Mandatory "Spy App"

Hi Global Recap readers,

Imagine you’ve lost your phone and you’re desperate to find it. Your photos, documents, your whole life is on there.

• Then you remember it has a trusty, non-deletable app preinstalled on it, mandated by the government, just to track and block stolen devices, so you can be safely reunited with your beloved phone.

• Thank heavens the government is looking after me.

Yeah, nobody says this. But India nearly made it a reality.👇🏼

🇮🇳 INDIA
Government Backs
Off "Spy App"

India’s government has abruptly scrapped a rule that would have forced every new smartphone to ship with a non-removable cyber "safety app", after a wave of anger over surveillance and privacy.

• Order: Just days earlier, on November 28, companies including Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi had been told privately to ship all new phones within 90 days with the Sanchar Saathi app baked in and impossible to delete, supposedly to "help track and block stolen devices."

• Reversal: Then on December 3, the communications ministry announced that phone makers would no longer be required to preinstall the Sanchar Saathi app, a rare backpedal for the Modi administration.

• Backlash: Opposition Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala demanded in Parliament to know under what legal authority the state could mandate a "non-removable app," warning of backdoors and total compromise of user data.

• Industry: The government also found itself at odds with phone manufacturers, as Apple and Samsung had plans not to comply with the directive.

• Pattern: But this isn't the first time they are backing off such measures.

  • Last year, India quietly walked back a strict laptop import licensing plan after pushback from the U.S.

  • In 2020, a compulsory COVID tracing app was softened after privacy outcry.

🇷🇺 RUSSIA
Cosmonaut Pulled
After SpaceX Leak

Russia has quietly replaced veteran cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev on a future SpaceX flight after an alleged security breach at the company’s training facility in Hawthorne, California.

• Incident: Artemyev allegedly photographed SpaceX engines and other sensitive technical material during training, then tried to leave the site with those images on his phone, which would violate U.S. security rules for the facility.

• Replacement: Roscosmos has swapped Artemyev, 54, for Andrey Fedyaev, 43, a fellow cosmonaut who already spent 186 days on the ISS with SpaceX’s Crew-6 in 2023, and publicly framed the move as a routine "transfer to another job," avoiding any mention of the alleged security mess.

• Mission: Crew-12 is currently scheduled to launch no earlier than 15 February 2026 on a Crew Dragon capsule under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and for now NASA and SpaceX are maintaining silence about Artemyev’s removal and the investigation hanging over it.

🇺🇦 UKRAINE
Ukraine-U.S. Brussels
Meeting Scrapped

A planned Brussels meeting between Zelenskyy and a visiting U.S. delegation has been canceled as the Ukrainian president abruptly returns to Kyiv. Officially, no one is saying why, even as the Kremlin advertises a supposed "promise."

• Meeting: The Brussels gathering was supposed to bring Zelenskyy together with Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had just met Putin and senior Kremlin aides in Moscow to talk through revisions to a U.S. peace plan that grew out of an earlier 28-point proposal.

• Whiplash: Kyiv Post’s Washington correspondent reported that "the Brussels meeting is called off" as Zelenskyy returns home, while the Kremlin is already bragging that Witkoff and Kushner "promised" to fly directly to Washington, a claim U.S. officials have not yet backed up.

• Stand-ins: Instead of Zelenskyy, National Security and Defense Council Secretary Umerov and Ukraine’s Chief of General Staff Hnatov will host European national security advisers in Brussels and brief them on what Kyiv has learned from the Moscow talks.

• Next: Zelenskyy says Umerov and Hnatov will then gear up for a follow-on meeting with Trump’s team in the U.S., stressing that Ukraine will keep working "constructively for real peace" while trying to lock in a European security architecture that does not reward Russian gains.

• Moscow: Kremlin aide Ushakov says the five-hour Moscow session produced "no compromise" yet but was "constructive, very useful, and substantive." Another Russian official has sketched three red lines for Moscow:

  • control over occupied Donbas territory,

  • hard limits on Ukraine’s armed forces,

  • international recognition of Russia’s territorial claims.

🇸🇳 SENEGAL
Shadow Fleet Hit Again

Ukraine is now suspected of reaching into West Africa after a tanker off Dakar was struck by a series of explosions. The Mersin, a Turkish-owned vessel tied to Russia's shadow fleet, survived the blasts with no casualties.

• Identity: The Mersin sailed under a Panamanian flag and carried nearly 39,000 tons of fuel when four external blasts tore into its hull near Dakar on November 27.

• Pattern: Analysts link the incident to a growing run of covert hits on commercial ships connected to Russia's shadow fleet that moves oil through opaque channels despite Western sanctions.

• Suspicion: Ukraine has not claimed this strike, although its operatives have been quietly active from the Black Sea to parts of Africa. Maritime experts note the Mersin visited Russian ports multiple times this year.

• Escalation: Days later Ukraine openly took responsibility for naval drone attacks on two other Russia-linked tankers in the Black Sea that were already under sanctions.

• Risk: Even with upgraded Sea Baby drones and sharper targeting tech, experts warn that crowded shipping lanes raise real danger for uninvolved crews.

🇮🇱 ISRAEL
Ceasefire Tested

Israel says it has launched an airstrike in southern Gaza after terrorists surfaced from a tunnel in Rafah and wounded five Israeli soldiers, putting a fragile ceasefire back under stress.

• Trigger: In Rafah, terrorists emerged from an underground tunnel into an area Israel controls and opened fire, injuring five soldiers, one of them seriously. The army labeled it a ceasefire violation and answered with a targeted strike near Khan Younis.

• Truce: The hit lands inside a U.S.-backed ceasefire that has mostly held since early October, despite repeated deadly violations by both sides, and is tied to a phased plan that is supposed to end the war.

• Hostages: Since the truce started, Israel has received 20 living hostages and the remains of 26 more. Under the ceasefire deal, Israel has been releasing Palestinian prisoners and returning Palestinian bodies in parallel swaps.

• Remains: Forensics teams are now analyzing new remains handed over by militants as they search for the last two known hostages in Gaza, Israeli officer Ran Gvili and Thai farm worker Sudthisak Rinthalak.

• Border: Israel says it is preparing to reopen the Rafah crossing into Egypt so Palestinians can leave for medical care, but only one way. Egypt wants two way movement and worries that Palestinians who leave might never be allowed back. Meanwhile the World Health Organization counts more than 16,500 people in Gaza who need medical evacuation.