Flyers urging German citizens to fight in Ukraine have appeared in Berlin, featuring the slogan “Take revenge” alongside a black-and-white photograph of exhausted German prisoners of war. The leaflets invite people to join the “Ukrainian liberators” and enlist in the International Legion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, with a QR code leading to an application form on the Ukrainian government’s website.
Targeted provocation in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
The flyers were discovered in mid-September across several locations in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district. Similar incidents had already surfaced in the German capital. In late 2022, letters were delivered to private addresses in Germany, allegedly from the Ukrainian consulate in Düsseldorf, offering financial rewards for joining the Foreign Legion in Ukraine. At the time, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko stated that the consulate had not sent such letters, describing the action as a deliberate attempt to discredit Ukrainian diplomacy and weaken public support for Kyiv.
Echoes of Russian disinformation tactics
Although no direct evidence links Russia to the Berlin flyers, the operation bears hallmarks of Russian intelligence methods, which frequently rely on provocations to spread disinformation and sow mistrust among Ukraine’s partners. A notable precedent occurred in France in October 2023, when Stars of David were spray-painted on buildings in Paris. French authorities later arrested suspects who were reportedly acting under the direction of Russian networks. In Berlin, the use of images from World War II and slogans such as “Take revenge” suggests an effort to manipulate historical memory, portraying Ukraine’s International Legion through the lens of revanchism and extremism.
The International Legion’s legal status
The International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine was established in 2022 under government decree and is formally part of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, reporting to the Ground Forces Command. Foreign volunteers serve under contract and in line with international and Ukrainian law. Russian narratives, however, often seek to frame Legion members as “mercenaries” or “criminals,” questioning their legitimacy. The Berlin flyer campaign appears designed to cast doubt on the legal status of the Legion and imply unlawful recruitment practices.
Legal implications in Germany
Under German criminal law, recruiting citizens for military service in a foreign armed force or related institution is punishable by fine or imprisonment of up to five years, unless a special agreement exists between Germany and the foreign state. Against this backdrop, the distribution of such flyers risks being framed as evidence of illegal recruitment attempts, potentially straining German-Ukrainian cooperation. The fact that the flyers link to an official Ukrainian government page further increases the risk of political fallout.
Undermining German-Ukrainian trust
Germany remains one of Ukraine’s key donors and military partners. Any incident that undermines public confidence in Kyiv or raises questions about adherence to German or international legal norms can be strategically exploited by Moscow. By presenting Ukraine as dependent on foreign “mercenaries,” the campaign may erode public support for military aid and fuel narratives questioning Berlin’s continued backing of Kyiv at a critical moment in the war.
Burnout and return-to-office pressures led her to give up “overemployment.”
She shared how she’s navigated financial and childcare changes — and avoided her company’s five-day in-office policy.
Editor’s note: In June 2024, Business Insider wrote about a supply-chain professionalnamed “Lisa,” in Wisconsin, who was secretly working multiple full-time jobs. (Lisa is a pseudonym, but Business Insider has confirmed her identity.) Read our story here. In a recent interview, Lisa shared how she has adapted to life with one job and managed to maintain a similar standard of living.
Secretly working two full-time jobs was a game changer for Lisa and her family. That chapter is closed, but she’s still clinging to the lifestyle it made possible.
In 2020, Lisa was earning roughly $110,000 a year in a remote, corporate manufacturing role when she received an offer for a hybrid job that paid about $150,000. After talking it over with her husband, she landed on an unconventional solution: Take the new job — and keep the old one, too.
For 18 months, Lisa secretly worked two full-time roles, earning roughly $250,000 in 2021 and averaging 40 to 50 hours a week across both jobs. On days she had to go into the office for her hybrid role, she’d bring both laptops — which conveniently looked identical — and juggle her responsibilities from a cubicle or private room.
Lisa said the extra income has put her and her husband in a strong position to afford their three children’s college educations. It also allowed her husband to take a much-needed break from the workforce and focus on caring for their kids.
“It’s given us a financial cushion that would have been impossible otherwise,” Lisa, who’s in her 40s and lives in Wisconsin, told Business Insider last year.
However, in recent years, Lisa said return-to-office pressures and burnoutmade job juggling unsustainable. In 2022, she gave up her $250,000 income from two jobs for a new position as a supply chain manager with a hybrid schedule that paid $175,000 annually. Nearly two years later, Lisa faced another challenge to the lifestyle she’d grown used to: Her company announced a five-day-a-week in-office policy.
But just as she turned to job juggling in 2020, Lisa has continued to find ways to carve out a work situation that’s best for her and her family. Her first step? Finding a way to quietly skirt her company’s five-day office policy.
Lisa is among the Americans who have secretly juggled multiple full-time jobs to double their incomes. Over the past three years, Business Insider has interviewed 30 overemployed workers who’ve put their extra earnings toward things like luxurious vacations, expensive weight-loss drugs, and their children’s college tuition.
However, in recent years, job juggling has become more difficult amid a white-collar hiring slowdown and return-to-office mandates. Still, some workers have found ways to hold on to parts of their overemployed lifestyles, even as their work situations evolve.
Dodging a 5-day in-office mandate
After switching from two jobs to one in 2022, Lisa said her remaining employer encouraged office attendance, but in-person work initially remained optional due to pandemic-related concerns. She typically went in once a week — making a commute of just over an hour each way — a routine her manager was fine with.
Over time, though, in-person attendance a few days a week became expected. Then, in late 2023, the company formally announced a five-day-a-week office requirement. Lisa began thinking about finding a new job, but first, she spoke with her manager to gauge how strictly the new rules would be enforced. Her manager told her that employees could request approval to work from home one day a week, but it would require a sign-off from a higher-level manager at the company. They said they’d support her request.
But the conversation didn’t end there. Lisa said they then had an “off the record” conversation about how much remote work she could get away with. She explained how working five days a week in the office would pose challenges for her family, given her long commute and childcare responsibilities.
Lisa said her manager was understanding and told her to “be here as much as you can.” As long as she was in the office a few days a week — especially on days with key in-person meetings — they wouldn’t stand in her way.
“My manager and I have kind of worked out that if I need to work from home for whatever reason, whether it’s work or personal reasons, then that’s OK,” she said. “At the end of the day, I kind of have a hybrid schedule.”
Lisa, who typically works from the office three days a week, said one reason her manager has been accommodating is that her job involves a lot of virtual meetings, making in-person attendance less essential. As far as she knows, everyone who has formally asked to work from home one day a week has received approval, but she’s not sure if others have come to similar informal arrangements. Either way, she prefers to keep hers quiet.
“I don’t necessarily advertise what I do,” she said. “But there is a quiet understanding in our working group that flexibility is critical for us to be productive.”
Lisa said her biggest concern is that her company will start tracking how often people are working from the office — as some other companies have done — but she hasn’t heard anything about this yet.
“If they start letting people go because they’re not badging in for eight hours a day, four days a week, then yeah, I would definitely be on the list of people they could let go,” she said.
Turning to her husband for childcare while looking for a new role
Given that she’s spending more time in the office, Lisa said her husband has spent more time caring for their children, the youngest of whom is under 10. After taking a break from the workforce, he now works remotely part-time, giving him the flexibility to be there for their kids. When her husband used to work from an office, Lisa said they relied on pre- and after-school programs. But now that he works from home, he’s able to handle school drop-offs and pickups himself.
From a financial perspective, Lisa said they’ve been able to maintain their lifestyle despite his part-time hours forthree main reasons. First, her husband is earning more per hour than he did in his previous full-time job, which made the transition to part-time a bit less of a sacrifice. Second, her salary has risen over the past three years — from $175,000 to $195,000 — helping to offset some of the lost income from her second job. Third, the savings boost from her job-juggling days gave them a cushion — one that has helped them absorb income changes without major cutbacks.
“I think we would be OK financially,” she said, “but we wouldn’t be great if it hadn’t been for that two-job situation.”
While working three days from the office has been manageable, Lisa said she’s applied for many jobs over the past year in the hopes of finding a role with some combination of a shorter commute, a more flexible in-office requirement, and comparable pay.
She said she interviewed for one job with an office just 15 minutes from home, but the salary was about half of what she earns now. While the shorter commute was appealing, the pay cut wasn’t worth it — and she said it’s been difficult to find other managerial roles that have the compensation and flexibility she’s looking for.
“It’s hard to find another position at this level,” she said. “There’s just fewer of them, but I’m still looking.”
Talking with an employer before the company posts a job, not after, could help you land a role there, veteran career coach Laura Labovich told Business Insider.
She recommends that job seekers identify where they want to work, examine their network for any ties to the organization, and start building relationships inside prior to a job post even going up.
“The way to win is to not apply. Get in before they have the opening. Make connections. Become an insider,” Labovich said.
If you wait until you see a job posting before contacting an employer, she said, you might already be too late. That’s because once a role is posted, recruiters or HR staffers will often feel compelled to tell you to apply online in order to ensure all candidates get equal consideration, Labovich said.
Getting in line with everybody else can make the process seem “more like a cattle call,” she said.
The typical corporate job posting draws 250 applicants, Glassdoor reported in early 2025. Among those, only four to six candidates typically advance to the interview round.And, of course, only one person ultimately gets the offer letter.
Having someone who can flag your résumé to a recruiter or hiring manager and help you stand out is “worth its weight in gold” when there are so many people looking for jobs, said Rick Wargo, managing partner of the global technology practice at the recruitment firm Boyden.
“A warm introduction is always the best way to go about a job search,” he told Business Insider.
Knowing what to ask
It’s obvious that if you don’t know about a forthcoming job, you can’t make a pitch for it. What you can do is consider whether the employer has hired for the types of things you might like to do.
That’s why, Wargo said, it’s important to start networking and making connections inside key companies before you need a job.
“You don’t go to fix the roof when it’s raining,” he said.
To beat the rush that often occurs when an employer lists an opening, you can contact people who might be at your level within an organization and ask questions such as, “How do you like your job?” “How do you like the organization?” and “How did you get to where you did?” said Labovich, who runs Career Strategy Group, an outplacement firm in the Washington, DC, area.
If it’s someone higher up the food chain — potentially someone who might be the hiring manager for a future job — the ask should be smaller.
“You don’t want to say, ‘I want a job,’ because if you’re getting to them early, there’s no job yet,” she said. Instead, Labovich recommends that job seekers seek advice, insight, recommendations, and referrals.
That contact can pay off: Messaging a hiring manager nearly triples your chance of getting hired, LinkedIn reports.
Ultimately, she said, making connections inside an organization is one of the best ways to navigate a hiring process that often feels “totally broken.”
That’s left many job seekers applying to as many roles as they can, even though many career coaches, including Labovich, urge that people prioritize networking instead.
“The way to apply for a job these days is to not apply for a job,” she said.
The Philippines is no stranger to earthquakes—it sits on the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire. But a temblor which struck on Tuesday, Sept. 30, became the deadliest the country has ever experienced since at least 2013.
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A 6.9-magnitude quake hit just before 10 p.m. local time (10 a.m. ET), Philippine seismologists reported, off the shore of coastal Bogo City (pop. 90,000) in the island province of Cebu in the archipelagic Southeast Asian country’s center.
The quake’s epicenter was shallow, only some 5 km below the surface, which means its energy needed to travel less distance before hitting infrastructure. The seismic energy was strong enough to cause buildings to collapse—including a century-old church—and to leave cracks on bridges. In one affected town, the quake led to part of a sports complex collapsing on spectators of a basketball game. In Bogo City, a village reported some 10 casualties, despite being made up of “disaster resilient homes” that housed survivors of a devastating supertyphoon back in 2013.
A tsunami alert was issued for several Philippine regions, though that has since been lifted as of Thursday.
National disaster officials reported at least 72 people died and 294 were injured after the quake, though the official toll could increase in the coming days.
Civil defense official Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV told a news conference from Manila on Wednesday that the country was “still in the golden hour of our search and rescue,” adding that there “are still many reports of people who were pinned or hit by debris.” By Thursday afternoon, the national police said all missing individuals had been accounted for.
Alejandro added that the quake was particularly deadly because it happened at night. “In the morning, we are all alert, but at night when everyone is asleep, it takes time for us to react.”
Tuesday’s quake is the deadliest the country has experienced since October 2013, when more than 200 people died in the Philippines’ central region after a 7.2-magnitude quake struck the neighboring island of Bohol.
Besides being a hotbed of seismic activity, the Philippines is also among the most climate-vulnerable countries globally, seeing more than 20 typhoons and tropical storm systems yearly.
The Cebu quake also happened after a tropical storm late last week battered Cebu and other provinces in the country’s central region. That storm separately left at least 27 people dead—many knocked down by felled trees or drowned—and cut power to cities and towns and forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes. It also increased the risk of landslides after heavy rains soaked hillsides and softened soil.
The quake and the storm combined caused widespread power outages, affecting hospitals and first responders’ ability to attend to victims.
Latest figures from national disaster officials show that more than 170,000 people were affected by the quake, and 20,000 have been displaced.
A ‘Big One’ in Manila?
The latest quake in the central region has raised fears of a major temblor happening in the capital Manila, which many have ominously nicknamed the “Big One.”
A fault system in the metropolitan Manila region has recorded seismic activity that could reach up to a magnitude 7.2. Such quakes in this fault system happen every 200 to 400 years, and the last recorded tremor from the area was in the 1600s.
Such a sizable quake could cause some 168,000 buildings to collapse and more than 33,000 people to die in Manila and neighboring provinces.
Alejandro said lessons from the Cebu earthquake should be applied when the “Big One” strikes the capital. “We can never be 100% prepared,” he said. “Events like this [earthquake], for us also, is one way of practice. Can you imagine if it happens in Metro Manila at night?”
Kepler held its sixth conference at Wembley Stadium
Ian Tuttle/Kepler
September is a month full of hedge-fund conferences in New York, Connecticut, London, and more.
People on the ground at these events told Business Insider what the chatter was about.
Goldman Sachs and Kepler hosted events at sports stadiums, while Morgan Stanley and Citi opted for smaller venues.
September brings cooler weather, weekends filled with football, and plenty of hedge fund conferences.
Last month, managers and allocators in the $4.7 trillion industry had many opportunities to compare notes and share gossip.
Events hosted by Goldman Sachs and industry consultant Kepler at Citi Field and Wembley Stadium, respectively, brought hedge fund managers and those who invest in them to sports venues. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley and Citi held more low-key affairs in venues based in Greenwich and Manhattan.
Business Insider spoke with attendees of these industry events last month to get a sense of the on-the-ground sentiment. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the conferences were closed to the press. Here’s what they said.
Kepler conference attendees networked with a view of the Wembley Stadium field.
Ian Tuttle/Kepler
Allocators are worried about a shaky market
One manager who attended Morgan Stanley’s three-day event at the Greenwich Hyatt Regency in the middle of the month said allocators are concerned about a market pullback — but aren’t yet ready to ditch US stocks.
There’s a fear the party’s ending, “but no one wants to make the first move,” this person said. Over the conference, they met with dozens of allocators, including many institutional investors such as pensions and endowments.
“People are uncomfortably comfortable,” they said. This sentiment has been lingering for months now as US equities continue to tick up despite worries about President Donald Trump’s tariff policies slowing global trade. A survey released at the end of July found that nearly half of the dozens of institutional investors questioned believed markets were too complacent about tariffs.
What this means in practice is a search for managers that can perform in market downturns. Those with proven track records shorting stocks are in demand, two fund founders who attended the September conferences said.
One person who attended Goldman Sachs’ event at Citi Field, the home of Major League Baseball’s New York Mets in Queens, said managers trading international stocks were of interest to big American allocators.
“There’s a continued interest to get away from the States, even though the market keeps chugging along,” this person said, of their takeaways from meeting with dozens of potential LPs.
A recent report from law firm Seward & Kissel found that more funds were including Trump’s trade deals and tariffs as potential risk factors in their regulatory filings.
The “highly uncertain global macro and regulatory environment” is having “a significant impact on the disclosures” funds are sharing with investors, the report reads.
A new fund from Bridgewater caught some eyes
At Kepler’s Wembley Stadium event, there were plenty of big-name managers speaking and meeting with allocators. Leda Braga, the founder of Systematica and a former BlueCrest executive, gave a fireside chat to start the event, and other quants, such as AQR and Paris-based Capital Fund Management, met with institutional investors.
A new offering from $98 billion Bridgewater Associates — a fixed-income fund for non-US investors meant to take advantage of “global divergences,” according to the fund’s fact sheet — is hoping to meet the uncertain moment for antsy allocators.
The fact sheet for the Absolute Return Fixed Income strategy said it trades bonds and currencies, and is attractive now because “higher interest rates on both the long and short end of the curve, positive real yields and term premiums, and market volatility have all returned.”
One Europe-based allocator who met with Bridgewater in a group setting with other institutions at the Kepler event told BI that it’s the type of product firms roll out when stock markets seem at their peak.
Systematica’s Leda Braga spoke on a Chatham House rules basis at Kepler’s Wembley event.
Ian Tuttle/Kepler
The factsheet said the strategy is up 6.8% since it started trading in March of this year through August. The manager simulated performance for the past two decades and states that the fund — which wants to have 65% of its assets in interest rates trades, 20% in credit bets, and the rest in currency plays — would have returned 9.4% in 2008 and 21.7% in 2022.
“AFRI is a fully liquid, fully alpha strategy targeting a net excess return of 5%+ a year at 10% volatility that is designed to have no structural exposure or correlation to markets or other managers over time,” the factsheet reads.
Multistrategy exhaustion, but still a demand for multistrategy-like returns
Multistrategy firms like Millennium, Citadel, and Point72 have come to dominate industry talk in recent years thanks to their unprecedented size and the unrelenting talent war that has allowed portfolio managers to sell their services to the highest bidder.
The increasing cost of these platforms — and the fact that the most coveted firms are closed to new investors — has soured the sector in the eyes of some allocators. The recent closure of Eisler Capital, due to high costs and low returns, may be an inflection point.
There is, however, still a demand for the market-neutral returns they provide.
It’s why new launches that spin out of these firms — from portfolio managers who have traded in the multistrategy style for years — have become some of the most sought-after funds, two different managers said.
“Allocators seem to crave low-net strategies,” said one manager who attended an emerging manager conference in New York put on by Citi. This individual, who met with different potential backers at the conference along with roughly a dozen other stockpicking funds, said interest was higher in investors with a multistrategy background than those with a more growth equity mindset, such as spin-offs from Tiger Cubs.
Allocators investing in these spin-outs often require managers to accept capital via a separately managed account, which allows allocators more transparency into the returns and strategy.
Younger managers refusing to take SMAs found their dance cards empty at these conferences, two people who attended the Citi and Morgan Stanley conferences said.
“You can’t raise money from institutions anymore without saying yes to SMAs,” one fund manager said.
