cream named after the franchise for $300, the report says.

Can humans and rats live together?

That’s what city leaders in Paris are trying to find out. The French capital, like many metropolises, has a notorious rodent problem.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo is forming a committee to study “cohabitation” – to what extent humans and rodents can live together – one of her deputies said Thursday during a city council meeting.

Anne Souyris, Paris’ deputy mayor in charge of public health, announced the move in response to questions from Geoffroy Boulard, the head of Paris’ 17th arrondissement and a member of the center-right Republican party.

Boulard had called upon the city government to outline a more ambitious plan against the proliferation of rats in public spaces.

He has previously criticized Hidalgo, a member of the center-left socialist party, for not doing enough to eliminate rats from Paris, including during strikes earlier this year which saw garbage pile up across the city.

“The presence of rats on the surface is harmful to the quality of life of Parisians,” Boulard said.

Boulard said he was raising his question after coming across an ongoing study, Project Armageddon. The project’s mission is aiding the city in managing its rat population and among its objectives is fighting prejudices against rats to help Parisians better live with them.

The study is being financed by the French government, though the city of Paris is a partner in the project.

Souyris explained that what was being studied was to what extent humans and rats can live together in a way that is “the most efficient and at the same time ensure that it’s not unbearable for Parisians.”

While rats can spread disease, the deputy mayor said that the rats being discussed were not the same black rats that can carry plague, but other types of rats that carry diseases like leptospirosis, a bacterial disease. Souyris also highlighted some of the actions taken by the city as part of its 2017 anti-rat plan, including investing in thousands of new garbage cans to “make the rats go back underground.”

Souyris later said on Twitter that Paris’ rats do not pose a “significant” public health risk. She added that she was asking the French High Council on Public Health to weigh in on the debate.

“We need scientific advice, not political press releases,” she said.

Animal rights group Paris Animaux Zoopolis welcomed the city’s move.

“Rats are present in Paris, as in all major French cities, so the question of cohabitation necessarily arises,” a statement from the group said.

“At PAZ, when we talk about “peaceful cohabitation” with rats, we don’t mean living with them in our houses and apartments, but making sure that these animals don’t suffer AND that we’re not disturbed. Again, a very reasonable objective!”

Two airplanes have “highly likely collided” with each other at the Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japanese public broadcaster NHK is reporting, citing the country’s transport ministry.

The two passenger aircraft involved belonged to EVA Air and Thai Airways and are thought to have come into contact with each other near a taxiway at around 11 a.m., NHK reported on Saturday morning.

It cited the Tokyo Aviation Office of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), which is working to confirm the details of the situation.

The broadcaster said 207 passengers and crew were on board the EVA Air plane, while 264 others were on the Thai Airways flight. No injuries have been reported.

The runway near where the two aircraft were stopped has been suspended, leaving just three in operation.

Airport video footage from NHK shows part of one of the Thai aircraft’s wings missing and debris on the runway close by.

The video also shows aviation staff cleaning up the debris.

The Tokyo Airport Office has sent staff to the area to check the situation.

This is a developing story. More to come.

UK to charge travelers for entry

Visa waiver schemes have been around for a while. The United States has the $21 ESTA, valid for two years, and Europe will be introducing the 7 euro ETIAS (about $7.50 on exchange rates this week) in 2024. That one will last you three years.

The United Kingdom, you may recall, rather famously fled the EU coop a couple of years back. Now it’s revealed the price tag for its own scheme, the ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation): £10 (about $12.50) for two years.

Admittedly, that’s only about the price of a large fish and chips, but it does mean access to the nations that gave us the Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle will be more expensive than a pass to the home countries of the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, the Sagrada Familia and the Acropolis combined.

The plan is for the scheme to be rolled out for people who don’t require a visa to enter the United Kingdom – including US and EU nationals – by the end of 2024, with the first nation to join the scheme being Qatar later this year.

Bunk beds and double-decker seats

The new version is roomier and with improved incline but, when all’s said and done, if you’re on the lower set, face cheeks and butt cheeks are level in a way that makes many uncomfortable.

There was a warmer welcome for Delta’s groundbreaking airplane seat concept that allows powered wheelchair users to stay in their own chair, which could improve the flying experience for millions around the world. Our video shows how it works.

Finally, Air New Zealand’s economy class bunk beds were a winner at the Crystal Cabin Awards and are set to hit the skies in 2024. That follows the news in March that Lufthansa will be introducing double bed suites for first class passengers as part of its $2.65 billion transformation of long-haul aircraft cabins.

Award-winning food and wine

Where can I get Haitian food in the Pacific Northwest? Which Philadelphia restaurant does the best tasting menu? Which emerging wine producers should I brag to my friends about discovering? Don’t worry, Travel friends, we’ve got you.

Just check out the illustrious winners of two of the biggest awards in food and drink – the James Beard Awards for US chefs and restaurants and the Decanter World Wine Awards for venerable vinos, both announced this week.

Law and order

There’s been a boom in bad behavior on airplanes in recent years – yet another US-bound flight was diverted last weekend – but the most egregious recent example has to be the passenger who opened the door on a South Korea flight. Here’s what the man who was seated next to him had to say about the ordeal.

Down on ground level, there are still people not getting the message that you don’t mess with wildlife. Tourists put a baby elk in their car in Yellowstone National Park in the latest of a string of incidents.

In case you missed it

A real, 3D-printed cultivated fish fillet has just been created. 

Welcome home, honey, your dinner’s in the printer.

Three sand cat kittens were born at North Carolina Zoo.

Witness the cuteness here.

Six years ago, a man set out on a solo hike around the coastline of the United Kingdom. 

Then things took a turn.

Not since the 1970s has Steve Perillo, CEO and third-generation owner of New Jersey-based tour operator Perillo Tours, seen such a spike in travelers booking trips to Europe.

The company, which is best known for its custom tours to Italy, usually sells about 80% of its capacity in a year, Perillo says. So far in 2023, approximately 96% of the operator’s 500 annual departures, which also include Spain and Greece as destinations, are booked – and Perillo expects that figure to hit 100% within a few weeks, before the company starts marketing for its 2024 season.

For Perillo, hints of the blockbuster season ahead started appearing last fall, when the company offered a Black Friday discount of about 5%. “We should have charged more for Black Friday,” he jokes. “That’s when we noticed that [demand] was outrageous, and I called all my friends the night of Black Friday and said, ‘this is going to be crazy.’”

In many parts of Europe, the craziness is already well underway, as droves of Europe-bound tourists follow in the well-trodden footsteps of their 2022 predecessors in last season’s post-Covid lockdown surge.

According to travel insurance provider Allianz Partners, the number of Americans traveling to Europe this summer is expected to soar by 55% over last year’s figures – which were already a staggering 600% higher than in 2021. London, Paris, and Dublin topped the 2023 list of the 10 most popular destinations revealed by Allianz’s annual review; Rome, Reykjavik, Amsterdam, and Lisbon also made the top 10.

The European Travel Commission also forecasted strong demand for European vacations in 2023, with nearly half of all destinations on the continent expecting a return to more than 80% of 2019 numbers.

Of course, all that demand has sent prices surging. According to flight tracking site Hopper, airfare to Europe is at a five-year high. Roundtrip tickets to the continent are currently averaging more than $1,200, which is approximately $300 higher than 2022 (and a 26% jump from pre-pandemic prices in 2019), according to a company spokesperson.

Hotel prices have surged, too. According to American Express Global Business Travel, hotel prices in Europe will experience the largest increases during 2023. Paris (up 10% year-over-year), Stockholm (9%) and Dublin (8.5%) are among the destinations AEGBT predicted to see the highest rises.

Yet those higher prices haven’t dampened the collective wanderlust. For weeks, many European hubs have been swarmed with tourists, and sold-out hotels, packed museums and overflowing restaurants are increasingly commonplace, especially in in-demand cities like Barcelona, Rome and Paris.

‘You could barely move through the street’

What’s especially surprising for some is how early in the season the crowds have arrived. “If I look out of the window, it already feels a bit like July,” says Milou Halbesma, director of the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, which is located in the former home of the Dutch master.

This spring, the museum unveiled a major renovation that opened the attic space to the public, offering “30% more Rembrandt” to museum visitors, Halbesma says. In anticipation of the “very busy summer” ahead, the museum has brought in five extra staffers for July and August and added new visitor services, including a multimedia tour available in 13 languages and a children-specific tour.

As a whole, Amsterdam’s cultural scene is enjoying a moment in the spotlight following the spectacular success of the Rijksmuseum’s just-ended Vermeer exhibit. Art enthusiasts and museum-goers are an especially sought-after travel demographic by city officials amid ongoing campaigns to reduce “nuisance tourism” like bachelor and bachelorette parties.

“We’re very happy to welcome everybody, and we also hope that there will be more cultural tourists and less stag parties and groups like this,” Halbesma says. “People in Amsterdam are the nicest people, the most tolerant, relaxed people in the world. But [rowdy tourists] should behave a little bit.”

Meanwhile, in other destinations across the continent, popular shows like “The White Lotus” by HBO and Netflix’s “Emily in Paris” also have enticed hordes of selfie-snapping fans. According to data from Expedia, flight searches to cities in Sicily — the idyllic island where “The White Lotus”’s second season was filmed — have spiked by triple digits this summer, with searches to Messina up by a whopping 335% and Palermo by 180%.

Jenn Rice, a North Carolina-based journalist and brand consultant, witnessed that popularity first-hand on a recent trip to Palermo. Rice described the Sicilian capital as “absolutely insane” in early June, with tourists “spilling onto the street like it was Mardi Gras.”

“I just haven’t seen that many people on a street on a Saturday night,” says Rice, who’s traveling around Europe for three months for the second summer in a row. “You could barely move through the street to get to another bar. People were just like sardines, packed in everywhere.”

Traditionally popular attractions, landmarks, and events also are feeling the crush. Perillo says he’s heard anecdotes about tour guides in Rome having to call by a certain weekly deadline just to try to secure reservations for the Coliseum. “People start lining up on the call at midnight just to have a shot,” he says. “Everyone who wants to go to Rome wants to go to the Coliseum.”

You could barely move through the street to get to another bar. People were just like sardines, packed in everywhere.

Jenn Rice

In Paris, Arnaud Morandi, general manager of Fauchon L’Hôtel Paris, a five-star, 54-room boutique property, says visitors hoping to secure last-minute tickets for events like the French Open, which is currently underway, major concerts, or reservations at in-demand restaurants should temper expectations.

“It seems like everything has sold out so quickly,” Morandi says. “Everything dealing with leisure, including fine dining and luxury hotels, is booked so far in advance, much earlier than before.”

Fauchon, which opened in 2018, continues to set its own occupancy records with several sold-out days already on the books for June, July and August. “[The city] is not as busy as it’s going to be in a few weeks, but we’re almost there,” Morandi says.

‘You just have to get creative’

To cope with the record-breaking crowds and higher costs this summer, many Europe-bound travelers have been forced to adjust their plans. Rice, for example, is relying on trains and ferries to avoid “insanely expensive” flight costs, even on budget airlines like easyJet and Ryanair.

European residents also are feeling the pinch for their own summer vacation plans. Sarah Ferguson, who moved to Amsterdam from South Florida in April 2021 with her husband and their four sons, has yet to return to the United States with her family because the cost of six airline tickets “is just not worth it, so we just tell everyone to come here,” she explains.

But traveling around Europe – a big incentive for the family’s move abroad in the first place – has become increasingly cost-prohibitive. Tickets for the train, a mode of transit Ferguson and her husband were eager to do more of, are often pricier than airfare.

“Before we moved, we had this idea to show our kids these awesome countries on these amazing train trips, and all six of us were going to learn how to pack one bag and just go,” Ferguson says. “Unfortunately, that’s not been the case at all. Over these two years, our expat friends talk all the time about how train tickets are more expensive than flying. It’s ridiculous.”

As a result, the family has shifted its summer vacations to road trip-style adventures. Ferguson rented two hybrid Toyota Corollas to make the 15-hour drive in August to a camping resort in Croatia, which they visited last year and where they’ll stay in a beachfront villa this time around. “We did the drive last year, and it’s beautiful,” she says. “You just have to get creative.”

Pola Henderson, a dual citizen of the United States and Poland who has lived in Paris for seven years, also has shifted how she travels around Europe. Until recently, Henderson, a content and travel writer, used to take one or two weekend trips to different countries every month. But she’s staying closer to home this summer, with weekend trips around France and more exploration of Paris itself.

“I cannot imagine living without travel, but now I’m more picky about what I do,” Henderson explains. “But it’s been very frustrating … because [travel] has become a lot more difficult and not not only in terms of prices, but also we have to plan way ahead of time.”

Time will tell whether more frustrations are in store for travelers in terms of the chaos of flight cancellations, delays, and other disruptions of last season. So far, a few hiccups have popped up, including ongoing protests in Paris, union and cast member strikes at Disneyland Paris in early June, and a failure of passport scanners at Heathrow and other UK airports over a holiday weekend in May. Yet the prevailing mood among many travelers seems to be a hybrid of excitement and a “carpe diem” attitude — even in the most packed of places.

“You can’t not go see these places just because they’re crowded,” Rice says. “Everywhere is crowded now, so you just have to be a little smarter and do more research. But most importantly, do and see what you want to see, not what everyone else is talking about. I’ve put Venice on this ‘can’t visit; too crowded list’ for years, and this is the year I’m diving in.”

Human remains found in 45 bags discovered in a suburb of Guadalajara belong to call center workers who went missing in May, Mexican authorities have confirmed.

The Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences (IJCF) said Tuesday its tests had confirmed the remains belonged to the missing workers and said the next of kin had been informed. However, it did not specify whether remains from all seven of the missing workers were in the bags.

The seven workers disappeared from the metropolitan area of Guadalajara sometime after May 20. The search for them took a grisly turn last week when bags containing human body parts were found in a ravine in the municipality of Zapopan.

Mexico’s Secretary of Security Rosa Icela Rodriguez Velazquez said last Tuesday that initial investigations suggested the workers might have been involved in “some type of real estate fraud” and “telephone extortion.”

Mexico has been troubled by an epidemic of disappearances with more than 100,000 Mexicans and migrants still missing.

More than 1,500 bodies have been found in Jalisco state since 2018, official figures show. According to the office of the Jalisco’s special prosecutor for missing persons, 291 bodies were discovered in 2019, 544 bodies were found in 2020, 280 bodies in 2021, and 301 the following year. So far in 2023, 147 bodies have been found.

In March, after four Americans were kidnapped in Mexico, resulting in the deaths of two of them, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador argued that Mexico is a safer country than the United States.

Kidnapping and human trafficking are also not unusual in parts of Mexico, particularly in border areas and Mexico’s overall homicide rate is among the highest in the world.

Ukraine has opened a new front in its battle to drive out the Russian invader – in Russia. But it is oddly coy about admitting that it has sent troops, fired artillery, and flown drones into its neighbor’s territory.

The operations of Russian citizens, carrying Ukrainian military ID, wearing Ukrainian uniforms and attacking from Ukraine, remain officially opaque. It is Kyiv’s contribution to what’s become known as “hybrid warfare” in the “grey zone” of contemporary conflict.

The two terms provoked books and a tsunami of excited opinion from an army of pundits when Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014.

Back then, “Little Green Men” in peculiar two-tone sport-hunting uniforms – and Russian military fatigues – appeared in Crimea.

When it was suggested that maybe, just maybe, these men were actually Russian troops, Vladimir Putin quipped “You can go to a store and buy any kind of uniform”.

Moscow’s official line was that the men who raised the Russian flag over Simferopol and stormed Crimea’s local parliament were “self defense units” of pro-Russian Ukrainians anxious to bring their territory under Moscow’s rule.

By the time Moscow admitted that its troops were actually in Ukraine, a large chunk of the 23-year-old, former Soviet nation was under Putin’s control.

Now, on a small scale, Ukraine is adapting those same tactics to try to secure strategic effect.

The Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom for Russia Legion – which fall under Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence structure – have been conducting short cross-border raids into Russia.

The principal aim? Destabilization.

While the terminology and methods may have evolved, there’s nothing new about the tactic. Aside from Russia, South Africa’s apartheid regimes used similar techniques through the 1970s and 1980s, attacking the Frontline States of Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Pretoria sent troops on cross-border raids to destabilize the independent African nations opposed to its racist rule. They often posed as local liberation fighters in classic “false flag” attacks against civilians, trying to undermine support for liberation movements.

These groups were frequently formed of fighters from Angola, or Zimbabwe, to add “authenticity” to the atrocities they hoped to attribute to others. They were often led by white men in blackface camouflage.

The long term aim – and many times, the result – was to keep the nations supporting South Africa’s internal liberation struggle permanently off-balance.

Russia rattled

In Ukraine, it suits Kyiv to have Russians invade Russia on its behalf.

The tactical results may be limited. Brief incursions into small border villages. But the desired effect of destabilization in Russia is achieved.

Russian TV has been awash in breathless, and terrified, reports by local journalists on the artillery attacks against Russian towns.

The governor of Belgorod – the region worst hit by the latest Ukrainian campaign – has evacuated hundreds of civilians, has been in personal telephone contact with Putin, and has already picked up a bravery gong for his efforts.

Meanwhile the Freedom for Russia Legion is posting advertisements on its Telegram channel for drone pilots to join its ranks.

It may, or may not, be behind the growing numbers of drone strikes that have hit Russian territory, from the Kremlin and the upscale Moscow suburbs favored by Putin’s allies, to the cities of Kursk, Smelensk and Krasnador.

The point is to make the attacks inside Russia feel like they have a significant Russian flavor – to suggest that more Russians are heeding the dissident “Cry Freedom” and joining in a homegrown effort to depose Putin.

Both the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom for Russia Legion claim to have supporters in their home country.

They may indeed. Someone unleashed the blue and white flag of the Russian opposition movement over Moscow last week. Someone’s helping with either flying, or training, drones onto Russian targets.

As far as Ukraine is concerned, the more Russians think that their compatriots are involved in attacking the Russian regime the better. Doubt itself is destabilizing.

Judging by the rhetoric coming from Russia, it’s working.

Opening a meeting with his Security Council on Friday, Putin said “ill-wishers” must be prevented from destabilizing Russia.

He said the council would focus on ensuring domestic political security, taking into account the enemy’s intensified efforts “to stir up the situation within the Russian Federation.”

“We must exert every possible effort not to allow them to do this under any circumstances,” Putin added.

War coming home

Ukraine could ask for no greater ally in this strategy than Yezgeny Prigozhin, the outspoken leader of Russian mercenary group Wagner.

“Wagner PMC wants at least of one month of recovery as it was a tough job, tough year… And then there will be the next scuffles, I think, most likely this time on Russian territory,” he said after the incursions and drone attacks against Russia.

As a bonus for Kyiv, Prigozhin went on to lambast Russia’s military leadership. The Russian chain of command was “controlled by clowns who just treat men as cannon fodder,” he said, adding, “then we won’t be part of this chain.”

On the drone attacks on Moscow over the past week, he had this to say to Russia’s generals: “You stinking animals, what are you doing? You are swine! Get up off your asses from the offices you’ve been put in to defend this country.”

Dmitry Medvedev, a close Putin ally, was similarly rattled by the extent to which war has come to Russia. He reacted with something close to hysteria.

“It’s clear what response is needed: They need to be annihilated, not just in a personal capacity, but we have to destroy them in the hornets’ nest itself. The regime that has developed in Ukraine should be exterminated,” said Medvedev.

He may sound like a Nazi but his words contained sinister echoes of the genocidal Holodomor of the 1930s, when, under the Soviet Union, an estimated three million Ukrainians were deliberately starved to death, middle class farmers were eradicated and the Ukrainian language banned.

But such fulminations may not impress ordinary Russians.

The Belgorod governor says dozens of strikes hit border districts inside Russia over last day or so.

In a long post on his Telegram channel, Vyacheslav Gladkov said that much of the incoming fire was artillery and mortar against border districts. There had been damage to roads, property and vehicles, he added, while 12 people had been injured in 24 hours in the border town of Shebekino.

One woman who spoke to a pro-Russian Telegram channel said Shebekino was “on fire, the battles there are ongoing,” adding: “We have fled the city. “

But her views may spread. And Russia’s response to the campaign on its soil may destabilize its military campaign inside Ukraine – and with it the politics at home.

Correction: This article has been updated to correct the number of years Ukraine had been an independent nation when Russia first invaded in 2014.