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EU removes oligarchs from Russia sanctions list as deadline looms

The EU has agreed to remove two Russian billionaires, Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, from its sanctions list, while extending restrictions on nearly 3,000 individuals and companies accused of supporting the war on Ukraine for the next three years. With an end-of-Tuesday deadline looming to preserve the Russia blacklist, the EU’s 27 member states found a compromise that meant delisting the two oligarchs in spite of very few countries wanting this outcome. EU sanctions have to be approved unanimously. France stunned and infuriated EU governments this month when it called for Usmanov, a Russian-Uzbek national, to be removed from the list on “national security” grounds, reported to refer to a prisoner exchange deal involving French nationals and Azerbaijan. Luxembourg then asked for the same treatment for Fridman, the Russian-Israeli magnate, who is suing the Grand Duchy for $16bn (£12bn) for freezing his assets. The exemptions angered many EU countries that believe it sets a bad precedent by allowing member states to weaken sanctions in defence of national interests. Ukraine criticised the removal of the men from the sanctions list as unacceptable. Shortly after the decision emerged, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote on social media: “No name on the sanctions list is there by accident: each one represents a reason why this war started and continues to this day”. The Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, called the decision “shameful and unjustifiable” on X. “Moscow is celebrating because it got what it wanted: a sense ‌of impunity, the humiliation of the EU, and division among Europeans,” he added. In order to enable the delistings that many EU member states found unpalatable, it was proposed that the sanctions be rolled over for 36 months, rather than the usual six. A spokesperson for Ireland’s EU presidency, which brokered the talks, said the bloc had reached “a difficult compromise”. They said: “Until now, these listings have been reviewed and assessed on a six-monthly basis; today’s decision to renew on a 36-month basis enhances the durability and predictability of the EU sanctions framework.” A decision had been expected earlier this week, but Latvia’s government, facing parliamentary elections on 3 October, announced a last-minute objection to the delistings on Monday. Latvia’s prime minister, Andris Kulbergs, said late on Monday night that he could not accept the proposed compromise and instructed his foreign minister to enter talks with Paris and Brussels to find a solution. Diplomats said Latvia had finally agreed to abstain on the two delistings. The blacklist includes Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, as well as Duma deputies, the country’s major banks, energy companies and military industrial complex. Senior EU officials have promised to present about 1,600 new designations – individuals and entities involved in the Russian military industrial complex – to foreign ministers next month. But the latest standoff, which followed the tortuous agreement on the EU’s 21st round of sanctions in July, suggests the process could be difficult.

Russians have a pragmatic approach to politics | Letter

To an old Russian like me, Rafael Behr is as wrong as sin, because he is watching (and describing) the smoke without seeing the fire (To understand the threat to our real democracy, watch Putin’s fake one, 16 September). In their unqualified admiration for your democracy, our leaders have done a lot to emulate it: in 1861, Alexander II abolished serfdom; in 1905, Nicholas II allowed the creation of our elected parliament; in 1917, Kerensky allowed women to vote; in 1990, Gorbachev reintroduced a multiparty system; he, Yeltsin and Medvedev resigned in 1991, 1999 and 2020 respectively (like your Wilson, Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Starmer in 1976, 1990, 2007, 2016, 2019, 2022, again 2022, and 2026 respectively). But ordinary Russians are up to their ears in their age-long que será, será approach to politics. So there has never been a real rebellion for the Kremlin to squelch. Had Mr Behr lived in our provincial towns instead of Moscow in the 1990s, he would have produced a very different article. Mergen Mongush Moscow, Russia • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

US to build new military bases in Greenland as deal seeks to end tensions between Nato allies - as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today. For continued coverage of the UN general assembly week and tonight’s meeting between the US president, Donald Trump, and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, join my US colleagues over here: Trump is also meeting with UK’s Andy Burnham right now, and that is being covered by my UK colleagues here: Meanwhile, here is the summary of the key events in Europe today: Denmark and Greenland have signed a new security deal for Greenland with the US, hoping to end months of bitter disputes over US president Donald Trump’s expansive plans to acquire or otherwise control the territory (17:32, 17:36, 17:39, 17:49, 18:00, 18:02, 18:11, 18:29). Earlier Trump hailed the deal as “an unprecedented agreement” which he said would “also protect Europe in addition to America” (16:57), as he praised Nato as “growing stronger than ever before” (16:59). The US president also said his message to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin would be to “settle the war” (15:44), as he repeated his ambition would be to end the conflict soon (16:49, 17:00). Separately, The EU has agreed to remove two Russian billionaires, Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, from its Russia sanctions list, while extending restrictions on nearly 3,000 individuals and companies accused of supporting the war on Ukraine for the next three years (11:15, 16:13, 17:02, 17:24, 18:17). The decision was heavily criticised by Ukraine, which called it unacceptable and “shameful” (18:18), after previously backing the main opposing country – Latvia – in its fight to block the delisting (16:15). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Briton pleads guilty to ‘recklessly’ causing death of his son in Cyprus

A British man has pleaded guilty to “recklessly” causing the death of his son, 10 weeks after the toddler fell from a fourth-floor hotel window in Cyprus. Josh Foster, 37, who appeared before the district court of Paphos on Tuesday, accepted the charge of causing the accident through a “rash, reckless and dangerous act” on the first day of a family holiday near Paphos on 12 July. The case was adjourned until 5 October, when the judge ordered the man to return for sentencing. Under the maximum penalty he could face up to four years in prison. Explaining his client’s decision to enter the plea, the defence lawyer, Alexandros Alexandrou, said the alternative was the prospect of prolonged criminal proceedings. If he had contested the charge, a series of hearings would have ensued, forcing the father to repeatedly confront the circumstances of the two-year-old’s death. His client had broken down inconsolably when he appeared in the same courtroom to be formally charged in July. “[A trial] would be disturbing for him, for his family,” said Alexandrou, emphasising that the Briton, his wife and other relatives were still processing the grief of their “unimaginable loss”. “In order to end this story he accepted [the accusation],” he said, adding the defence would present mitigating factors in an attempt to secure a lenient verdict. “If the maximum sentence were imposed, the defence would appeal. This kind of penalty is not acceptable from our side.” Until last week Foster had hoped the charge would be suspended. In what amounted to a desperate plea for reprieve, the Briton, a senior employee at one of the big four accounting firms, had appealed to George Savvides, the attorney general of Cyprus, to intervene. As the island’s top legal authority, Savvides has the power to confer clemency by discontinuing criminal procedures on humanitarian grounds. Alexandrou had lodged the appeal saying: “In these exceptional circumstances, we do not believe a continued criminal process serves the public interest. The focus now should be on [the family’s] welfare and recovery.” The request was denied. Addressing Paphos’s district court last week, state prosecutors said that while Savvides recognised the father’s grief, there had been loss of life and it was a matter of “public interest” that the criminal proceedings went ahead. Until the eve of the plea hearing it had remained unknown how the defendant would contest the charge of causing his son’s death. The boy, who would have turned three last week, fell from a fourth-floor window at the King Evelthon hotel and resort on the Chlorakas coastline outside Paphos. The father claims he placed him on the windowsill – along a corridor leading to a lift that his relatives were about to use – not realising the window was ajar. The toddler then fell backwards, suffering fatal cranial injuries when he hit a veranda 10 metres (33ft) below. In a country so dependent on tourism, criticism has mounted as human rights defenders, media pundits and diplomats have questioned the perceived lack of compassion with which officials have approached the case. While the letter of the law had been adhered to so assiduously by police and court officials, “no one had asked why the window did not have bars”, said a diplomat based in Nicosia, the eastern Mediterranean island’s capital. “It’s perplexing that there’s all this emphasis on the father being a criminal and so little focus on the circumstances in which the boy died,” he added. “Why was there even a window there and why was it open? In a country where permits to build hotels are often lax, these are questions that should not be ignored.” In an editorial last week, the Cyprus Mail echoed that sentiment. “Why are authorities so eager to treat tragic accidents as criminal acts?” it asked, after a similar incident in which the three-year-old son of African immigrants fell to his death from the balcony of his family’s sixth-floor apartment in Nicosia. Like the Briton, his parents were held in custody for several days although they were eventually released without charge. The attorney general’s decision to go ahead with the prosecution – described as both disappointing and surprising by Alexandrou – had stirred further debate. The role of Cyprus’s attorney general has long been regarded as one of the most controversial legacies of the island’s former status as a British colony. The island’s leading human rights lawyer, Achilleas Demetriades, said the Briton had fallen foul of “an archaic system” that was long overdue an overhaul. Under Cyprus’s postcolonial justice system, such decisions remained entirely at the discretion of the attorney general and could not be challenged, he said. For years there had been talk of amending the constitution to resolve the anomaly, he added. “It’s in the process of being amended because the office of the attorney general, when it takes this type of decision, should have judicial overview which it currently does not. “Sadly, this man has fallen victim to an archaic system in which one man, the attorney general, has unfettered power. This certainly raises human rights issues.”

Up to 169 killed in Yemen as Houthis battle for Red Sea coastal heights

As many as 169 people have been reportedly killed in Yemen in the last three days as Iran-aligned Houthis battle Saudi-backed government forces for control of strategic heights on the Red Sea coast, while thousands flee the violence. Houthi military officials said at least 118 people had been killed in clashes as well as Saudi air and artillery strikes on Taiz, al-Jawf, Marib and Saada provinces since Sunday, Agence France-Presse reported. Yemeni government sources have said at least 36 people have been killed on their side of the conflict. The Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of striking the port city of Mocha on Tuesday, killing six civilians, including two children. The group also said a Saudi strike on a prison in al-Jawf province, north-western Yemen, killed nine detainees. The Saudi government, which backs Yemen’s UN-recognised government against Houthi forces, on Tuesday issued an alert in the south of the country before potential strikes, after the Houthis launched strikes at the Saudi capital, Riyadh, at the weekend for the first time in years. The renewed fighting came after a dramatic offensive launched by the Houthis three weeks earlier in which the group seized control of much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast from government-aligned forces. They were the most significant territorial gains in the last four years of the civil war in the country. The offensive has upended global energy markets, which are already reeling from the Iranian closure of the strait of Hormuz, and further expanded the regional scope of the US-Iran war, now in its seventh month. Last week the Houthis took control of Mocha and other strategic cities, which gave them control over the Bab al-Mandab strait, a key shipping lane home to 10% of all global maritime traffic that has gained renewed importance after the closure of the strait of Hormuz. The clashes have compounded an already dire humanitarian crisis, where about 22 million people need humanitarian assistance and 5.2 million people are already internally displaced. Yemen’s civil war started in 2014 when the Houthis seized control of the country’s capital and toppled the government. A Saudi-led coalition then intervened in an aerial campaign on behalf of the internationally recognised Yemeni government and allied militias. A UN-brokered ceasefire was established in 2022, which had largely held until the Houthis launched the current offensive. In recent days, clashes have focused on the strategic Kahboub mountains near the Red Sea coast as the Houthis seek to consolidate recent territorial gains. Government forces have been trying to hold the line against the Houthi advance on multiple fronts to prevent them from seizing the mountain range. Control of the mountains would give the Houthis a strategic vantage point over Red Sea coastal areas and would further cut off Aden, the seat of Yemeni government forces, from the western coast. Seizing the mountains would also complicate future government counterattacks. The Houthis have advanced on multiple fronts, particularly the outskirts of Taiz province and the coastal area of Ras al-Ara, with the greater goal of controlling the Kahboub mountains. Media affiliated with the Houthis have reported gains in the area, while government media said its fighters had successfully repelled Houthi incursions. Since the Houthi campaign was launched, the group has routed government-aligned forces from western Yemen. The prospect of an Iranian-aligned force controlling Bab al-Mandeb has worried Saudi Arabia as it would place two shipping lanes vital to its energy exports in the hands of Iran and its allies. Saudi Arabia has launched hundreds of strikes on Yemen in recent days to try to stop the Houthis, with little success. Donald Trump reportedly considered striking the Houthis over the weekend but called them off at the last minute, while the UK said it would assist aerial refuelling of Saudi aircraft engaged in defensive missions, leaving open the prospect of further international intervention. Members of the G7 have called on Iran to stop arming the Houthis. In a joint statement released ahead of the UN general assembly, member states urged the Houthis to stop their strikes on Saudi Arabia, which have damaged key oil infrastructure and wounded dozens. “We call on the Houthis to immediately cease all military actions, all threats and attacks against civilian shipping, and to return to the political process in good faith,” the statement read. The clashes have killed about 700 people and displaced more than 100,000 people, pushing some Yemenis to flee the fighting via sea. Civilians have fled westwards across the Red Sea to Djibouti, while aid groups warn conditions for those remaining in Yemen are deteriorating. Babar Baloch, a UN refugee agency spokesperson, said on Tuesday that displacement inside Yemen could rise to 230,000 people and more than 10,000 could flee to Djibouti if fighting continued. Saudi Arabia has tried to marshal international support to roll back the Houthi offensive, with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, asking Trump to strike the Houthis – a request Trump has thus far refused. Trump held a call with the head of Yemen’s governing body, Rashad al-Alimi, on Monday, with al-Alimi asking the US for military assistance. Trump expressed solidarity but did not promise military support, a source told Agence France-Presse.

Superpowers cannot solve world’s problems, UN chief says in final general assembly address

The world’s fault lines have turned from cracks into canyons as superpowers show that they alone do not have the military, economic and technological power to guarantee security or solve the world’s problems, the outgoing secretary general of the United Nations has said in his final address to the general assembly. In a speech laced with despair but also glimpses of defiant hope, António Guterres said that over the last decade, largely spanning his 10-year period in office, “wars erupted with devastating consequences and dragged on with despicable cruelty. Civilians were targeted. Human rights trampled. Hunger weaponised. Humanitarians killed. International law cast aside.” He continued: “Geopolitical divides have deepened. Inequalities have intensified. Trust has frayed. The climate crisis went from distant warning to daily reality. And artificial intelligence moved at a speed that has blindsided even those who created it.” Without naming Israel, he said what followed the Hamas attack of October 2023 “was an onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza, with a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed in all my years as secretary general”. He rounded on profiteering energy companies for “treating the world as an open sewer”, described Africa’s omission from a permanent place on the UN security council as stunning, and called for a new compact to regulate AI. Throughout, the 77-year-old Portuguese politician and diplomat argued that a multilateral system centred on a newly representative UN was the only way to address this new convergence of problems. However, he warned: “At the very moment when humanity faces an unprecedented convergence of threats, our mechanisms for collective action are under growing strain.” Without mentioning Donald Trump once, he said what was required was “a recognition, especially by superpowers, that their power isn’t so super. Their power has limits. The events of recent years have made that unmistakably clear. Military power alone cannot secure peace. Economic power alone cannot command stability. And technological power alone cannot guarantee security.” It was critical to avoid hegemonic tendencies and what Guterres described as the “great fracture” – the division of the world into two rival blocs with separate economic, technological and security systems. The defining challenge of the age, he said, was that world governance, reflecting the power realities of a bygone age, was not adapting to the way power was being redistributed between and within states. At the same time there was “an extraordinary transfer of power away from governments to a handful of private corporations and individuals. Their reach now extends across politics, economies, information flows, technological development, and the civic space on which societies depend,” he said. “Humans are increasingly handing over power to machines – with artificial intelligence agents going rogue, and lethal autonomous weapons going from science fiction to military reality.” The choice was now whether the world was going to continue to fragment with rising tension, transactionalism and shrinking cooperation or change course towards a multilateral system centred on a UN that was balanced and representative. “The test before us is whether power will be exercised with the law – or beyond it,” Guterres said. “We must pass that test. We must defend the charter without double standards. Protect civilians without exception.” He urged world leaders to stop letting civilians pay the price for the cascading conflicts across the Middle East. Demanding that the fighting must stop and humanitarian aid must flow, he pointed out that the international court of justice had ordered last year that the UN be allowed to fulfil its mandates in Gaza. “Meanwhile violence, displacement and settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank are bulldozing the path to peace and raising the spectre of ethnic cleansing. We cannot allow the two-state solution to disappear before our eyes,” he said. In Ukraine, Guterres said, “Russia’s full-scale invasion has subjected a sovereign country to a brutal war in blatant violation of the charter”. But now, he also warned, “in parts of Russia homes, energy and water systems and transport have come under repeated attack, threatening food and energy supply chains globally”. For decades, he said, “big oil has treated the atmosphere as an open sewer – and cashed in on the consequences. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, five major western oil companies have pocketed nearly half a trillion dollars in profits. Compare that with just $34bn in international public adaptation finance for developing countries in the latest year reported.” He added: “With a supersized El Niño coming towards humanity, everyday people are paying more for energy, food and insurance.” Although he admitted a 21st-century security council without permanent African representation was unjust and indefensible, he defended the cash-strapped and much maligned organisation, saying the UN was where the powerful were held to account. He announced that the United Nations had “achieved gender parity for the first time in history across all senior leadership … all headquarters … and all professional staff”. “Equality is not a dream. It is a decision,” he said. “If the UN can change, so can businesses, parliaments, governments, peace processes.”

‘It’s my duty to tell the truth’: UN chief on the climate crisis, capitalism and reasons to be hopeful

António Guterres, who will finish his second term as UN secretary general on 31 December, has spoken out more strongly on the climate crisis than any of his predecessors. He has criticised “immoral” fossil fuel companies for their “grotesque greed”, warned that we have “opened the gates of hell” and hailed the new “clean energy age”. Before his last UN general assembly, we asked him about making the climate crisis one of the top priorities of his tenure. Why are you so forthright on the climate crisis? Climate is an existential threat. We see political leadership around the world diverted by lots of short-term objectives. Political life lives by the hour, and climate is something whose dramatic consequences will only be seen in the long term. That is why I believe the UN has the obligation to, at every moment, put the climate in the centre of the concerns of the international community, because climate is the most relevant global existential threat. Why have we failed to tackle global heating up to now? There are vested interests that are interested in maintaining the present development model based on fossil fuels. You have a systematic campaign that is strongly financed by the huge profits of the sector that tries to divert attention [from] the impacts of fossil fuels. But also, most people have not yet interiorised the level of risk that we are all facing. I hope public opinion will be more and more impressed by the devastating impacts of climate change, and disasters becoming more and more dramatic. Heatwaves have terrible impacts on health, so there will be a growing consciousness of the devastating impacts of climate change as things get inevitably worse. Is climate breakdown a threat to national security? As the crisis in the Gulf has demonstrated, to base an economy on fossil fuel imports is a severe risk for any country, and security is something that tends to have an enormous importance in decision-making. Scientists tell us we’re coming very close to tipping points that can dramatically accelerate the impacts of climate change. The Gulf Stream [or Amoc, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation] is slowing, as we know. And we could face a huge acceleration of rising sea levels. It will become a world problem, and it’s a clear security problem – an extremely dramatic problem for the security of all countries in the world. Still in many security establishments, energy security is still seen in terms of fossil fuels. But there is a new generation of institutions and thinktanks alert to the risks of climate change and [the crisis in] biodiversity. What difference can the UN secretary general make? The secretary general of the UN has not much power, and there is no money. But there is one thing that I have: a voice. It’s my duty to use that voice without any compromise, to tell the truth and to alert the international community to the dangers it faces. I have not the power to all of a sudden make everybody invest in renewables, but I have the duty to tell people that unless we accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, unless we drastically reduce emissions in the next decade, we will be facing dramatic problems that will impact on the whole of humankind. Have you any regrets about your 10 years in office? We should have done more in building powerful alliances outside the traditional political spectrum. We should be able to do more building those alliances [with grassroots organisations and subnational and local governments]. We have given too much importance to our dialogue with the top political decision-makers and not done enough in the mobilisation of society and establishing a stronger alliance with local authorities. Our democratic systems need to be modernised, and communication with the people, especially with young generations, needs to adapt to the new forms of communication [on the internet and social media]. Some people argue that capitalism is the underlying problem and we cannot solve the climate crisis without fixing that. Do you agree? A market economy can be a very good form of allocation and resources. If you call capitalism the market economy, the problem is not capitalism. But a market economy requires effective governance. And that governance must be made through regulations, and that governance must be within the monopoly of political power, democratically elected. So we can have a market economy – and I still believe it’s the best way to allocate resources, as planned economies didn’t prove to be effective – but we need to have regulatory frameworks established by politically democratic institutions. Unfortunately, in many circumstances we have seen regulatory bodies being controlled by private interests. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen. But many of the biggest emitting countries, and countries with the biggest fossil fuel reserves, are autocracies. What can be done with them? I’m in favour of democracies everywhere, but even in non-democratic regimes [tackling the climate crisis] is important – and it’s important that [modern communications] technologies are not used to increase the authoritarian nature of those regimes. Are there any reasons to be hopeful? Clearly we are not doing enough. But they are developing renewable energy at enormous speeds. The crisis of the Gulf will accelerate that trend, because many of the emerging economies that are the biggest emitters are net importers of fossil fuels and they have a vested interest in developing renewables.