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Hungary’s Viktor Orbán seeking to drum up votes by doing down Ukraine

Paid for by its rightwing, populist government and generated using AI, the billboards – showing Volodymyr Zelenskyy and EU officials with their hands outstretched – blanket Hungary. “Our message to Brussels: We won’t pay!” the taxpayer-funded advert reads, echoing the messaging woven through spots on radio, television and social media. It’s a nod to the election strategy that Viktor Orbán, the EU’s longest-serving leader, has unleashed as he lags in most polls before upcoming elections: convincing voters that the country’s greatest threat is not fraying social services, the rising cost of living or economic stagnation, but rather the neighbouring country of Ukraine. “Effectively, Ukraine is portrayed as a main enemy,” said Zsuzsanna Végh, an analyst at the German Marshall Fund. “This is not just about Ukraine per se, but it fits into the standard strategy of the governing party, of mobilising its electorate through generating fear in society.” In 2018, when Orbán was seeking a third consecutive term as prime minister, he and his Fidesz party sought to stoke fears about migration. In 2022, as voters headed to the ballot box five weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Orbán peddled the baseless claim that the opposition would send Hungarian troops to fight in the war. This election, as Orbán faces an unprecedented challenge from a former top member of his own party, Péter Magyar, the strategy has seemingly been kicked into high gear. “We definitely see a significant escalation,” said Végh. “Besides the rhetoric, AI is extensively used to portray false messages and images to strengthen the government’s message.” In recent days, the campaign has spilled out beyond the country’s borders as Orbán’s government refused to approve the latest EU sanctions package and a €90bn (£79bn) loan to Ukraine, citing disruptions to its supplies of Russian oil that pass through Ukraine. The move prompted exasperation and anger among leaders across the EU. Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, described Hungary’s stance as “shocking” given that Budapest was itself invaded in the 20th century by Soviet troops. Sweden’s Europe minister, Jessica Rosencrantz, accused Orbán of using Ukraine as a “punching bag” in comments made to various media outlets. With most independent polls suggesting that Magyar’s Tisza party has a wide lead over Orbán’s Fidesz, the government has stepped up its lambasting of Ukraine. This week Orbán claimed, without providing evidence, that the war-torn country was plotting to disrupt Hungary’s energy system and said he was dispatching troops to safeguard Hungary’s infrastructure. The following day Orbán posted an open letter to Zelenskyy on social media, accusing the Ukrainian leader of “working to force” Hungary into the war with Russia while also “coordinating efforts” to catapult a pro-Ukraine government into power in Hungary. For many in Hungary, Fidesz’s focus on Ukraine was laid bare after it released an AI-generated campaign video showing a little girl weeping at a window, intercut with scenes of her father being executed in war. Captions for the video read, in part: “This is only a nightmare now, but Brussels is preparing to make it a reality … Let’s not take risks. Fidesz is the safe choice!” Magyar condemned the video, describing it as “sickening, unforgivable and deeply outrageous”, in a statement. “This is not politics, this is soulless manipulation.” With about six weeks left until the vote, it remains to be seen whether voters will be swayed. On the streets of Budapest, László, 39, said he supported Orbán’s efforts to block EU support for Ukraine and would be voting for Fidesz. “The EU is basically in a Schrödinger’s cat dilemma,” the marketing specialist told the Guardian. “It says that Russia poses a threat to its existence and at the same time says it can be defeated with sanctions. But I fear that Europe is not taking steps towards peace, at the expense of the Ukrainian people’s blood.” József, 93, said he planned on voting for the far-right Our Homeland party but that he agreed with Orbán’s stance on Ukraine. “What does all this have to do with us? Why should we care? This is not our business. The Russians have already said they want peace, but the EU and the UK just keep provoking them.” Opposition supporters, however, expressed concerns about the consequences that Orbán’s electoral strategy could have for Hungary in the long term. “It completely isolates Hungary from other European countries, and we will end up under Russian oppression again,” said Mónika, 60. Orbán’s focus on Ukraine had turned the election into a question of “two competing narratives”, said András Bíró-Nagy, the director of Policy Solutions, a Budapest-based political research institute. On one side was Orbán and his emphasis on the existential threat of the war, the threat of rising oil prices and the risk that Hungary would be dragged into the conflict. Magyar, in contrast, had focused his campaign on stemming the rising costs of living, improving social services and reining in corruption. The coming weeks would show which of these concerns motivate voters, said Bíró-Nagy. “Orbán has a vast media empire and also endless resources with which he can push through his messages to the Hungarian people,” he said. “So, for this reason, I would not underestimate Orbán’s power to shape the political agenda.” This influence had already helped to shift Hungarian opinion, said Bíró-Nagy, citing research from his institute showing that in recent years, the majority of Hungarians had swung from approving the EU’s financial support for Ukraine to opposing it. “And Orbán managed to turn Volodymyr Zelenskyy into one of the most unpopular global politicians in Hungary,” he said. The result was that, for many in Hungary, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had come to be seen as a war between two unpopular Slavic countries, creating space for Orbán to try to drum up votes by doubling down on anti-Ukraine rhetoric, he said. “What Orbán has managed to do over the last four years is not to make Russia or [Vladimir] Putin popular in Hungary – they are unpopular,” he said. “But what he managed to do is to ruin the reputation of Ukraine and Zelenskyy in the eyes of Hungarian voters.”

Friday briefing: Is the result in Gorton and Denton a sign of things to come?

Good morning. Hannah Spencer is the new MP for Gorton and Denton after the Green party’s first ever parliamentary byelection victory. In a bitter blow to Keir Starmer, Labour were pushed into third place in a constituency the party has represented for nearly a century. Reform’s Matt Goodwin came second, as Nigel Farage claimed the result was “a victory for sectarian voting and cheating”. This contest had been billed as a three-way fight and for much of the campaign, it felt like a pollster’s nightmare. One side of the seat looked ripe for Reform’s message of grievance and cultural threat; the other was saturated with Green posters and the sense that Labour’s coalition was splintering. Add the row over Andy Burnham being blocked from standing, accusations of dirty tricks and disinformation, and you had a byelection that felt like a microcosm of 2026 British politics. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to the Guardian’s north of England correspondent Hannah Al-Othman, who lives in the constituency and was at the count overnight. She has been reporting from Gorton and Denton throughout the campaign, and I asked her about that experience, what the result tells us about the three parties, and what comes next. But first, the headlines. Five big stories Iran | High-stakes talks between the US and Iran over the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme ended on Thursday without a deal, as the threat of war grows. Migration | Hospitals and care homes in the UK face “an impending car crash”, experts have warned, as research shows the number of overseas nurses and carers has collapsed. UK politics | Jeremy Corbyn is to become the parliamentary leader of Your Party, after an election in which his rival Zarah Sultana was also voted on to the party’s leadership committee. Environment | US “bullying” over a proposed carbon levy on shipping appears to be paying off, experts have said, after Panama reversed its support for the measure. Epstein | Peter Mandelson is facing an inquiry by the EU’s anti-fraud agency after the European Commission requested the body look into his activities during his time as trade commissioner in Brussels. In depth: ‘We don’t have to accept being turned against each other’ Inside Manchester Central convention complex at 4am, it did not immediately feel like a political earthquake, Hannah Al-Othman tells me. Green activists in the hall were “gradually upping their briefings from cautiously optimistic to quietly confident”. There was little noise, little drama. The celebrations, she says, were happening elsewhere – at an all-night party in Hulme. Before counting had officially begun, it was clear the Greens had taken the lead. What had been billed as a knife-edge three-way race quickly narrowed to a contest for second place between Reform and Labour. In the end the Greens won with a majority of 4,402. Spencer took 14,980 votes (40.6%), Goodwin 10,578 (28.7%) and Labour’s Angeliki Stogia 9,364 (25.4%). Turnout was 47.6%. *** What was it like on the ground leading up to the vote? Hannah was changing her mind every day in the lead-up to the election, unable to predict what the outcome might be in what she describes as “quite a dirty fight”. “All three main contenders have been reported to the police at some point,” she says. Green activists were reported for allegedly stealing a Labour poster; Reform over a missing imprint; Labour after being accused of treating voters by offering free food. “It’s felt very intense,” she adds. “I’ve had up to half a dozen leaflets a day through my door. It hasn’t really been fought on policy or anything positive. It’s been fought on negatives and attacks.” In the final days she sensed momentum with the Greens – but had cautioned me that “their voters are very willing to be more vocal and shout about it.” One unexpected pattern, she says, was hearing from voters choosing between Reform and the Greens. “I wouldn’t have expected that. We’ve come across that quite a bit – anti-Labour, anti-government, anti-Keir Starmer voters – deciding who is most likely to beat Labour.” *** What makes Gorton and Denton such a unique constituency? Hannah lives in the constituency and is training for a marathon, so says she has “spent a lot of time running around” it. The seat spans two different local authorities. “I live in the Manchester part, on the south edge of the constituency. That’s more middle class – you’ve got your natural wine places and yoga studios.” At the Manchester end – Gorton and Longsight – she says the battle has largely been between Labour and the Greens. Labour insisted to her their vote was holding up; the Greens were arguing they were peeling away traditional Labour support among Muslim voters angered over Gaza. Denton, by contrast, is very different. It sits in Tameside and, she says, feels similar to other north-west areas where Reform has done well. “It’s close to Manchester but feels very isolated. There’s one train a week. The buses are slow. Denton has some good things going for it, but people complain about fly-tipping, antisocial behaviour, potholes. It’s that lower-level stuff that makes people feel their home town is being neglected. You see it all over local Facebook groups.” The constituency itself only came into being in 2024. The outgoing MP, Andrew Gwynne, previously represented Denton and Reddish for nearly two decades before being sacked as a minister over offensive WhatsApp comments – a scandal that engulfed local Labour councillors in Denton and fuelled anger in parts of the town. The result, Hannah says, was a seat that was hard to read in advance. “It’s more a collection of places with very different identities and politics than a single coherent constituency.” *** Gorton goes Green Labour had insisted this was a binary choice between supporting the government or letting Reform win. Voters chose a different binary. Ahead of her victory, writing for the Guardian, Spencer said her winning would “send shock waves through the political establishment and show that the old way of doing politics is over. And once I get my foot in the door, I’ll hold it open for others to follow. The establishment’s days are numbered.” In her victory speech she returned repeatedly to a single theme: work. “I didn’t grow up wanting to be a politician. I am a plumber,” she said. “Working hard used to get you something. It got you a house, a nice life, holidays. But now, working hard – what does that get you? “Instead of working for a nice life, we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry”. She said her victory showed that “we don’t have to accept being turned against each other. We can demand better without hating each other.” Hannah al-Othman tells me that in the end “the Farage Factor drove turnout to almost general election levels; voters were motivated to vote either for or against his party.” Goodwin did not take the defeat gracefully. Without evidence, he claimed: “I think that what you’ve seen is the emergence of a dangerous sectarianism in British politics. I don’t think the progressives beat us, I think the progressives were told how to vote,” adding that it was, in his view, “a coalition of Islamists and woke progressives that came together to dominate the constituency”. Spencer had a very different view, saying in her victory speech “To people here in Gorton and Denton, who feel left behind and isolated, I see you, and I will fight for you. Because while our communities may sometimes be labelled in different ways, the thing everyone seems to have underestimated here, especially over the last few weeks, is how similar we all actually are. How we have common ground, how we get along, how we stand up for each other.” *** What does this mean for Gorton and Denton, and for Keir Starmer? Ahead of the result, our deputy political editor Jessica Elgot warned that a Green win would be “the most catastrophic result for Starmer’s leadership”. The outcome shows Labour is not the automatic beneficiary of anti-Reform tactical voting, and suggests the Greens are not simply a protest vehicle but an insurgent force capable of toppling safe seats. It also undercuts Labour’s central argument – that only it can stop Reform. Starmer’s decision to block Andy Burnham from standing will now face renewed scrutiny. So too will his broader electoral strategy – pursuing Reform-curious voters while alienating those on the left. The immediate reaction from Farage and Goodwin suggests Reform will use the result to try to deepen divisions. And for Hannah Spencer? She had said “I can’t and won’t accept this victory tonight without calling out politicians and divisive figures who constantly scapegoat and blame our communities for all the problems in society.” Perhaps the most touching moment was when she apologised to her plumbing customers, saying she would have to cancel work, because she was heading to Westminster. Her victory has left Starmer and Labour with a lot of work to do. What else we’ve been reading I mark this date as the moment I officially became old and passé. But if, like me, you’re wondering what on earth Chinamaxxing is, the ever-brilliant Coco Khan has you covered. Aamna Here’s an honourable piece from Steve Rose on how to replace the big tech beasts, from Amazon to Apple and Google, in your life. It turns out there are far more options than you might think for your next smartphone or search engine. Charlie Lindlar, newsletters team It was only three decades ago that disabled students were segregated in “special schools” with rudimentary curriculums. Amid the anxiety surrounding Send reform, Frances Ryan aptly reminds us it is important to appreciate the value of disabled and non-disabled pupils learning together. Aamna Sundus Abdi reports beautifully on the designer working Ramadan into her London fashion week show. Kazna Asker’s presentation, she writes, was “built around the rhythm” of the holy month. Charlie A Dutch woman who spent 50 years in the UK is facing deportation. This harrowing interview by Diane Taylor shows the cruelty the Labour government is inflicting on immigrant communities. Aamna Sport Europa League | Nottingham Forest held off a Fenerbahce fightback to qualify for the last 16 with a 4-2 win on aggregate despite losing Thursday’s second leg, while Celtic exited after coming up short against Stuttgart. Cricket | South Africa have inched closer to the Twenty20 World Cup semi-finals after thrashing West Indies, while India thrashed Zimbabwe to keep their hopes alive. Football | A number of European football federations fear they will lose money sending their national teams to the World Cup this summer. Problems include an unusual hike in costs and inconsistencies around tax exemptions. Something for the weekend Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now Film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You | ★★★★☆ Here is a psychological horror-comedy of postnatal depression and lonely parental stress, like a flip-side to Eraserhead or Rosemary’s Baby; it’s a scary movie with a heroine shot almost solely in looming closeup – but instead of supernatural apparitions, there are simply the banal problems of childcare and no time to deal with them. Rose Byrne delivers a barnstormer as Linda, a psychotherapist whose husband is away, leaving her to deal with a sick infant daughter. It’s a terrific performance as someone who as mother and therapist must present at all times as keeping it together, but who in fact is losing it every day. Peter Bradshaw TV Scrubs | ★★★★☆ The Scrubs revival is as Scrubsy as it gets. Obviously your enjoyment of this new run will depend on how much you liked Scrubs to begin with. But if you were a fan, the new series will feel like the safest pair of hands imaginable. We meet Zach Braff’s JD deep into his new career as a concierge doctor, when a chance visit to Sacred Heart hospital leaves him remembering what he’d left behind. Just as watchable as Scrubs ever was – may it run and run. Stuart Heritage Music Gorillaz: The Mountain | ★★★★☆ Gorillaz’s oeuvre has sprawled to nine albums, involving something like 100 guest artists; they are the thread that links Carly Simon to Shaun Ryder, Skepta to Lou Reed and Bad Bunny to Mark E Smith. The Mountain feels more consistent – more like an album, less like a playlist constructed by someone with impressively wide-ranging taste – than its immediate predecessors: something you’re more likely to listen to from start to finish than play with your finger ready to click fast-forward. The result is an unexpected career highlight, a quarter of a century in. Alexis Petridis Game Pieced Together | ★★★★☆ Made by a team of just four, headed by Bafta-winning artist and designer Kate Killick, Pieced Together is a short game – you can finish it in a couple of hours. But in that time, it packs in an enormous amount of detail about childhood and teen life in the 1990s: filling out magazine quizzes, writing anonymous love notes, the freedom of first holidays with friends. After finishing it, I was inspired to contact an old pal I haven’t spoken to in ages and wasn’t sure I ever would again. Good games can be like good friendships: they encourage us to see things anew. Keith Stuart The front pages “Drop in migrant workers ‘will be a car crash’ for NHS and care homes” is the Guardian splash. The Mail leads on “Soham killer close to death after being battered with metal pole”, the Sun says “Soham monster fights for life” and the Mirror runs “Huntley fights for life”. “Mystery as Mandelson messages go missing” is top story at the Times, and the Telegraph headlines on “Spanish police to patrol Gibraltar”. The i paper has “Assisted dying legislation faces collapse – with peers accused of ‘sabotage’” and the FT leads with “Gilt sales forecast to fall for first time since 2023 in fiscal boost for Reeves”. Today in Focus The men trying to do friendship, better Can talking about their problems help men forge closer relationships – or is there another way? Josh Halliday reports. Cartoon of the day | Rebecca Hendin The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Geothermal Engineering Ltd (GEL) is launching a pioneering plant near Redruth, Cornwall, that will generate electricity for the National Grid by extracting lithium from the mineral-rich water. The switch-on, the first of its kind in Britain, has been welcomed by the people of Cornwall, who take pride in their mining heritage and hope for an economic boost in a deprived part of the West Country. GEL says the plant will generate enough renewable electricity to power 10,000 homes, with plans to open more, bigger sites in Cornwall. Within a decade it says it will be producing enough lithium carbonate, a key material used in the production of rechargeable batteries, to supply about 250,000 electric vehicles a year. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

Firefighters in Sicily rescue 400 rare library books from precipice after landslide

Firefighters in Sicily have rescued about 400 rare books from a library in Niscemi that hangs on the edge of a mudflow, after a devastating landslide in January tore away an entire slope of the town and carved a 4km chasm. The library stands on the lip of the precipice gouged out by the landslide, with part of the building in effect hanging in mid-air. The recovery operation, which began on Monday, was preceded by a detailed study of floor plans and interior photographs to map the position of the books. Firefighters drilled through the wall of a building behind the structure and entering for minutes at a time, strapped the bookcases together and hauled them backwards to reach the books. The library holds about 4,000 books of literature, history and general nonfiction, including a number of rare editions dating from before 1830 on Sicilian history. Among its most precious treasures is a 16th-century book. “It was like pulling off a bank heist,” said Salvatore Cantale, the provincial commander of the fire brigade in Caltanissetta. “We had to be quick and try to take away as much as we could.” A drone streamed live aerial images to a monitor on the ground, while laser sensors fixed to the section teetering over the drop were used to detect the slightest movement. A separate device monitored vibrations and subtle shifts in the building’s tilt. The landslide began on 25 January when the ground started to shift, cracking asphalt and tearing through buildings. Some later collapsed into the void, along with a stretch of road where cars and vans had been parked. More than 1,600 people have been evacuated from the town. Many of the volumes remain in the basement, which is considered the most at-risk area. Officials are weighing up the use of robots, though none suitable are available in Niscemi. “If we can find the robot, we’ll use it immediately. Otherwise, we’ll have to wait,” Cantale said. “The problem is that this building is effectively a single reinforced-concrete structure. If it collapses, it will go all at once.” Cantale said the geologists working next to the firefighters expected the landslide’s front to retreat by another 10 to 15 metres, dragging further buildings down the slope with it, including the library. He said: “According to the geologists, rather than crumbling, the library is more likely to slide downhill as a single block. If that happens, we have already assessed that it may actually be easier to recover the remaining books once it has fallen.” Some of Italy’s most famous writers had urged authorities to recover the collection, which lies in the “black zone”. Stefania Auci, the author of the bestselling novel The Florios of Sicily, told the news agency Adnkronos: “I don’t know whether our appeal truly helped ensure that some of those ancient volumes were saved, but I like to think it played at least a small part.”

Frozen in time: Antarctic ice cave to be used to save melting glacier samples

Last month the Ice Memory Foundation opened the first ever sanctuary for mountain ice cores in Antarctica, where samples will be stored for centuries to come. The cores, typically 10cm in diameter and a metre or more long, are stored in a specially excavated ice cave. The first to be laid down came from two Alpine glaciers that are rapidly shrinking. The samples were transported by sea, arriving at Concordia station, a joint French-Italian base high on the Antarctic plateau, after a 50-day journey. The average temperature at Concordia is -52C, with a daily maximum in January of -12C. It is even colder inside the ice cave, which is not warmed by the sun. The Ice Memory Foundation aims to collect, save and manage ice cores from disappearing glaciers, preserving the information they contain for generations to come. Ice cores, which record thousands of years of history, contain tiny bubbles of atmosphere from the past, showing the changes over the centuries. They also have traces of pollen, showing how plant life shifts, and can reveal events such as the surge in lead pollution during the Roman empire. As the climate crisis intensifies and glaciers recede, scientists are rushing to gather cores from endangered glaciers worldwide and store them safely in the ice sanctuary before it is too late.

North Korea’s ‘most beloved’ child: what the key congress revealed about Kim Jong-un’s succession plans

When North Korea’s ruling party held a top-level meeting this month there were predictable boasts of unstoppable nuclear development and, more unexpectedly, a suggestion by Kim Jong-un that his country and the US “could get along” – provided that Washington recognised North Korea as a legitimate nuclear power. But for many North Korea watchers, the Workers’ party congress – held over several days just once every five years – was a rare opportunity to speculate over the identity of the country’s future leader. The received wisdom is that Kim has already decided that his daughter, Kim Ju-ae, will succeed him to become the fourth-generation leader of the dynasty that has ruled the country with an iron fist since it was founded in 1948. But dissenting voices have emerged in recent weeks among experts who say that North Korea’s immutable gender politics could yet block Kim Ju-ae’s path to power. “The most immediate and insurmountable barricade for Kim Ju-ae is the deeply ingrained patriarchal nature of North Korea,” Mitch Shin, who covers the Korean peninsula for the Diplomat, wrote this month, adding that North Korea functioned “more as a Neo-Confucian monarchy” than as a socialist state. There is little to suggest that the country’s ranks of ageing generals would accept a woman as “supreme leader”, Shin said. “For these men, many in their 60s and 70s, the concept of swearing absolute and life-and-death loyalty to a young woman is more than a cultural shift. It is a structural anomaly that threatens the internal logic of the regime.” Instead, Kim may be using his daughter as a “human shield” for the actual successor, Kim Jong-un’s long-rumoured oldest child. “In this way, his son can be shielded from the prying eyes of international intelligence.” Other experts, though, argue that the patriarchy permeating North Korean society will always be superseded by the non-negotiable principle that a successor must be a direct-line descendant of the Mount Paektu bloodline – a reference to the sacred North Korean peak used to confer legitimacy on the Kim dynasty. Shreyas Reddy, a correspondent for NK News, also cast doubt on the notion that Kim Ju-ae’s future role as leader was fait accompli, describing her prominence as more performative than political. “State media’s portrayal of Kim’s affection toward his daughter aligns with a growing push to depict him as a loving ‘father’ figure to the entire nation,” Reddy wrote. “For now, the best course appears to be waiting and watching, rather than declaring North Korea’s next leader before the regime is ready to do so.” In the absence of official statements confirming Kim Ju-ae’s status as leader-in-waiting, a consensus has formed about her future based on her public profile and proximity to her father, and even her wardrobe. Despite her increased visibility, North Korean state media have never published her name, referring to her only as the leader’s “respected” or “most beloved” child. There are also disagreements about how to pronounce her given name. Much of the momentum behind Kiim Ju-ae’s presumed ascension has come from South Korea’s national intelligence service, which this month claimed that Kim Jong-un was close to naming her as the country’s future leader. Even if that may one day be the case, for now Kim Ju-ae’s main role is as a daughter, according to Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “She is probably not yet old enough to participate in the congress with an official party title,” he said. There is nothing about mood music coming from the North to suggest that Kim Jong-un will one day spring a surprise on the world similar to his own rapid rise as leader, said Lee Sung-Yoon, a principal fellow at the Sejong Institute in Seoul. Kim Jong-un has “already established beyond a reasonable doubt that he is grooming his teenage daughter as his successor”, Lee said, pointing to Kim Ju-ae’s presence alongside her father at dozens of official events. His decision to position his daughter in the centre of the front row on his New Year’s Day visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun – a sacred Kim dynasty mausoleum – should “remove any doubt” that she was being positioned as heir to her 42-year-old father, Lee said. In 2023, South Korean intelligence officials told lawmakers that Kim and his wife also probably have an older son and a younger third child, whose gender is unknown. “Kim Jong-un has not told any foreign interlocutor that he has a son,” Lee said, adding that the claim had been based on “flimsy intelligence reports” of boys’ toys and nappies being delivered to the Kim family mansion in Pyongyang several years ago. Since making her first public appearance, at a long-range missile test in November 2022, Kim Ju-ae has accompanied her father on an increasing number of events, including weapons tests, military parades, factory openings and, last year, on a family visit to a coastal resort. She also travelled with her father to Beijing last September for his summit with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. Her prominence triggered speculation that Kim Jong-un was preparing to add political weight to her symbolic role. The recent congress ended with no sign of the teenager, but she accompanied her father at a military parade in Pyongyang to mark the end of the meeting. Wearing matching leather coats, father and daughter chatted constantly, pointing at parade formations and singing along with performers. Kim Ju-ae watched as her father and senior military officials saluted fighter jets flying over an illuminated Kim Il-sung Square. The analyst Lim Eul-chul said the jackets were more than a fashion statement. “In North Korea’s political symbolism, that look carries weight – it’s tied to the image of the leader as the ultimate guarantor of national security and future prosperity. “So when that same symbolic attire is put on his young daughter, it’s hard to see it as accidental.” With Agence France-Presse

‘A living, moving exhibition’: Ukraine Museum opens in Berlin air-raid bunker

Descending into the windowless basement of a second world war air-raid bunker built for civilians in central Berlin is arguably an eerie enough evocation of what it means to endure life in a conflict. But in a modern twist, before they have even walked into the first room of the city’s new Ukraine Museum inside the bunker, visitors are “targeted” by a Russian drone just before its operator prepares to release the lethal shot, and see themselves in the firing line on the screen of the weapon’s camera. “We want to show people something of the physical reality of the conflict,” says Wieland Giebel, one of the museum’s curators. “We hope to bring it home to them that this is a war going on here and now in Europe, and that we ignore it at our peril.” The museum opened in the same week as the fourth anniversary of the Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It has been created from remnants of the war, and assembled with the help of the National Military History Museum in Kyiv and frontline troops from the 7th Rapid Response Corps in Pokrovsk. Alongside demolished equipment and images of the destruction and death, it chronicles the invasion, taking in its historical origins and weaving in accounts of the lives of those it has irrevocably affected. It also pays homage to Ukrainians and their resilience. “People are in danger of getting tired of the war,” Giebel says. “This is a living, moving exhibition which aims to jolt them out of doing so.” The only museum of its kind in the world outside Ukraine, and privately funded, it will remain for at least as long as the war lasts, he says. “Every anniversary is one too many.” Giebel and his fellow curator Enno Lenze founded the Berlin Story Bunker, which holds historical event exhibitions, in 2014. Built in 1942, it was so solidly constructed that it remains an indestructible part of the cityscape. The men travel regularly to Ukraine, delivering aid and equipment, including bullet-proof vests for children, and bring back new objects and pieces of information for the museum. One such item, placed at the centre of the museum, is a silver-grey Fiat Scudo with shattered windscreen, a large tear in its roof and blood-spattered seats. It had served as a “social taxi” evacuating elderly people in Kherson, and delivered children to hospitals before a Russian drone hit it in April 2025. Footage from the Russian drone recorded before the impact, which was traced on a Russian Telegram channel by Ukrainian intelligence, shows how the van was deliberately targeted, killing Oleg Salnyk, a 28-year-old aid worker. His bloodied face was used in the resulting Russian propaganda footage, marked with red lines. His friend and colleague Oleg Degusarov, who was also in the van, survived the attack, but has shrapnel lodged in his neck. Twenty Russian drones collected with the help of Ukraine’s military hang from the ceiling of the museum. They include the Molniya, the cheapest, built for about €100 (£87) using common items such as duct tape, poles and a disposable camera, which have been used to drop grenades and kill civilians. The largest missile in the exhibition has been reconstructed in eight parts by a 3D printer “as we were not allowed to import the original”, Lenze says. He wanted to show “just how big a cruise missile is when it’s flying towards you”. It is flanked by a large photograph of the block of flats in Kyiv that was badly damaged by the original missile. The former TV anchor turned frontline reporter Roman Sukhan, who has contributed to the exhibition, explains that the missile killed a friend of his, a doctor who lived in the flats. “The war is always very close,” he says. He would like to think the exhibition will also bring home to Germans “just what a threat Putin poses to everyone”. Germany is one of Kyiv’s biggest suppliers of weapons, a key supporter diplomatically and hosts about 1.3 million Ukrainian refugees, but division over the extent to which the German taxpayer should continue to fund arms deliveries is rife. The curators admit they are not neutral in warning of jeopardy over the rise in support that Russia-friendly parties are receiving. Their exhibition also points unforgivingly to a range of Putin apologists amongst the political elite, highlighting the “dangerous” role they have played and continue to play in public debate by downplaying the threat posed by the Russian president. “Help or be an arsehole” is one of the slogans on the wall. Lenze and Giebel are not ones for subtle gestures. They were celebrated for persuading erstwhile reluctant authorities to let them place the wreck of a Russian T72 tank in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin on the first anniversary of the invasion in 2023, which had been towed from the outskirts of Kyiv. Hanna Maliar, a former Ukrainian deputy defence minister until 2023 who assisted the museum, said: “My advice to Germany is whatever you do, don’t get rid of your bunkers.”

Pakistan bombs Kabul after intensifying border clashes with Afghanistan

Pakistan bombed Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul and two other provinces on Friday, hours after a cross-border attack, the latest escalation of deadly violence between the volatile neighbours who signed a Qatar-mediated ceasefire in 2025. Following months of tit-for-tat clashes, Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops on Thursday night in what the Taliban government said was retaliation for earlier deadly airstrikes. Hours later, at least three explosions were heard in Kabul, with both sides making different claims about the number of casualties and sites hit. Pakistan’s federal minister for information and broadcasting, Attaullah Tarar, claimed the strikes on Friday in Kabul, Paktia, and Kandahar killed 133 Afghan Taliban officials and wounded more than 200, with further possible casualties. Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said Friday that his country’s armed forces could “crush” aggressors, while the country’s defence minister has proclaimed “open war”. In a post on X Friday, defence minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif said that Pakistan had hoped for peace in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Nato forces and expected the Taliban to focus on the welfare of the Afghan people and regional stability. Instead, he alleged, the Taliban had gathered militants from around the world and begun “exporting terrorism.” “Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us,” he said. Afghanistan’s defence ministry said that 55 Pakistani soldiers had been killed in the border clashes on Thursday, with some bodies taken into Afghanistan, including several “captured alive”. It said eight Afghan soldiers were reported killed, with 11 others wounded. The ministry reported the destruction of 19 Pakistani army posts and two bases. Mosharraf Ali Zaidi, spokesperson for Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, previously denied that any Pakistani soldiers had been captured. Relations between the neighbours have plunged in recent months, with land border crossings largely shut since deadly fighting in October that killed more than 70 people on both sides. Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups that carry out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government denies. The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, urged both sides to protect civilians as required under international law and “to continue to seek to resolve any differences through diplomacy,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. Commenting on the Friday airstrikes, Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Naqvi said the strikes on Afghanistan were a “befitting response”. Afghanistan said its military launched its attack across the border into Pakistan late on Thursday in retaliation for deadly Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas on Sunday. Efforts to produce a lasting agreement between the two nations has failed, with negotiations and an initial ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey in October looking increasingly shaky. Pakistan and Afghanistan share a 2,611km-long border known as the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has not formally recognised. Afghan authorities were evacuating a refugee camp near the Torkham border crossing after several refugees were wounded and 13 civilians, including women and children, killed, authorities said. On the Pakistani side of the border, local police said residents were also evacuating to safer areas, while some Afghan refugees who had been waiting to cross back into Afghanistan were also moved to secure locations. Tension has been high between the two neighbours for months, with deadly border clashes in October killing dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants. The violence followed explosions in Kabul that Afghan officials blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad, at the time, conducted strikes deep inside Afghanistan to target militant hideouts.

Ukraine war briefing: IMF approves $8.1bn loan for Kyiv

The International Monetary Fund said its executive board had approved an $8.1bn, four-year loan for Ukraine, of which $1.5bn would be disbursed immediately. The IMF said on Thursday the new extended fund facility arrangement for Ukraine would help anchor a $136.5bn international support package for the war-torn country, which this week marked the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion. The IMF managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, said the loan would resolve Ukraine’s balance of payments problem and restore medium-term external viability while boosting prospects for reconstruction and growth after the war ended and helping to facilitate Ukraine’s steps to join the EU. Ukrainian and US officials met in Geneva on Thursday for talks on postwar reconstruction despite a deadlock in negotiations with Russia, and officials in Kyiv hoped to finalise key details of a settlement at a trilateral meeting early next month. Top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov said the participants at the meeting spoke to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after its conclusion. Zelenskyy, who spoke to the US president, Donald Trump, on Wednesday, said trilateral talks would probably take place in Abu Dhabi in early March and would aim to prepare the way for a meeting of Ukraine and Russia’s leaders. Russian president Vladimir Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, also held talks with US officials in Geneva on Thursday, Russia’s state-run RIA news agency reported. Dmitriev declined to comment on the outcome of the meeting, RIA said. Umerov said negotiators were working on economic and security issues to “make the next trilateral meeting involving the US and Russia as substantive as possible”. Romania scrambled fighter jets on Thursday when a drone breached its national airspace during a Russian attack on Ukrainian infrastructure near the border, the defence ministry said, in the second airspace breach in as many days. The EU and Nato member shares a 650km land border with Ukraine and has had drones breach its airspace and fragments fall on its territory repeatedly since Russia began attacking Kyiv’s ports across the Danube. Ukrainian missiles struck the Russian town of Belgorod, inflicting serious damage on energy installations and disrupting power, water and heating, the regional governor said early on Friday. The attack on Belgorod, 40km from the Ukrainian border, and the surrounding district was the second in five days to cause serious damage. Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday its air defence units had downed 220 Ukrainian drones over a nine-hour period, including 24 headed for Moscow. The latest ministry statement said 53 drones were intercepted and destroyed in a three-hour period ending at 11pm. Many of the drones were intercepted over regions in central Russia. The ministry said 12 had targeted Moscow.