King Charles III has taken over as head of the monarch after his later mother Queen Elizabeth passed this week — with his wife Queen Camilla by his side — but the Royal has been dogged by gay rumors for decades.

The twice married and father of two strapping son has dealt with whispers it was all a beard to cover up his shocking secret life. Even his first wife Princess Diana raised questions about her husband’s sexuality. She recorded servant George Smith’s claims that he’d actually caught Charles in bed romping with a male aide.

And there has been more talk over the years about alleged trysts between the now-King of England and various guys. “Rumors that Charles might be gay or bisexual have plagued the Royal family for years, ever since his marriage to Diana hit the rocks,” said one source.

It’s well known that throughout his 15-year marriage to Di, Charles was caught carrying on with the wife of one of his close friends, Camilla Parker-Bowles, whom he ultimately wed in 2005.

In 2011, a high-placed Palace source revealed to RadarOnline.com that even then, “many believed his romance with Camilla was just a cover for his real lifestyle.”

The most devastating accusation came from former palace servant Smith, a gay man and a military veteran who suffered mental problems from his service. Valet Smith claimed that he was bringing Charles his breakfast in bed and stumbled upon the Prince and an “unmistakably sexual position” with a male aide.

Charles’ supporters blasted the servant’s tale, declaring the man was a serious drink with mental issues. Also, Smith had a grudge against the man he said was romping with Charles. Smith charged that the man, later identified as Palace valet Michael Fawcett by “Majesty” magazine editor Ingrid Seward, has sexually attacked him — twice!

“Mr. Smith claimed the aide raped him in 1989 and later tried to assault him again while they were accompanying the Prince of Wales on a tour to Cairo,” said a newspaper source. Scotland Yard investigated the rape claims but later dropped the case when Smith decided not to press charges.

Still, Di recorded Smith’s shocking story on an audiotape which was later found in a locked box following her tragic 1997 death in a car crash in a Paris tunnel.

“It’s clear from the tape that Diana may have had her doubts about the Prince’s sexuality,” noted Royal author Nicholas Davies. The tape has mysteriously disappeared. But newspapers around the world carried stories about the gay rumors, and Charles was forced to deny being a homosexual.

Camilla stood by Charles and branded the Smith story as ridiculous. “It’s all nonsense, she said. “The bitter ramblings of a disturbed alcoholic.” Smith died in 2005 at the age of 44.

Fawcett continued to be a part of King Charles’ inner circle for decades and worked for his foundation up until 2021.

By Andrew Osborn

LONDON (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has yet to publicly comment on a lightning rout of his forces in north-eastern Ukraine, but is under pressure from nationalists at home to regain the initiative.

He has few quick fix options, if Western intelligence and open source analysis is accurate, and most of the potential steps he could take come with domestic and geopolitical risks.

Since coming to power in 1999, Islamist militants in Chechnya and the wider North Caucasus region are among the toughest armed foes Putin has faced. In that instance, he chose to escalate with more force.

These are some of his main options in Ukraine:

STABILISE, REGROUP, ATTACK

Russian and Western military analysts agree that — from Moscow’s point of view — Russian forces need to urgently stabilise the frontline, halt Ukraine’s advance, regroup and, if they can, launch their own counter offensive. There are however doubts in the West about whether Russia has the ground forces or sufficient equipment, given how many casualties it has taken and how much hardware has been abandoned or destroyed during what Russia calls its “special military operation” to destroy the Ukrainian army.

“There is no manpower,” Konrad Muzyka, director of Poland’s Rochan Consulting, said after Russia’s setback in the north-east.

“Volunteer battalions are under strength, and the recruitment campaign is not delivering what was expected. And I think it will only get worse as fewer men will now want to join. If Moscow wants to add men, it needs to conduct a mobilisation.”

Russian efforts to increase the number of troops it can deploy include the formation of a new 3rd Army Corps, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov marshalling new forces, and Putin last month signing a decree to increase the size of Russia’s armed forces.

Putin will need to decide whether to agree to demands from nationalist critics that he sack or reshuffle the military’s top brass, including Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, a close ally. Putin has traditionally not given in to immediate pressure to fire subordinates, but has sometimes parted company with them at a later date.

MOBILISATION

Mobilising Russia’s reserves, who number around 2 million men with military service within the past five years, is doable but it takes times to train and deploy people.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday there was no discussion of a nationwide mobilisation “at the moment.”

Such a move would be popular with nationalists, but less so with some Russian men in urban centres who, anecdotal evidence suggests, are less keen on joining the fight.

It would mean recalibrating official messaging on Ukraine and moving away from describing it as “a special military operation” with limited goals to an open-ended war.

That in turn would force the authorities to abandon their policy of trying to ensure that the lives of most Russians go on as they did before Feb. 24 when Putin invaded Ukraine.

Putting Russia on a full wartime footing would come with domestic political risks too, notably the risk of a public backlash against a forced draft.

It would also constitute an admission that Russia is engaged in a full-scale war against a fellow Slav country – and that the war is going badly for Moscow.

Andrey Kortunov, head of RIAC, a think tank close to the Russian foreign ministry, has said he believes the authorities are reluctant on mobilisation.

“In big cities many people do not want to go and fight and mobilisation is not likely to be popular,” said Kortunov.

“Secondly I think it is arguably in Putin’s interests to present the whole thing as a limited operation. The state would like to preserve as much as possible as it was before without making any radical changes.”

Tony Brenton, a former British ambassador to Russia, has said it would take months before a mobilisation would have any effect on Russia’s fighting strength in any case.

BET ON ‘GENERAL WINTER’

Two Russian sources familiar with Kremlin thinking told Reuters last month that Putin is hoping that sky-rocketing energy prices and possible shortages this winter will persuade Europe to strong arm Ukraine into a truce — on Russia’s terms.

Some European diplomats believe that Ukraine’s recent battlefield success has undermined the urge of some Europeans to push Kyiv to make concessions however, while countries like Germany appear to have grown tougher on Moscow in recent weeks and more determined to ride out winter energy problems.

The European Union has banned Russian coal and approved a partial ban on Russian crude oil imports. Russia in turn has sharply cut gas exports to Europe and made clear it could ban all energy exports, a lever Putin has yet to pull.

EXPAND MISSILE TARGETING

After its setback in north-east Ukraine, Russia struck Ukrainian power infrastructure with missiles. That caused temporary blackouts in the Kharkiv and adjacent Poltava and Sumy regions. Water supplies and mobile networks were also affected.

The move was cheered by some Russian nationalists who would like to see Moscow use cruise missiles to cripple Ukrainian infrastructure on a more permanent basis, a move certain to attract international condemnation.

The same nationalists have also long called for Moscow to strike what they call “decision-making” centres in Kyiv and elsewhere, something that it is unlikely could be achieved without significant collateral damage.

END OR DOWNGRADE GRAIN DEAL

Putin has complained that a U.N. and Turkey-brokered deal that allows Ukraine to export grain and other foodstuffs via the Black Sea is unfair to poorer countries and Russia.

Putin is due to holds talks this week with Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan to discuss revising the deal, which provides Ukraine with much needed budget revenues. If Putin wants to immediately hurt Ukraine he could suspend or cancel the pact or refuse to renew it when it expires in November. The West and poorer countries in Africa and the Middle East would accuse him of worsening global food shortages; he would blame Ukraine.

PEACE DEAL

The Kremlin says it will dictate to Kyiv the terms of any peace deal when the time comes, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he will use force to liberate his country.

Zelenskiy has said that includes Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Moscow has repeatedly said that Crimea’s status is settled forever.

Conceding captured territory in eastern Ukraine in the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic or Luhansk People’s Republic also looks politically impossible for Moscow as it has formally recognised them.

Fully “liberating” the two self-proclaimed statelets from Ukrainian forces was one of the main reasons given for the “special military operation” in the first place.

Handing back captured territory in southern Ukraine where Russia partially controls three regions looks like a hard domestic sell too.

The southern Kherson region is directly north of annexed Crimea and the location of a canal which supplies the Black Sea peninsula with most of its water.

Along with the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia region, Kherson also gives Russia a land corridor through which it can supply Crimea, something Moscow has touted as a major prize.

GO NUCLEAR

Russian government officials have dismissed Western suggestions that Moscow would use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, but it remains a worry for some in the West.

Apart from inflicting mass casualties, such a move could start a dangerous escalatory spiral and formally draw Western countries into a direct war with Russia.

Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nuclear weapons if they – or other types of weapons of mass destruction – are used against it, or if the Russian state faces an existential threat from conventional weapons.

Putin, in a quasi-autobiography in 2000, recalled cornering a rat in a corner with a stick when growing up in a dilapidated apartment building in then Leningrad and being surprised when the cornered animal threw itself at him and turned the tables.

Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, has warned that a cornered Putin could go nuclear if he faced a humiliating defeat with no face-saving off-ramp.

“If the choice for Russia is fighting a losing war, and losing badly and Putin falling, or some kind of nuclear demonstration, I wouldn’t bet that they wouldn’t go for the nuclear demonstration,” said Brenton.

Retired U.S. general Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, agrees it’s a risk but has said he thinks it unlikely.

“There is no real battlefield advantage to be gained, it would be impossible for (the) U.S. to stay out/not respond, and I don’t think Putin or his closest advisers are suicidal,” said Hodges.

(Editing by William Maclean)

With barely two weeks to go before parliamentary elections in Italy, possible future prime minister Giorgia Meloni has spoken out against homosexual couples being allowed to adopt children.

In a debate published by the Corriere della Sera newspaper, the party leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy said she believed “the best possible should be offered to children who have already had bad luck.”

She specified that “means having a father and a mother, stability in the relationship, what our law prescribes.”

The comments led to a clash with her debating opponent, the Social Democrat and former prime minister Enrico Letta, who replied that children need love above all.

“But love doesn’t play a role here,” Meloni replied in the debate published Monday night, “the state does not standardize love, Enrico Letta!”

To which the leading candidate of the centre-left alliance said, “Exactly, but you are standardizing love by saying what is love and what is not.”

In Italy, lesbian and gay couples are currently not allowed by law to adopt children, but it is possible for one of the partners in a couple to adopt the other’s biological child.

Meloni goes into the elections on September 25 as the big favourite.

With her centre-right alliance – which includes the right-wing League and the conservative Forza Italia in addition to the Brothers of Italy – she is currently on course for a clear majority in parliament.

She has repeatedly and clearly stated her views on gay and lesbian adoption in the past. “Yes to the natural family! No to LGBT lobby!” she bellowed in June during an appearance as a guest of the far-right Vox party in Spain.

Recently, the issue took a bizarre turn when Federico Mollicone, the cultural representative of Brothers of Italy, demanded that the Italian public broadcaster RAI refrain from transmitting an episode of the children’s programme Peppa Pig.

The episode features Penny the polar bear, who has two mothers. “Peppa Pig is an animated series for three-year-olds,” noted Meloni, who said she feared that “concepts are being imposed on children.”