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UK charity funding school at heart of illegal Israeli settlement expansion

A British charity is funding a religious school at the heart of expansion plans for the illegal Israeli settlement in the Palestinian city of Hebron. Friends of Yeshivat Shavei Hevron sent nearly £200,000 to the school between 2019 and 2024, the last year for which accounts are publicly available on the website of the Charity Commission, the charity regulator for England and Wales. Construction of a new dormitory for the school was approved in June, after the far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, unilaterally broke a decades-old international agreement on control of Hebron to give Israel planning authority. The expansion will increase the population of one of the most extreme Israeli communities in the occupied West Bank, and the only one built in the heart of a Palestinian city. “We want British charities to fund peace, not to fund obstacles for peace. This is very wrong,” said Issa Amro, a Palestinian human rights defender from Hebron and co-founder of Youth Against Settlements. “The students at this yeshiva are very aggressive. A new building will mean more violence towards Palestinians, more restrictions, more Israeli military presence.” Israel has built extensive systems of militarised separation to isolate several hundred settlers inside Hebron from the city they moved into. Palestinians are barred entirely from some streets, and walls and gates divide Palestinians who live in areas under Israeli military control from most of the 230,000 population. “For this yeshiva to exist, thousands of Palestinians have already lost their shops, their housing and their daily livelihood in the heart of a Palestinian city,” said Hagit Ofran, from the Israeli advocacy group Peace Now. “The new dormitory is a significant development because they are adding more settlers in Hebron, the most extreme settlement, where apartheid is everywhere.” International and Israeli leaders, including the late US president Jimmy Carter, the former Mossad head Tamir Pardo and former attorney general of Israel Michael Ben-Yair, have said Israel has imposed apartheid in the occupied West Bank, including Hebron. Hebron Yeshiva seeks funding in other countries that consider settlements in occupied Palestine illegal, offering donations “with receipts” in France and Canada. An Israeli crowdfunding tech company, Israelgives, has also facilitated millions of dollars in funding for settlements from US residents. The exterior of the new dormitory is already complete and the Israeli military has built an outpost on the roof of the Palestinian home nextdoor. In 2023, Friends of Yeshivat Shavei Hevron donated £58,200 to the school and claimed more than £2,000 in gift aid from HMRC, according to its accounts. The charity says on its website that it is not registered for gift aid. In 2024, when it had lower turnover so did not file full accounts, it sent £21,360 to the school. The donations from Friends of Yeshivat appear to contravene the charity’s own deed of trust, which refers to educational and charitable work “in the state of Israel”, with no mention of Palestine. Although Israel has never defined its own borders, the British government last year formally recognised the state of Palestine, on territory which includes Hebron. The charity was one of 32 registered in England and Wales identified in a letter sent to the commission by the Labour MP Melanie Ward on 1 June in which she said they had in total donated at least £28m to Israeli settlements in recent years. The Guardian understands that the Charity Commission passed on details of the letter to the Metropolitan police’s war crimes unit but no investigation is under way. On 9 June, the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said in parliament that “charity systems are abused to funnel support to illegal settlements” and that “some evidence suggests that rules are being broken”. She said the Charity Commission had been tasked with investigating links to settlements. The commission said in a statement that it shared Ward’s concerns. It added: “But this remains a complex and contentious issue, which touches on wider legal principles about charities’ right to operate, and support the most vulnerable, in parts of the world in which there may be conflict, contested jurisdiction, or lawlessness.” Friends of Yeshivat Shavei Hevron provides details of a UK account with Barclays Bank to which donors can transfer funds. A Barclays spokesperson said it could not comment on individual clients but that it “does have policies and procedures in place to meet its legal and regulatory obligations – including appropriate due diligence and financial crime controls for charity clients”. The charity’s contact email was the professional account of Ari Bloom, a trustee who is a partner at the law firm Solomon Taylor & Shaw. Solomon Taylor & Shaw’s switchboard number is listed as the charity’s phone contact, and it is registered to the same north London address used by the law firm. The contact details on the Charity Commission website were changed after the Guardian contacted Solomon Taylor & Shaw and Bloom for comment. Friends of Yeshivat Shavei Hevron was also approached for comment. The current yeshiva building and the expansion are both at the edge of the Israeli-controlled area of Hebron. Nadav Weiman, the executive director of Breaking the Silence, a group founded by Israeli combat veterans to document military abuses in occupied Palestine, said students throw stones at Palestinians from their roof. Israeli soldiers, who outnumber the settlers, have turned the rooftops of private Palestinian homes into military posts to guard the yeshiva complex. “If communities fund that [new] dormitory, they are funding more violence, funding the next wave that will bring death to Palestinian families and Israeli families,” Weiman said. “Everything that happens in Hebron first, happens elsewhere afterwards.” Labour peer Helena Kennedy called for British citizens to be banned from buying property in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Speaking in the House of Lords on Monday, Kennedy said the purchase or investment in settlement land would make British citizens “complicit” in violations of international law. “We cannot have British citizens being complicit in violations of international law,” she said, adding that continued settlement expansion was making it “impossible for the Palestinians ever to have a state of their own”. Kennedy, director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, urged ministers to “match words with actions” by preventing British involvement in settlement property.

Starmer to rally European allies at Nato summit amid concerns over US stance

Keir Starmer will seek to work with European allies to shore up support for Nato at its summit in Ankara on Tuesday amid concerns that Donald Trump could further destabilise the military alliance with threats over defence spending. Downing Street said the prime minister and other international leaders would be focused on “building a stronger and more European Nato” as they attempt to address the US president’s concerns in the Turkish capital. The UK government has pushed back on pointed criticism from the US ambassador to Nato that “some allies are doing more than others”, with Trump expected to rebuke countries including the UK for not making more progress on hitting a target to spend 3.5% GDP on defence by 2035. “We reject these claims. The UK has always met its Nato spending commitments and remains one of the top defence centres in the alliance,” the prime minister’s official spokesperson told reporters, saying he did not expect Starmer to receive a “dressing down” from the US president. The Nato summit, expected to be the last international trip of Starmer’s premiership, may be his final opportunity to rebuild relations with Trump before he steps down, after disagreements over the war with Iran. However, Whitehall officials are concerned he could be sidelined. Starmer will travel to Ankara with less than two weeks left in office, while Andy Burnham, the prime minister in waiting, is in talks with the civil service at home on transition plans. Starmer has been accused of leaving him a £5bn funding gap in his defence investment plan. No 10 insisted that the UK’s contribution to Nato, which is regarded as the cornerstone of UK national security, “will not waver” and that defence spending will rise to 2.7% of GDP by 2027-28 – although there is no firm commitment to hit a 3% interim benchmark by the end of the decade. “In a new era of threat … alongside our allies, the prime minister will be focused on building a stronger and more European Nato than ever before, ready to support Ukraine and face the long-term threat posed by an increasingly reckless and dangerous Russia,” the spokesperson said. Russian military activity around Nato waters had surged, Downing Street said, with a 30% increase in vessels threatening UK waters in the past two years, and Nato has scrambled fighter jets to intercept Russian aircraft approaching allied airspace more than 700 times. “That’s why the UK is committed to building a stronger Europe within Nato – because the safety, stability and prosperity of our citizens depend on it,” they added. Trump will hold bilateral talks at the summit with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, among others, but is only expected to meet Starmer in the main group sessions, or on the sidelines of meetings. But Starmer and other European allies want to set out to Trump how spending pledges will be turned into action, including landing the message with the alliance’s biggest contributor that there will be “fairer burden sharing”. The UK is the third-largest real terms contributor to Nato, behind only the US and Germany, but is 14th out of the 32 alliance countries as a percentage share of GDP. UK officials said there would be a string of defence industry announcements, including joint projects with allies. Despite ongoing tensions with European partners and previous threats that the US might leave Nato entirely, Trump is expected to use the summit to “take stock” of other nations’ expanding defence capabilities, to maintain pressure on them to hit the 5% target.

‘We are Iran’s true missiles’: millions gather in Tehran for day four of Ali Khamenei’s funeral

Iranians poured in vast numbers on to the central thoroughfare of Tehran on the fourth day of mourning for the assassinated former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, claiming their defiance through months of on-off war had only made them stronger as many called for revenge. For those in the procession, it was as much a display of patriotism as mourning: a demonstration that Iran, as an ancient civilisation, had uniquely taken on the world’s greatest superpower and survived. “We the people are Iran’s true missiles,” one banner read. Vengeful chants against the US president, Donald Trump, could be heard while walking down the lightly policed and tree-lined Azadi Street towards Revolution Square. But there were also a sense of quiet release for some of those present, as if this was their first moment to share their survival– a moment to catch breath and continue, proud of Iran’s identity if not their government. “Welcome to our Iran” was the most common greeting to the stranger in their midst. Iranian officials are skilled at putting on a show, and all the ingredients of an Iranian march were on display. Drums and chants filled the air, vast flags were waved from lorrieswhile many placards were written in English and Farsi. Families with children in buggies and elderly people in wheelchairs joined men in “Louis Vuitton” T-shirts, and women with sequined chadors or embroidered black visors on the procession. Everyone was lightly sprayed with water to be cooled from the 36C heat. It was a sharp contrast to the sadness and religiosity of the prayers in the Grand Mosalla mosque at the start of the six-day funeral for Khamenei. “Of course, Iran has won the war, take a look at the population in the streets. If Trump dies today, will people attend his funeral,” asked Fatima Zadeh, who was part of the procession. “I want the war to restart, we want to destroy the oppressors and we are after revenge. These people are here not to mourn and shed tears, they came here to become united and gain strength,” she said. Ali Sayadian, a cleric from Yasuj also showed little sign of forgiveness, and said he had travelled 1,000km to Tehran because he was “indebted” to Khamenei’s leadership that he said had made Iran powerful. “We want revenge,” he said. “Someone has come here and killed our leader in his house with his family, our great man. It is our right to want to exact revenge.” He claimed the procession had a message for the whole world and those who doubted the internal support for the Islamic Republic. “These people you see on the street? You cannot say they are all poor, you cannot say they are all rich, you cannot say they are from one specific geographical location, they have come from all over Iran. This is the voice of the Iranian nation,” he said. Inevitably those that travel miles to attend a funeral of the supreme leader – one expert claimed the average distance was a 1,000 miles – are a self-selecting sample. Those that chose not to attend may have a different view of the choices the supreme leader had required Iran to make in search of its independence. Even those in the procession may have divergent views or their own reasons for attending. One young woman wearing a chador walked alongside me asking under her breath urgently to speak. “Do you know about the shah and the crown prince? There is still a revolution happening. We will not lose. It is not over,” she whispered, before she sensed too many ears may be listening and vanished into the crowd. But others were full of remorse that they had not done more to protect the supreme leader, a man they regarded as a father of the nation. Maryam Ghiyasi, a doctor, said: “Our leaders called on us to keep our head up. We are ashamed because we did not do enough when he was alive. He was a leader that wanted to make Iran strong”. Her husband, Hamid Razavi, an engineer, praised Iran’s leadership for being the first in a 200 hundred years to sign a peace treaty that did not see Iran giving up foreign land. Ali Hovayzavi, a software engineer for accountancy firms, said: “I am here for so many reasons – to make some people hopeful and to make some people hopeless”. He said he had narrowly avoided the bombs in Tehran. “I was not frightened. Everyone somewhere will die and no one except God specifies when and where and how you die. Even if there are many bombs surrounding me, and God does not want me to die, I will not die.” Some in the procession, meanwhile, accosted reporters to say Iran’s leaders now needed to race to build a nuclear weapon. “Would Japan have been attacked at Hiroshima if it had nuclear weapons?” asked Reza Aziz. “Would Russia be safe after the Ukraine invasion? Why is it OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons and not to sign the nuclear non proliferation treaty?” Standing in the shade of a bus stop with a “kill Trump” poster, Mohammad Mousabvi, 50, a gymnastics coach, saw this as a clash of civilisations. “Yes I came to preserve the memory of our imam, but I also came to confront Trump. This road is the pathway of the Islamic civilisation and with the help of God it will prevail over the civilisation of neoliberalism. “We have taught and continued to teach the westerners that western civilisation is nothing but a dead end. The revenge of our leader is through decimating Israel and America for ever. Our civilisation is based on theprophet Mohammed, Moses, Jesus, but the western civilisation is made of the people of Epstein Island.” All this was spoken in a tone of complete equanimity. Moftabva Karbvasi, a professor at the medical school in Isfahan, standing outside Tehran University’s gates, delivered a short dissertation on what he said was the US’s role in building Islamic State in a bid to discredit Islam in the west. “But the world is becoming more familiar with our religion day by day, and we can use this moment when the world looks again at Iran, because for the first time America knows it dare not attack us again,” Karbvasi said.

Hamas offers to hand over authority in Gaza to US-backed administration

Hamas has announced its intention to hand over governing authority in Gaza after two decades in power, and has invited a US-backed interim administration to take over the running of the Palestinian territory. It was not immediately clear how far Monday’s announcement would go towards strengthening an only partially observed ceasefire in Gaza or improving conditions in the besieged coastal strip which is still in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. While announcing that it was ready to hand over security as part of a transition, the Hamas statement made no promise to disarm unilaterally as Israel and the US have demanded. The interim administration to which Hamas has offered to transfer governance, known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), has been blocked from entering Gaza by Israel since its creation in January as part of a US-brokered ceasefire, adding further doubt to the timing of any future handover. Analysts said the Hamas announcement was largely a symbolic gambit aimed at reviving a stalled peace process that has blocked reconstruction and humanitarian relief for Gaza’s surviving 2.1 million population. They also said the move was designed to counter Israeli-led proposals to limit relief, reconstruction and NCAG governance to a tiny proportion of Gaza’s population in purpose-built villages in the roughly 60% of Gaza under direct Israeli army control. The Trump administration has given backing to the plan for which officials have variously referred to as a “humanitarian city”, “alternative safe communities”, or “New Rafah” – but which the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has called a “concentration camp”. Mohammed al-Farra, the head of the Hamas administration, announced his resignation and the handover of power to NCAG. He suggested that Hamas would end its political direction of Gaza governance immediately but that civil servants and public workers would remain in their jobs in a professional capacity pending NCAG’s arrival. “After I have ensured that all necessary preparations have been completed for the handover of the governmental system in the Gaza Strip, I hereby tender my resignation from my positions as chairman of the governmental work follow-up committee in the Gaza Strip and chairman of the governmental emergency committee,” al-Farra wrote, referring to two different titles Hamas adopted for its government in Gaza since its complete seizure of power in 2007. A Hamas spokesperson, Hazem Qassem, told Agence France-Presse: “Hamas has taken a new step in that it will no longer be in charge of the Gaza Strip, in order to remove any pretexts for the occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination.” The prospect of a political transition still appears remote. The NCAG is overseen by the Board of Peace established by Donald Trump as part of a ceasefire plan his administration brokered in October. However, its 13 current members, mostly prominent Palestinian professionals, have been prevented from entering Gaza by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government, and have been stuck in Cairo since being brought together in January. The NCAG chair, Ali Shaath, wrote on social media on Monday that the committee was “fully prepared to assume its national responsibilities as soon as the necessary resources and capabilities are available”. In a report to the UN security council in May, the Trump-appointed high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, pinned blame on Hamas for the impasse in the peace process. Hamas has made clear it will not give up its arms while Israel directly controls more than 60% of Gaza, commits wholesale ceasefire violations and backs Palestinian paramilitary groups inside the territory. Mladenov was widely criticised for lack of impartiality in failing to hold Israel to account for its violations. The Board of Peace’s response to the Hamas declaration on Monday was noncommittal, saying only it had “taken note” of the announcement. “Ultimately, our assessment will be guided by actions, not promises, to meet the critical needs of the people of Gaza,” the board said on its social media account. “The core principle remains one authority, one law and one weapon. This means the consolidation of all weapons under the control of the NCAG,” the statement said. Max Rodenbeck, the Israel-Palestine project director at the International Crisis Group, said: “Given its very limited leverage and the absurdly unending misery in Gaza, and given the Board of Peace’s insistence on conditioning any progress on Hamas’s disarmament, while ignoring Israel’s daily airstrikes and efforts to capture more land, the group is keen to find some way to break the logjam.” He added: “In the absence of any ‘political horizon’ for Palestinians it cannot just lay down its weapons, but it can at least signal its willingness to give up political power. This puts the onus back on the [Board of Peace] to show some flexibility.” The Palestinian Authority and its Arab and European backers are struggling to shape US policy, and persuade the administration to stick to the Trump peace plan envisaging reconstruction and new governance in the whole of the Gaza Strip – rather than just in the Israeli army-run part of it, where there are hardly any Palestinians, as Israel is proposing with support from the United Arab Emirates. “Hamas knows that if NCAG just moves into New Rafah, it would be delegitimised as the ruler of bantustans or a concentration camp,” said Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Hamas is trying to recapture the initiative. They are trying to recapture the initiative and circumvent the roadblock created by the New Rafah plan,” Shehada said. “Even if they agree to disarm unilaterally and do everything they are asked to do, Hamas knows Netanyahu will not allow reconstruction anywhere in Gaza before elections,” he added. The Israeli prime minister is struggling to keep his far-right coalition together before Israel is due to vote by late October and diplomats in the region expect little progress on Gaza’s future at least until then.

Millions join funeral procession for Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei

A crowd of “millions” assembled on Monday for the funeral procession of Iran’s assassinated supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The scale and depth of the march, however engineered, represents an extraordinary turnaround for a country that only seven months ago was gripped by street protests at which thousands of people were killed by government security forces. Many will say the assembly was a monument to a misconceived war launched on Iran by Donald Trump in February. The throng – estimated as millions by state media – moved from east to west, through Tehran from Revolution Square to Azadi Square, after the two-day funeral of the supreme leader and members of his family in the Grand Mosalla mosque in Tehran. The mourners wore black clothing and carried flags bearing the slogan “We will rise”; others held aloft the flag of Iran and pictures of Khamenei. The Tehran metro was packed as people attempted to join the march. They chanted: “Mourning is mourning today, mourning day is today. Martyr Khamenei is before God today.” At the funeral on Sunday, “Kill Trump” was chalked on the stage by the mourners who throughout the ceremony expressed a desire for revenge and personal grief. Khamenei was killed by Israeli bombs in February in an attempt to destabilise and ultimately topple the government. Late on Monday, Khamenei’s body arrived in Qom, where processions will be held on Tuesday before similar events in Shia cities in Iraq. On Sunday, the entire Iranian leadership, depleted by successive Israeli assassinations, turned out for the morning prayer with the one exception of the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late supreme leader and now his appointed successor. Iranian officials said Khamenei’s absence was not due to wounds sustained in Israel’s attack on the presidential building but to concerns for his safety. However, his three grieving brothers attended. In a feat of organisation by the state authorities and the volunteer civic army that fed and housed the mourners, no one was killed – unlike at previous state-linked funerals that rapidly descended into chaos, including that of the previous supreme leader. The Iranian president praised the crowds’ behaviour and expressed hope that the images emerging from Iran would force the west to reflect on its determination to change Iran. Masoud Pezeshkian said: “If I want to say something, only a few Persian speakers will understand it, but the behaviour and presence of the people are understood by the whole world.” Rejecting Trump’s claim that the grief seen at the funeral had been “fake tears”, Pezeshkian said: “This greatness, these tears that flow from the eyes of girls, men, and children, is not something that can be created by order. Tears arise from the pain and sorrow that surges within a person, and the world sees this truth.” More than 300 foreign journalists, in addition to foreign reporters based in Iran, had been granted rare visas to report on the funeral and the display of national cohesion. Pezeshkian, a reformist elected two years ago who has put emphasis on building consensus within Iran’s political elite, said: “I do not accept the interpretation of farewell. It is a covenant for continuing on the path. This is not actually a farewell but rather a pact to continue on the path. “By entering this war, the enemy disrupted the geography of the region, but in fact it strengthened the unity and cohesion among Muslims and even made the people of the world aware of its human rights claims.” The president accused Israel of perpetrating “all the crimes that are taking place in the region … with the support of the United States and European countries”.

Canada to buy 12 hi-tech German submarines after bidding war

Canada has selected a German consortium to build a dozen cutting-edge submarines in one of the country’s largest-ever defence contracts that will further deepen its Nato ties before a crucial summit this week. On Monday the prime minister, Mark Carney, announced the winner of a tightly contested battle for the lucrative government contract to replace its fleet of ageing, secondhand subs, most of which are undergoing maintenance. For months both ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) and the South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean have promised tech-heavy submarines and spillover economic benefits to Canada. The winner, TKMS, is the largest manufacturer of non-nuclear submarines and a key supplier of Nato’s fleet. Canada had previously indicated that both firms’ diesel-electric offerings – the 212CD model sub from TKMS and Hanwha’s KSS-III Batch-II submarine – suited its military needs. The order for 12 submarines marks the first time Canada has bought brand-new vessels. The Royal Canadian Navy now has four submarines that were bought secondhand from Britain in 1998. Of the four Victoria-class subs, three are undergoing maintenance. The new subs will probably be used to help give Canada a stronger foothold in the Arctic. The TKMS vessels are designed to use modern stealth technology to operate in contested areas with minimal detection, and will be able to conduct lengthy surveillance missions in key Arctic routes, including the Northwest Passage. Hanwha’s vessels are substantially larger than the German one, and the company and industry analysts said they would have given Canada a greater ability to deploy powerful weapons and conduct lengthy patrols deep in the ocean. The submarine order itself is estimated to be worth more than US$12bn (£9bn) but the contract also includes roughly half a century of maintenance, meaning the total bill could exceed US$70bn. Canada’s federal government and TKMS will still have to enter into negotiations to finalise the contract, a process that could take years. Carney took a delegation of senior cabinet ministers to visit TKMS’s building facility in Kiel, Germany, last year, and toured a newly built sub at Hanwha’s facility in Geoje, South Korea. Senior officials from both countries also made visits to Canada to sell the broader economic benefits of their respective pitches. German officials made repeated references to a broader compatibility with Nato, and it has been reported that TKMS was hoping to expand the scope of the contract to include possible investments in rare earths, mining, artificial intelligence and battery production for the automotive sector. South Korea is not a Nato member, but Hanwha representatives said the company would use steel from Algoma’s plant in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, to build armoured weaponised military vehicles in Canada. Hanwha also spent millions on a wide-ranging ad campaign, including a voiceover from the prominent Canadian journalist Peter Mansbridge, touting the benefits of its KSS-III. Carney’s Liberal party has committed to dramatically increasing government defence spending, with a pledge to allocate 5% of gross domestic product by 2035. Canada recently announced it hit 2% of GDP, a longstanding target for Nato members. Canada has also suggested it is open to making larger purchases from European contractors, part of a larger push to lessen its reliance on the US. It has already committed to buying 18 American-made Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II jets – a fighter plane long favoured by the Royal Canadian air force for interoperability with the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the binational military organisation shared between Canada and the US. Recent political tensions between the two nations, however, have pushed Ottawa to look at other vendors to help modernise its air force. Canada is weighing the purchase of 72 Saab-made Gripen war planes. The Sweden-based company has said that if Canada buys its latest-generation fighter plane, in addition to six GlobalEye surveillance aircraft the country had already agreed to buy, the deal would create up to 12,600 jobs in Canada, marking another immense defence industrial project for the country. On Monday the secretary general of Nato, Mark Rutte, told reporters that the members of the alliance were about to announce billions in new contracts, calling it the “crucial kit we need to deter and defend”.

Zelenskyy calls for ‘strong decisions’ at Nato summit as Russia kills 21 in overnight strikes on Kyiv – as it happened

We are now closing the blog. Here is your summary of the day so far: At least 22 people were killed and dozens injured in another major Russian attack on Kyiv (17:58), with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy urging Nato leaders to take “strong decisions” and back Ukrainian air defence units (9:44). His comments come a day before the alliance’s annual summit is set to begin in Ankara, Turkey, with Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte telling the media that it will be all about discussions on defence spending and supporting Ukraine (15:53). On the sidelines of the main summit, Zelenskyy is expected to meet with Donald Trump, with the US president suggesting earlier today that ending the Russian aggression on Ukraine is “much closer than people realise” (16:10). 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.