Good morning!

Germany is under attack. It is blaming Russia. But there is far more to the story than there appears, and Bible prophecy helps us understand its significance.

Yesterday Germany’s government formally blamed Russia for the failed bombing at Leipzig/Halle Airport on August 4—a drone laden with explosives was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane and defused before it could detonate.

• Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the operation fits the pattern of Russian hybrid warfare and that intelligence findings establish Russian state responsibility. Germany reacted by closing Russia’s consulate in Bonn, shutting its Berlin cultural center, and ordering both missions’ staff to leave the country.

Making that news more dramatic, the same day, Germany’s power grid came under attack.

• Multiple explosive devices were planted at a substation feeding the Jänschwalde coal plant in Brandenburg; one detonated, triggering short circuits.
• Near Cologne, someone deliberately knocked five coal-fired generating units offline at the Bergheim substation, cutting 4,200 megawatts of capacity. “It wasn’t a broken switch,” North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister said. “It was a criminal act.” Investigators haven’t ruled out foreign sabotage.

Then today, news broke that German investigators have identified a Russia-born man who entered the country on a Latvian passport, served as logistics for the operation, and left Germany two days before the drone flew. dna at the scene has also implicated a Belarussian national who was also carrying Russian papers.

• Both men are believed to have ties to Russian intelligence.

Russia’s response to these accusations has been fury. Russian President Vladimir Putin called Germany’s accusation a “grave mistake” and accused Berlin of fabricating evidence.

• Dmitry Medvedev went further, calling German leadership “neo-Nazi” and declaring that Germany’s weapons factories are legitimate targets for attack.

Europe has responded by coming to Germany’s side. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Chancellor Friedrich Merz the EU stands with Germany. She said additional sanctions on Russia are being drawn up. “Hybrid attacks will not go without a clear response,” she warned.

This isn’t as simple as a war between Germany and Russia. Yes, Germany is arming Ukraine against Russia, and Russia is sabotaging Germany in return. On the surface, that is real hostility.

But Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has identified the deeper pattern for years. In an article last year about Germany’s duplicity in supplying Ukraine, he wrote:

This is a prime example of German deceit. Germany and Russia want to appear as if they are fighting against each other, while they secretly cooperate. This doesn’t change no matter which government is in power because the business leaders are calling the shots.

How aggressive will this present conflict get? Look beyond the headlines and watch for the signs of restraint on both sides. Here you have a drone that could have killed, a substation that could have blacked out a region. You have consulates closed and sanctions drawn up. But no one on either side is doing anything that would actually cripple the other.

These nations aren’t at war. What we see is consistent with what Mr. Flurry has warned about for years. Russia has found a way to neutralize the German threat as it pursues broader imperialistic aims. And Germany is using tensions with Russia as a pretense for aggressively boosting its military capacity—and for strengthening defense ties with other European nations. It is arming for World War iii.

Major war between these two powers is prophesied, but they will fight many other wars before then.

Iran War Update

• The U.S. struck about 100 targets in Iran yesterday, including commercial tankers and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sites. This was retaliation for Iran striking two commercial tankers the night of August 31 and September 1. A U.S. official told Axios that this is part of President Donald Trump’s new “tanker for tanker” policy.
• Iran launched attacks at U.S. targets in Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq and Kuwait yesterday. Bahrain alone saw about two dozen drones barrage it: The U.S. reported that most were intercepted.
• Americans traveling in the Middle East should beware the “potential for unforeseen escalation,” the U.S. Embassy to Israel warned yesterday. It stated: “Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other U.S. interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world.”

U.S. Debt Crisis Enters Uncharted Territory

Rising interest payments on America’s national debt are pushing the nation into uncharted territory. U.S. Treasury bond yields edged higher on Tuesday, extending a sell-off of those bonds and threatening to raise borrowing costs for the government and millions of Americans.

This is bad news for the world’s biggest debtor.

• The Congressional Budget Office estimates the U.S. government is on track to pay $1.039 trillion in interest in fiscal year 2026, which ends September 30.
• With federal revenues projected at $5.58 trillion over the same period, the interest-to-revenue ratio would hit a record of 18.6 percent.

Federal net interest expenses reached 18.5 percent of revenue last year, surpassing the previous record of 18.4 percent set in 1991. Yet America’s current situation is more dire than it was 35 years ago.

• In 1991, 30-year yields around 8.1 percent pushed total interest payments to their prior peak. Today, with the 30-year yield near 5.3 percent, interest is already consuming nearly a fifth of tax revenue.
• If the 30-year yield remains near 5.2 percent, the interest-to-revenue ratio could reach 30 percent by 2036. If it returned to 8.1 percent, that ratio could approach 50 percent by 2036. Either path would crowd out other priorities and leave far less room in the budget to run the government without still-larger deficits.
• Many economists believe America has only 10 to 25 years to stabilize its national debt before it becomes mathematically impossible to handle. Yet if global investors collectively lose confidence in the government’s willingness to pass fiscal reforms, a bond-market crisis could destroy the nation practically overnight.

Gerald Flurry warned last year that “A Financial Crisis Is Imminent,” writing:

Decades ago, the late Herbert W. Armstrong warned about a global financial crisis triggered by the United States. These recent events showed how this could happen at any time! America’s financial markets are on shaky ground. One wrong move and the whole financial system could collapse. In the 2008 banking crisis, the U.S. financial system was saved only by spending huge amounts of money we did not have. This only set us up for an even bigger crisis down the road.

Could Europe’s Dragon Return to Power?

Mario Draghi knows what it’s like to be one of the most powerful economists in history. He led the European Central Bank from 2011 to 2019, steering the eurozone through the sovereign debt crisis. Yet neither in that job nor in his later role as Italian prime minister could he get the European Union to accept the dramatic financial reforms he wanted.

In 2023 he was appointed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to investigate Europe’s economic and industrial decline and suggest how to fix it.

• Draghi demanded a dramatic push to condense the EU into a smaller superstate and to leave behind those nations that insisted on retaining sovereignty. Two years after it was finished, his report is largely ignored and unimplemented.

Now Draghi is back as cofounder of a new think tank, the Rhine Group. In a short letter, he and the other two founders launch a blistering attack on the state of the EU:

Of the 50 largest technology companies in the world, only four are European. In every emerging technology that will shape the coming decades, Europe is weak.

The stakes are existential. If stagnation continues, the continent will progressively lose the ability to fund the core obligations of a modern state: defense, public health care, pensions, education, climate investments and safety nets for those who lose their jobs.

America, they point out, is no longer willing to pay for Europe’s defense. And China is rising as “a fiercer competitor.” They warned:

Decline is not inevitable, but it is the direction we are heading unless we take urgent action.

Draghi tried to transform Europe by working within the bureaucracy. Now he is pushing for change from outside.

But what makes Draghi think he has any hope for success, asks Peter Franklin of UnHerd. After all, the EU has proved itself “structurally incapable of radical change.” Franklin answers:

Well, perhaps it’s his leading role in the eurozone crisis—during which democratic norms were effectively suspended. This allowed the European Central Bank to impose a policy of extreme austerity on countries like Ireland, Spain and Portugal. An especially brutal example was made of Greece—despite its left-wing government.

It is, therefore, possible that a future crisis—for instance, a Europe-wide spike in the cost of servicing public debt or a major attack by a hostile foreign power—could again force the politicians to submit to the technocrats.

• For that reason, I recommend that you pay close attention to the work of the Rhine Group. This might become much more than an elite talking shop. It might be the embryonic program of an EU emergency government.

Is Draghi building the future government of the United States of Europe from the outside?

• Draghi is one of the most experienced and well-connected men in finance. In addition to leading the European Central Bank, he led the Financial Stability Board that helped regulate the global financial system after the 2008 financial crisis.

He is also a Jesuit-trained leader who remains close to the Vatican. When he was first appointed to the ECB, the late Ron Fraser wrote in the Trumpet:

It is of interest in this context to note that the man possesses a Christian name that literally means war, warring or warlike—Mario. But the surname also intrigues—Draghi, meaning dragon.

The Bible makes clear that the soon-coming Holy Roman Empire will dominate global trade (Revelation 18:1-3). Herbert W. Armstrong forecast repeatedly that a collapse in the American-led financial system would bring this European superstate into being. Could Draghi still have a role? As Mr. Fraser concluded: “Interesting to think on.”

Russia Helping Iran Develop Ship-Killing Missiles

Russia has been secretly assisting Iran’s development of supersonic missiles that could threaten United States warships in the Middle East, the Telegraph reported today.

• The collaborative missile project started in 2023 and has persisted through the current U.S.-Iran war, with the goal of arming Iran with a new generation of difficult-to-intercept missiles that could strike American warships.
• “This is the transfer of a highly strategically sensitive military technology from Russia that the Iranians have wanted to acquire for decades,” weapons analyst Fabian Hinz said, adding that such a program “would require political clearance from the very top in Russia.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened “tremendous” consequences for nations that maintain trade ties with Iran. But Russia is going much further, helping Iran build cutting-edge weapons to target U.S. assets.

Will this revelation make it harder for Trump to give Vladimir Putin, whom he continues to treat with deference, a pass? Whatever the U.S. response, this is further evidence of the danger posed by the prophesied “prince of Russia.”

IN OTHER NEWS

Jury still can’t decide in Clancy child-killing case: Yesterday, jurors in Lindsay Clancy’s trial went home without a decision after four days of deliberating. They told the judge they were stuck. Clancy admits she strangled her three children in 2023. She claims that she should not be held criminally responsible because she had postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder, which made her lose touch with reality. The Bible says the penalty for murder is death (Genesis 9:6; Exodus 21:12). Yet not only is the jury failing to convict a murderer of the monstrous triple-strangling of her own children, but hundreds of women are demanding her acquittal, arguing that homicidal postpartum psychosis could happen to anyone. That is a sign of a society “without natural affection” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).