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By Michaela Cabrera PARIS, Oct 3 (Reuters) – Exiled Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev takes on Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine in “Minotaur”, a drama about conscription and moral compromise released nearly five years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion. The film, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival this year and is an entry for the 2027 Oscar for best international film, is released as debate persists over Russia’s ability to sustain troop numbers in a conflict that has left hundreds of thousands dead or wounded. One scene shows Russian conscripts boarding a bus for the front, with a father saying goodbye to his teenage son, while the mother of another screams in anguish. Later, the image of an older recruit appears on a roadside billboard: he is dead and celebrated as a war hero. The story centres on Gleb, the owner of a logistics company who is coming to grips with his wife having an affair, while being pressured by the local mayor to identify 14 employees for military service. Unwilling to send his existing workers to the front, he recruits new drivers with promises of high salaries, only to dispatch them straight to the war. “For a director who has lived there, was born there, and speaks only Russian … how could he not talk about what has become the main, if not the most important, event of recent years?” Zvyagintsev said of himself in an interview with Reuters. The 62-year-old director, best known internationally for “Leviathan” and “Loveless”, both Oscar nominated, now lives in France, having left Russia in 2021, months before Moscow launched what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine. PROPAGANDA VERSUS SOFT POWER “Minotaur”, produced in France, is in Russian but its topic means it will never be officially released in Russia. Zvyagintsev is sceptical anyway that it can shift opinion about the war. Support in Russia for the military campaign in Ukraine remained above 70% in 2026 polling by the Levada Center, although 67% of respondents also favoured peace negotiations. “Propaganda is like a heavy hammer, like pliers, like an anvil. It’s a very crude instrument,” he said. “Art, on the other hand, deals with subtleties. This soft power works over the long term.” Moscow has avoided another compulsory mobilisation since its politically damaging 2022 call-up, relying instead on recruitment drives and signing bonuses, though some analysts say a fresh mobilisation cannot be ruled out. Videos of Russia’s mobilisation campaigns posted online helped shape the screenplay, Zvyagintsev said. Unable to shoot in Russia, where he has not returned since suffering a severe bout of COVID-19 in 2021, he used a Latvian town as a stand-in. “I don’t think that after 60 years of life experience a person can suddenly lose touch with reality in just one year,” he said. Critics have described “Minotaur”, which opens in French cinemas on October 14, as one of Zvyagintsev’s most overt commentaries on Russia’s political and moral condition. “This is all we could do: tell the story as we see it and find the human being in this unbearable state of compromise,” he said. In August, Russia designated Zvyagintsev a “foreign agent”, a label applied to public figures accused by authorities of carrying out anti-Russian activities with foreign support. He declined to comment on what impact the designation might have on him personally or professionally. FROM CHABROL TO UKRAINE Zvyagintsev had originally sought to remake French director Claude Chabrol’s 1969 thriller “La Femme Infidele” (“The Unfaithful Wife”), about a husband who suspects his wife is having an affair. But when the rights were finally secured and work on the screenplay began in 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine transformed the project. Chabrol’s suburban Paris setting became a bleak Russian town, and the domestic tensions of the original story were recast against the backdrop of war. “I realise now that we were simply lucky that in 2018-2019 we weren’t able to acquire the rights,” he said. “If we had made the film in 2018, it would have been completely different.” (Editing by John Irish and Susan Fenton) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

PARIS, Oct 3 (Reuters) – France will step up its support for efforts to eradicate Ebola in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Saturday during a visit to a region hit by the virus, warning that it could quickly resurge if vigilance waned. * Barrot made rare trip by a Western leader to the northeastern Congolese city of Bunia, where a laboratory-confirmed case of mpox was identified in mid-September. * France allocated €13.4 million ($15.1 million) to the fight against Ebola between January and July. * Barrot said he would propose additional humanitarian funding for Ebola during upcoming French budget discussions. * France’s response came through humanitarian aid, medical research and the PRISM programme launched during President Emmanuel Macron’s 2023 visit. * A national humanitarian conference is to be held in Paris on October 6, during which Ebola is to be discussed. * “Ebola may seem far away to some people or political leaders, but it can return very quickly. Our responsibility is to prevent those resurgences,” Barrot told reporters in Bunia. * Barrot praised Congolese authorities, UN agencies, humanitarian organisations and medical workers for containing the epidemic and preventing it from spreading to major urban centres in Congo and beyond. * “There is no need to fear or worry. First and foremost, we must fight the epidemic where it emerges,” Barrot said when asked whether it could spread after a case was reported in France. ($1 = 0.8887 euros) (Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Toby Chopra) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

Oct 3 (Reuters) – Russia said on Saturday it would continue to carry out targeted retaliatory strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities and urged foreign nationals and diplomats to leave the capital. In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that “in response to the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ terrorist acts against the civilian population and civilian infrastructure of our country, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are continuing to systematically carry out targeted strikes on military facilities in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities”. “The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs once again warns foreign nationals, including diplomatic mission staff, against staying in Ukraine or travelling to its territory. “Responsibility for any adverse consequences lies entirely with those who ignore this warning,” the ministry said. Russia has recently escalated strikes on infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital, hitting a bridge across the Dnipro river in an air attack on Saturday. The intensifying campaign has upended life for the capital’s 3 million residents ahead of the bitter winter months. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that Ukraine was paying the price for its own attacks on Russia and would continue to do so as Moscow’s forces systematically strike different targets there. Both Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks on the other side’s grain vessels in the Black Sea in recent months, while Russian oil refineries and other enterprises continue to come under Ukrainian shelling and Ukrainian drones kill civilians in Russian border regions. Both sides deny targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure. (Reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Alison Williams) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

By Sheila Dang Oct 3 (Reuters) – A private jet has gone missing while traveling to Boston from Bermuda with six people on board, the US Coast Guard said on Saturday. The Federal Aviation Administration notified the Coast Guard early Saturday that it had lost contact with the plane, a Gulfstream jet used as a medical transfer aircraft, a Coast Guard spokesperson said by email. The Coast Guard said it has dispatched air and surface crews to search for the plane near Nantucket, an affluent island community south of mainland Massachusetts.  Weather conditions in Nantucket were clear as of Saturday morning according to Accuweather. (Reporting by Sheila Dang in Houston; Editing by Sergio Non and Toby Chopra) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

LISBON, Oct 3 (Reuters) – Portuguese prosecutors said on Saturday they had opened a probe into the legality of the centre-right government’s authorisation of the United States’ use of the Lajes Air Base in the Azores during the Iran conflict, following a complaint by an opposition party. A longstanding agreement with the US allows Washington to use the base without prior authorisation during peacetime, but requires Portugal to give approval once hostilities begin. Portugal, unlike neighbouring Spain, authorised several US transit flights through the Lajes air base, a decision that drew criticism from left-wing opposition parties and triggered a political debate over Lisbon’s role in operations linked to the conflict with Iran. In a statement, the Prosecutor General’s Office said “the probe was opened following a complaint filed by members of the Left Bloc party,” without providing further details. Portugal’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment. The Left Bloc asked prosecutors in April to investigate the US use of the Lajes base, arguing it amounted to a “gross violation of international law.”     However, Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel has said Portugal was not involved in the conflict and that the use of the Lajes base complied with international law, having been authorised only after assurances from Washington that any operation would be defensive, necessary and proportionate, and limited to military targets. Portugal’s prosecutors are bound by the principle of legality, requiring them to investigate alleged wrongdoing when there are sufficient grounds to do so, unlike in some jurisdictions where prosecutors have broader discretion to decide whether a case should proceed. The Lajes base, located in Portugal’s Atlantic Azores archipelago, is a strategic transit hub for US forces under a bilateral defence treaty dating back to 1951 and hosts the 65th Air Base Wing of the US Air Force, providing support for US, NATO and allied operations. (Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Toby Chopra) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com