US President Donald Trump has lashed out at his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, warning he could face consequences over cocaine trafficking that he claims is reaching America.

Trump’s remarks followed comments by Petro reacting to US seizures of Venezuelan oil ships, in which he claimed that “all of the southern US” was built on stolen land. He said Texas and California were “invaded” and demanded that the United States “give back what you stole.”

“He’s very bad, very bad guy, and he’s got to watch his ass because he makes cocaine and they send it into the United States,” Trump said Monday at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, responding to a reporter’s question about Petro’s remarks.

“We love the Colombian people … but their new leader is a troublemaker, and he better watch it,” Trump added. He also claimed Colombia has at least three major cocaine factories and said “he better close them up fast.”

Colombia has long been a close US partner in Latin America, but ties have cooled since Petro, the country’s first left-wing president, took office in 2022.

US actions against Venezuela, including the seizure of oil tankers, have heightened tensions with Petro, who has criticized those moves and warned against US military intervention.

In September, the US State Department said it would revoke Petro’s visa, and the Trump administration later imposed sanctions under anti-drug trafficking authorities, steps Colombia has condemned as politically motivated.

A month later, Petro alleged that the Trump administration had bombed a Colombian boat carrying civilians during US operations targeting suspected drug smugglers near the Venezuelan coast.

Petro has pushed back against Trump’s rhetoric, disputing claims about drug production while pointing to Colombia’s efforts to curb illegal crops, although data show the country remains the main source of cocaine seized in the United States.

On Tuesday Colombia said it will deploy drones to destroy coca crops, a shift from manual eradication after aerial fumigation was banned in 2015 due to environmental concerns.

Washington has long criticized Bogota’s decision to halt aerial fumigation. In September, the US added Colombia to a list of nations it claimed were failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in nearly 30 years, accusing Petro’s government of not doing enough to curb cocaine production.

You can share this story on social media:

Follow RT on

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has inaugurated the country’s longest motorway tunnel by rollerblading through the massive 7.5 km-long structure.

The opening ceremony for the Visnove Tunnel was held on Monday, after the structure was finally completed after more than three decades of planning and over 10 years of construction.

The PM rollerbladed through the entire stretch of the tunnel, posting footage to his Facebook page.

Fico hailed the opening as a major achievement for the country, accusing his predecessors of disrupting its construction. 

“Those who never did anything for this project or opposed it… are cursing and slandering today, while those who know what it means to deliver such a project to a successful end have a smile on their face,” Fico wrote.

The project was first floated in the early 1990s in then-Czechoslovakia, with preparatory work starting in 1998. Construction began in the late 2000s under the first Fico government but was halted by his successor, Mikulas Dzurinda, due to concerns over costs.

The project was ultimately revived, yet ended up plagued by repeated delays, changes of contractors, and multiple missed deadlines.

The Visnove Tunnel is the core of a new 13.5 km section of the D1 motorway, the oldest, longest, and busiest east-west road in Slovakia, which runs through most of the country’s territory. Apart from the tunnel, the new stretch includes multiple bridges and cuts through the Mala Fatra mountains.

The new motorway is set to lift the burden from an old D1 accident-prone section that goes around the north of the mountains. The new stretch is expected to significantly ease traffic in the area and cut travel times by at least 15 minutes.

You can share this story on social media:

Follow RT on

A number of draft evaders were able to escape to the European Union through a defunct gas pipeline, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has reported.

Ukrainian authorities announced the detention of eight individuals on suspicion of human trafficking across multiple regions, according to a press statement released on Tuesday. Among those arrested was a 62-year-old man in the western Transcarpathia Region, who allegedly facilitated the illegal border crossings. According to investigators, he transported military-aged men to an abandoned gas pipeline and guided them across the border in exchange for substantial payments.

On the other side, they were met by another Ukrainian national who resides in the EU, the SBU stated. The group is said to have advertised its services on TikTok.

In a separate scheme in Poltava Region, a former law enforcement officer is suspected of selling fake disability certificates to men seeking to evade service.

Another case in the city of Dnepr reportedly involved two men who guided camouflage-clad draft evaders to the EU via trails through the forest.

Earlier this year, Ukrainian border service spokesman Andrey Demchenko estimated that more than 13,000 people had been detained between January and August alone while trying to flee the country illegally. Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, dozens have lost their lives attempting to leave through forests, rivers, and mountainous terrain.

Amid mounting frontline losses, the Ukrainian authorities have stepped up their mobilization drive in recent months. Notoriously brutal press gangs have on multiple occasions used violence against reluctant recruits, snatching men off the streets and shoving them into unmarked minibuses, earning the practice the name ‘busification’.

Nevertheless, Ukrainian officials and military commanders have increasingly sounded the alarm over personnel shortages, compounded by a rising number of deserters.

Last week, Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov reported that Kiev had lost almost 500,000 servicemen this year alone.

US Vice President J.D. Vance has hit back at slurs directed at his wife over her ethnic heritage as well as rumors about problems in their marriage.

Media reports earlier this year speculated about strains in the vice president’s relationship with his spouse, Usha Vance, after she was seen on several occasions without her wedding ring.

In an interview with Unherd published on Monday, Vance said “anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, can eat shit. That’s my official policy as vice president of the United States.”

“And my attitude towards anybody, again, who is calling for judging people based on their ethnic heritage, whether they’re Jewish or white or anything else, it’s disgusting. We shouldn’t be doing it,” he stressed.

Right-wing influencer Nick Fuentes previously slammed Vance’s appointment as vice president, calling him “a fat, race mixer who’s married to a jeet, who named his son Vivek.” A ‘jeet’ is a racial slur for Indians.

Jen Psaki, who served as the White House press secretary in the administration of US President Joe Biden, suggested there were issues in Vance’s marriage during her appearance on the ‘I’ve Had It’ podcast in October. “I always wonder what’s going on in the mid of his wife. Like, are you OK? Please blink four times. Come over here. We’ll save you,” Psaki said.

Usha Vance, 39, with whom the vice president shares three children, is a graduate of the Yale Law School and previously worked as a lawyer.

Despite preferring to keep a low profile after becoming the second lady, she was forced to address ‘Ring-gate’ in an interview with USA Today earlier this month, saying: “I wear it [wedding ring] when I wear it, and I don’t when I don’t. Sometimes I’m wearing it and sometimes I’ve just been to the gym and showered and I’m not wearing it.”

“I’d rather just sort of live in my marriage and in the real world and less in kind of the fever dreams that surround it. So, I mean, it is kind of a family joke, but also not something that I spend very much time thinking about,” she stressed.

You can share this story on social media:

Follow RT on

Hungary would be better served spending its money domestically than financing golden toilets for Ukrainian oligarchs, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.

Speaking at the opening of a new motorway section linking parts of central Hungary on Monday, Orban emphasized the advantages of spending Hungarian taxpayer money at home than on another loan to Ukraine, where Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle has been exposed in a massive corruption scandal.

“I have just returned from Brussels … where the clever gentlemen have decided to give Ukraine €90 billion ($106 billion) in loans – clearly hoping to get it back later with hefty interest,” Orban stated. Had Hungary not opted out, Hungarian taxpayers would have faced a bill of over €1 billion, twice the price of the motorway section he was opening.

“The truth is, that money is better spent here … for a modern road, rather than … some Ukrainian oligarch for his gold toilet,” he said.

Images of a gold toilet belonging to Timur Mindich, a shady figure known as “Zelensky’s wallet,” have become synonymous with the recently uncovered $100 million graft scheme run by the Ukrainian leader’s inner circle. Mindich managed to flee the country hours before anti-corruption agents reached his apartment, where the shining throne was discovered.

Orban has repeatedly criticized EU financing of Ukraine, and accused the bloc’s leadership of ignoring corruption in the country.

Last week, Kiev’s European backers failed to approve a ‘reparations loan’ that would have used about €210 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets as collateral to cover Ukraine’s huge budget shortfall. Instead, they chose to fund Kiev through common debt, planning to raise €90 billion over the next two years, backed by the EU budget. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic secured exemptions from the scheme.

READ MORE:
Behind the Ukranian golden toilet: There’s only one way to fix the disease of this state

Critics have warned that many EU countries already carry high debt and large budget deficits, and that further common borrowing would deepen fiscal strain and shift risks onto taxpayers.

According to senior bloc officials cited by Politico, EU taxpayers will have to pay €3 billion a year in borrowing costs to finance Kiev’s collapsing economy and military under the loan scheme.