Trending on X, 6 PM: Nömrög damage, Johnson on Putin, France protests, 65 years at the UN, Z. Enkhbold, wrestling worlds

These are the topics Mongolian users discussed most on X between 13:50 and 18:15 on October 25 (Ulaanbaatar time), ranked by engagement. Posting and engagement were relatively light on a Sunday evening, and only 8 topics could be verified against news sites, so we did not pad the list to 10. Topics from earlier roundups appear only where there is a new development. Posts with unverified information or unsupported accusations against named people were left out. Post metrics are as of 18:29.

1. Nömrög: damage assessment team faces harsh conditions as B. Tsogtgerel demands accountability (new development)

The fire in the Nömrög Strictly Protected Area returned to the conversation with two new developments. According to Minister of Environment and Climate Change Ts. Sandag-Ochir, the working group assessing the damage cannot go beyond the areas marked on its map by car, motorcycle or horse because of natural obstacles and the terrain. It has asked the State Emergency Commission and the General Authority for Border Protection for technical support, and is looking into using helicopters and working with a neighbouring country. The minister said that by law the damage must be determined within 30 days, and that the assessment will not stop at the burned area but will cover the effects on forest, vegetation, soil and wildlife habitat through on-site inspections and sampling. Preliminary figures show that 79.8% of the protected area, more than 468,000 hectares, was burned. No final conclusion has yet been reached on what caused the fire.

The post with the highest engagement in this window was a UBN video of B. Tsogtgerel. He said the burned area was 25 times the size of Ulaanbaatar, 3 times Tokyo and 8 times Seoul, asked what responsibility Mobicom would bear and why the public did not seem to care. For comparison, the official preliminary figure of 468,000 hectares, about 4,680 km², is close to the capital's total territory (about 4,700 km²) and roughly eight times the area of Seoul.

2. Boris Johnson compares Putin to Gollum

A clip of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson comparing Russian President Vladimir Putin to Gollum from "The Lord of the Rings" circulated widely on X with a Mongolian translation. According to the post, Johnson said Putin reminds him of Gollum, that he is creepy and very small. It is not clear when or where the clip was recorded, but in a Daily Mail column on October 16 Johnson also described Putin as a "malevolent and Gollum-like kleptocrat", criticising US President Donald Trump as too soft on Putin and calling the lifting of sanctions on Russian diesel "sickening".

3. Hundreds of thousands march across France again, nearly 1,000 arrested (new development in the European protests)

The 10 AM roundup covered youth unrest in Rome and Barcelona; in this window the focus was on Saturday's nationwide protests in France. According to the BBC and AP, the French Interior Ministry estimated that about 410,000 people marched against rising living costs and poor school conditions, while the CGT union, one of the organisers, put turnout at about 800,000. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said nearly 1,000 people were arrested nationwide, and some 70,000 police officers were deployed. After a largely peaceful day, police in Paris used tear gas and water cannon as clashes broke out, barricades were set alight in Marseille and protesters pulled boards off a shop in Bordeaux to build a barricade. The previous weekend's riots led to more than 2,700 arrests.

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4. MUN Mongolia 2026 and 65 years of Mongolia's UN membership

The Model United Nations conference MUN Mongolia 2026 drew attention after the X account of China's ambassador to Mongolia posted about taking part. The post noted that the day marks the 55th anniversary of the restoration of China's lawful seat at the UN, and that Mongolia is marking 65 years since it joined the UN as its 101st full member this year. Mongolia joined the UN on October 27, 1961. iKon.mn reported that President U. Khurelsukh highlighted the anniversary when he met UN Secretary-General António Guterres during the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in September.

5. Mandatory Chinese in Russian schools? A deputy's proposal, not a bill

A post claiming that Russia's State Duma had begun debating a bill to make Chinese a compulsory subject from the fifth grade was widely shared. Russian outlets including NEWS.ru and Vesti reported on September 2, however, that this was not a bill but a proposal by Kaplan Panesh, an LDPR deputy and deputy chair of the Duma's budget and tax committee. He suggested a federal programme to phase in Chinese as a second compulsory foreign language from the fifth grade, noting that only about 47,000 Russian pupils currently study it. Russia's Ministry of Education had earlier said that a second foreign language is not compulsory in the upper grades and is taught on request where schools have the capacity.

6. Z. Enkhbold: "a person with a metal in their name will be elected president"

Talk of the 2027 presidential election continued on X, and a social media post by former Speaker of Parliament Z. Enkhbold drew attention. According to UBN, he wrote that "a wise man said that next year someone whose name contains the name of a metal will become president", sorting contenders N. Altankhuyag, S. Ganbaatar, L. Gantumur and D. Ganbat into the "metal names" and G. Zandanshatar, B. Javkhlan, J. Enkhbayar, S. Byambatsogt and B. Battsetseg into the "non-metal names", before concluding, tongue in cheek, that "in 2027 the president will come from the DP". UBN noted that N. Altankhuyag, L. Gantumur, D. Ganbat and S. Ganbaatar of the Democratic Party have signalled interest in running, while G. Zandanshatar, J. Enkhbayar and S. Byambatsogt are named as possible MPP candidates.

7. Montsame news agency turns 105

Mongolia's national news agency Montsame marked its 105th anniversary with a video on its X account. UBN reported that the agency held an academic conference on "New trends in media" this week with the National University of Mongolia, the Mongolian National University of Education and the University of the Humanities, discussing news agency reform in the age of AI, blockchain technology and the use of foreign words. Montsame head Kh. Enkh-Orshikh described the agency as the same age as the 1921 People's Revolution.

8. Greco-Roman wrestling worlds: M. Davaabandi to wrestle for bronze (new development at the wrestling worlds)

At the World Wrestling Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan, now in its second day, M. Davaabandi qualified to wrestle for a bronze medal in the Greco-Roman 55 kg category. According to MNB, he beat Bulgaria's Stefan Grigorov, a bronze medallist at this year's European Championships, 8:0 in the first round before losing to Azerbaijan's four-time world champion Eldaniz Azizli. Azizli's progress to the final gave him a repechage bout, where he beat Belarus's Aleksandr Gurev, setting up a bronze-medal match against Georgia's Vakhtang Lolua, last year's world champion. Mongolia's freestyle team was covered in the previous roundup.

Methodology: We ranked posts from about 200 major news and influential accounts found through X search, plus more than 50 keyword searches, by an engagement score (likes + 2× reposts + views/100), and checked the facts against news sites. Posts that could not be verified or that carried a risk of defamation were left out. Views expressed by individuals on X do not represent the position of egov.mn.