This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here
Ukraine’s military has said its forces in the Kursk region shot down a Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber.
Kristen Michal, the Estonian prime minister, has said “we must continue to show our steadfast support to Ukraine and further raise the cost of war for Russia.”
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. For the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, read our full report:
Romania’s navy has carried out a controlled explosion of a mine that had drifted to its Black Sea shore, its defence ministry said. Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey have a joint taskforce to defuse stray mines, which began floating in the Black Sea after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The ministry said the navy was alerted by local officials early on Tuesday about an unidentified object that had washed up on shore near Grindul Chituc in southeastern Romania. The area is part of the Danube Delta, which Romania shares with Ukraine.
Continue reading...While thousands have had to flee their homes, there is widespread feeling that the attack is a justified defence
Last Tuesday, Oksana and her family could not escape fast enough. Though they did not know it, Ukrainian regular forces had entered Russia for the first time, and Moscow’s military wasted little time in hitting back, bombing their village around seven miles from the border.
“It was 9am and the first glide bomb hit the village,” she said, and its ferocity – “very scary, much bigger” than ordinary shelling – was such that they immediately knew they had to escape. “Our neighbour drove his children first and then came back and picked me and my sister and family,” the mother of two explained.
Continue reading...Zelenskiy aide says ‘root cause of any escalation’, including into Kursk, is Moscow’s ‘unequivocal aggression’
Ukraine has publicly justified its attack into Russian territory for the first time, amid reports that its forces are advancing towards a village 13 miles (20km) inside the Kursk region on the third day of its incursion.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to the president’s office, said “the root cause of any escalation”, including into Kursk, was “unequivocal aggression” on the part of Russia in believing it could invade Ukraine with impunity.
Continue reading...Leaders expect a military response over Hamas assassination but fears grow of escalation into regional war
Vladimir Putin has reportedly told Iran to avoid civilian casualties in any retaliatory attack on Israel for the assassination of the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, an underlining of the constraints it faces as it frames its response.
It is a call for restraint that is likely to be echoed by many foreign ministers from the 57 countries inside the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at a meeting in Jeddah on Wednesday as tensions in the Middle East grow.
Continue reading...Activists say they never agreed to leave their homeland and vow to continue fighting for democracy in Russia
Russian dissidents freed as part of a prisoner swap between Moscow and the west have shared their mixed feelings about the deal and vowed to continue their political activity from abroad.
The exchange represented a “difficult dilemma”, said the Russian liberal opposition politician Ilya Yashin at an emotional press conference in Bonn.
Continue reading...Negotiations, which began months earlier, originally included release of late opposition leader
At Cologne airport on Thursday evening, a group of associates of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gathered waiting for a plane to arrive from Ankara. On board were 13 people who, until that morning, had been incarcerated in Russian prisons, including three people who had worked as Navalny’s regional coordinators in various Russian cities and been jailed for “extremism”.
After a swap in Turkey, they were now free, along with the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and two other Americans, who were heading back home on a separate plane.
Continue reading...Spokesperson hints killer exchanged in prisoner swap was linked to Putin’s personal guard
The Kremlin has admitted that Vadim Krasikov, the assassin freed by Germany in a historic prisoner swap on Thursday, is a serving officer of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), essentially an acknowledgment that his 2019 murder of a Chechen exile in Berlin was a state-ordered hit.
It also hinted that he was linked to Vladimir Putin’s personal guard.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here
Yesterday evening, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris met Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and two other freed American prisoners just hours after Washington and Moscow completed their largest prisoner exchange since the cold war.
Gershkovich spoke about his feelings boarding the bus with the other freed detainees on Thursday and said he was happy to see Russians on board as well.
He also said: “I spent a month in prison in Yekaterinburg where everyone I sat with was a political prisoner. Nobody knows them publicly, they have various political beliefs, they are not all connected with Navalny supporters, who everyone knows about. I would potentially like to see if we could do something about them as well.”
The Kremlin said that Vladimir Putin’s decision to meet released prisoners as they arrived by plane in Russia “was a tribute to people who serve their country and who after very difficult trials, and thanks to the hard work of many people, have been able to return to the Motherland.”
The Kremlin also confirmed that Vadim Krasikov, a hitman returned by Germany as part of yesterday’s major prisoner swap, was an employee of Russia’s FSB security service and had served in Alpha Group, the FSB’s special forces unit.
France urged Moscow to set free French citizen Laurent Vinatier and other people still “arbitrarily” detained.
Amnesty International has welcomed the release of people held in Russia but stressed that “this isn’t the end” and “Russia must free all persons jailed for peaceful dissent.”
For a few seconds, no one even noticed that Evan Gershkovich had taken his first steps back on US soil as a free man.
Continue reading...Several foreigners and Russian political prisoners released as Germany frees hitman Vadim Krasikov as part of deal
The largest prisoner swap between Russia and the US since the cold war has taken place, as 16 people were freed from Russian custody including the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Several other foreign citizens held in Russia and numerous Russian political prisoners were also freed.
The exchange took place at Ankara airport on Thursday in a complicated operation in which planes arrived from and departed to multiple countries.
Continue reading...Deepening military and trade links between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are making western powers uneasy
Gen Roly Walker, the head of the British army, has described it as the “axis of upheaval”. George Robertson, the new head of the UK’s defence review, has called the countries the “deadly quartet”. Either way, less than a month into a Labour government, an emerging geopolitical alignment is being highlighted as a threat.
The concerns centre on the growing military and trade links between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Though the four are some way from a cold war-style bloc acting in concert, they have enhanced bilateral ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in a manner that has fuelled anxiety among defence officials and policymakers.
Continue reading...Russian leader says Washington risks triggering cold war-style missile crisis and promises to respond in kind
Vladimir Putin has warned the US that if Washington deploys long-range missiles in Germany from 2026, Russia will station similar missiles within striking distance of the west.
The US would start deploying long-range fire capabilities in Germany in 2026 in an effort to demonstrate its commitment to Nato and European defence, Washington and Germany said earlier this month.
Continue reading...Group of finance ministers call for sanctions to be ratcheted up amid signs Moscow’s war machine is weakening
Vladimir Putin is “peddling lies” about the strength of the Russian economy that must be refuted, finance ministers from eight EU member states have said, with growing signs of deterioration in the face of biting sanctions.
They say there are signs that the economy is being “sovietised” with many hallmarks of the former USSR including expropriation of private assets to fund public spending, a “total disregard to the social and economic wellbeing of the population” and reorientation of the economy towards its war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...US presidential contender’s reference echoes the ‘love letters’ he received from North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as he calls authoritarian leaders ‘smart, tough’ people
Donald Trump has said China’s president wrote him a “beautiful note” after the assassination attempt a week ago, as he continued to court leaders whom Joe Biden has criticised as dictators.
In his first campaign rally since narrowly escaping the attempt on his life in Pennsylvania, Trump told a crowd in Michigan on Saturday: “[President Xi Jinping] wrote me a beautiful note the other day when he heard about what happened.”
Continue reading...Reporter found guilty of spying in trial thought to have been rushed in preparation for prisoner swap
A Russian court has found the US journalist Evan Gershkovich guilty of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in prison, after a trial widely described as a sham.
Gershkovich, 32, denied the charges and pleaded not guilty during the secretive court proceedings in Yekaterinburg, mostly held behind closed doors. His employer, the Wall Street Journal, described the verdict as a “disgraceful, sham conviction”.
Continue reading...Russian court cases often drag on for months but speed of US journalist’s trial may be sign that long-discussed exchange is in the offing
The courtroom footage of a Russian judge announcing a 16-year prison sentence for Evan Gershkovich – mumbling his way through the verdict as the US journalist looked on impassively from inside a transparent defendant’s box – will be a chilling watch for the family, friends and colleagues of the 32-year-old Wall Street Journal correspondent.
But counterintuitively, the manner of the conviction and sentencing may be encouraging for Gershkovich’s supporters. In Russia’s fixed and politicised legal system, the result of the trial was never in any doubt. But Russian court cases often drag on interminably, with scattered hearings every couple of months. This one moved at lightning pace: after an initial hearing in June, the next court date was unexpectedly moved forward to this week. Evidence was heard in a few hours on Thursday afternoon, and the verdict and sentencing came on Friday.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s president will ask for more help to block Putin’s growing ‘shadow fleet’ of tankers carrying sanctioned crude to buyers
The Ukrainian president, Volodmyr Zelenskiy, will attend an extraordinary meeting of the British cabinet on Friday to bring fresh impetus to efforts to stop Russia evading sanctions on its oil exports.
Zelenskiy will be the first foreign leader to visit Downing Street since Keir Starmer was elected prime minister two weeks ago and the first foreign leader to address cabinet in person since the US president Bill Clinton in 1997.
Continue reading...‘Likely outcome’ of Trump victory means EU should reopen diplomatic talks with Moscow, says Hungarian PM
Viktor Orbán has claimed that Donald Trump has “detailed and well-founded” plans for peace between Russia and Ukraine in a letter to a top EU body that is likely to inflame tensions about the Hungarian prime minister’s diplomatic freelancing.
Orbán, who met Trump at his Palm Beach compound last week, said in his letter to the president of the European Council, who organises meetings of the bloc’s 27 national leaders, that the Republican presidential nominee was ready to act as peace broker “immediately” after his election.
Continue reading...Last Monday’s strike brought terror to the Ukrainian capital, but also a renewed sense of solidarity in the face of tragedy
It was Monday lunchtime and Eka Grbich was waiting to see her doctor at a private maternity clinic in Kyiv. The news that morning was terrible. Ukraine was under a massive Russian attack. One cruise missile hit the capital’s main Okhmatdyt children’s hospital. Another destroyed a block of flats, killing and entombing many of those inside.
Grbich posted distressing images from the hospital on her Instagram account. She made a couple of work calls. And then, suddenly, her own world went dark. “There was a very loud noise. It happened in one second. There was smoke and I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t feel pain. I was thinking: ‘Am I alive?’. Somebody helped me to stand up.”
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: At least 30 have died after a missile hit the Okhmadyt facility in Ukraine’s capital – this is how the city continues to life under bombardment
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition
Good morning.
At least 38 civilians were killed and nearly 200 injured after Russian missiles struck cities across Ukraine in the early hours of Monday morning. In Kyiv powerful missiles hit Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital which is also its main treatment centre for children with cancer, demolishing the top two floors, shattering windows and destroying an entire ward. Another Russian strike later that same day hit a building in the capital where a maternity hospital is located, killing at least seven people. Images of bloodied children and piles of rubble sent shockwaves around the world.
UK politics | Suella Braverman has sparked a backlash after she attacked “liberal Conservatives”, saying she was angered by the flying of the Progress Pride flag in her department when she was the UK home secretary, and calling it a “monstrous thing”.
US election 2024 | The White House clarified that Joe Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physicals, after a heated exchange between the president’s press secretary and journalists seeking an explanation for a Parkinson’s disease specialist visited the White House eight times in as many months.
Work | Campaigners for a four-day working week are preparing a new pilot project on flexible working in the hope that the Labour government will be more receptive to such changes.
Water | Thames Water said it intended to tap investors for fresh funds as it would run out of money by next June without a cash injection, raising fears over its potential collapse.
Health | The amount of sugar consumed by children from soft drinks in the UK halved within a year of the sugar tax being introduced, a study has found. The tax, which came into force in April 2018, has been so successful in improving people’s diets that experts have said an expansion to cover other high sugar food and drink products is a “no-brainer”.
Continue reading...