Latvia

Moscow is accused of running sabotage and espionage operations across Europe, targeting nations supporting Ukraine.

Authorities in Poland have arrested eight individuals across the country on suspicion of espionage and sabotage.

In a brief statement on social media, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that the case is developing and that “further operational activities are ongoing” without providing further details.

The detentions come amid accusations that Russia is operating a network of spies and saboteurs across Europe.

Referring to the prime minister’s post, the coordinator of Poland’s special services, Tomasz Siemoniak, said that the detained people are suspected of engaging in espionage and planning attacks.

They were arrested due to “conducting reconnaissance of military facilities and critical infrastructure, preparing resources for sabotage, and directly carrying out attacks”, he said.

While Warsaw has not directly linked the arrests, officials have said previously that Poland has been targeted with such attacks in a “hybrid war” waged by Russia to destabilise nations supporting Ukraine.

Several other European countries have also pointed the finger at Moscow as they have suffered similar attacks since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Polish authorities have detained dozens of people over suspected sabotage and espionage over the past three years or so.

Moscow denies the accusations, insisting that they are the result of “Russophobia”.

In May last year, Polish authorities arrested three men for an arson attack. In September, Lithuanian prosecutors broke up a network that they said planned arson and explosive attacks in several European Union states.

The same month, Latvia’s security service announced the detention of a man suspected of passing military intelligence to Russia, and British police arrested three people suspected of running sabotage and espionage operations for Russia.

The United Kingdom has also repeatedly accused Russia of orchestrating sabotage and spy operations on its soil and beyond. The Kremlin has accused London of blaming Moscow for “anything bad that happens”.

Drones increasing concern

This autumn, drone incursions have added to the European security concerns, with Belgium, Denmark and Germany among several countries reporting sightings.

The incursions provoked airport closures in both Germany and Denmark.

“We are at the beginning of a hybrid war against Europe,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said. “I think we are going to see more of it … We see the pattern, and it does not look good,” she added.

Tusk pledged to urgently upgrade Poland’s air defences after NATO forces shot down several drones over his country last month.

The European Union, recognising the inefficiency of using multimillion-euro weapons to battle cheap drones, has reacted to the incursions with proposals to develop a “drone wall” on its eastern borders.

THOMAS TUCHEL has ruled Ollie Watkins out of England’s upcoming World Cup qualifier against Latvia.

The 29-year-old suffered a knock during a friendly against Wales on Thursday.

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He collided with a goalpost while sliding in to connect with a cross just six minutes before half-time.

The Aston Villa man was initially able to continue, but made way for Marcus Rashford at half-time.

Now, the striker has been ruled out of Tuesday’s clash with Latvia.

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Allied forces launch joint patrols near Russia after reports of drone incursions into allied airspace.

The United Kingdom has said two Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft joined a 12-hour NATO patrol earlier this week near Russia’s border, following a series of Russian drone and aircraft incursions into alliance airspace.

“This was a substantial joint mission with our US and NATO allies,” Defence Minister John Healey said on Saturday, as concerns rise that Russia’s war in Ukraine will spill over into Europe.

“Not only does this provide valuable intelligence to boost the operational awareness of our Armed Forces, but sends a powerful message of NATO unity to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and our adversaries,” he added.

The mission involved an RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance jet and a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft flying from the Arctic region past Belarus and Ukraine, supported by a US Air Force KC-135 refuelling plane.

British officials said the operation followed several incursions into the airspace of NATO members, including Poland, Romania, and Estonia.

Growing airspace tensions

In recent weeks, Poland and its allies have reinforced air defences amid increasing Russian drone activity. Earlier this month, Warsaw deployed additional systems along its border with Ukraine – which stretches about 530km (330 miles) – after unidentified drones briefly entered Polish airspace.

Poland temporarily closed part of its airspace southeast of Warsaw in late September during a major Russian assault across Ukraine. It was the second such incident this year, with Polish and NATO forces previously intercepting Russian drones that crossed the border – marking their first direct military engagement with Moscow since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.

Elsewhere, airports in Germany, Denmark, Norway and Poland have at times also temporarily suspended flights due to sightings of unidentified drones. Romania and Estonia have directly accused Russia, which has dismissed the claims as “baseless”.

Putin has pledged a “significant” response to what he called “Europe’s militarisation”, rejecting suggestions that Moscow plans to attack NATO as “nonsense”.

“They can’t believe what they’re saying, that Russia is going to attack NATO,” he said on Thursday at a foreign policy forum in Sochi. “They’re either incredibly incompetent if they truly believe it because it’s impossible to believe this nonsense, or they’re simply dishonest.”

Putin said he was closely monitoring Europe’s military build-up and warned that Russia would not hesitate to respond. “In Germany, for example, it is said that the German army should become the strongest in Europe. Very well. We hear that and are watching to see what is meant by it,” he said. “Russia will never show weakness or indecisiveness. We simply cannot ignore what is happening.”

Relations between Moscow and the European Union have continued to deteriorate since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, driving the bloc to strengthen its collective defences amid fears the war could spill across NATO borders.

‘Is there anything worth seeing in Latvia?” asked a bemused friend when I explained my destination. “Other than Riga?” Latvia’s capital is certainly worth a visit: a wonderland of perfectly preserved art nouveau architecture with a medieval centre of narrow cobbled streets and enough quirky museums to satisfy the most curious of visitors – most of whom just come for a weekend.

But a short drive or bus ride east of Riga lies another, more expansive and completely empty, wonderland: a wild, post-Soviet landscape of untouched forests, ecologically renowned wetlands, windblown beaches and crumbling castles. Not to mention the newly restored baronial estates where you can stay for the price of an average British B&B. This region, known as Kurzeme, is almost the size of Yorkshire (population: 5.5 million) but with a mere 240,000 inhabitants.

Kurzeme (also known by its German name, Courland) has 180 miles of undeveloped coastline and a good proportion of Latvia’s 1,200 castles and mansions, as well as the ancient valley of the Abava River, listed by World Monuments Watch as one of “100 endangered unique cultural monuments”.

It also boasts Kuldīga, a Unesco world heritage town, and Liepāja an upcoming European capital of culture (2027) – full of languishing art nouveau architecture, and enough former Soviet collective farms, KGB watch towers and military barracks to remind us that history really is just a breath away.

The Latvian bus system is excellent and extremely cheap but I rented a car for a few days to maximise my time. My tour began in Sabile, a town on the River Abava – whose crystalline, beaver-filled waters flow from Kandava to Kuldīga (Sabile is also home to several vineyards where Latvian wine can be tasted). Here, one misty cacophonous morning, I casually flipped open my Merlin birding app. Within minutes it had identified 25 birds including sedge warblers, golden orioles and spotted fly catchers and I had seen marsh harriers. Apparently such a wide variety is perfectly normal: Latvia’s bogs, wetlands, coastal lagoons and ancient forests (53% of the country is woodland while 5% is wetlands) make it one of northern Europe’s best birding sites.

Just a few minutes’ drive outside town is the Pedvāle Art Park, a 100-hectare nature reserve where storks pick their way through swathes of wild lupins and 195 contemporary sculptures from across the world. Founder Ojārs Feldbergs told me the Abava valley is home to 800 species of plant and animal, as well as crusader castles and Viking graves. “It was once a trading route for amber,” he tells me. “The Baltic Sea is the world’s richest source of Baltic gold, which was transported to St Petersburg and the east through this valley for centuries.”

Later, the bucolic beauty and clean waters of the Abava valley, along with its therapeutic sulphur springs, attracted hundreds of German aristocracy, giving the region a disproportionate number of baronial estates. Though these fell into disrepair during the Soviet era when they became collective farms, tractor houses and pig farms, in the past decade many have been painstakingly restored as boutique hotels.

At Kukšu Manor (guided tour €5), I gawped at lavishly painted ceilings and jaw-dropping frescoes. Here, for €185 for a double room, anyone can live, fleetingly, as a Baltic baron. Just north of the valley, I strolled in the walled gardens, vineyards and frescoed state rooms of Nurmuiža Castle and Spa, an elegantly restored estate where you can dip in a wild swimming lake as cranes and storks fly overhead, and double rooms cost from €80. Alternatively, at Padure Manor near Kuldīga, a reconstruction-in-progress often used for film sets, €40 will buy you a bedroom and access to the musty Soviet library that came with the house.

Kuldīga itself, a charmingly dusty town, became Unesco-protected in 2023, thanks to its 17th-century wooden architecture and striking location above Europe’s widest waterfall, the Venta Rapid – crossed via Europe’s longest brick road bridge. The high street – not a single chain store in sight – includes a needle museum, a renovated merchant’s house, and craft shops where I splashed out on handknitted socks for my kids.

At Pagrabiņš, which locals assured me served some of the best Latvian food in Kurzeme, I slurped delicious salty sour soup known as solyanka with a slice of Latvia’s famously dense, chewy rye bread. Afterwards, a 30-minute drive – including a stop-off at the pink, fairytale Ēdole Castle – took me to Jūrkalne, a pretty and utterly deserted beach of bluffs, dunes and pine trees. Pāvilosta, the latest hotspot beloved of Rigan hipsters, lies to the south: an old fishing village where you can grab a flat white (try Cafe Laiva) and watch the rolling Baltic surf or cycle the EuroVelo 13 coastal track to Liepāja.

It’s here, in Latvia’s third largest city that I end my trip. With its lush parks, sandy white beaches and strollable streets of gently decaying baroque and art nouveau buildings, Liepāja makes a great base for exploring the south-west corner of Kurzeme. I stayed in the historic Art Hotel Roma (doubles from €80 a night which includes access to the hotel’s art collection) and ate as often as I could at an exquisitely restored lodgings once frequented by Peter the Great: Madame Hoyer’s Guest House. Although it’s now a museum, the dining room operates much as it did in 1697.

But Liepāja’s greatest attraction must surely be Karosta, once one of the USSR’s largest submarine bases, and a closed military zone for nearly 50 years. Today, it’s a ghostly swill of pristine coastline, brutalist architecture and graffitied Soviet watch towers, with the gold-encrusted domes of the Russian Orthodox St Nicholas Naval Cathedral gleaming, surreally and extravagantly, from its midst.

To fully grasp Latvia’s extraordinary, violent history, I took a guided tour of Karosta prison, one of only a few former military jails in Europe open to visitors. Here, windowless cells once housed revolutionaries, miscreant soldiers and officers of the tsarist army, the Soviet army, the Latvian army, as well as deserters of the German Wehrmacht and “enemies” of Stalin – many of whom had used their metal buttons to scratch their initials into the concrete walls. A little unusually, Karosta prison offers all-night stays (ranging from €15-60 a night) for anyone not averse to paranormal activities – it’s been voted the most haunted place in the world by Ghost Hunters International. I opted, instead, for a recuperative beer from one of Liepāja’s burgeoning microbreweries, mulling over an intriguing part of the world, far from the usual tourist haunts.

The writer travelled independently using the extensive network of Kurzeme’s tourist information offices and with help from latvia.travel. For information on castle and manor house stays visit latvia.travel

German air force says its ‘quick reaction alert force’ was ordered by NATO to investigate Russian plane in neutral airspace.

Germany’s air force says it has scrambled two Eurofighter jets to track a Russian reconnaissance aircraft after it had entered neutral airspace over the Baltic Sea.

In a statement, the air force said its “quick reaction alert force” was ordered on Sunday by NATO to investigate an unidentified aircraft flying without a plan or radio contact.

“It was a Russian IL-20M reconnaissance aircraft. After visual identification, we handed over escort duties for the aircraft to our Swedish NATO partners and returned to Rostock-Laage,” it added.

The operation was conducted as NATO prepares to convene its North Atlantic Council on Tuesday to discuss a separate incident involving Russian jets over Estonia.

According to the Reuters news agency, that meeting is to address what Tallinn called an “unprecedented and brazen” violation of its airspace on Friday when three Russian MiG-31 fighters entered without permission and remained for 12 minutes before leaving.

The claim sparked condemnation from NATO and European governments, who called the incursion a “reckless” and “dangerous provocation”.

Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal requested urgent “NATO Article 4 consultations” on the “totally unacceptable” incursion. Article 4 allows NATO members to hold consultations with the alliance when any state believes its territorial integrity, political independence or security is under threat.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence denied the allegation while Estonia summoned Moscow’s charge d’affaires in protest.

Tensions have been heightened in recent weeks by a series of airspace violations along NATO’s eastern flank.

Romania said last week that its radar detected a Russian drone, prompting it to scramble fighter jets. Earlier this month, Poland reported that it had shot down several drones during a Russian aerial attack on Ukraine, marking the first time NATO forces have directly engaged in that conflict.

Ukraine has said the incidents show Moscow is testing the West’s resolve as the war is in its fourth year. Military analysts note that such incursions serve as intelligence-gathering operations, tests of NATO’s responses and pressure tactics designed to unsettle NATO members bordering Russia.

Moscow and Minsk insist, however, that the drills are defensive, adding that Western security concerns are ‘nonsense’.

Russia has showcased some of its advanced weapons while conducting a joint military drill with Belarusian troops amid heightened tensions with NATO countries following alleged violations of the airspaces of Poland and Romania by Moscow.

Approximately 7,000 troops, including 6,000 Belarusian soldiers, participated in exercises held at locations in Belarus and Russia.

Russia conducted a test strike with a Kalibr missile from the nuclear submarine named Arkhangelsk in the Barents Sea during the joint Russia-Belarus “Zapad” military drills, Russian news agency Interfax reported on Monday. The strike on the designated target was carried out by the submarine from an underwater position, Interfax reported.

Moscow and Minsk insisted on Tuesday that the drills are defensive, meant to simulate a response to an invasion.

But NATO states along the alliance’s eastern flank see them as a threat, particularly after alleged Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace last week. Warsaw has since warned that “open conflict” is closer now than at any point since World War II. Romania on Sunday accused Russia of drone incursion during its attacks on Ukraine.

Britain’s Labour Party-led government on Monday announced its fighter jets will fly air defence missions over Poland to counter aerial threats.

Russia has been at war with Ukraine since it launched a ground invasion in 2022.

Belarus’s Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin dismissed the NATO concerns.

“We have heard a lot of things … that we are threatening NATO, that we are going to invade the Baltic states,” he told reporters at the Barysaw base, east of Minsk. “Simply put, all kinds of nonsense.”

Still, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania have stepped up security, closing borders and carrying out counter-drills.

Belarus invites international observers

Belarus allowed rare media access, inviting foreign journalists, TV crews and even US army officers.

“Thank you for the invitation,” Bryan Shoupe, the US military attache, said as he shook hands with the Belarusian defence minister.

“Give the American guests the best places and show them everything that interests them,” the defence minister said. Cameras captured Khrenin shaking hands with two US Army officers, thanking them for attending.

The drills were a tightly choreographed show of force. Camouflaged armoured vehicles splashed across a river, helicopters swooped low over treetops, and young conscripts loaded shells into artillery systems. Others prepared drones for mock strikes.

Reporters were excluded from the naval manoeuvres in the Barents and Baltic seas, as well as the exercises near Grodna, close to the Polish and Lithuanian borders.

Minsk highlighted the limited scale of the drills, stressing that only 7,000 troops were involved. By comparison, the 2021 Zapad exercises included about 200,000 personnel, just months before Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Khrenin said the reduced numbers reflected Minsk’s efforts to ease tensions. “We have nothing to hide,” he insisted. “We are only preparing to defend our country.”

Belarus also pointed to the international presence, saying observers from 23 countries attended, many of them long-standing allies of Minsk and Moscow.

Baltic and Nordic leaders in Denmark’s Copenhagen are meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is on a diplomatic drive trying to cement security guarantees for Kyiv in the event of a peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“The heads of state and government will discuss how the Nordic-Baltic countries can ensure further support for Ukraine on the frontline and in the negotiating room,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.

The gathering brings together the leaders of the Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8) – Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden – with Zelenskyy to discuss Ukraine’s future.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb said on Tuesday that progress was being made on security guarantees for Ukraine, but he stressed that such measures would only be implemented after a peace agreement is reached.

“We need to coordinate the security arrangements with the United States, which essentially will provide the backstop for this … We’re focusing on these issues with our chiefs of defence, which are drawing the concrete plans of what this type of operation might look like,” Stubb told reporters.

“We’re making progress on this and hopefully we’ll get a solution soon,” he said, while cautioning that he was not optimistic about a ceasefire or peace agreement with Russia in the near term.

The ‘coalition of the willing’

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said he expected clarity at a summit of Ukraine’s allies on Thursday “or soon after” on what security guarantees Europe can offer Kyiv once the war halts.

“I expect tomorrow, or soon after tomorrow, to have clarity on what collectively we can deliver,” Rutte said at a news conference with Estonian President Alar Karis in Brussels. “That means that we can engage even more intensely, also with the American side, to see what they want to deliver in terms of their participation in security guarantees.”

United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron will co-host Thursday’s mostly virtual meeting of leaders of the so-called “coalition of the willing” – a collection of Western states working on long-term guarantees for Ukraine, and NATO. Zelenskyy moves on to meet Macron tonight in Paris ahead of that summit.

Western officials have said such guarantees are aimed at deterring Russia from launching another war after hostilities end, whether through a ceasefire or a permanent peace deal.

They are expected to centre on continued military support for Kyiv, along with an international force to reassure Ukraine. However, European leaders have made clear that such a force would only be feasible with US participation.

United States President Donald Trump last month promised American involvement, but Washington has yet to spell out what it would contribute. Rutte sought to reassure eastern NATO members that resources for Ukraine’s security guarantees would not come at the expense of the alliance’s own defences.

“We have to prevent spreading our resources too thinly, and this means that we always have to look at what the impact will be on the NATO plans,” he said.

Moscow, meanwhile, rejects the idea of European peacekeeping troops on the ground in Ukraine, and insists that any future settlement must reflect what it calls “new territorial realities”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Indonesia’s Kompas newspaper that regions annexed by Russia – Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson – must be “recognized and formalized in an international legal manner” for peace to last.

Trump has suggested any eventual deal would involve Ukraine ceding some territory, but many analysts believe one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s core demands will be Ukrainian recognition of Moscow’s control over the parts of Donbas still under Kyiv’s authority.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected such concessions, warning that losing any territory would embolden Russia to launch new attacks in the future. The Ukrainian constitution also forbids it.

Russia takes more territory in Kherson

As diplomacy continues behind the scenes, Russia’s assault continues to intensify across eastern Ukraine. Its forces claim to have encircled and now captured “about half” of Kupiansk, a strategic city in the northeastern Kharkiv region. Moscow’s Ministry of Defence also claimed its forces had seized the settlement of Fedorivka in Donetsk.

In the skies, Russia launched a sweeping overnight air campaign, striking targets across nine regions. Ukrainian officials said at least four railway workers were injured, while Poland scrambled defence aircraft as explosions echoed near its border.

Ukraine’s emergency services reported that five people were injured and 28 homes damaged in an attack on the Znamianka community in the Kirovohrad region. In Khmelnytskyi, transport services faced “significant schedule disruptions” after strikes damaged residential buildings and triggered fires.

Local authorities said two people were killed in Russian shelling of Polohivskyi district in Zaporizhia, while separate attacks caused deaths in Kherson, Kyiv region and Donetsk. The independent news outlet Kyiv Independent reported at least five civilians killed across the country in the latest wave of strikes.

Russia said it had shot down 158 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours, while claiming that Ukrainian attacks across its border killed 12 people and wounded nearly 100 in the past week. In the Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a Ukrainian drone strike injured three people in the village of Proletarsky.

The diplomatic manoeuvring comes as Putin seeks to deepen ties with North Korea and China. His meeting on Wednesday with Kim Jong Un in Beijing, alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping at a grand military parade, underscored the growing partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Trump responded by accusing the three leaders of conspiring against the United States – a claim dismissed by the Kremlin.

Beitar Jerusalem fans sparked chaos in Riga, hurling pyrotechnics and setting off flares during their loss to Riga FC, yet faced no repercussions.
Al Jazeera’s Nils Adler explores why Israeli clubs like Beitar continue to play in Europe despite fans chanting genocidal slogans and glorifying Palestinian hate.

Riga, Latvia – Thick black smoke billowed across Skonto Stadium as fans of the Israeli football team, Beitar Jerusalem, defied UEFA rules, setting off several rounds of pyrotechnics.

With only one minute played of the UEFA Conference League qualifier match against Riga FC, Latvian fans looked bewildered as a Beitar fan, wearing a black balaclava, nonchalantly threw a succession of fireworks around the stand, causing a small fire and scorching parts of the away stand.

A banner displaying the name of Beitar supporters’ fan club, “La Familia”, sat draped across the stands. The notoriously racist fan club, which is known for its anti-Arab chants and violent behaviour, has in the past come up against the police in Israel.

In 2016, an undercover police operation resulted in the arrest of 56 fans on suspicion of smuggling weapons and violence.

On Thursday, one Beitar fan held up an Israeli flag in the home stand, garnering cheers from other Beitar fans, but angry stewards ushered them down the steps and into the away stand.

The team, which in its 89-year history has never signed an Arab player, boasts right-wing Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir among its supporters. It is currently playing its home matches in Romania due to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and travelled to Latvia just weeks after fans were filmed chanting “Death to Arabs” while marching through the streets of Bucharest, where their team beat Sutjeska of Montenegro 5-2.

After the Riga game on Thursday, the raucous fans were held inside the stadium perimeter for about half an hour. A solitary home fan shouted “free Palestine” towards the direction of the Beitar fans gathered behind the gates. “F**k Palestine”, came the response.

The game had ended 3-0 to Riga FC, and afterwards, Beitar fans let out their frustration by setting off flares in heavy traffic. Amid the chaos, a number were herded off to police vans by Latvian police.

‘Double standards’

The chaotic, alcohol-fuelled behaviour displayed by Beitar fans may not be new to European football, but it comes amid the backdrop of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians and led to calls from rights groups for Israeli teams to be banned from European football competitions.

The world football governing body, FIFA, has repeatedly delayed its review of a Palestinian bid to have Israel suspended from the international arena over its war on Gaza.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it took FIFA only a matter of days to suspend Russian teams from all international football competitions.

That highlights the “double standards” shown towards Palestinian lives, Dima Said, spokesperson for the Palestine Football Association and former captain of Palestine women’s national football team, told Al Jazeera.

She said seeing Israeli football fans being allowed to shout anti-Palestinian chants without punishment around Europe is “as a Palestinian athlete … one of the hardest things to watch”.

“For me to see that those people who publicly support genocide, who publicly advocate for children to be killed, is something that’s very harmful for me as a human being, first, but secondly, as a Palestinian, it should not be allowed,” she said.

She also pointed to the fact that more than 200 Palestinian footballers have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began.

On Wednesday, the former Palestinian national football team player, Suleiman al-Obeid, was killed in an Israeli attack on aid seekers in Gaza.

Last November, Israeli football fans clashed with apparent pro-Palestinian protesters before and after a Europa League football match between their team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, and Dutch team AFC Ajax in Amsterdam.

Videos shared on social media at the time showed Israeli fans chanting racist, anti-Arab songs, vandalising a taxi and burning a Palestinian flag.

After the game, when fights broke out, Dutch police arrested people who had retaliated against the Israeli fans, as world leaders made accusations of anti-Semitism.

It was an incident that Thomas Ross Griffin, a sports studies scholar and associate professor of postcolonial literature at Qatar University, says demonstrates the impunity with which Israeli fans can act.

“If these were English fans rampaging through the streets, destroying taxis, breaking into property, smashing windows, beating private citizens … there will be condemnation all over Europe, but you attach these fans to an Israeli sporting entity, and suddenly … they’re the victims,” he said.

Beitar Jerusalem will play their home leg against Riga FC in Romania on August 14.

Polish government says step aimed to check migrants more thoroughly amid public concerns over immigration.

Poland has reintroduced temporary checks on its borders with Germany and Lithuania, citing a growing influx of undocumented migrants and increasing public concern over security.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced the move on Monday, arguing that Warsaw needed to “redirect” migration routes that bypass barriers along the Belarusian border and instead pass through neighbouring Latvia and Lithuania.

“To redirect this stream of people, which is deflected by our barrier, but which wants to cross Poland again through the border with Latvia and Lithuania, and further into Europe,” Tusk said.

The decision came amid heightened tensions across Europe over irregular migration, with other Schengen members like Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands having already taken similar steps over the past 18 months, putting strain on the European Union’s passport-free travel zone.

Germany has maintained controls on its border with Poland since 2023, but recently adopted a tougher approach, rejecting undocumented arrivals and sending them back to Poland under EU and bilateral agreements.

Polish authorities say this has placed an unfair burden on their country.

Knut Abraham, Germany’s envoy for Polish relations, warned the new checks could cause traffic congestion and disrupt trade, without curbing migration effectively. Similar concerns were raised by Rafal Gronicz, mayor of the border town of Zgorzelec, who dismissed fears of a migrant crisis as exaggerated.

“As long as I live, I have never known anyone who wanted to escape from Germany to Poland,” he told local radio. “There are no pressing waves of migrants walking around Zgorzelec.”

Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said checks on the German border will be lifted when Berlin ends its tougher controls.

“If Germany lifts its controls, we are not going to delay either,” Siemoniak said. “We want this movement to be absolutely free, that the problems of illegal migrant and migration be resolved together, without either side suffering.”

Tensions have escalated in recent weeks in Poland after a Venezuelan national was charged with murdering a 24-year-old woman in Torun. That killing triggered mass protests led by nationalist groups, with some 10,000 people marching on Sunday in her memory.

A separate incident on Saturday saw a Polish man fatally stabbed during a brawl in the northern town of Nowe. Authorities said on Monday that 13 people had been arrested – three Poles and 10 Colombians. Angry crowds gathered outside a workers’ hostel where the Colombians had been staying, state media reported.

Far-right groups have also begun patrolling Poland’s western frontier, claiming to protect the country from migrant flows. Human rights organisations condemned these vigilante efforts, warning they fuel xenophobia and undermine trust in official institutions.

“The actions of these self-proclaimed groups are the result of a radicalising political narrative,” said the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. “Debate on migration should be grounded in facts, not fear.”