Read the daily news to learn English

Denmark says Russia was behind two ‘destructive and disruptive’ cyber-attacks

The Danish government has accused Russia of being behind two “destructive and disruptive” cyber-attacks in what it describes as “very clear evidence” of a hybrid war. The Danish Defence Intelligence Service (DDIS) announced on Thursday that Moscow was behind a cyber-attack on a Danish water utility in 2024 and a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Danish websites in the lead-up to the municipal and regional council elections in November. The first, it said, was carried out by the pro-Russian group known as Z-Pentest and the second by NoName057(16), which has links to the Russian state. “The Russian state uses both groups as instruments of its hybrid war against the west,” DDIS said in a statement. “The aim is to create insecurity in the targeted countries and to punish those that support Ukraine. Russia’s cyber operations form part of a broader influence campaign intended to undermine western support for Ukraine.” It added: “The DDIS assesses that the Danish elections were used as a platform to attract public attention – a pattern that has been observed in several other European elections.” The director of the DDIS, Thomas Ahrenkiel, said they were “very certain that these are pro-Russian groups that have connections to the Russian state”. Denmark’s defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, said the attacks were “completely unacceptable” and he was taking the incidents “very seriously”. In an attack on a water utility in Køge in December 2024, a hacker took control of a waterworks and changed the pressure in the pumps, resulting in three burst pipes. “This is very clear evidence that we are now where the hybrid war we have been talking about is unfortunately taking place. It once again puts the spotlight on the situation we find ourselves in in Europe,” Lund Poulsen said. The Danish foreign office would summon the Russian ambassador for a meeting, he said. “It is completely unacceptable that hybrid attacks are carried out in Denmark by the Russian side,.” Although the attacks caused limited damage, the minister for resilience and preparedness, Torsten Schack Pedersen, said they showed that “there are forces capable of closing down important parts of our society”. Denmark, he added, was not sufficiently equipped to withstand such attacks from Russia. “I think you have to be incredibly naive if you think we are at the top of cybersecurity.” Copenhagen described a series of drone incursions on Danish airports and areas of military significance in September as a “hybrid attack”. The incidents, which exposed gaps in its defence capabilities, contributed to plans to establish a European “drone wall”.

Ukraine may need to cut drone production if no deal reached on frozen Russian assets, says Zelenskyy – as it happened

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged EU leaders to reach a deal at a critical summit where EU leaders were trying to overcome differences on whether to use frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine’s war effort against Russian aggression. Zelenskyy said without a significant cash injection by spring, Ukraine will have to cut its drone production, with Kyiv under pressure to cede territory as the US pushes for a swift deal to bring the war to an end. Most of Russia’s €210bn (£185bn; $245bn) worth of assets in the EU are held by Euroclear, the Brussels-based securities depository. Belgium is deeply anxious about being left exposed to legal and financial risks, and other states including Italy have also voiced concerns. EU leaders arriving at the summit in Brussels said it was imperative they find a solution. Russia has filed a lawsuit against Euroclear in a Moscow court to try to get its money back. Russia’s central bank said in a statement today that “in connection with the ongoing attempts … to illegaly seize and use” its assets, it just wanted to warn everyone that would take legal actions to “recover damages from European banks in a Russian arbitration court,” demanding not just the value of “illegally withheld assets,” but also “lost profits”. A draft summit text presented on Thursday pledged “full solidarity” and risk-sharing with countries and financial institutions in the context of the reparations loan. But the text seen by the Guardian was scant on details sought by Belgium. Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said leaders had a simple choice: “Either money today or blood tomorrow.” Tusk also warned that Ukraine’s capitulation – as a result of a lack of European support and poor decision making – would put Poland’s independence under threat if it were to happen. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said, meanwhile, that a Russian hypersonic, nuclear-capable missile known as the “Oreshnik” had been deployed in Belarus. Thanks for following along today. We are now closing this blog. You can read a wrap-up of today’s events in this story by my colleagues Jennifer Rankin and Helena Smith.

‘Money today or blood tomorrow’: EU leaders race to secure deal for Ukraine

EU leaders are racing to secure a funding deal for Ukraine that has been cast as a choice between “money today or blood tomorrow”, but Belgium continues to oppose a loan secured against Russia’s frozen assets. At a summit billed as make or break, EU leaders are discussing an unprecedented move to tap some of Russia’s €210bn sovereign assets frozen in the bloc days after the full-scale invasion of 2022. Under the scheme, the EU would provide Kyiv with a €90bn loan to help keep Ukraine in the fight, as Russia ekes out gains on the battlefields. Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said leaders had a simple choice: “Either money today or blood tomorrow.” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he wanted to see a decision on funding by the end of the year, amid forecasts his country faces bankruptcy in the spring. “If these funds can serve European security by holding the aggressor accountable for its war against Ukraine and against Europe, then why would we leave Moscow with any hope or confidence that the money will still come back no matter what it has done,” he told EU leaders. “I know that Russia is intimidating different countries over this decision. But we should not be afraid of threats – we should be afraid of Europe being weak.” EU leaders have been presented with two options to meet Ukraine’s estimated €136bn funding needs in 2026 and 2027: a “reparations loan” secured against Russian frozen assets or joint EU borrowing to fund Kyiv. The European Commission, which proposed the €90bn loan, expects Ukraine’s other western allies to make up the rest. Germany and other frugal countries, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, strongly support tapping Russian assets, rather than European taxpayers. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said the reparations loan was the only option. “We are basically faced with the choice of using European debt or Russian assets for Ukraine, and my opinion is clear: We must use the Russian assets.” But Belgium, which hosts most of the Russian assets, said it had not received adequate guarantees from the rest of the EU if the scheme went wrong. “Give me a parachute and we’ll all jump together,” Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, told members of the Belgian parliament before the summit began. “If we have confidence in the parachute that shouldn’t be a problem. Belgium has pressed for unlimited guarantees that mean it would not be left alone with the bill should Russia succeed in retaliatory legal claims against Euroclear or Belgian companies. A draft summit text presented on Thursday pledged “full solidarity” and risk-sharing with countries and financial institutions in the context of the reparations loan. But the text seen by the Guardian was scant on details sought by Belgium, such as how quickly guarantees would materialise, or how long they would last. The UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, on a visit to Athens, stressed the importance of “mobilising” Russia’s frozen assets, saying it was clear Moscow was still bent on waging its war of aggression in Ukraine. “I see two presidents who are pursuing peace at the moment, President Trump and President Zelenskyy, and one president, President Putin, who is still seeking to escalate conflict and war,” she said. “That is why it is so important to make progress on mobilising the Russian sovereign assets in order to be able to support Ukraine and also to be able to put increased pressure on Russia to properly bring them to the table and pursue peace.” Russia’s central bank announced on Thursday that it would pursue damages against European banks “for the illegal blocking and use of its assets”, after its claim for $230bn in damages from Euroclear. Euroclear, the Brussels depository where €185bn Russian assets are parked, has been subject to an intimidation campaign, security officials told the Guardian. Zelenskyy said he had had “a good conversation” with De Wever during a one-on-one meeting, but that his country faced bigger risks. “One can fear certain legal steps in court from the Russian Federation but it is not as scary as when Russia is at your borders.” In an impassioned speech to EU leaders he urged them to agree the reparations loan on strategic and self-interest grounds. He said much of the funds would be spent on European weapons, while stressing Ukraine also needed some equipment not available in Europe, such as US missile defence systems. Alongside Belgium, Italy, Malta and Bulgaria favour an EU loan, secured against unallocated funds in the EU budget. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has said using Russia’s assets frozen in Europe to help Ukraine without a solid legal basis would hand Moscow “the first victory since the start of the war”. But common borrowing requires unanimity of the 27 member states. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has slammed using Russia’s frozen assets as a “stupid” idea, while also announcing his veto to joint debt “to finance a war that isn’t our’s” The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said he was confident leaders would find a solution. “We are going to find a technical solution, therefore we must not be divided over technical details. Everyone must be listened and heard.” The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said she would not leave the summit without a solution. The meeting is scheduled to finish on Friday. The talks are unfolding against a separate diplomatic dance orchestrated by the Trump administration, which is seeking to negotiate a deal to end the war. US and Russian officials are expected to meet in Miami this weekend to discuss Trump’s peace plan, a White House official told AFP on Wednesday. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected to take part on the US side, while Putin’s economic envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, will represent Russia, Politico reported.

Copenhagen’s ‘ghetto law’ may be unlawful, EU court rules

Residents of a Copenhagen neighbourhood that became an international symbol of a law in Denmark known as the “ghetto law” have said they are confident they can overturn the legislation in the Danish courts after the top EU court ruled that it may be unlawful. The controversial law, dating from 2018, allows the state to demolish apartment blocks in areas labelled “parallel societies” by the government, where at least half of residents have a “non-western” background. Formerly, the government referred to these neighbourhoods as “ghettoes”. The law states that if these areas also have unfavourable socioeconomic conditions – for example high levels of unemployment or crime – authorities must cut social housing by 40%, including by selling or demolishing properties or terminating the lease of tenants by 2030. In a long-awaited judgment on Thursday on whether the laws targeting these “transformation areas” are racially discriminatory, the European court of justice (ECJ) said the legislation may be unlawful under the EU’s race equality directive. In a preliminary ruling, the ECJ said the law could lead to an increased risk of early lease termination and eviction for residents of these areas compared with those in neighbourhoods with similar socioeconomic conditions but lower levels of immigration. It would be for Danish courts to decide if there was “a difference in treatment based on the ethnic origin of the majority of the inhabitants of those areas, thus resulting in the inhabitants of these areas being treated less favourably”, it said. They would also have to determine whether the law, although worded in a “neutral manner”, actually leads to “persons belonging to certain ethnic groups being placed at a particular disadvantage”, it added. The decision is less emphatic than a previous statement by Tamara Ćapeta, a European court of justice advocate general, who said in February that tenants whose leases were terminated “suffer direct discrimination on the basis of the ethnic criterion”. Despite this, lawyers, human rights organisations and residents said the EU decision marked a legal victory for the campaign, which they said they were confident they could win in the domestic courts next year. Residents in the Mjølnerparken housing estate in central Copenhagen had filed a suit against the law in Denmark in 2020, arguing that using their ethnicity to decide where they can live was discriminatory and illegal. Because of the “parallel society” law, more than 1,000 people were forced to move out, and rental costs soared. Muhammad Aslam, chair of the Mjølnerparken residents association, said he was pleased with the ECJ’s decision and he believes his group are now well-placed to win in the high court. The “parallel society” law was “inhumane”, he said. “It threw the families out from our homes when we have done nothing wrong.” For more than a decade, he said, minority communities in Denmark have been subjected to “a competition between politicians and political parties of who can say the worst things against foreigners, refugees, Muslims. Whoever does that gets more seats in parliament.” Aslam, who has lived in Denmark since he was seven and has four children born in Mjølnerparken, who are now successful professionals, said this rhetoric had a big impact on daily life. “We try to say to ourselves we are part of Denmark and part of Danish society,” he said. “But when politicians are talking about us and have these kinds of competitions and trying to move us from society all the time, it affects you and your heart and your mind.” The Danish Institute for Human Rights said the ECJ judgment “provides several grounds” for the law to constitute discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin, but that it did not bring the case to a “definitive close”. Susheela Math, head of legal at Systemic Justice, a Netherlands-based NGO, said the ruling marked “a day of reckoning for the Danish state”, adding that “discrimination is not integration”. “This ghetto package can be really seen as one stage in a long history of political rhetoric and laws and practices that are targeting minorities,” she said. “What today’s judgment makes clear is that the political rhetoric and legislative context problematising and stereotyping those of ‘non-western background’ can be taken into account in terms of whether this amounts to racial discrimination.” The Danish ministry of social affairs and housing said the case would now return to Denmark’s eastern high court, and that the ministry would read the European court’s verdict carefully.

Thousands to avoid Christmas on streets as Home Office ordered to delay refugee evictions

The UK high court has halted evictions of thousands of new refugees who were at risk of spending Christmas on the streets. Concern had been mounting among lawyers and human rights campaigners that within days of celebrating being granted refugee status the group could find themselves rough sleeping. Asylum seekers had their move-on period from government accommodation extended from 28 days to 56 days after being granted refugee status, thanks to a pilot scheme the Home Office launched a year ago. Campaigners say 28 days is not long enough for people to sort out their lives and find accommodation, a job, benefits or study opportunities. Many, including the British Red Cross, reported a significant fall in the numbers of street homeless people when the move-on period was doubled. But at the end of August, the government decided to revert to giving 28 days of notice before evictions, leading to protests from more than 60 non-governmental organisations. On Wednesday, a high court order was agreed that requires the Home Office to issue instructions to its caseworkers to extend move-on periods from 28 to 56 days when the person satisfies the caseworker they are facing the imminent prospect of street homelessness. This order will prevent an estimated 3,000 new refugees from ending up on the streets in the next few weeks. However, the court order does not apply to those who have already been evicted and who are rough sleeping. One 19-year-old Eritrean refugee has been sleeping under a bush close to a station in north London for more than two months after he was evicted from a Home Office hotel. He approached his local council for help with finding new accommodation but was rejected because officials said he was not in “priority need”. “I had a very difficult journey to safety after I fled my country. I was enslaved in Libya and made the dangerous journey across the Channel,” he said. “I am happy I have been granted refugee status but did not expect I would end up sleeping under a bush in the middle of London after everything I have been through.” Ahmed Aydeed, of Deighton Pierce Glynn solicitors, who challenged the 28-day period in the high court, welcomed the order. He said: “We’re grateful that, subsequent to court intervention, the home secretary has agreed to disapply 28-day evictions in circumstances where an individual is at imminent risk of street homelessness. Over 3,000 people can now use this process if they’re at risk, until 16 January. “This order will help save lives. No one should be forced into destitution and street homelessness, especially during this extreme winter weather.” Bridget Young, the director of the No Accommodation Network, said: “This is welcome news, which for many newly granted refugees will mean the difference between spending Christmas safely housed or on the streets. “All the evidence shows that 28 days is not enough time for people to find alternative accommodation. It is unconscionable that we could have seen a surge of people made street homeless in the lead-up to Christmas, with fewer services available to support them and crisis services already stretched or full. “We urge the government to do the right thing and make the 56-day move-on period permanent and give everyone who is provided sanctuary here the chance to find a safe and secure home.” A government spokesperson said: “We are committed to supporting individuals granted leave to remain to successfully transition from asylum accommodation to mitigate the risk of homelessness. “We are also working to move asylum seekers into more suitable accommodation such as military bases, to ease pressure on communities across the country.”

Brazilian president vows to veto bill cutting Jair Bolsonaro’s prison term

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has promised to veto a bill passed by congress to reduce the prison term of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president who was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison for masterminding an attempted coup to overturn the 2022 elections. Lawmakers passed the bill late on Wednesday after it was approved last week by the lower house. On Thursday, Brazil’s leftist president – who, investigations showed, was the target of an assassination plan as part of the coup plot – acknowledged his veto could be overridden by the largely conservative congress. “With all due respect to the congress, when it reaches my desk, I will veto it,” Lula told journalists on Thursday, adding that those who committed crimes against Brazilian democracy “will have to pay for their acts”. “I have the right to veto, and then they have the right to overturn my veto or not. That’s the game.” Legal experts estimate the bill will reduce Bolsonaro’s time in a closed regime, currently a minimum of six years, to just over two, depending on sentence reduction mechanisms such as good behaviour or reading books. The far-right leader is already serving his sentence in a special cell at the federal police headquarters in Brasília, and his lawyers are seeking supreme court authorisation for him to undergo hernia surgery. Although the legislation falls far short of the full amnesty Bolsonaro and his sons had been demanding, its approval is being celebrated by the former president’s family. “It wasn’t exactly what we wanted … but it’s what was possible,” posted the senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s son and, for now, the family’s choice to take on Lula in the 2026 election. The bill reduces time in prison by combining the sentences for two different crimes – such as “attempted coup” and “violent abolition of the democratic rule of law” – but counting only the offence with the higher sentence. It benefits not only Bolsonaro but all of his aides, including high-ranking military officers who, for the first time, were also convicted of attempting a coup in Brazil, as well as hundreds of people who ransacked the capital, Brasília, on 8 January 2023. For that reason, the approval is being seen as a significant setback for those who had widely celebrated the convictions as a sign of democratic progress in Brazil. A recent opinion poll showed that most Brazilians opposed reducing the sentences. The journalist and writer Miriam Leitão, a prominent political analyst, described the bill’s passage as the reopening of Brazil’s “historic cycle of impunity”: “2025 was set to go down in history as the year in which Brazil punished coup plotters for the first time, but the bill … threatens to make the country repeat the past,” she wrote in her column for O Globo newspaper.

US announces more than $10bn of arms sales to Taiwan

The Trump administration has announced a massive package of arms sales to Taiwan valued at more than $10bn that includes medium-range missiles, howitzers and drones, drawing an angry response from China. The state department announced the sales late on Wednesday during a nationally televised address by president Donald Trump, who made scant mention of foreign policy issues and did not speak about China or Taiwan at all. US-Chinese tensions have ebbed and flowed during Trump’s second term, largely over trade and tariffs but also over China’s increasing aggressiveness toward Taiwan, which Beijing has said must unify with the People’s Republic of China. The eight arms sales agreements announced on Wednesday cover 82 high-mobility artillery rocket systems, or Himars, and 420 army tactical missile systems, or Atacms – similar to those the US had been sending to Ukraine during the Biden administration to defend itself from Russia – worth more than $4bn. They also include 60 self-propelled howitzer systems and related equipment worth more than $4bn, as well as drones valued at more than $1bn. Other sales in the package include military software valued at more than $1bn, Javelin and Tow missiles worth more than $700m, helicopter spare parts worth $96m and refurbishment kits for Harpoon missiles worth $91m. In separate but nearly identical statements, the state department said the sales serve “US national, economic and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernise its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability.” “The proposed sale(s) will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance and economic progress in the region,” the statements said. China’s foreign ministry attacked the move, saying it would violate diplomatic agreements between Beijing and Washington, undermine regional stability, and gravely harm China’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity. “The ‘Taiwan independence’ forces on the island seek independence through force and resist reunification through force, squandering the hard-earned money of the people to purchase weapons at the cost of turning Taiwan into a powder keg,” said foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun. “This cannot save the doomed fate of ‘Taiwan independence’ but will only accelerate the push of the Taiwan Strait toward a dangerous situation of military confrontation and war. The US support for ‘Taiwan Independence’ through arms will only end up backfiring. Using Taiwan to contain China will not succeed,” he added. Under federal law, the US is obliged to assist Taiwan with its self-defence, a point that has become increasingly contentious with China, which has vowed to take Taiwan by force, if necessary. Trump has previously suggested Taiwan should pay the US for “protection”. Officials in Washington and Taipei have worked to accelerate the approval for weapon sales to Taiwan since intense Chinese military drills surrounded the island in 2022. But the push towards greater weapons sales has been impeded by Trump’s erratic stance on Taiwan. In a statement on Thursday, Taiwan’s defence ministry expressed gratitude to the US over the arms sale, which it said would help the island maintain “sufficient self-defence capabilities” and bring strong deterrent capabilities. Taiwan’s bolstering of its defence “is the foundation for maintaining regional peace and stability,” the ministry said. Taiwan’s foreign minister Lin Chia-lung similarly thanked the US for its “long-term support for regional security and Taiwan’s self-defence capabilities,” which he said are key for deterring a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, the body of water separating Taiwan from China’s mainland. The arms sales comes as Taiwan’s government has pledged to raise defence spending to 3.3% of the island’s gross domestic product next year and 5% by 2030. The boost came after Trump and the Pentagon requested that Taiwan spend as much as 10% of its GDP on its defence, a percentage well above what the US or any of its major allies spend on defence. The demand has faced pushback from Taiwan’s opposition KMT party and some of its population. Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te last month announced a special $40bn budget for arms purchases, including an air defence system with high-level detection and interception capabilities called Taiwan Dome. The budget will be allocated over eight years, from 2026 to 2033. But Lai is struggling to get his budget, including the military spending plan, passed in the legislature. Earlier this month opposition lawmakers blocked a bill authorising the defence budget to fund major weapons procurement and joint development programs with the US. Associated Press contributed reporting

Bavarian pensioner lays trap to catch phone fraudster who was out for his gold

An 85-year-old Bavarian has managed – twice – to ensnare phone fraudsters trying to shake him down for cash and valuables. The German pensioner received an apparently urgent call on Tuesday from a man posing as a police officer telling him a family member was in distress – a common trick used to dupe elderly people. Immediately smelling a rat, he kept the caller on the line saying he would rush to get €10,000 (£8,750) in cash and several gold coins to hand over. While he strung the conman along, his daughter called Ingolstadt police who were able to catch a 20-year-old male suspect at the pickup spot. It was the second time the quick-thinking pair had laid a trap for a swindler. In September last year, a man impersonating a police officer tried a similar trick over the phone against the pensioner and demanded more than €60,000 in cash. “Then, too, he and his daughter reacted in an exemplary manner, which also led to the arrest of a courier,” police said. When the 40-year-old woman arrived to pick up the bundle at the handover site, police were waiting. In both cases, the scammers claimed the money was needed as bail for a relative after a fatal car accident. Last year, the callers named his niece as the accused and, in the most recent case, a granddaughter. Police warned potential victims, particularly elderly people, to be sceptical of similar calls and urged them not to reveal personal data, including bank details. Earlier this month, a Munich woman in her 80s gave cash and gold valued at up to €600,000 to swindlers after receiving a phone call from a “female doctor” claiming that a family member urgently needed expensive medication she should pay for by courier. A 24-year-old man arrived to claim the money and the gold while a 59-year-old accomplice waited for him in a nearby car. Police arrested both at the scene and returned the valuables to the woman. It was not immediately clear who alerted the authorities. In July, criminals cheated an 80-year-old Ingolstadt man out of more than €100,000 in gold. Warning of a rash of burglaries in the region, a caller claiming to be a police officer told the victim to place his gold bars on the doorstep of his home for pickup so they could be taken to a safe location. He complied and the valuables were stolen. Earlier in the day, a caller pretending to be a bank employee had called the 80-year-old man telling him his account had been compromised by thieves and he should make a series of payments to rectify the problem. The victim made several transfers, each involving thousands of euros.