Category Archives: Europe

Volodymyr Zelenskiy visits US to shore up support for war effort

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Ukrainian president makes first known foreign trip since invasion before vote on package worth $45bn

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has made his first known foreign trip since Russia invaded Ukraine more than 300 days ago, travelling to the US on a high-stakes visit to secure support for his war effort well into next year.

The Ukrainian president was filmed travelling with cars outside Przemyśl railway station in Poland.

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Italy to let hunters loose against ‘invasion’ of wild boars

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Farmers’ lobby welcomes move by Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition, claiming animals are getting ‘ever closer’ to homes

Italy’s ruling right-wing coalition is set to loosen hunting rules to deal with what the country’s farming lobby has called an “invasion” of wild boars.

The boars are common in the countryside, but have recently also been spotted in central parts of Rome, attracted by the Eternal City’s chronically overflowing rubbish skips.

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Vladimir Putin promises army anything it asks for, as invasion enters 11th month

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Russia is expected to dramatically increase military spending over next two years, as it signals it is preparing for a long war

Vladimir Putin has pledged to give his army anything it asks for in a meeting with Russia’s top military officials as the war in Ukraine enters its 11th month.

Speaking in Moscow at the closing session of the expanded board of the ministry of defence, Putin said there were no “funding restrictions” for the military. “The country, the government will give everything that the army asks for. Everything,” the Russian president added.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: ‘We are staying with Ukraine’, Biden tells Zelenskiy at joint press conference

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Ukrainian president is meeting with president Joe Biden and Congressional leaders on Wednesday evening

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has undertaken a surprise trip to Beijing and held talks with the Chinese president Xi Jinping during which he said they discussed the Ukraine conflict.

Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, posted a video on his Telegram channel showing him meeting Xi, smiling for photos and a meeting between Chinese and Russian officials.

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Zelenskiy to meet congressional leaders in Washington on Wednesday – reports

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Trip would be Ukrainian president’s first foreign visit since Russia invaded in February

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will travel to Washington on Wednesday where he is expected to visit the White House and the US Capitol, according several US media reports.

Zelenskiy is expected to meet congressional leadership and national security committee chiefs from the Republican and Democratic parties, and might address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, news outlets reported..

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Russia plans to boost military links with Iran, says UK defence secretary

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Ben Wallace says Putin regime will supply military technology in return for drones used to attack Ukraine

Russia plans to deepen its military cooperation with Iran in return for Shahed drones that have been used to bomb Ukraine’s cities and energy network since September, according to Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace.

The west must hold Russia’s “enablers to account”, he said, in a Christmas update in which he was also forced to admit the UK had not completed a Ukraine “action plan” by the end of the year as promised.

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British man in Cyprus faces murder trial after refusal of plea bargain

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David Hunter not able to admit lesser charge of manslaughter over death of his terminally ill wife, Janice

An elderly Briton accused of murdering his terminally ill wife in Cyprus has been denied the chance to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, almost a year to the day after Janice Hunter died.

The state prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyrou said he could not accept a deal that would have allowed David Hunter, aged 76, to make the guilty plea, which had raised hopes of the retiree being released by Christmas.

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Ryanair restores pandemic pay cuts for Ireland pilots in time for Christmas

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Settlement means airline has reached a pay deal with unions across Europe, excluding Belgium

Ryanair has reached a deal with its pilots in Ireland that will restore the 20% pay cuts the airline made during the Covid pandemic.

The four-year pay deal will also see low single-digit percentage rises for the carrier’s home nation pilots in the next three financial years until March 2027.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Zelenskiy visits Bakhmut as Putin admits situation in parts of Ukraine ‘extremely difficult’ – as it happened

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This live blog has now closed, you can find our latest Ukraine coverage here

The Biden administration has crossed a new line in its support for Ukraine, by indicating its willingness to send Patriot air and missile defence systems to aid in the war against Russia.

The system – which includes powerful missile interceptors and radar – is likely to prove highly effective for Ukraine, and marks a significant step forward in the scope and complexity of the US’s support. But the gift of such prestige systems will present longer-term challenges for Nato.

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Spanish PM vows to end ‘unjustifiable’ block on court changes

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Conservative judges froze passage of measures meant to overhaul appointments to their court

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has vowed to use “whatever measures are needed” to end to a long-running judicial deadlock after conservative judges at the country’s constitutional court took the unprecedented step of suspending the passage of legislation that would overhaul the way appointments to their court are made.

Last week, Sánchez’s Socialist-led coalition government managed to get its changes to the penal code through congress, the lower house of Spain’s parliament.

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Former Nazi camp secretary found guilty of complicity in 10,500 murders

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Irmgard Furchner, 97, who worked at Stutthof concentration camp during the second world war, is given a two-year suspended sentence

A 97-year-old former secretary at a Nazi concentration camp has been found guilty of complicity in the murder of more than 10,500 people imprisoned there, and handed a two-year suspended sentence.

Irmgard Furchner, who has been on trial in the northern German town of Itzehoe for more than a year, spoke to the court on one occasion earlier this month to say she was sorry for what had happened, but stopped short of admitting her guilt.

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Kosovo PM says Russia is inflaming Serbia tensions as Ukraine war falters

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Albin Kurti warns rising tensions only benefit Putin as ethnic Serbs set up road blocks in north of country

Kosovo’s prime minister, Albin Kurti, has warned of Russia inflaming tensions between his country and Serbia due to the war in Ukraine faltering, as Belgrade took its first step in deploying troops to the region.

Ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo, where they are in the majority, have had barricades set up for more than a week, preventing the free movement of the Kosovan authorities, despite US and EU calls for the illegal road blocks to be dismantled.

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Positive signals from Iran over nuclear deal put west in a tricky position

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Revival of pact could mean lifting sanctions on a country that is viciously suppressing protests and arming Russia

Wary western powers face an unlikely potential dilemma after a sudden push by Tehran to suggest that progress is being made to remove the last outstanding obstacles to a revived agreement to oversee Iran’s nuclear programme.

The unlikely prospect of Joe Biden reviving the dormant 2015 nuclear deal, potentially lifting sanctions and opening the way for Iran to make billions of dollars in oil exports, would be seen as a gross betrayal by supporters of three-month-long street protests, as well as a controversial signal to send to Ukraine about Washington’s priorities.

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Germany pauses buying Puma tanks after mass breakdown

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All 18 tanks on exercises suffer problems in blow to German contribution to January Nato force

The German government has said it will pause purchases of new Puma tanks after a mass breakdown during exercises, lamenting a “harsh setback” as Berlin seeks to overhaul its military.

The armoured infantry vehicles – which were supposed to form part of Germany’s contribution to a Nato force – suffered problems that left all 18 of those in the exercises unfit for operations.

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EU energy ministers reach agreement on gas price cap

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Months of talks end with ‘dynamic cap’ deal after Germany persuaded by global reference-price condition

EU ministers have agreed a plan to cap the price of gas, ending months of argument over how to handle the cost of soaring energy prices after Russia cut gas supplies to Europe.

“Mission accomplished,” said the Czech minister for trade and industry, Jozef Síkela, who chaired talks between energy ministers, adding that negotiations had not been easy.

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Dutch PM apologises for Netherlands’ role in slave trade

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Mark Rutte says Dutch state ‘enabled, encouraged and profited from slavery’ for centuries

Mark Rutte has offered a formal apology on behalf of the Dutch state for the Netherlands’ historical role in the slave trade, saying slavery must be recognised in “the clearest terms” as a crime against humanity.

In a speech at the national archives in The Hague, the Dutch prime minister acknowledged the past “cannot be erased, only faced up to”. But for centuries, he said, the Dutch state had “enabled, encouraged and profited from slavery”.

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Sunak’s review of aid for Ukraine suggests cracks appearing in UK policy

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The PM seems undecided about delivering the big uplift in military help Kyiv needs to get ready for a possible Russian offensive

Boris Johnson’s Ukraine policy may not have always been sophisticated – “Dobryi den, everybody!” – but his enthusiasm was welcomed in Kyiv. Six months of Conservative party chaos later, his successor but one, Rishi Sunak, is yet to demonstrate he is as supportive at a time when Ukraine needs the west to dig in.

A leak at the start of the weekend said that Sunak had ordered an internal assessment of the significance of British military aid to Ukraine. Revelation of the Whitehall exercise was accompanied by a pointed briefing to the BBC, accusing the prime minister of resorting to a “Goldman Sachs dashboard” approach.

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Swedish court blocks extradition of journalist sought by Turkey in Nato deal

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Handing over of Bülent Keneş is one of Ankara’s key demands in exchange for ratifying Sweden’s membership

Sweden’s supreme court has blocked the extradition of an exiled Turkish journalist, which was a key demand by Ankara to ratify Stockholm’s Nato membership.

The court said on Monday there were “several hindrances” to sending back Bülent Keneş, a former editor-in-chief of the Zaman daily, who Turkey accuses of being involved in a 2016 attempt to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: UN chief believes war in Ukraine ‘will go on’; Putin in Belarus for talks with Lukashenko – as it happened

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Antonia Guterres does not see ‘serious’ peace talks in immediate future; Russian president visits Minsk

EU countries will need to reach a compromise on a gas price cap on Monday, and the latest proposal on the table offers a good basis to do so, Malta’s energy minister, Miriam Dalli, has said.

“What the presidency is proposing is a very good step in the right direction,” Dalli said before entering a meeting of the EU’s energy ministers.

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Pope Francis orders Parthenon marbles held by Vatican be returned to Greece

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Three 2,500-year-old pieces will be ‘donated’ to Greece’s Archbishop Ieronymos II amid wider conversation about future of Parthenon marbles held by Britain

Pope Francis has decided to return to Greece three 2,500-year-old pieces of the Parthenon that have been in the papal collections of the Vatican Museums for two centuries.

The Vatican said in a brief statement that the pope was giving them to Archbishop Ieronymos II, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church and Greece’s spiritual leader, as a “donation” and “a concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth”.

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