r/europe_sub

Three people were injured by a knife-wielding assailant in eastern Clermont-Ferrand. The suspect was shot by police after threatening an officer.

A man was injured by police gunfire after attacking three people with a knife and targeting a law enforcement officer in Clermont-Ferrand ( Puy-de-Dôme ) on Sunday afternoon, according to reports from France 3 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and ici Pays d'Auvergne .

The incident occurred in the early afternoon, around 2:30 p.m., in the Carmes district, in the east of the city. Several people reported seeing a man armed with a large knife attacking passersby in the street.

Officers spotted the suspect around 3:30 p.m. The man, originally from Sudan, then attempted to touch a law enforcement officer in the neck.

The suspect was shot in the side

In response, a police officer opened fire three times on the suspect. The assailant, who was hit in the side, is not in life-threatening condition. None of the officers were injured.

Three people were injured by the assailant and taken to the hospital, as was the suspect. Other people who had received threats are to be interviewed by investigators.

An investigation has been opened and entrusted to the Directorate for the Fight Against Organised Crime and Specialised Delinquency (DCOS).

No terrorist element

No element of the attack suggests a terrorist character at this stage, Clermont-Ferrand public prosecutor Éric Serfass told AFP. "The man arrested, aged 34, has already been convicted by the courts in Clermont-Ferrand," he added.

"The severity of the injuries to the victims and the attacker is still to be determined," he said.

A large security presence has been deployed at the scene of the incident, according to France 3.

Seventy-three percent of Italians believe irregular migrants should be repatriated, and 57% view the impact of immigrants arriving in Italy as predominantly negative. This is according to a survey conducted by Euromedia Research, directed by Alessandra Ghisleri, on the occasion of the "Pantelleria, Mediterraneo d'Autore" event, conceived and promoted by Myrta Merlino and Valentina Fontana for Vis Factor.

According to Ghisleri, "there is broad agreement, across political lines, on the idea that illegal arrivals must be managed firmly," and "even a significant portion of the center-left electorate shares this view." The Mediterranean, in short, continues to be perceived "as an increasingly relevant issue," adds the pollster.

Italians claim to be aware of the issue of " remigration, " but only 36.8% share General Roberto Vannacci's views on this topic, while 44.4% say they disagree. "Remigration," therefore, is not popular, but more importantly, 56.8% of those interviewed believe it is unfeasible in Italy and the Mediterranean. "Vannacci's ideas attract attention, but the majority of Italians do not consider them concretely feasible," observes Ghisleri. He then adds: "At the same time, a politically interesting fact emerges: Azione voters demonstrate great independence of judgment and, on the issue of immigration, express positions often closer to those of the center-right electorate."

Citizens prioritize greater control of Mediterranean borders (32.6%), followed by cooperation with migrants' countries of origin (24.9%), while only 21.7% advocate for a balance between control, cooperation, and integration. The survey confirms that the Mediterranean is perceived not only as a geographical space, but as a crossroads of challenges regarding security, international stability, energy, and migration management—issues destined to occupy a central role in Italian public debate.

According to Valentina Fontana, "The survey confirms that the Mediterranean is perceived by Italians as an increasingly relevant topic" and, therefore, "bringing to Pantelleria an event that brings together politics, culture, and business means creating a space for discussion on issues that have a direct impact on the country."

Fontana has no doubts: "From immigration, with the challenges and opportunities it brings, to the development of the region and its potential, to the strategic role of the Mediterranean in the geopolitical landscape : these are issues that concern everyone. The media has the task of describing them in depth and helping to enhance areas like Pantelleria, which can become places of reflection as well as extraordinary beauty."

Lamin Saidilly, 22, spoke to the police who stopped him on Saturday after he stabbed Gerardo P., a 55-year-old passerby. The mystery of a similar attack in Great Britain

"I had fun, as soon as I go out I'll do it again": this is what Lamin Saidilly, 22, said to the police who stopped him on Saturday after he stabbed 55-year-old Gerardo P., who he didn't know, in a bar in Milan.

According to what we read in the indictment, "with his head covered by a black balaclava and without saying any words", he attacked the victim "from the shoulders, with a 21 centimeter knife, hitting him with 20 blows" to the head, neck, chest and abdomen. Prosecutor Elio Ramondini sent the request to validate the arrest to the investigating judge for attempted murder, believing that there was a danger of escape and repetition of the crime.

In the meantime, the conditions of the injured man, who is currently hospitalized at the Niguarda hospital, are clearly improving. The man underwent multiple operations on Saturday evening and morning and is currently in intensive care following the operation, but has been declared out of danger. The stab wounds he received particularly to the abdomen and chest were not particularly deep. He remains in a reserved prognosis but should not have any particular consequences and his hospital stay will not be long.

Lamin Saidilly will be questioned on Monday morning by the investigating judge Luigi Iannelli in the San Vittore prison. The entire attack was caught on camera surveillance present outside the bar.

«Astonishing words. Did you have fun and would you do it again? May he never come out of prison again! Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, wrote it on social media.

The same happened in Turin, Vicenza, Milan, Bologna, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Amsterdam

He allegedly pointed and stabbed him for no apparent reason. A 22-year-old Italian man of Gambian origin was arrested after attacking a 55-year-old man on Saturday morning, July 4th, outside a bar in Milan's Via Alfonso Capecelatro, in the San Siro area. The young man struck the victim several times with a 7.5-centimeter blade, striking him in the back and abdomen. The 55-year-old was transported to Niguarda Hospital with critical condition. He was immediately transferred to the emergency room, where doctors ruled out any life-threatening injuries.

The young man, who had already been restrained by passersby, was taken into custody by officers from the Police Headquarters' Office for General Prevention and Public Aid, who responded to a report from the 112 emergency number. The 22-year-old, who had apparently arrived in Milan a few days earlier, is being held at the offices on Via Fatebenefratelli, where he was arrested on charges of attempted murder in agreement with the Milan prosecutor on duty, Elio Ramondini.

Preliminary investigations reveal no evidence that the victim, an Italian man living in the Primaticcio area, and the attacker knew each other, nor that there was an argument that preceded the attack. The young man, who has no criminal record, is being investigated to determine whether he suffers from psychiatric issues. The boy's family, contacted by police, reportedly stated that no medical evidence has ever been obtained.

A 19-year-old man was pelted with rocks and bottles after being surrounded by a gang on Canal Grande. "I defended myself with spray, then got into a taxi and fled."

MODENA. Yet another dramatic attack in the city: a 19-year-old was surrounded and attacked with stones and bottles on Corso Canalgrande Thursday evening. He did not suffer serious injuries, but was treated by paramedics and went to the emergency room yesterday morning. The greatest trauma was psychological: "Going back to the city center now terrifies me. I haven't slept and I'm still very shaken," the young man told Gazzetta.

What happened

It all began around midnight on Corso Canalgrande, which at that time, on a warm summer evening, was practically deserted. "I was having dinner to celebrate my graduation with my classmates, then we went to the K2 ice cream shop. At the end of the evening, two friends asked me for a ride, so I walked to them," the young man added. "While I was walking alone on Canalgrande, I passed two North African boys coming right toward me. I lowered my gaze to avoid trouble, when one of them shouldered me for no reason. I turned around and asked him what he was doing. He started insulting me in Arabic. I didn't react; I didn't want the situation to escalate, so I just kept going.

Everything seemed to be over. But for the young man, this was just the beginning of a nightmare evening. "I ran into the two girls shortly after," he continues, "and told them what had happened. They told me the guy was following me, approaching me. Shortly after, he caught up with us. At that point, I grabbed the pepper spray and told him to stay away. He asked me what I had in my hand and continued insulting me. We walked away from him and headed toward Via San Cristoforo, picking up our pace. A friend of mine turned around and saw the two men from before following us with some cobblestones in their hands. I sped up and called the police."

"You're dead now."

One of them "came up to me with a rock in his hand, asking me who I was on the phone with," the 19-year-old continued. "I pretended I was on the phone with my mother, but just then the police answered, saying they were coming. I was on speakerphone, he heard me and said, 'You're dead, we'll kill you.'" Shortly after, about a dozen boys arrived. They started running toward me and surrounded me. One pulled out a knife, and at that point I used pepper spray to defend myself. As I sprayed him, he said, 'I'll kill you.'" "Thanks to the spray, I managed to neutralize them," the attacked boy explained. "I was running away when another boy blocked me and knocked me to the ground. In an instant, I found myself with two boys on top of me; I was afraid they would stab me. I used the spray again and managed to get a few meters away. Meanwhile, the two girls who were with me took refuge in the Freedom bar to avoid repercussions.

Bottles and Stones

But the attack certainly didn't end there. "They threw glass bottles, rocks, and cobblestones at me, which I narrowly avoided: I felt the blast from what passed close by. I managed to escape to Piazza Matteotti, where fortunately I met a group of young people who helped and defended me. Then a taxi driver who had seen me approaching and calling for help stopped and told me to get in immediately. In the meantime, two police cars arrived, and the group disappeared into thin air. When I reached the car, I was joined by two cars and the ambulance: they treated me on the spot because I had suffered some grazes from the fall. The next day (yesterday, ed.) I went to the emergency room because my arm still hurt. Downtown? I don't want to go back after what happened. I'm still in shock," the young man concludes.

Hi everyone, I hope it's OK to share this here. I wrote a blog post about my assessment on how Europe would react if Russia ever tried to invade the Baltics.

“Don’t poke the bear!” Russians and their Western supporters - and fearers - liked to repeat it even before the full-scale invasion. After more than four years of war and crossing every imaginary “red line” without consequences, it has become a meme at this point. The line implies that Russia is a deadly beast that has the power to lash out violently if threatened, capable of killing whoever “pokes” it.

If Russia is a bear, then Europe is a sleeping dragon. It started dozing off after 1945 and militarily and geopolitically speaking went into deep sleep after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 2022 took the dragon totally off-guard, but the dangers weren’t grave enough to make it wake up, it merely entered its REM sleep phase.

I already shared my long take about a possible Russian invasion of the Baltics, but as the topic has the habit of re- and resurfacing, I felt the urge to expand on it.

Most public debate on the topic envisions Moscow pressuring the region in order to force Europe to stop further aid to Ukraine. Despite it being understandably a more concrete and pressing threat, this - in my opinion - is much less likely than the scenario I will outline.

A limited incursion or bombing campaign against EU and NATO territories would have a much less decisive benefit for Russia, while it would still mobilize increased European support for Ukraine. The lesson the continent would learn from it wouldn’t be that Russia is strong and we should just give in, but that Russia is a threat that needs to be dealt with, and the best way to do so is by arming Ukraine and boosting defence spending.

Let’s imagine a scenario that puts Russia in the best realistic position.

US President Trump or Vance manages to cut a deal with Putin. Russia agrees to a ceasefire on the current line in exchange for US withdrawal from the Baltics and Poland, easing of sanctions, and the normalisation of relations. While this would create widespread anxieties in Eastern Europe, a renewed crisis in EU-US relationships, and further weaken NATO by decisively putting Washington’s security guarantees in question, the continent can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The war is over, Russia managed to accept that they cannot take Ukraine, and has no more reason to threaten Europe, right?

But what if Putin didn’t see it that way? What if instead of demobilizing he would rapidly reconstitute his forces from Ukraine to Belarus and Russia’s north-western borders with the Baltics? He might conclude that with NATO castrated, a friendly administration in Washington, and a Europe still in its early phase of rearmament, this is the right moment to strike and change European security architecture favourable to Moscow.

What would be his goal? The pretext might be something between the good old “protection of Russian minorities”, and the “creation of a humanitarian corridor” to Kaliningrad. His true objective would likely be to force NATO troops to fully withdraw from the region, giving the organisation a final blow, while also weakening EU unity and cohesion, creating a divided continent. This would create a reality where Russia is the de facto “security guarantor” of Eastern Europe, and use this as leverage to influence its politics. Basically, the return of the Eastern Bloc as a buffer.

Putin’s base thesis is that the “West” and its democracies are in inevitable decline. Europeans are not ready for war, and there is little to no societal resolve to defend the Baltics. Sort of “he only needs to kick the door in, and the whole system would collapse”.

How would this play out?

Let’s assume Moscow gave an ultimatum for European capitals to withdraw their forces from the Baltics while amassing its troops near the border. How would these countries react? It is possible that they might start negotiations with Russia, but it’s extremely unlikely that they would comply. The best Putin could achieve would be the status quo, and the blocking of extra troops fearing escalation. 

Then day one comes, Russian forces cross the EU border in a full-scale invasion of all three Baltic states. Putin gives another long speech watched by the entire world where he threatens to use nukes and immediate long-range strikes on Berlin, Paris, London, and anyone who is willing to engage the Russian military.

This might cause an immediate political crisis in European capitals. Perhaps many would call for an urgent troop withdrawal from the Baltics, and assuming that Russia manages to avoid killing their soldiers already stationed there, it could avoid creating an immediate rally around the flag effect. Fear might override the resolve in the vast majority of European societies. It is already a big if, but dangerously plausible enough to run with the assumption.

However, there are nations that would not be deterred, and immediately treat any kind of incursion or attack on the Baltics as an attack on themselves. This would certainly include Poland, Finland, Sweden, and crucially Ukraine. No matter what other countries do, they would do everything possible to make sure that Russia cannot reach its objectives. It would be an existential issue for them from day one.

Similarly, EU institutions would unavoidably treat it as an attack on the whole Union. Brussels cannot accept a hostile country invading any part of its territory. It would create a deadly precedent that delegitimises its entire raison d'être as a guarantor of peace.

Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Finnish, and Swedish officials occupy key positions in Brussels, and they would do everything in their power to push for a collective response. Let’s not forget that an Estonian, Kaja Kallas serves as the EU's chief diplomat. She guides the Union's common foreign and security policy and external action. She would immediately use her full political capital to make sure the EU will be mobilized to protect her country.

All in all, there would be enormous pressure from multiple directions that pushes EU institutions and member states to respond decisively.

As the days and weeks pass, it will become clear to everyone that the Baltics are not going to surrender, its population is ready to fight, and Finland, Sweden, and Poland will not back down either. Europeans would start seeing Russian bombardments and killings in EU territory. They couldn’t just ignore that nations they share decades long alliances and a common Union with are getting murdered.

These nations have not only been friendly for as long as they can remember, but essentially family. In Germany alone there are two million Poles. Many of them already have German family members, and all of them have German colleagues and acquaintances. This is true for other parts of Western Europe as well and other nations involved. 

The citizens alone would put a massive pressure on European capitals, but probably not the main one. I find it certain that Denmark, Norway, and the UK would shortly join the war as well. Geography and national identities would pull them in if NATO Article 5 wasn’t binding enough. This would create another wave of pressure on individual Europe states. As more and more countries join unilaterally, they would also start pushing everyone else for support. It would create a domino effect that couldn’t stop in Copenhagen or London.

The EU proved it time and time again that it can pull itself together to find money and political will to deal with a crisis. This was showcased clearly during the pandemic and then the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It’s impossible to imagine that Brussels would not treat this at the very least as seriously as those two instances. 

Just for the pandemic recovery fund the Union managed to come up with €750 billion, and provided $226 billion in financial, military, humanitarian, and refugee assistance to Ukraine. €100s of billions would immediately be allocated for the war and eventually it would likely reach into the trillions mark. Russia’s roughly €165 billion military spending would immediately be put to shame.

This is where the dragon would awaken. The only reason Europe was sleeping on defence was due to its conviction that the US would protect it, and Russia would not be a threat anyway. Both of these assumptions would collapse immediately.

There would be arguments, disagreements, and not everybody would provide the same level of support. Perhaps Spain, Portugal, or Greece would not be willing to send troops (they did participate in the war in Afghanistan though, one might assume that the Baltics would be a more important cause), but they would certainly send other assistance, and would not be able to justify inaction.

History teaches us that an external attack often leads to centralization and unification. The European identity’s foundation myth is based on a story like this. The Battle of Thermopylae that united the Greeks against the Persians. More than two millennia later Bismarck showed us that a talented political operator can even provoke an external attack to create a push for unification. Europe already has the pieces scattered for this unification to happen.

Ukraine

In this situation, it would be foolish to imagine them sitting on their hands. The first place the EU would turn to would be Kyiv. They have the experience, the will to fight, and they are the only ones capable of fighting the drone war of the 21st century. Ukraine would be flooded with orders for drones and demand to train European drone pilots.

Kyiv would also eagerly take the opportunity to reopen the frontline to take back its territory. Since Russia is threatening the entire continent, now Europe would be incentivised to encourage them to do so to distract Moscow.

Eventually, Ukraine would be the real winner of this war. It would lock in European support like nothing else could, and retaking its full territories would become a likely prospect. It would clearly showcase that the continent needs them, and would give a giant boost to its EU membership aspirations.

A European Army

A European Army already enjoys popular support across the EU. All it needs is a final push.

The European Union (without Norway and the UK) has 450 million people. More than three times as many as Russia, and an economy ten times larger. Even if we are pessimistic, this would mean millions - but more likely tens of millions - of people who are ready to take up arms to defend the continent, and an economic base that can easily support them.

Perhaps the initial phases might go poorly - however knowing how the Russian army fared in Ukraine and how prepared the immediately involved countries are, this is at least doubtful -, but Europe could sustain a war much longer than Russia can, simply by the size of its economy and population.

The longer the war would go on the worse the outcome would be for Moscow. Europe would eventually organise its defence, train and equip the millions of people ready to fight, create a coherent fighting force, and learn how to wage war.

At the same time this would create an emotionally powerful story for Europe. We fight and bleed together to defend our continent and our democracies against tyranny and barbarism. This civilisational founding myth would make the EU a potential global superpower akin to the US and China. What we lack in comparison to these giants is unity. The economy and potential already exists, and a clear external threat would create that urgency for unity.

Summary

Moscow cannot just attack the Baltics and get away with it, but Putin might see it very differently. Just like Saddam Hussein didn’t learn from his disastrous war against Iran and still started another disastrous war against Kuwait in just two years, we cannot rule out Putin doing the same.

Similar incentives might be at play as well: more than one million men at arms need a purpose or they might become a domestic threat. He might think it is better to wage another war than to demobilize and face the economic and societal consequences.

Europe’s most important task for the coming years is to make sure that the Kremlin understand what would happen if they invaded. We must prepare for war so we never have to fight it. We must do everything to deter Russia regardless of what the US is doing. Moscow must hear the message clearly: don’t wake up the dragon!