National Lottery operator had borrowed millions from Kremlin-owned banks

Exclusive: Syndicate agreed to lend up to €640m to Allwyn in 2020, two years before contract awarded

The company behind the national lottery was borrowing millions from Kremlin-owned banks when it won the UK’s largest public-sector contract, the Guardian can reveal.

Russia’s two largest lenders, VTB and Sberbank, were part of a syndicate that agreed to lend up to €640m (£545m) to Allwyn in 2020, two years before the pan-European gaming specialist was named the “preferred bidder” for the £6.5bn lottery contract.

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EU will open sea corridor to send aid from Cyprus to Gaza amid famine fears

Commission president says pilot delivery is expected to set sail on Saturday but did not say where shipments would land or unload

The EU has announced the opening of a sea corridor this weekend for shipping humanitarian aid from Cyprus to Gaza in the race to stave off a famine that is already claiming lives.

“We are now very close to the opening of the corridor, hopefully this Sunday. And I’m very glad to see that an initial pilot operation will be launched today,” the EU commission president, Ursula Von der Leyen, told reporters after touring harbour facilities at the Cypriot port of Larnaca, the departure point for the aid shipments.

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Descendants of King William II’s killer want to donate triptych depicting death to UK museum

Latin-inscribed artwork tells story of Walter Tirel, whose son killed British monarch

The Italian descendants of King William II’s killer want to donate a work of art partly depicting William’s death to a British museum.

The three-slab triptych is owned by the Tirelli family, whose aristocratic origins can be traced back to France, for over 400 years. They have said they believe it was made by a Norman artist in 1100.

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Two Americans go back on trial in Rome over killing of Italian police officer

Highest court threw out previous convictions of Finnegan Lee Elder, 24, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 23

A new trial has opened for two American men accused of killing an Italian plainclothes police officer during a botched sting operation after Italy’s highest court threw out their convictions.

Italy’s highest court of cassation ordered a new trial last year, saying it had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt that the defendants, with limited Italian language skills, had understood that they were dealing with Italian police officers when they went to meet an alleged drug dealer in Rome.

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Kristalina Georgieva wins backing to run for second term as IMF chief

Bulgaria’s ‘eternal optimist’ in favour with European finance ministers after first five-year stint encompassing Covid and Ukraine

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, will run for a second five-year term after being nominated by a string of European countries to lead the global lender.

The Bulgarian economist and champion of policies to tackle the climate crisis will be given the support of her home country, which said she had accepted the nomination for another term starting in September.

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Russia-Ukraine war: British defence secretary in Kyiv to ‘raise alarm’; three dead in Kharkiv region after Russian shelling – as it happened

Grant Shapps visits Ukraine and urges ‘wake up call for the world’; overnight Russian artillery and mortar attacks kill two women and a man in Kharkiv region

Ukraine’s defence ministry said that “overnight, Ukrainian air defenders shot down 33 our of 37 Russian ‘Shahed’ UAVs.”

Here is footage of a woman pulled from the rubble after Russian missiles hit Kharkiv region.

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Gold statues and jewellery stolen in €1m heist at museum by Lake Garda

Items by Italian sculptor Umberto Mastroianni taken from exhibition at Vittoriale degli Italiani estate

Gold statues and jewellery made by the Italian sculptor Umberto Mastroianni have been stolen from an exhibition in northern Italy in a €1m (£850,000) heist.

The 20 gold statues and 30 pieces of jewellery were crafted between the 1950s and 1990s by the artist, who was the uncle of La Dolce Vita film star Marcello Mastroianni.

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‘The Russians have more of everything’: Ukrainian forces struggle to hold back enemy in Mariinka

Drone team has bombed tanks, armoured fighting vehicles and ammunition dumps but still Russians are on the move

At night, Sasha and his drone team go in search of the enemy. They set off in a dirt-covered vehicle towards the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariinka, occupied by Russia since December. They unload a large drone. And then they fly it in darkness across the frontline, above a ghostly landscape of fields and ruined houses, towards the twinkling city of Donetsk. The drone carries a deadly arsenal of six grenades.

Sasha, who uses the call sign “Tourist”, has bombed more than 100 pieces of Russian military equipment. The list includes tanks, armoured fighting vehicles and self-propelled guns, as well as hidden ammunition dumps. Russian howitzers are another key target. Recently his special operations unit forestalled a large-scale attack. It spotted seven Russian tanks massed for a dawn raid and disabled two of them.

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‘We have never been this close’: Portuguese far right aims for election breakthrough

André Ventura is hoping discontent with mainstream politics will hand his Chega party a kingmaker role

Tempting as the tables of savoury pastries were, and strong as the voice of the shaven-headed singer belting out Phil Collins was, they were not the lure that had drawn 200 people to a remote wedding venue in northern Portugal on a cold and ink-black Wednesday evening.

Despite the sign at the opposite end of the hall reading “Let’s get this party started”, the audience’s attention was more focused on a huge campaign poster behind the singer that offered a less hedonistic exhortation: “Portugal needs a CLEAN-UP.”

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Ireland to vote in ‘women in the home’ referendums amid apathy and confusion

What appeared to be relatively low-stakes amendments could turn into embarrassing defeat for government

When the Irish government announced it would hold two referendums on International Women’s Day it billed the votes as opportunities to embed inclusivity and equality in a constitution dating from 1937.

Voters will on Friday be asked to delete article 41.2, the so-called “women in the home” provision, and enshrine two proposed amendments on care and family.

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Former commander-in-chief Zaluzhnyi to become Ukraine’s ambassador to UK

Popular national figure given new role after being dismissed by Volodymyr Zelenskiy a month ago

Ukraine’s former commander in chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, is to become the country’s next ambassador to the UK, a month after he was fired by the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, from his job leading the military.

The decision makes good on Zelenskiy’s promise to keep the popular former general “as part of the team” but it also removes him from Ukraine, where he is seen as the only realistic challenger to the president if there were to be an election.

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Sweden finally joins Nato after nearly two-year wait

Hungary dropping opposition allows historically neutral country to become member, cementing alliance’s control of Nordic region

Sweden has officially became the 32nd member of Nato, in a landmark moment for the historically neutral country and the western military alliance.

Stockholm’s ratification process was finally completed in Washington as Sweden and Hungary, the last country to ratify Sweden’s membership, submitted the necessary documents after a drawn-out process that has taken nearly two years.

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Unlucky in love: statue of Shakespeare’s Juliet in Verona damaged by tourists

Visitors joining in tradition of touching breast of artwork to bring them fortune in relationships have worn hole in it

Tourists in the northern Italian city of Verona have once again created a hole in the right breast of a statue of William Shakespeare’s heroine Juliet.

The bronze statue sits beneath the balcony in a tiny courtyard where Romeo is said to have wooed Juliet, attracting hundreds of visitors each day who flock there for a selfie and to touch the breast as part of a ritual that is believed to bring luck in love.

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Spanish police say they have smashed Banksy fakes syndicate

Officers arrest two people in Zaragoza, where forgeries were allegedly made, and two others suspected of putting works on sale

Police in Catalonia have claimed to have smashed a ring of scammers who allegedly forged works by street artist Banksy and sold them across Europe and the US for up to €1,500 (£1,280) apiece.

Officers arrested two people in the north-eastern Spanish city of Zaragoza where the fakes were allegedly made and two others suspected of having put the works on sale, Catalonia’s regional police force said in a statement.

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Czech Republic to suspend talks with Slovakia over Russia ties

Slovakian foreign minister criticises ‘double standards’ in the reaction to his meeting with Sergei Lavrov

Slovakia’s foreign minister has defended a controversial decision to meet his Russian counterpart, after the Czech Republic announced it was suspending intergovernmental consultations with Bratislava amid concerns it is shifting away from western policy on supporting Ukraine.

In a statement emailed to the Guardian on Thursday, Juraj Blanár, who recently met Russia’s Sergei Lavrov in Turkey, hit out at “double standards”, noting that some other Nato foreign ministers had also engaged with the Russian minister.

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MPs and campaigners accuse Polish government of betrayal over abortion laws

Speaker says parliament will not consider updating country’s draconian abortion policies until mid-April

Women’s groups and opposition politicians have taken aim at Poland’s parliamentary speaker, accusing him of betrayal and seeking to “freeze” the issue of abortion, after he said parliament would not consider legislation to tackle the country’s near-total ban on abortion until mid-April.

“We feel disappointed and betrayed,” said Dominika Ćwiek from Legal Abortion, one of the groups that has been at the forefront of the battle against the country’s draconian abortion policies. “The rights of Polish women are being treated as a side issue.”

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Daniela Klette of Baader-Meinhof gang remanded in custody

Klette, 65, allegedly took part in three violent Red Army Faction attacks in the 1990s

A former member of the radical anti-capitalist Baader-Meinhof gang arrested in Berlin last week after 30 years on the run has been remanded in custody over three violent attacks in the 1990s.

Police swooped on Daniela Klette, 65, at an apartment in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district on 26 February. They called it a “milestone” as Klette was one of the most wanted people in Europe.

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Russian missiles strike near Zelenskiy and visiting Greek prime minister

Russian forces ‘don’t care’ whether targets are military or civilians, says Zelenskiy; Greek PM describes experience as ‘very intense’

A deadly Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa appeared to land near President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and visiting Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who described the moment of the bombardment as “intense”.

The attack on port infrastructure on Wednesday killed five people and left an unspecified number of wounded, according to Ukraine’s navy.

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Ancient stone tools found in Ukraine offer oldest evidence of human presence in Europe

Deliberately fashioned chipped stones date back more than 1m years and may have been used by homo erectus

Ancient stone tools found in western Ukraine may offer the oldest known evidence of the presence of humans in Europe, according to new research.

The chipped stones, deliberately fashioned from volcanic rock, were excavated from a quarry in Korolevo in the 1970s. Archaeologists used new methods to date the layers of sedimentary rock surrounding the tools to more than 1m years old.

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Dutch ministers trying to stop tech firm ASML moving abroad over foreign labour fears

Prime minister will reportedly meet CEO of semiconductor equipment maker ASML, which has warned against anti-migrant stance

The Dutch government is scrambling to ensure that the country’s largest company, the semiconductor equipment maker ASML, does not move operations or expand abroad after the tech firm voiced concerns over the country’s hardening stance on migrants.

On Wednesday, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that the Dutch government had launched a cross-ministry effort, dubbed “Operation Beethoven”, to encourage ASML to continue to invest in the country.

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