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Middle East crisis live: Iran says it has closed the strait of Hormuz; tanker reports being attacked

The US Central Command (Centcom) said American forces were enforcing a naval blockade of Iranian ports, claiming 23 ships have complied with their orders to turn around. The statement followed Iran’s earlier announcement that it has reimposed “strict control” of the strait of Hormuz over the continuing US blockade. Centcom said since commencement of the blockade on Monday, “23 ships have complied with direction from US forces to turn around”. It continued: “American forces are enforcing a maritime blockade against ships entering or exiting Iranian ports and coastal areas.” It added that Apache helicopters were “flying in and around the strait providing a visible presence in support of freedom of navigation”.

Traders placed over $1bn in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war. What is going on?

Sixteen bets made $100,000 accurately predicting the timing of the US airstrikes against Iran on 27 February. Later, a single user would make over $550,000 after betting that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would topple, just moments before his assassination by Israeli forces. On 7 April, right before Donald Trump announced a temporary ceasefire with Iran, traders bet $950m that oil prices would come down. They did. These bets and other well-timed wagers accurately predicted the precise timing of major developments in the US-Israel war with Iran, creating huge windfalls and raising concerns among lawmakers and experts over potential insider trading. Betting – once largely siloed to sporting events – has now spread to include contracts on news events where insider information could give some traders an advantage. The proliferation of online betting markets like Polymarket and Kalshi has allowed bets on virtually any news event. It’s also easier than ever to buy commodity derivatives like oil futures, where traders gamble on what the price of oil will be in the future. Leaders of some US federal agencies and some members of Congress said they want to crack down on suspicious trading taking place across different marketplaces, but it’s unclear how much leeway regulators will make. “Is the problem that we don’t have legislation or that we don’t have enforcement capabilities?” said Joshua Mitts, a law professor at Columbia University. “To have a law that can’t really be enforced effectively given the technological limitations, it’s sort of putting the cart before the horse.” Perfect timing On the night of 27 February, the day before the US and Israel would carry out strikes on Iran, an unusual influx of about 150 accounts on Polymarket placed bets that the US would strike Iran the next day. A New York Times analysis found the bets totaled $855,000, with 16 accounts pocketing more than $100,000 each. Soon after, a single anonymous Polymarket user, under an account named “Magamyman”, made over $553,000 after betting that Khamenei would be “removed” from power just moments before he was killed by an Israeli airstrike, according to a complaint filed to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that regulates futures markets, by Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group. The complaint also cites a crypto-analytics firm that identified six “suspected insiders” who made a total of $1.2m on Polymarket after Khamenei was killed. The well-timed surge of wagers were seen again on 7 April, when at least 50 Polymarket accounts placed bets that the US and Iran would reach a ceasefire hours before Trump would announce it on a Truth Social post. Earlier, the president had said “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran did not open the strait of Hormuz. But traders weren’t just active on Polymarket: there were similar surges of oil futures trading activity just hours before Trump announced updates to the conflict that would lower oil prices. On 23 March, traders placed $580m in bets on the oil futures market just 15 minutes before Trump said on social media that the US was having “productive” talks with Iran, according to the Financial Times. The traders made a windfall after Trump’s comments triggered a sell-off in the oil markets that made oil prices plummet. The same thing happened again on 7 April, this time when traders spent $950m on oil futures, betting that the price of oil would fall just hours before the ceasefire with Iran was announced. “We can’t say from the outset whether any of these trades were illegal. Any one of them could be lucky, and any one of them could be based on lawful information,” said Andrew Verstein, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. “But many of them bear the hallmarks of suspicious trades that would naturally warrant investigation.” ‘A wild west’ For those who closely follow trading patterns, the rush of activity that happened before these events seem too big to simply be bets hedging on luck. “Not only the timing, but the amount of these bets makes it look very likely that someone had insider knowledge … and placed very, very substantial bets on it,” said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen who filed the group’s complaint to the CFTC. Holman said he is skeptical about how bold the CFTC will be in its investigations given its current structure under the Trump administration. The commission typically has five bipartisan members that are appointed by the president. Now the CFTC has one sole commissioner – Michael Selig, who Trump appointed at the end of 2025 and has positioned himself as friendly toward prediction markets. Over the last few months, the CFTC has been roiled in fights with state legislatures who argue that regulation of these online betting marketplaces belong to the states. Kalshi, Polymarket’s competitor, was temporarily banned in Nevada after the state sued the company for offering contacts in the state without a gambling license. Arizona meanwhile filed criminal charges against the company for allowing people to place bets on elections. In both cases, Kalshi denied any wrongdoing and has argued that the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction over online prediction markets. “It’s a wild west phase, when we’re talking about the prediction market industry, and now it’s spilled over into the stock market as well.” Anonymous sources told Reuters and Bloomberg that the CFTC launched an investigation into the oil futures trades that were placed on 27 March and 7 April, though the agency has not publicly announced it is conducting an investigation. Speaking to Congress this week, Selig said that the agency is prepared to go after those who are suspected of insider trading, warning “we will find you and you will face the full force of the law”, but said that the commission would not issue any new regulations until it has five seated commissioners. Polymarket did not respond to request for comment. In a statement, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said “federal employees are subject to government ethics guidelines that prohibit the use of nonpublic information for financial benefit”. “Any implication that administration officials are engaged in such activity without evidence is baseless and irresponsible reporting,” Ingle said. “The CFTC will always uphold its duty to monitor fraud, manipulation and illicit activity daily.” Risky bets Federal law prohibits government employees, including those working for Congress or the White House, from using non-public information for personal profit. In late March, a bipartisan group of representatives introduced a bill that would ban members of Congress and senior staff within the federal government from participating in prediction market contracts related to political events or policy decisions. But experts warn that insider trading law is complicated, and the new technology that makes it easier to place bets online leaves a complicated paper trail that can be hard to follow. Historically, insider trading takes place when a person uses exclusive information about a company to buy or sell stocks right before information becomes public. These types of illegal trades are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which regulates the stock exchanges. Insider futures trading could be seen as a subset of this typical insider trading, but the territory is new. “The trick is that there are essentially no clean cases of people getting in trouble for commodity futures insider trading,” Verstein said. “The law there is just not well developed.” In a paper published last month, Mitts, the Columbia law professor, and other researchers screened more than 200,000 “suspicious wallet-market pairs” between February 2024 and February 2026 and found that traders in this group achieved a nearly 70% win rate, making $143m in well-timed bets tied to everything from the capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to Taylor Swift’s engagement to Travis Kelce. The paper notes that informed traders face fewer legal constraints by trading on platforms like Polymarket or Kalshi because these markets still operate in a legal gray area. “The challenge here is that this trading is occurring through the blockchain or other anonymized means, so it is going to be quite difficult for a regulator enforcement authority or prosecutor to determine the identity of the trader,” Mitts said. “They would also have to prove the trader traded on the basis of information that had been wrongly misappropriated.” But the stakes are high. Insider trading involving classified military information can lead to distrust of both markets and governments. “Unlike corporate insider trading, there’s a lot of ways for the government to make itself be correct. You can just make the war that would occur, and that’s concerning because then the real economy is being distorted,” Verstein said. “Real decisions, including perhaps financial decisions, are being distorted by financial bets.”

Hungary’s incoming PM seeks Polish help to renew EU relations

The Hungarian election winner, Péter Magyar, is eyeing a special relationship with Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk to draw on the neighbouring country’s experience of repairing relations with the EU after years of illiberal rule. Since 1989, the two countries have seemingly shared parallels in their paths. Now the two centre-right, pro-European leaders preside over the tricky task of restoring the rule of law and improving state institutions after years of democratic backsliding and clashes with the EU. The leaders spoke on election night, with a jubilant Tusk calling Magyar from Korea: “I’m so happy. I think I am even happier than you, you know?” Tusk told reporters the next morning: “First Warsaw, then Bucharest, Chișinău, and now Budapest. This part of Europe is showing that we are not condemned to corrupt and authoritarian rule.” Visibly relieved, he added: “A weight has been lifted off my shoulders, because I was worried until the very end.” Magyar swiftly repaid the compliments. Speaking at a press conference with Hungarian flags flanked by EU flags, he spoke about a “special relationship” with Poland, and picked Warsaw for his first foreign trip in office. He also confirmed plans to move quickly against two former Polish ministers hiding in Budapest from prosecution over alleged abuses of power, saying they should not “go and buy furniture in Ikea, because they are not staying long”. The ministers had served in Poland’s rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) government, which lost power to Tusk’s Civic Coalition in 2023. On Friday, it emerged the new parliament could be inaugurated and Magyar sworn in on 9 May, which is celebrated by the EU as “Europe Day”. The partnership between the two leaders could play a pivotal role in bringing Budapest back to the main fold of European politics. Once Magyar replaces the outgoing leader, Viktor Orbán, at the European Council, Tusk will become the most experienced leader at the table. His support and counsel could prove helpful in talks with the bloc. On Friday, EU officials held their first informal talks with the incoming administration in Budapest. Brussels will want Magyar to drop Hungary’s block on a €90bn loan to Ukraine and to agree new sanctions against Russia as an early signal of political realignment. Hungary will also be expected to meet several conditions related to its institutions, judiciary system, checks on corruption, asylum laws and academic freedoms. Behind the scenes, Polish and Hungarian officials are already talking about how Poland’s recent efforts to reverse years of illiberal rule could apply to Hungary. In 2023, the Civic Coalition ousted the rightwing populist PiS, and managed to successfully unlock billions in frozen EU funds. The informal talks, launched in early 2026, months before the election, were “essentially about salvaging as much as possible of what would be otherwise lost under Orbán”, said one senior Polish official involved in the process. But the clock is ticking as Hungary will have to hit its “super milestones” by the end of August to access the first tranche of €10.4bn. About €2.12bn has already been lost permanently. The Polish officials, granted anonymity to talk about the confidential process, said they hoped swift progress could be made, but told their Hungarian partners “promises will not be enough; they will have to actually change things - and quickly”. One source said: “There is always a political element to these talks, but there is no way around the fact that their paperwork will need to be in order.” Magyar’s landslide win and constitutional two-thirds majority in the parliament should make the process smoother than in Poland, where changes were thwarted by looming veto power of opposition presidents, but will still “require work 24/7 to get it done on time,” they said. While the Hungarian president does not hold similarly far-reaching prerogatives, Magyar has already urged Tamás Sulyok, a close Orbán ally, to resign or face being removed from office as he does not wish to take risks and wants a symbolic break from the regime. Magyar’s pledge to join the European public prosecutor’s office and investigate the corruption and fraud of Orbán’s 16 years in power is also seen as a key element of the changes. Poland drafted its application to join the EPPO on the first day of new government. Adam Bodnar, Poland’s justice minister until July last year, said the fact talks were taking place before Magyar’s government was sworn in was not surprising. “You don’t really wait for day one of the government,” he told the Guardian at his Warsaw office. “We had some relations with the commission essentially for two weeks before the cabinet was formed, so I bet that Magyar’s people are already on the line … wondering how this can be done.” With the two-third majority, “when they present an action plan, they will be actually able deliver on all of it. We could not … and that is why we are left to look for sometimes quite acrobatic solutions.” But some of Poland’s problems could still be relevant to Hungary as officials sought to overhaul systems rife with illiberalism, Bodnar said. “You can reform institutions, put in new judges, or hold competitions for top jobs, but in the end there still will be people who have been part of the system for these 16 years and cannot be replaced overnight,” he said. “So there is always a question of what effect [the Orbán era] will have on the mentality of state officials, prosecutors and judges.”

Norwegian politicians hope Epstein files inquiry will restore faith in democracy

The Epstein files have shaken Norway’s faith in democracy, the head of the Norwegian parliament’s oversight committee has said, as a sprawling investigation into the connections between its foreign office and the late sex offender gets under way. An independent commission to look into information brought to light by the Jeffrey Epstein documents released by the US Department of Justice was launched on Wednesday after the Norwegian parliament voted unanimously last month for it to be set up. The commission has been instructed to go back more than 30 years, to include the lead-up to the 1993-95 Oslo accords, examining relationships between Epstein and his network and current or former Norwegian politicians and civil servants. The commission will look at whether these relationships had any “consequences for Norwegian interests and security”. It is also mandated to look at Norwegian campaigning for leadership positions in international organisations and the allocation of development aid and other public funding to them. The release of the Epstein files in January sent shockwaves through Norway after several figures across the foreign office and royal family were named in them. Per-Willy Amundsen, the chair of the standing committee on scrutiny and constitutional affairs in parliament, which appointed the independent investigation into the Epstein files, said Norwegians typically saw themselves as “an open and democratic and well- functioning society without corruption”. But the Epstein files had damaged trust in politicians in the eyes of most people, he added. “So in a sense it has struck us very hard. And therefore we are completely dependent on having to try to build that trust again,” he said. “And therefore it is very important to have a completely independent commission that gets very free hands, protection by law, to find the facts and present them to the Storting [parliament].” Several police investigations are already under way, and the commission will pass on any relevant information they discover to the police. Amundsen, who is a member of the far-right Progress party (Fremskrittspartiet), said: “It is very central people in the Norwegian political establishment [who are named in the Epstein files] and we have to find out how deep this runs. And also find all the facts so that people can rebuild their trust in Norwegian institutions.” There are fears the Epstein files could have an impact on Norway’s international reputation as a peace broker and advocate of peace. “This is very much something that should worry, and worries many, in Norway,” said Amundsen. “We have had this reputation internationally and this is a case that may change that view of Norway. But also, therefore, it is very important to find the facts and pursue the truth, to get that trust in the people, but also in foreign relations.” The commission will not, however, be looking into crown princess Mette-Marit’s involvement with Epstein, which the constitution stipulates is not a matter for parliament. But, Amundsen said, their findings may well have political ramifications, particularly for the ruling Labour party. “They have been the party that has been most in government since the last world war, they have a broad network of people in diplomacy and have been ruling the ministry of foreign affairs for very many years,” he added. Speaking last month, the Labour prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, said the Epstein files had clearly shown “it is possible to buy and abuse influence if you are rich enough”. Støre said that connections between Norwegians in “trusted and central positions” had been “proven” in the Epstein files, adding: “Reasonable questions have been raised about whether the links are in violation of the law and many aspects of society’s ethical regulations. “It is crucial that these circumstances and the questions they raise are clarified, and that the facts are brought to the table.”

As Meloni’s hold over Italy weakens, a progressive challenger gathers momentum in Genoa

It has been a turbulent month in Italian politics. A failed referendum on a judicial overhaul pierced prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s aura of invincibility, triggering government resignations and leaving her scrambling to restore credibility. At the same time, her once special relationship with Donald Trump has frayed after the US president publicly scolded her this week for criticising his broadside against Pope Leo and for not supporting the US-Israeli war on Iran. As the drama played out in Rome, a very different scene was taking shape in the northern Italian city of Genoa. More than 20,000 people filled the central Piazza Matteotti last weekend for a free performance by the award-winning Belgian techno DJ Charlotte de Witte. It was more than just a party. Dancing on stage with De Witte was Genoa’s sunglasses-clad mayor, Silvia Salis, a former Olympic hammer thrower widely mooted as a plausible challenger to Meloni in the next general election. Footage of the event rapidly circulated online, amplifying Salis’s profile. “She’s been a breath of fresh air,” said Giulia Bianchi, a business consultant from Genoa. “She’s especially well liked for injecting some youthful energy into a dormant and demographically old city.” Salis, 40, was elected mayor of Genoa less than a year ago, clinching a key victory for the opposition in the sprawling port city, which had previously been under rightwing rule for eight years. A progressive unaffiliated to any party, she held a senior role at Italy’s Olympic Committee before being asked to stand for mayor by an alliance of leftwing and centrist forces. Her success immediately positioned her as a potential unifier at national level. Although the opposition has been invigorated by Meloni’s referendum setback, which many saw as a broad rejection of her government, it remains fragmented and has no clear leader to credibly take on the prime minister in the next election, which is due to take place before October 2027. Elly Schlein, who heads the Democratic party, the biggest opposition party, and Giuseppe Conte, the former prime minister who leads the Five Star Movement, are expected to fight it out in primaries once the alliance has agreed to a programme. But neither of them hold much appeal among Italian voters as potential prime ministers. Salis, who competed in two Olympics and has the five-circle logo tattooed on her neck, had promised to complete her mandate as mayor, but in a recent interview with Bloomberg appeared open to entering the playing field. “It’s clear I can’t escape this national attention, I can’t dodge the questions. It’s an interesting thing, it flatters me,” she said. Although she said she would not take part in any primaries, she would contemplate leading the opposition if asked. “In the face of a unifying request I can’t say I wouldn’t even consider it. That’d be lying.” The techno party didn’t happen by chance. Genoa’s council footed the bill as part of Salis’s strategy to use public space for free events to promote social inclusion and urban renewal, especially for younger residents. The party was also symbolic, contrasting with Meloni’s “anti-rave” decree, which clamped down on unauthorised gatherings in one of the first laws enacted by her government after coming to power in October 2022. Since becoming mayor, Salis’s other priorities have included revitalising the economy of the once-powerful maritime republic, improving public transport and combating crime. Salis raised her profile through her participation in protests last autumn against the war in Gaza, and by supporting port workers who blocked shipments of weapons destined for Israel. “She just really put herself out there, in stark comparison with Meloni, who never expressed a position one way or another,” said Bianchi. “I find her really refreshing and promising.” Davide Ghiglione, a Genoa-born journalist, said Salis has strong appeal mainly because she is making young people a priority. “Genoa is a city with one of the oldest populations in Europe and previous administrations have been accused of forgetting young people.” “She’s young, she’s dynamic,” said Ghiglione. “She didn’t come from a political background, but she’s an excellent communicator and uses social media well.” Salis is also admired for the way she has handled sexist comments and criticism, including those over her dancing in Manolo Blahnik heels, to which she responded by saying she supports leftwing values but just wants to dress well. Bianchi said taking aim at Salis for her shoes was clearly a sign of desperation from those trying to eclipse her rising star. “She wears a pair of Blahniks – is that the best they can do? How pathetic.”

Venezuela’s Machado to hold Madrid rally as opposition frozen out after Maduro capture

Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado, will seek to revive her push for political change with a rally in Madrid on Saturday, having found herself sidelined by Donald Trump after the abduction of the president Nicolás Maduro. “Venezuela will be free,” the Nobel peace prize winner insisted in an interview on the eve of this weekend’s demonstration in the Puerta del Sol square, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of protesters. Supporters had hoped Machado, whose movement is widely believed to have beaten Maduro in Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election, would take power after US troops captured her autocratic rival on 3 January. Instead, Trump backed Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, in exchange for concessions involving Venezuela’s vast oil and mineral resources. “We’re very happy with the president-elect that we have right now,” Trump said earlier this month, despite Rodríguez not having been elected. Machado, who slipped out of Venezuela last December to receive her Nobel peace prize in Oslo, has been unable to return since Maduro’s capture, with Washington seemingly concerned her presence could cause social upheaval, and scupper Trump’s plans to exploit its oil reserves. In Machado’s absence, Rodríguez has consolidated power, purging key Maduro allies from government and attempting to portray herself as a competent technocrat capable of reviving the moribund economy. The streets of Caracas feature campaign-style propaganda posters stamped with Rodríguez’s face and the slogan: “Onwards, Delcy, you have my trust.” In a recent interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, Rodríguez’s brother, the powerful national assembly chief, Jorge Rodríguez, declined to say when fresh elections may be held. “The most important thing right now is the economy,” he said. Members of Machado’s movement have grown increasingly frustrated at being frozen out of their country’s political future and the lack of a democratic transition after Maduro’s downfall. Tom Shannon, a veteran US diplomat who has worked on Venezuela since the 1990s, said: “Every day that [Rodríguez] is there, is a day that the democratic opposition is not there … and it’s devastating for the opposition.” Shannon, who was secretary of state John Kerry’s roving envoy in Latin America, said Trump’s decision to attack Iran had boosted Rodríguez’s hopes of retaining power. “The pressure’s off now because all of our military attention is directed elsewhere and there just isn’t the bandwidth to keep the pressure on in Venezuela,” he said, noting how Washington was “rehabilitating” Rodríguez by lifting sanctions against her and issuing licences to stimulate US investment. Speaking at a recent conference in Miami, the Machado ally Omar González complained that two crucial elements had been forgotten by those spearheading what the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, had called Washington’s three-step plan for “stabilisation, recovery and transition”. One was the will of the Venezuelan people, who no longer wanted Rodríguez’s “gang of criminals in power”. The other was the country’s constitution, which requires elections to be held within seven months of a president’s absence. González said he believed the way to “unlock” the situation was for Machado to return from exile, something he claimed she and other opposition activists would soon do. “To draw a perhaps slightly over-the-top analogy, [it will be] a sort of Normandy landing,” González said, predicting Venezuelan exiles would simultaneously return by land, air and sea to fight for democracy. Quite when, or how, Machado will return remains a mystery, as does the reception she will receive from Rodríguez’s regime. In a recent interview, Delcy Rodríguez said the conservative politician would have to be “held accountable” if she did return. Walter Molina, a Venezuelan political scientist who lives in Argentina, said he had no doubt life had improved in Venezuela since the end of Maduro’s “absolute tyranny”, albeit not enough, with more than 500 political prisoners still behind bars and Maduro’s allies still in power. “If we were 50 floors below ground before, we are 35 floors below ground now … And if María Corina Machado returns I think we’ll be getting close to the ground floor,” he said. “[Before] it was impossible to see a way out. Now you can see one. The question now is: how far away is this way out? And how far are we from the light at the end of the tunnel?” Earlier this week, Machado met the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Dutch prime minister, Rob Jetten. But despite the high-profile nature of Saturday’s rally, Machado said there were no plans to meet Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, during her time in Madrid. Sánchez, an outspoken critic of Donald Trump’s recent military interventions in Venezuela and Iran, questioned the legality of the US’s actions in the South American country after it seized Maduro. Machado, in contrast, has thanked Trump for intervening and presented him with her gold Nobel peace prize medal. Speaking to Spain’s Cope radio station on Wednesday, Machado said that securing Venezuela’s return to freedom and democracy was “the most important objective”. She added: “There are times when holding certain meetings to that end are appropriate and there are times when they’re not appropriate, and that’s why there’s no meeting planned at this time.” Sánchez will be attending a meeting of progressive leaders from around the world in Barcelona this weekend. However, on Friday Machado did meet Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of Spain’s conservative People’s party, and Santiago Abascal, the leader of the far-right Vox party.

Russian blogger’s fierce critique of Kremlin goes viral: ‘People are afraid of you’

The Kremlin is grappling with the fallout from the viral spread of a celebrity blogger’s criticism of Russian authorities, as Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings register their sixth consecutive weekly decline. Victoria Bonya, a household name in Russia who rose to fame in 2006 on Dom-2, the country’s answer to the reality TV show Big Brother, posted a video on Monday warning the Russian president that a string of mounting problems risked spiralling out of control. “The people are afraid of you, artists are afraid, governors are afraid,” she said, in the 18-minute video on Instagram, which has garnered 26m views and more than 1.3m likes in the past four days. She rattled off a list of issues she said no regional governor would dare raise with Putin directly: flooding in Dagestan, oil pollution along the Black Sea coast, livestock culls in Siberia, internet blackouts and a squeeze on small businesses from rising prices and taxes. “You know what the risk is?” asked Bonya, who lives outside Russia. “That people will stop being afraid, and they’re being squeezed into a coiled spring, and that one day that coiled spring will shoot out.” Moscow on Thursday took the unusual step of publicly acknowledging the sharp criticism, saying work was under ‌way to address problems identified by Bonya. The influencer’s comments notably stopped short of directly targeting Putin himself or the war in Ukraine, prompting speculation that the intervention may have been coordinated with Moscow to signal that public grievances are being heard before parliamentary elections later this year. The approach fits a familiar Kremlin playbook: casting Putin as the “good tsar” kept in the dark by errant officials. The narrative has helped the president deflect blame for the country’s problems on to subordinates, preserving his personal standing even as discontent grows. Political analysts, however, said the outburst was unlikely to have been coordinated, but rather reflected a spontaneous reaction to simmering discontent across the country. “War fatigue is really starting to set in,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a Moscow-based political scientist and author of a recent book on Putin’s ideology. “It is beginning to click in people’s minds that everything that is happening is a consequence of the war.” Kolesnikov added that it had become increasingly difficult for the authorities to explain away the war’s impact on everyday life, from the economic slowdown to tightening internet restrictions. Abbas Galyamov, an exiled former Putin adviser, said public appeals from Russian celebrities such as Bonya could lead to further discontent among society. “Bonya is bringing a fundamentally new audience into the opposition camp that wasn’t there before,” he said. “Their dissatisfaction is also growing, there are problems with the internet, prices in stores are rising, the war is getting on their nerves. The state is intruding into their private lives,” he said. Putin’s approval and trust ratings have slipped to their lowest levels since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, according to a string of recent opinion polls from state and independent organisations. At a meeting with top officials on Wednesday, the president tacitly acknowledged strains in the economy, pressing the government and the central bank to explain why performance has fallen short of expectations this year. Putin is also facing simmering anger from the hawkish community of pro-war bloggers, some of whom embed with frontline units, who have grown increasingly frustrated with Moscow’s slow progress on the battlefield and mounting losses. Andrey Filatov, a reporter for Russia Today, wrote this week: “Actual losses are either concealed entirely or spread out over time, creating the impression at the top that the situation is not so critical. As a result, the army is not adapting.”

Young Bulgarians hold out for change in eighth election in five years

Anna Bodakova’s days tend to be rather hectic at the moment. Hopping between meeting voters on the street, political debates and recording videos for social media, the 23-year-old is standing to become an MP in Bulgaria’s general election. Last year she was among the many young Bulgarians who participated in countrywide mass protests over the government’s economic policies and perceived failure to tackle corruption. Those protests ultimately resulted in the resignation of the prime minister, Rosen Zhelyazkov, and his cabinet in December. Bodakova, a recent sociology graduate from Sofia University, is standing for the pro-European We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) coalition. “The protest is only half of the work,” she said. “I’m a firm believer in the parliamentary republic. I’m a firm believer in the democratic process. I want to turn what was expressed in the protest into laws and into rules.” On Sunday, four months after the government’s resignation, Bulgarians will head to the polls for the eighth time in five years. Like Bodakova, many Bulgarians born around the turn of the millennium hope their country can surf on the protests’ wave and finally, after years of political turbulence, take a decisive step towards a more democratic, pro-European and corruption-free future. But the hopes of this generation look likely to collide sharply with the ambition of the former president Rumen Radev – known for his pro-Russian rhetoric and opposition to Bulgaria’s adoption last year of the euro, as well as to military support for Ukraine – to become prime minister. Compared by some to Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s recently defeated rightwing populist, Radev is leading in the polls, buoyed up by the support of older, rural voters who hope he can smash what he calls an “oligarchy” of corrupt veteran politicians. For voters like Aleksandar Tanev, 22, Radev is not a credible option. The law student believes Radev, who resigned as president in order to run in this election, “is part of this same model” of politicians and “had the opportunity to use the caretaker governments to fight this mafia” as president but did not. Dimitar Keranov, a Bulgarian fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s European resilience programme in Berlin, said voters were split along broadly generational lines. “I don’t think [Radev] would be a straightforward vote for young Bulgarians, because I think he represents the same status quo young Bulgarians would like to see dismantled,” he said. “He’s representing the same old guard or the usual political elite.” A victory for Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria (PB), a left-leaning but Moscow-friendly coalition, could prove another headache for Brussels and its allies just as the EU breathes a sigh of relief over Orbán’s demise. On Wednesday, amid concern over the rising cost of living, Radev took aim at the previous government for its introduction of the euro “without asking” voters. “And now, when you pay your bills, always remember which politicians promised you that you would be in the ‘club of the rich’,” he said. In July 2023, his apparent sympathy with the Kremlin prompted a scolding by Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Sofia’s presidential palace. “You would say ‘Putin, please grab Bulgarian territory?’” asked the Ukrainian president. Last year Radev said EU support for Ukraine was a “doomed cause”, and last month he criticised a security agreement signed between Ukraine and Bulgaria. In a recent interview, he said Bulgaria’s status as “the only member state of the European Union that is both Slavic and Eastern Orthodox” meant it could be “a very important link in this whole mechanism … to restore relations with Russia”. Bulgaria, a country of 6.5 million people sandwiched in the south-east corner of Europe between Greece and Romania, has struggled to find a way out of a long-running political crisis in which successive weak coalitions have failed to survive and trust in democratic elections has waned. The political turmoil, alongside allegations of endemic corruption and a captured judiciary, have contributed to historically low trust among voters in their governments and institutions – and election fatigue. The turnout at the last election in 2024 was just 39%, suggesting many did not see a point in casting their ballot. The run-up to the election on Sunday has been chaotic. Parties have accused each other of wanting to steal the election, several hundred people have been arrested and at least €1m has been seized in police operations against alleged vote-buying. Meanwhile, the Sofia-based Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) has said the country has been targeted by a disinformation campaign spreading pro-Russian and anti-western content, highlighting its vulnerability to outside threats. Some analysts believe the Hungarian election, in which Orbán’s defeat after 16 years in power was caused at least in part by high numbers of young people coming out to vote for his opponent, will prove a galvanising force in Bulgaria. Asen Lazarov, 26, a co-founder of Active Politics, an NGO that aims to make politics more accessible, said he was hopeful of a higher turnout than last time. “We believe that once you increase voter turnout, no matter which party goes to power, they will feel more responsibility towards the people, towards the institutions,” he said. “And once we get higher voter turnout, the power of manipulated votes goes down.” Others are less optimistic. Polls show Radev’s PB is leading with about 30% of the vote but is likely to fall far short of an outright majority, meaning he will probably have to form a coalition that could well end prematurely, leading to yet another election. Keranov said: “Honestly, I highly doubt that these elections right now will produce any real change.” Tanev, however, cautioned that ousting an entrenched political elite was necessarily a lengthy process. “That’s not ‘five protests, one election and Bulgaria’s a democratic, normal country’,” he said. “No, that’s a very long-term fight. This election is a very good opportunity. We need to try to decrease the influence of this status quo.”