MMN Editor

Tennessee Botches Execution: Inmate Still Snoring After Two Doses Of Pentobarbital, Hauled To Hospital

The State of Tennessee spent Wednesday trying to carry out a death sentence it has had on the books for thirty years, and ended the night with the condemned woman in an ambulance.

Christa Gail Pike, 50 – the only woman on Tennessee’s death row – was still breathing, audibly snoring, and maintaining a heartbeat after prison staff administered two doses of pentobarbital at Nashville’s Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Media witnesses were escorted out around 8:53 p.m. local time while her snoring could still be heard. Pike was subsequently rushed to an off-site hospital, prompting Governor Bill Lee to halt all remaining executions for the year and order a third-party review.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the torture-murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a Job Corps classmate she lured into the Knoxville woods in January 1995 at age 18 – where she bashed the girl’s skull in with a chunk of asphalt after carving a pentagram into the victim’s chest with a friend. Pike started showing off pieces of Slemmer’s skull at school, at which point she was arrested (with a chunk of skull found in her pocket). 

Fox 17 investigative reporter Kelly Avellino posted that Pike “appeared to receive 2 doses of pentobarbital, and she was still awake 40 minutes after” before being transported. 

Unbelieveable. Officials were unable to carry out the execution of Christa Gail Pike, witnesses said, after the lethal injection was administered. Pike appeared to receive 2 doses of pentobarbital, and she was still awake 40 minutes after. Pike is now en route to the hosptial. https://t.co/oUfWXlhAsx
— Kelly Avellino (@KellyAvellino) October 1, 2026
A day that started in court and ended in an ambulance

Pike was scheduled to die at 10 a.m. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in roughly 200 years, and the 19th woman executed in the United States since 1976.

That morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a short 2-1 stay. The Tennessee attorney general immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate it. Just before 6 p.m., the Court complied, issuing a two-sentence order devoid of reasoning. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, with Sotomayor writing that “Tennessee’s desire to expedite Pike’s execution by a few days or even weeks cannot outweigh her ‘fundamental interest in [her] own life.'” She added that in capital cases, an “appreciation of our own fallibility” demands caution “before acting irretrievably.” With the legal roadblocks cleared, the state proceeded.

The judicial scramble followed Governor Lee’s denial of clemency two days prior. On Sept. 28, he announced that after “deliberate consideration,” he would uphold “the sentence of the State of Tennessee.”

What the witnesses actually saw

Tennessee Lookout and the Tennessean reconstructed the chaotic scene inside the chamber using accounts from media witnesses, including reporters from WBIR, WKRN, WVLT, the Nashville Banner, and the AP:

6:41 p.m. Witnesses enter. Curtain closed. Groaning and crying are audible before the microphone is turned on.
7:26 p.m. Curtain opens. Pike, strapped to the gurney, delivers her final statement. She says she is “going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is in love,” extending that love even to people “hating on her.” She closes with, “I’m at peace. I’m ready to be free. This is a happy day.”
7:34 p.m. “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open,” Pike says. A witness also reports hearing, “One spot is really throbbing.”
7:39 p.m. Pike is still lifting her head, taking deep breaths, and kicking her feet hard enough to knock the sheet off.
7:41 p.m. An employee places a rock in view of the witnesses – the protocol’s signal that the inmate appears comatose. However, Pike’s jaw is still moving. Minutes later, she opens her mouth in “a very large yawn.”
7:46 p.m. Curtain drops.
7:49 p.m. Curtain rises. Pike is loudly snoring. A spiritual adviser is brought back into the chamber.
7:54 p.m. Pike grunts, lifts her head, and opens her mouth.
7:56 p.m. Her body jolts off the gurney into a “V” shape, head and legs lifting simultaneously.
8:01 p.m. The rock is placed a second time. Pike is still breathing, snoring, and flexing her neck.
8:05 p.m. Curtain is closed for good.
Until 8:53 p.m. Rhythmic snoring continues behind the curtain, punctuated by the sound of doors opening and closing. The microphone is cut, and witnesses are escorted out. As far as they know, Pike is still alive.
WKRN’s Tori Gessner, a veteran of multiple Tennessee executions, told the Lookout: “Nothing about today was normal, typical at all, and the court delay was just the tip of the iceberg.” Nashville Banner’s Steven Hale added: “I cannot emphasize enough how much of whatever just happened, happened behind a closed curtain… When Christa Pike was still alive, we could still hear her breathing, but we could not see what was going on.”

Shortly after 9 p.m., ambulances and fire trucks were seen departing Riverbend with their emergency lights activated.

The state’s line, and the lawyers’ line

More than two hours after the botched execution, Tennessee Department of Correction spokeswoman Dorinda Carter issued the following statement:

“The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office. The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility.”

So if two rounds fail to kill the inmate, protocol dictates the execution ends and the inmate goes to a hospital.

Pike’s attorneys offered the following statement:

“Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution. We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy.”

In an emergency motion filed while Pike was still in the chamber, her defense informed the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee that she “has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring.” Attorney Kelly Gleason stated Pike desperately needed immediate medical care, noting that counsel couldn’t get state officials on the phone to halt the process. Judge Clifton L. Corker ultimately ruled the motion moot because the state had already informed the court that medical care was underway. Pike’s current condition remains unreleased, though one of her lawyers told the BBC she was “being provided life-saving measures.”

Dr. Joel Zivot, a medical expert retained by the defense, told the BBC it is “very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury.” He suggested Pike likely never absorbed a sufficient blood level of pentobarbital to stop her breathing and circulation. Notably, no independent toxicology report has been produced.

Lee hits pause

At approximately 11:16 p.m., Governor Lee halted another execution scheduled for later this year. Via the Tennessean:

“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective. … Therefore, the remaining scheduled execution will not be carried out this year.”

Lee ordered a “comprehensive, third-party review” of the Pike debacle – while Gary Wayne Sutton, who was scheduled to die on Dec. 3 for the 1992 murders of Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam in Blount County – was spared for now. 

Lee had explicitly declined to halt Pike’s execution. His attorney general’s office spent the afternoon racing to the Supreme Court to ensure it happened Wednesday night rather than next week. The protocol the AG approved is the very same one Carter proudly claimed was followed to the letter. Whether it was “effective” is a separate question, and on Wednesday night, the undeniable answer was no.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/01/2026 – 07:00

EXCLUSIVE: A pro-life group has released a new report calling on the Trump administration to take action against mail-order abortion drugs, arguing that it can enforce a 19th-century federal law to crack down on abortion pill shipments.In the report obtained by Fox News Digital, the Restoration of America Foundation (ROAF) said Democrat-led states’ shield laws — adopted to protect providers in blue states from being prosecuted by GOP state governments — allow providers to ship, or are being used by providers to ship, the abortion pill mifepristone into red states “with no in-person exam or verification of who takes them or whether they take them willingly.”ROAF attributed the growth in mail-order abortions in part to FDA policy changes that suspended the in-person dispensing requirement during the COVID-19 pandemic before making the change permanent, allowing abortion drugs to be prescribed through telehealth and mailed to patients.BLUE STATE SHIELD LAWS ALLOWED 330K ABORTION PILLS TO BE SENT TO ABORTION BAN STATES, PRO-LIFE GROUP FINDSThe report said nearly 15,000 medication abortions each month were provided under blue state shield laws by June 2025. It also said that by the end of 2024, about 15% of all U.S. abortions were through medication mailed to women in states with abortion restrictions.ROAF also cited an insurance claims analysis that the organization said found serious adverse health events following 10.9% of drug-induced abortions from 2017 through 2023, roughly 22 times the rate reported on the FDA-approved label for the abortion pill regimen. The group said the rate reached 11.2% in 2023 as the drugs were used more broadly.According to the report, ROAF estimated that mail-order drugs were “directly responsible” for more than 300,000 abortions in 2025 alone.This comes just ahead of the 110th anniversary of Planned Parenthood in the U.S., as the nation’s largest abortion provider will be commemorating its Oct. 16, 1916, founding later this month.The ROAF report is urging Attorney General Todd Blanche to enforce the Comstock Act, an 1873 law criminalizing sending certain abortion-related materials that the pro-life group argues should be used by the Trump administration to stop shield laws from protecting mail-order medication abortions.”As we come up with this anniversary for Planned Parenthood, we think it’s a good moment to release this paper. We really want to talk about the Comstock Act and the impact it could have on abortions going forward in this country,” ROAF CEO Doug Truax told Fox News Digital.”The Comstock Act says it’s illegal to put these drugs in the mail, so we’re just asking them to enforce the law,” he continued.After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which returned the power to make abortion laws to the states, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under the Biden administration in December 2022 issued an opinion that concluded that the Comstock Act does not prohibit mailing mifepristone or misoprostol when the sender lacks intent that the recipient use the drugs unlawfully.The Biden administration’s Office of Legal Counsel concluded in a December 2022 opinion that the Comstock Act does not prohibit mailing mifepristone or misoprostol when the sender lacks the intent that the drugs be used unlawfully.But Blanche said during his confirmation hearings over the summer that he would review how the DOJ interprets the Comstock Act. ROAF says the department should withdraw the Biden administration’s opinion, investigate providers and organizations involved in mailing the drugs and enforce the 150-year-old federal law, which the group argues would effectively ban the mailing of abortion drugs nationwide.PRO-LIFE GROUP FINDS BIDEN-ERA FDA POLICY IS DRIVING 500 ABORTIONS PER DAY, SAYS TRUMP HAS POWER TO END IT”We are asking the administration to take a step back and say, okay, when Roe was the law of the land, Comstock was unenforceable. But since Roe is out, Comstock is back on the table and it is valid law and it is illegal to put abortion drugs in the mail. You have thousands of people in basically blue states mailing a ton of pills around this country … it’s resulting in the amount of deaths that we’re talking about here. So this is an illegal action that they’re taking. We just want you to enforce Comstock and it will save hundreds of thousands of lives going forward,” Truax said.”It’s a great way to get momentum back on our side in the pro life community, which frankly, I think the president and all conservatives around the country would appreciate now, as we head into November 3rd, and then especially as we head into the next election cycle,” he added.

A’ja Wilson didn’t give a damn.When she saw “a man” pointing at her, she approached him, pointed back and exchanged words, before teammates and arena personnel pulled her away. She received a technical foul for unsportsmanlike conduct, while the fan was initially escorted from his seat.Arena security later interviewed the fan and nearby witnesses and determined that he had not violated the Fever’s Fan Code of Conduct. He was allowed to return to his seat, reportedly to applause and high-fives from the home crowd.But Wilson stood behind her reaction after the game.”If I see a man come at me, taking steps toward me and pointing at me, I don’t give a damn what you said,” Wilson told reporters. “I don’t give a damn how you said it, the tone. That is unacceptable. You don’t step towards me — you never should — and point at me. I’m not for that s— at all.”JEMELE HILL SAYS WE CAN’T BLAME A’JA WILSON FOR CHARGING AT FANS BECAUSE OF WHAT ‘MEN’ HAVE DONEAnd just like that, the WNBA had its next dramatic episode in a long-running series of such episodes in the 2026 season.So who exactly is the WNBA legend who didn’t give a damn on Tuesday night?THE CRAIG CARTON SHOW–UNFILTERED, UNAPOLOGETIC AND UNMISSABLE. DOWNLOAD HIS DAILY PODCAST NOW!A’ja Riyadh Wilson was born Aug. 8, 1996, and raised just outside Columbia, South Carolina, by Roscoe and Eva Wilson.Her distinctive first name originated with her father’s taste in music. Roscoe, who played professional basketball in Europe, attended a Steely Dan concert overseas and decided that if he ever had a daughter, he would name her after the band’s 1977 song and album “Aja.” Her middle name, Riyadh, came from the capital of Saudi Arabia, where her maternal aunt was stationed during Operation Desert Storm, per NBC Olympics.Christianity and church life were fixtures of Wilson’s upbringing. Her paternal grandfather, Roscoe Wilson Sr., served as a minister at Saint John Baptist Church in Columbia for approximately 50 years, while her grandmother was a missionary. Wilson grew up attending the church and has credited its congregation and the surrounding community with helping raise her, per NBC Sports.Wilson recalled that Saint John had a children’s church and that she sometimes chased other children around the pews.Basketball was not initially part of Wilson’s plan. Despite her father’s playing career and her older brother’s interest in the sport, she gravitated toward activities such as soccer, volleyball, ballet and piano. She later joked that she “was not a girly that liked to sweat.”””I was not a girly that liked to sweat. Now, I sweat for a living, and it pays my bills,” Wilson told TIME in 2025.Wilson attended Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, a predominantly White private school where she struggled to fit in socially and academically. She has written that classmates directed racial comments at her and made her feel different because she was Black, in The Players’ Tribune.She was also diagnosed with dyslexia during her sophomore year of high school after years of struggling to process large blocks of text. Wilson later wrote that she dreaded being asked to read a pregame Psalm aloud more than playing in front of a hostile crowd. The experience eventually inspired her foundation’s work supporting children with dyslexia and combating bullying.SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM VS DIJONAI CARRINGTON: HOW TWO EX-FOOTBALL PLAYERS COLLIDED IN THE ‘PRIVILEGE’ DEBATEHer father started taking her to the gym for early-morning and weekend workouts, setting her on the path from reluctant basketball player to the nation’s top high school recruit.While sitting courtside with then-Las Vegas Aces teammate Kelsey Plum at the 2024 Final Four, Wilson turned a conversation about UConn star Paige Bueckers into a racial discussion.”Us, as Black women, Paige reminds me a lot of you,” Wilson told Plum. “She knows how her privilege has gotten her to that point. And also, like, she’s good at basketball. She understands her privilege. It’s like what pushes her over the top, in a sense. It reminds me a lot of you.”In 2020, Wilson became one of the players selected to lead the newly created WNBA/WNBPA Social Justice Council. The league dedicated that season to racial-justice causes following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, placing “Black Lives Matter” on its courts and Taylor’s name on players’ jerseys as part of the “Say Her Name” campaign.After a Kentucky grand jury declined to charge any officers directly in Taylor’s death, Wilson called the decision a “slap on the wrist, and invoked the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.”People remember exactly where they were when 9/11 happened or when other things happened. This is my 9/11. … I was too young [for that]; I was in preschool [in 2001]. But this here is going to be something I remember all the time. I have to fear for my life as a Black woman, whether I’m asleep, I’m awake, whether I am walking down the street. Justice was not served, and that just really broke my heart.” Wilson said, per ESPN. The article was published 13 days after the 19th anniversary of 9/11.Wilson also published an essay titled “Dear Black Girls” in 2020, describing the racism and isolation she experienced while attending a predominantly White private school. She wrote that her broader purpose was to assure young Black girls that they were seen, heard and capable of making an impact.”This isn’t just a hashtag,” she wrote in the Player’s Tribune essay ahead of the 2020 season. “We’re all in it and we demand change.”Her activism extended into electoral politics during the same season. WNBA players publicly opposed then-Atlanta Dream co-owner and Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler after Loeffler criticized the league’s embrace of Black Lives Matter.Players wore “Vote Warnock” shirts supporting Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock, who later defeated Loeffler in Georgia’s Senate runoff. Wilson’s Social Justice Council also held discussions about voting rights, LGBTQ advocacy and gun control.Wilson has continued to argue that Black women must work harder to receive the same recognition as others. In a 2024 ESPN interview, she said Black girls are often taught that they must work “10 times as hard just to get a foot in the door.”Wilson’s basketball résumé includes success at every level.At South Carolina, she became the first three-time SEC Player of the Year and led the Gamecocks to their first national championship in 2017. She was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player that year before sweeping the major national player-of-the-year awards as a senior. Wilson finished her college career as South Carolina’s all-time leader in points and blocked shots.CLICK HERE FOR MORE OUTKICK SPORTS COVERAGEThe Las Vegas Aces selected her with the first overall pick in the 2018 WNBA Draft, and she immediately won Rookie of the Year. Wilson has since captured a record four league MVP awards and four Defensive Player of the Year honors, including a share of the defensive award in 2025.Wilson led Las Vegas to WNBA championships in 2022, 2023 and 2025, earning Finals MVP honors in the latter two title runs. Entering the 2026 season, she ranked first in WNBA history in career scoring average and first in 30-point double-doubles.She has also won two Olympic gold medals with Team USA, starting for the Americans at both the Tokyo and Paris Games.Wilson added another honor in September 2026 when the Associated Press named her its WNBA Player of the Year for the third consecutive season.Wilson and the Aces will have little time to dwell on the confrontation.Las Vegas will host Indiana in a winner-take-all Game 3 Thursday at 9 p.m. ET. The game will air on USA Network and CNBC, with the winner advancing to the WNBA semifinals and the loser’s season coming to an immediate end.The teams have already traded decisive victories. Wilson overwhelmed Indiana with 38 points and 16 rebounds in Las Vegas’ 102-85 Game 1 win, but Caitlin Clark answered with 27 points and 15 assists as the Fever won Game 2, 99-89. Wilson finished the loss with 22 points and nine rebounds, while her fourth-quarter confrontation became the game’s defining controversy.Now, Wilson will return to a friendly Las Vegas crowd with an opportunity to redirect the conversation. A dominant Game 3 would move the defending champions one step closer to their fourth title in five seasons. A loss would end their reign—and ensure that Wilson’s final act of the postseason included charging into the stands to confront a fan.

OXFORD, Miss. – Two Ole Miss students were found dead near tablets whose labels list an ingredient the federal government recently made illegal, and the product is nowhere to be found on the brand’s website.According to court documents, Ole Miss students Aidan Hamilton, 18, and Robert Strang, 20, were discovered dead on Sept. 21, each found near similar packages of kratom or synthetic kratom. Officials noted that Hamilton “could have died due to a Pulmonary Edema,” a finding consistent with a drug overdose. When first responders reached Strang’s house near campus, he was found “cold to the touch.”Packaging found near both students bears the name Modus, according to court documents. The affidavit describes the tablets as Smax Pseudo-DHM, and lists pseudoindoxyl and MGM-15(DHM) among the ingredients on the pack found near Hamilton.The Drug Enforcement Administration temporarily placed mitragynine pseudoindoxyl in Schedule I on Aug. 26, which bars its sale. A Mississippi law enforcement agent investigating the Ole Miss students’ deaths said he believes “pseudoindoxyl” refers to that compound, and lab results confirming the tablets’ contents are pending, court documents say.OXFORD MAYOR WARNS KRATOM IS ‘ROLLING THE DICE ON DEATH’ AS FEARS LINGER OVER OLE MISS DEATHSToxicology results, which are still pending, could help determine how Hamilton and Strang died, according to the affidavit.Modus Brand, which has offices in Florida and California, doesn’t list the Smax Pseudo Tablets on its website, but says the product is a “next-generation approach to botanical supplements, offering a carefully formulated, high-quality product in a convenient chewable format.”While it’s unclear if the Smax Pseudo Tablets were once on the Modus website, it’s not listed at the moment.In September, Hamilton made multiple purchases at Puffs Vape, Tobacco and Beer Store in Oxford. Two employees at that store, Yahya Mohamed Mosleh, 51, and Islam Mohamed, 18, were arrested and face a charge of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, according to court documents. They were handed bonds of $100,000 each. Officials have said they do not believe there is any connection between the arrests and Hamilton’s death.SIGN UP TO GET THE LATEST TRUE CRIME NEWSCourt documents do not establish that the kratom found near Hamilton at the time of his death originated from that store. Among his purchases, at least one transaction took place the day before Hamilton was discovered dead.CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE FOX TRUE CRIME HUBOfficials said the synthetic kratom-derived product Strang had bought was purchased at a gas station about 30 minutes away from Oxford, Mississippi.OLE MISS NAMES STUDENTS FOUND DEAD AS OFFICIAL ADDRESSES POTENTIAL FOR FOUL PLAYThe owner of that gas station told Fox News Digital that the Smax tablets found near Strang did not come from his store. He said he does not put price stickers on his packages, unlike the one on the pack by Strang’s nightstand. He didn’t dispute that his store sold Smax Pseudo Tablets.He said that federal agents seized all of his kratom inventory on Friday.SEND US A TIPFormer federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Fox News Digital it’s illegal for anyone to sell products containing MGM-15 after the DEA rescheduled it, but prosecuting it is trickier.GOT A TIP?”It would be unlawful for anyone, whether it’s a drug dealer or a gas station convenience store owner, to sell MGM-15 after it was categorized as Schedule I,” Rahmani said. “Now, to be prosecuted, the Department of Justice would have to prove intent.”LISTEN TO THE NEW ‘CRIME & JUSTICE WITH DONNA ROTUNNO’ PODCASTKratom is a plant, but MGM-15 and related chemicals are synthetic versions of it, and the two are “certainly not an apples-to-apples comparison,” he said.GET BREAKING NEWS BY EMAILModus, the company whose name appears on the packaging, could face civil and even criminal liability if its product is found to contain a Schedule I substance, Rahmani said.”There’s no doubt that Modus and any company that distributed this drug can face civil, even criminal, liability. If you put out a dangerous product, doesn’t matter if it’s a pharmaceutical, street drug, or really, frankly, anything else. It could be a vehicle, it could be social media. Products liability law does hold the company responsible,” Rahmani said.”Now, in the case of something that’s outright illegal in Schedule I, there’s no question that criminal liability for the distributors can attach as well, and it can be the manufacturer, it can be the street level dealer, the wholesaler, anyone in the supply chain that distributes a Schedule I drug can absolutely be held responsible.”Multiple calls and emails to Modus by Fox News Digital went unanswered.Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI, DEA, Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, Lafayette County Metro Narcotics, Yahya Mohamed Mosleh and Islam Mohamed for comment.

A Lone Voice Of Sanity On NATO’s Eastern Flank Emerges

There are a few sane voices left in the EU and NATO when it comes to urging an immediate de-escalation of rhetoric regarding Russia. Still, it’s a refreshing surprise when dovish sentiment comes from a country forming part of NATO’s eastern flank in particular.

“We always need to think about the worst-case scenario,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev has told a European defense summit while warning that seeking to impose total defeat on Russia poses real risks of nuclear war.

Radev instead urged robust diplomacy to avert such a catastrophe. “The problem is that no one is raising the question about nuclear risk. Does it exist? Maybe not, I don’t know, but this is a risk,” he stated in remarks published Wednesday.

“I don’t think the war in Ukraine will end in a nuclear war but we have to be prepared for the risk.”

“We always need to think about the worst-case scenario. Are we prepared for this? Does anybody speak about risk assessment? Does it exist at all? Because we have been trying to achieve a conventional victory over the biggest nuclear power.”

He acknowledged that “there is a nuclear card” which Russia would be more likely to play if it perceived itself cornered.

“We need to have this into account. We cannot close our eyes (to the fact) that there are nuclear weapons on our continent, there are nuclear weapons in the arsenal of Russia.”

The Bulgarian prime minister emphasized, “And this is part of the game calculation.” What has he gotten for his sensible calls for walking back tensions with Moscow? Western mainstream media has consistently labeled him “Kremlin-friendly”.

Radev still made clear in this week’s comments that he rejected “this type of speaking” [nuclear rhetoric] from the Kremlin, referring to the recent example of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who warned earlier this month that a war between Russia and Europe would be “completely different” and “very short”.

The words were widely seen as a veiled threat of deploying strategic forces against Europe.

Early this week NATO leadership called out what it slammed as ‘desperate’ rhetoric on the part of the Kremlin, also at a moment of growing accusations from European officials that Moscow is engaged in sabotage against EU interests and assets.

“Russia’s use of hybrid tactics is a sign of desperation. But we will not be dissuaded from our support to Ukraine,” NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said Tuesday, adding that “we [NATO] have what it takes to defend every inch of allied territory and remain strong, ready, and able to counter any threat.”

“NATO is a defensive alliance and none of our activities or exercises pose a risk to any part of Russia,” she reiterated. “We strongly denounce the threat of force, including any irresponsible nuclear rhetoric.” Hart added: “We call on Russia to end its unprovoked war in Ukraine.”

Finally some serious questioning of the narrative: Where is the proof that the ‘Russians are coming’ – or are on the brink of some kind of invasion of European states?

Now that everyone’s admitting there was never an imminent Russian attack on Europe, the question is: who spread the rumors & what purposes did they serve. Because we keep getting these fake invasion panics, coupled with reminders about how many got Russia’s 2022 invasion wrong. https://t.co/uHAjy4bcM0
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) September 30, 2026
As for other tiny handful of EU countries which have been voices of sanity which call for dialogue with Russia, this has included: 

Slovakia
Austria
Czech Republic
and Hungary (or at least, while it was previously under Viktor Orban)

Meanwhile, on Wednesday a new alarming headline has emerged connected with the Ukraine war: Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson says European weapons factories producing arms for Ukraine are legitimate military targets for Russia. Things look to grow a lot hotter before they cool off.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/01/2026 – 06:30