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Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv’s forces made fastest battlefield gains since 2023, analysis finds

Ukraine recaptured 201 sq km from Russia between Wednesday and Sunday last week, taking advantage of a Starlink shutdown for Russian forces, according to an Agence France-Presse analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The recaptured area (78 sq miles) is almost equivalent to the Russian gains for the entire month of December and is the most land retaken by Kyiv’s forces in such a short period since a June 2023 counteroffensive. The recaptured land is concentrated mainly to the east of the city of Zaporizhzhia, in an area where Russian troops have made significant progress since mid-2025. “These Ukrainian counterattacks are likely leveraging the recent block on Russian forces’ access to Starlink, which Russian milbloggers (military bloggers) have claimed is causing communications and command and control issues on the battlefield,” said the ISW thinktank. On 5 February, military observers noted disruption of the Starlink antennas used by Moscow on the front lines, following announcements by Elon Musk of “measures” to end the Kremlin’s use of this technology, the AFP report said. Kyiv claimed that Russian drones were using them in particular to circumvent electronic jamming systems and strike their targets with precision. Ukraine’s anti-corruption police accused an ex-energy minister on Monday of helping launder kickbacks and stashing millions offshore, a day after he was detained trying to leave the country in a case that has shaken Kyiv’s wartime government. The arrest of German Galushchenko was the first major development for months in the “Midas” bribery case, which has loomed over Ukraine’s domestic politics since last year by reaching into President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s inner circle. In unveiling the accusations against Galushchenko, Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency Nabu said it was working with 15 foreign jurisdictions to expand its investigation. Galushchenko has denied any wrongdoing. Donald Trump said he hoped Ukraine reached a deal with Russia “fast” ahead of Tuesday’s trilateral talks in Geneva. “Ukraine better come to the table fast,” the US president said late on Monday. Senior Ukrainian and Russian officials are to meet for the second round of talks brokered by the Trump administration days before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The two-day meeting in Switzerland starting on Tuesday is expected to mirror negotiations held earlier this month in Abu Dhabi, with representatives from Washington, Kyiv and Moscow in attendance, reported Luke Harding and Pjotr Sauer. Despite renewed US efforts to revive diplomacy, hopes for any sudden breakthrough remain low, with Russia continuing to press maximalist demands on Ukraine. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence showed more Russian attacks on energy targets lay ahead and that such strikes made it more difficult to reach an agreement on ending the war. “Intelligence reports show that Russia is preparing further massive strikes against energy infrastructure so it is necessary to ensure that all air defence systems are properly configured,” he said in his nightly video address on Monday. Zelenskyy also said Russian attacks were “constantly evolving” and resorting to a combination of weapons, including drones and missiles, requiring “special defence and support from our partners”. Civilian casualties in Ukraine caused by bombing soared by 26% during 2025, reflecting increased Russian targeting of cities and infrastructure in the country, according a global conflict monitoring group. Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said 2,248 civilians were reported killed and 12,493 injured by explosive violence in Ukraine according to English-language reports – with the number of casualties an incident rising significantly, reports Dan Sabbagh. An average of 4.8 civilians were reported killed or injured in each strike, 33% more than in 2024, with the worst attack taking place in Dnipro on 24 June.

‘I just want to stop hearing about it’: a weary South Korea awaits verdict on Yoon insurrection charges

South Korea is awaiting one of the most consequential court rulings in decades this week, with judges due to deliver their verdict on insurrection charges against the former president Yoon Suk Yeol and prosecutors demanding the death penalty. When Yoon stands in courtroom 417 of Seoul central district court on Thursday to hear his fate, which will be broadcast live, he will do so in the same room where the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan was sentenced to death three decades ago. The charge is formally the same. Last time, it took almost 17 years and a democratic transition to deliver a verdict. This time, it has taken 14 months. Chun’s death sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment on appeal, and he was eventually pardoned. Under the country’s criminal code, the charge of leading an insurrection carries three possible sentences: death, life imprisonment with labour, or life imprisonment without labour. South Korea has not carried out an execution since 1997, so in practice a death sentence would mean permanent exclusion from society with no possibility of parole. But as the ruling approaches, there is a sense of exhaustion and division in South Korea as the months-long saga, in which 27 people have been indicted over the martial law crisis, continues. Dowon Kim, a 32-year-old office worker in Seoul, no longer discusses politics with friends, some of whom still support Yoon. “Society is too exhausted,” he says, “and my energy feels wasted trying to persuade them.” South Korea has now impeached two presidents in under a decade, and Kim says people simply want to move past the cycle: “Those who should be punished should be punished, and we need to move forward.” Song Ji-won, a 24-year-old student in Incheon, west of Seoul, says what happened was a national embarrassment. “I just want to stop hearing about it.” The K-pop light stick protests that once brought millions on to the streets have long subsided. Maga-inspired pro-Yoon rallies have dwindled to the fringes. At a recent gathering where 2,300 registered supporters were expected, about 20 appeared. The political fallout has been devastating for the People Power party, which has been unable to divorce itself from Yoon’s legacy. It polled at just 22% last week, according to Gallup Korea, against 44% for the ruling Democratic party. From martial law to impeachment in 11 days On the night of 3 December 2024, prosecutors allege Yoon declared martial law and attempted to use military force to paralyse the legislature, arrest political opponents and seize control of the national election commission. Yoon said he was rooting out “anti-state forces” and alleged election fraud. Prosecutors allege he had plotted for more than a year, strategically placing loyalists in key military positions. It was the first emergency martial law declaration in the country in 44 years, shattering the assumption that military rule was a relic of South Korea’s authoritarian past. The response to Yoon’s move was swift. Within hours, 190 lawmakers broke through military and police cordons around parliament to pass an emergency resolution lifting martial law. Parliament impeached Yoon within 11 days. The constitutional court removed him from office four months later. Three separate special prosecutors were appointed, and across their investigations more than 120 people have been indicted, from the president himself to cabinet ministers, military commanders and intelligence chiefs. Despite the relative quiet in the build-up to this week’s court ruling, the weight of the moment is not lost on South Koreans. Over the past few weeks, they have watched as the courts established key legal findings through related cases. On 16 January, Yoon received five years for obstructing his own arrest. Days later, the former prime minister Han Duck-soo was given 23 years in a ruling that formally found the events of 3 December constituted insurrection, describing it as a “self-coup” by elected power more dangerous than traditional uprisings. The sentence far exceeded prosecutors’ 15-year demand, signalling judicial willingness to impose severe penalties. On 12 February, the former interior minister Lee Sang-min was jailed for seven years for his role in the insurrection, including relaying Yoon’s orders to cut power and water to media outlets. But Thursday’s verdict rests with a different presiding judge. The insurrection findings in the earlier cases, while significant, do not bind this panel. It will make its own determination on whether 3 December crossed the criminal threshold for insurrection. Sangchin Chun, a professor of sociology at Sogang university, said the final blow to Yoon’s movement may not be the verdict itself but whether people feel their daily lives improving under the president, Lee Jae Myung. “Ending the insurrection seems to have become less a legal matter than an everyday economic one,” he said. Lee, who has focused heavily on bread-and-butter issues such as the cost of living and housing, maintains a solid approval rating of 63%. In Yoon’s last court appearance, he characterised the investigation as a “political conspiracy”, described martial law as having “enlightened” citizens, and offered no apology. At one point, he appeared to laugh as prosecutors demanded the death penalty. Prosecutors have cited a complete lack of remorse as an aggravating factor. Under South Korean sentencing principles, genuine repentance is a formal legal consideration. He faces further legal battles: six additional criminal trials, two of which stem from the martial law crisis, including a treason indictment for allegedly ordering drone incursions into North Korean airspace to provoke a confrontation that could justify military rule. For South Korea, the verdict will mark the culmination of one of the most extensive exercises in democratic accountability against a former head of state in its history, with the court also handing down judgments against seven co-defendants including senior military and police officials implicated in the plot. Many of those watching will have lived through the authoritarian era of the 1980s that the 2024 martial law declaration so starkly echoed. The democratic guardrails they fought to build are being tested. By Thursday afternoon, the country will know whether they have held.

Two British skiers killed in French Alps named

Two British skiers who died in an avalanche in the French Alps have been named as Stuart Leslie and Shaun Overy. The pair were part of a group of five people, accompanied by an instructor, skiing off-piste in Val d’Isère in south-east France on Friday when they were swept away by falling snow. A French national who was skiing alone was also killed, while another British skier survived. France’s national weather service had issued a red alert for avalanche risk on Thursday – only the third time such a warning has been given in the 25 years since the system was introduced, according to Le Monde. Leslie, 46, who regularly posted on social media about his skiing adventures, is believed to have been friends with Overy, 51, who ran a plumbing company in Wimbledon. Paying tribute to Leslie on social media, friend Craig Hunter said: “We have lost a true legend – our beautiful Stuart.” “He lived life to the absolute maximum – he packed 10 men’s lives into one. He squeezed everything out of every moment. “When we skied together, he was at his happiest. He always said there was no better feeling in life, skiing fresh powder was pure freedom.” Benoît Bachelet, the Albertville prosecutor, said a manslaughter investigation had been launched. The ski instructor, who was uninjured, tested negative for drugs. This incident follows the death of another British skier in his 50s in an avalanche at the nearby La Plagne resort in January. Thirteen backcountry skiers, climbers and hikers died in the Italian mountains in the first week of February amid unstable snow conditions. A train was derailed by a snow slide in Switzerland on Monday as large areas of the western Alps remained under a high risk of avalanche.

The patience and the poker face: Iran’s wily diplomat set to face the US in nuclear talks

If the US and Iran are to avoid a regional war, both sides need to start to make concessions at talks in Geneva on Tuesday, and also to accommodate one another’s very different bargaining styles. The Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, steeped in almost 15 years of Iranian nuclear talks, is a near lifelong diplomat who has written a book on the art of negotiations that reveals the secrets of the Iranian diplomatic trade – the feints, the patience, the poker faces. He has a bachelor’s degree from Iran’s faculty of international relations, a master’s degree in political science from Islamic Azad University and a doctorate in political thought from the University of Kent in the UK. Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff studied law at Hofstra, a university on Long Island near New York, before making his fortune in property development. While Araghchi, much more a consensus figure inside Iranian politics than his famous predecessor Javad Zarif, will have gameplanned the parameters of what Iran can offer in endless consultations across the spectrum of government, including the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Witkoff works to a shifting brief devised by one man. Trump sees diplomacy as a branch of pro-wrestling. The Iranian foreign ministry regards it as a branch of chess, almost an art form. Indeed, for those in the US who claim Iran loves to play for time and spin a negotiation out, Araghchi’s book, The Power of Negotiation, provides some support. “The main principle of bargaining is practice: repetition, repetition, and repetition – combined with steadfastness and persistence. Insisting on positions and repeating demands is a necessity that must be done each time with different rhetoric and reasoning,” he writes. Born into a family of merchants – his grandfather was a carpet trader – he argues Iranian diplomacy reflects the country’s bazaars. “The Iranian negotiation style is generally known in the world as the ‘market style’, which means continuous and tireless bargaining. It requires a lot of time and energy, and he who gets tired and bored quickly will lose.” More theoretically, he argues in the book – written when out of office in 2014 – that when a negotiator enters the room, their true power rests on the level of national cohesion back home and the country’s military strength. If there is not at least a balance of power with your adversary, he argues it is best to decline talks until there is equilibrium, something Iran did after the bombing of its nuclear sites in June last year. Nevertheless, the Iranian tendency to say “Yes, but” can go far. Famously, Araghchi reduced his US counterpart Wendy Sherman to tears of frustration – something he regrets. Araghchi, who has already had six rounds of direct and indirect talks in two phases with Witkoff also discloses how vital it is to remain opaque. “The face of a skilled diplomat is inscrutable, and it is impossible to catch any emotion from it. The ability to control the expression of emotions on the face is not easy and requires continuous work and practice.” Providing your adversary with a graceful way out, he argues, is integral to diplomacy, describing this as providing “the Golden Bridge”, a term he has picked up from China (Araghchi spent four years as ambassador to Japan). This suggests that if Trump ends up accepting a version of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal from which he walked out in 2018, Araghchi will not be triumphalist. “Diplomacy is not a game that you must necessarily win, but a process where you must necessarily understand the other side,” he writes. Married twice, and with five children, Araghchi is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war and maintains close relations with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC, unlike his predecessor, Zarif, who criticised the elite forces’ power. “Araghchi is much more technocratic and careful in walking the tightrope necessary to survive,” said Ellie Geranmayeh from the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Zarif was more political and outspoken, and willing to test the boundaries of what was digestible for the regime.” Indeed, some thought Araghchi was put in the nuclear talks with Washington by Iranian conservatives to act as a check and balance on Zarif. Geranmayeh expects the US to make clear demands on diluting, or removing Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, but such an irreversible step by Iran would require parallel irreversible steps by the US, such as releasing many of Iran’s large assets frozen abroad. The scope for a compromise on enrichment exists on the basis that the bombing of its nuclear sites makes it impossible to enrich for 3 to 5 years. But this would require the return of the UN nuclear inspectorate, the IAEA, to be able to visit the bombed sites, an issue that was probably at the centre of talks on Monday between Araghchi and Rafael Grossi, the IAEA director general. Outside the nuclear aspects of the deal, Geranmayeh says: “In this Trumpian world, do not expect every agreement to be written down on paper. There could be a series of not verifiable understandings, including a non-aggression pact between Iran and the US and its allies.” Ali Ansari, professor of modern history at the University of St Andrews, said Iran may offer concessions “to keep the discussions going, but Trump is in no rush at present anyway”. Bringing in US oil companies – an economic concession that has been floated – would be a significant change in Iran’s anti-US revolutionary doctrine. Either way, Araghchi knows that whatever the outcome, he faces domestic criticism. Araghchi recalled once meeting with Zarif in the lift of Hassan Rouhani’s residence after the latter’s 2013 presidential election victory. At the time, Zarif had not yet accepted Rouhani’s offer to serve as his foreign minister. Araghchi asked him why. Zarif replied: ‘In the end, we’ll be found wanting, and we will be the victims.”

What is happening to Syria’s IS camps and their former residents?

Humanitarians warned for years that the camps in north-east Syria holding tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State (IS) fighters would have to be dealt with. Calling them a “ticking time bomb”, relief groups said the women and children could not just be left to rot in squalid desert camps indefinitely, because eventually they would come home. Despite the warnings, most states ignored the problem, refusing to repatriate their citizens. At least 8,000 women and children from more than 40 countries have been stranded in the camps of north-east Syria since 2019. This week, they started to come home. Belgian authorities reported a woman charged in absentia for IS membership had made her way from Turkey to Belgium. An Albanian woman, kidnapped as a child by her father and taken to Syria, managed to smuggle herself to Turkey, where she requested travel documents. Thousands more non-Syrian women and children are distributed across the country, their whereabouts mostly unknown. Most of them were residents of al-Hawl camp, once the world’s largest prison camp, which housed about 25,000 family members of suspected IS fighters, 6,000 of whom were foreigners. Security analysts have said the camp became a hotbed for extremist ideology, and that by keeping IS-affiliated women and children in such close quarters, a new generation of IS members was being raised. Humanitarians raised the alarm about what they called life-threatening living conditions, under which residents died of asphyxiation each winter as they tried to escape the cold by burning coal in their tents. Since Damascus took over al-Hawl as part of its wresting of territory from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) last month, the camp has slowly emptied. Smugglers, foreign fighters and family members have come to the camp each night to retrieve residents, most of whom were taken to Idlib, a province in north-west Syria where many former Islamist fighters live. Frustrated by their governments’ lack of action, family members have begun to organise the return of people formerly held in detention facilities. The Belgian and Albanian women smuggled themselves out of Syria into Turkey without the coordination of their governments. On Monday, relatives of 34 Australian women and children organised a convoy of minibuses from al-Roj camp in north-east Syria, where the SDF is holding more than 2,000 families of suspected IS fighters. They set off for Damascus, seemingly without the backing of Canberra, with the aim of boarding flights back to Australia. They were turned back en route, apparently for not coordinating with Damascus in advance, but Syrian officials say their return has only been briefly delayed. Damascus, unlike the SDF, seem unwilling to play prison warden in perpetuity. A humanitarian who met interior ministry officials shortly before Damascus took over al-Hawl last month said they approached the camp as a child protection rather than a security issue. A new camp Damascus has set up to house al-Hawl residents who do not want to leave has wifi and an open door – a far cry from the Humvees with mounted machine guns the SDF maintained outside al-Hawl’s barbed-wire fences for years. Governments seem to have lost their chance to manage the repatriation of their citizens – some of whom are said to be affiliated to IS – and instead now face a disorganised, chaotic process of returns which experts say place citizens and countries in danger. The prospect of thousands of women and children roaming Syria opens the door to renewed recruitment into extremist organisations such as IS, or trafficking and exploitation. A foreign woman from a country who escaped al-Hawl to Idlib last year was promptly kidnapped and had to be freed via ransom. Her family have not heard from her since. Many of the women have no desire to stay in Syria after years of horrific detention, as explained by more than a dozen during a recent Guardian visit to al-Hawl, and will seek to return to their home countries. Dealing with their repatriation will be much more of a challenge for home governments now than it was before, when the families were concentrated in camps. Pressure is growing to release those women and children still held in al-Roj, where mostly European and Russian women are housed. That is where Shamima Begum, the UK-born woman who traveled to Syria at the age of 15 after chatting to a man there, lives. Governments such as the UK’s have refused for years to repatriate their citizens from al-Roj and other camps, preferring to kick the can down the road, and in Begum’s case strip her of her citizenship. Over the last month however, the room for further delay seems to be quickly narrowing.

Producer of Israeli spy thriller found dead in Athens hotel room

The co-creator of an Israeli hit TV series has been found dead in a hotel room in Athens where the fourth season of the spy thriller is being filmed. Dana Eden, 52, was discovered by her brother late on Sunday, Greek police said, attributing her death to suicide. Her death was described as “a moment of great sorrow for the family, friends, and colleagues” by Donna and Shula Productions, the international production company set up by Eden. After Israeli media reports of Greek police investigating a possible link to Iran, the company also took the unusual step of ruling out “a criminal or nationalistic-related death”, saying rumours that were circulating “are not true and are unfounded”. In such circumstances a postmortem is automatically carried out, with the results of that backed up by an official investigation. Within hours, police had launched an official inquiry, taking testimony from hotel staff and ordering security camera footage to be handed over. A police spokesperson, Constantina Dimoglidou, appeared to rule out foul play, telling outlets that the producer’s brother had spoken of his sister being on medication for a condition that had hospitalised her in the past. The award-winning TV executive, who won an Emmy for producing the Apple TV series Tehran, was a prominent figure in Israel’s flourishing TV industry. She had been in Athens since 4 February working on the latest season of the spy thriller. The country’s public broadcaster, KAN, said: “We are saddened by the passing of our friend and partner in a long line of productions, series, and programmes. “Dana was among the senior figures in the Israeli television industry and played a central role in creating and leading some of the corporation’s most prominent and influential productions.” Tehran, starring Niv Sultan as the Mossad agent Tamar Rabinyan, tells the story of an Iranian-born spy brought up in Israel and recruited to infiltrate Iran to dismantle the country’s burgeoning nuclear programme. The series, which featured Glenn Close in a starring role in the second season, has been described by the New York Times as so persuasively plausible in its portrayal of Israel’s famed intelligence agency that “even the FBI director endorsed it”. The Iranian regime has repeatedly criticised the show as Zionist propaganda. From its inception, Tehran had been filmed in Athens, the location production teams believed came closest to resembling the Iranian capital with its web of “narrow residential streets and alleys and wide boulevards and squares”. Both cities are surrounded by mountains and have a shared chaos suffused with a similar Mediterranean light. The thriller series has attracted such audiences that Apple TV decided to finance a fourth season in December. KAN said Eden’s contribution to the industry would not be forgotten easily. “Her professional and personal legacy will continue to shape Israeli television for many years to come,” it said. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

French police launch murder inquiry after far-right activist’s death in Lyon

French police have launched a murder inquiry after a far-right activist died in hospital having been beaten up in an attack that has fuelled political tensions in France. Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old mathematics student, died from a severe brain injury at the weekend. The Lyon prosecutor, Thierry Dran, said Deranque was assaulted by at least six masked individuals. Police were working to identify suspects and no arrests had been made, Dran said. Deranque was attacked on Thursday on the sidelines of a protest against a university conference attended by Rima Hassan, a European member of parliament for Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s leftwing party, La France Insoumise (LFI). The anti-immigration Nemesis collective, which is close to the far right, was protesting against the conference. Nemesis said at the weekend that Deranque had been present to protect its members as security and was assaulted by anti-fascist activists. Deranque’s family lawyer said in a statement to French media that the student appeared to have been ambushed by “organised and trained individuals, vastly superior in number and armed, some with their faces masked”. The lawyer told Le Monde that Deranque was not part of security for any organisation, had no criminal record and defended his political convictions “in a non-violent way”. The death has inflamed political divisions in France ahead of municipal elections and next year’s presidential race. The LFI party, described by Mélenchon as “radical left”, was officially labelled as “far left” by the French interior ministry this month before the local elections in March. The LFI, as well as the Socialist party leader, Olivier Faure, protested against this label. On Monday, the government spokesperson Maud Bregeon accused the LFI of having “encouraged a climate of violence for years”. She told the broadcaster BFMTV that there was “therefore – in light of the political climate and the climate of violence – a moral responsibility on the part of LFI” for the attack on Thursday. A video broadcast by TF1 of the alleged attack on Thursday showed a group of people hitting three others lying on the ground, two of whom managed to escape while one lay motionless. A witness told Agence France-Presse: “People were hitting each other with iron bars.” Demonstrations called by the far right in memory of Deranque have taken place in the southern city of Montpellier and in Paris, where protesters unfurled a banner reading “antifa murderers, justice for Quentin”. The LFI lawmaker Éric Coquerel, speaking to the public broadcaster Franceinfo, condemned “all political violence” and said the activists responsible for Hassan’s security “were in no way involved in what happened”. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, wrote on social media over the weekend: “It is essential that the perpetrators of this ignominy be prosecuted, brought to justice and convicted. Hatred that kills has no place among us. I call for calm, restraint and respect.”

Far-right character’s monologue prompts violent scenes at German theatre

An actor at a theatre in Germany was at the weekend shouted down, pelted with fruit and subjected to an attempted stage invasion as he delivered a final monologue in character as a far-right activist. The violent scenes came on Saturday during the German premiere of the Portuguese playwright Tiago Rodrigues’s work Catarina, or the Beauty of Killing Fascists in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The provocative, prize-winning play from 2020 tells the story of a family with a macabre annual tradition: to avenge the murder of farm worker Catarina Eufémia, a real-life resistance martyr shot and killed in 1954 during the Salazar dictatorship, they kidnap a “fascist” each year in order to execute him during a family feast. Over the course of the play a generational conflict breaks out between bloodthirsty parents and their more squeamish adult daughter about what means are justified to defend democracy. At the end of the last act, the year’s chosen victim, a far-right party functionary, delivers a 15-minute monologue laying out a nightmarish extremist agenda. As the actor Ole Lagerpusch launched into the incendiary speech, the audience became increasingly agitated, the theatre spokesperson Alexander Kruse said. At first, people began whistling and heckling, insulting Lagerpusch and urging him to stop. An orange was thrown at the actor, narrowly missing him. Kruse said some of the audience then got out of their seats. “Furthermore, two spectators mounted the stage, apparently with the intention of dragging [the] actor off the stage, which was prevented,” he said, calling the assault “completely unacceptable”. Martin Krumbholz of the culture website Nachtkritik.de, who was at the Bochum Schauspielhaus to review the play, said Lagerpusch persevered despite the hostile reaction and managed to deliver his chilling last line: “The future belongs to us.” The play’s acclaimed Slovenian director, Mateja Koležnik, said by telephone from Ljubljana that she was “incredibly proud” of Lagerpusch and denounced the “stupidity” and brutality of the spectators’ attack. “For me it was quite a shock – we did expect people talking back, even shouting back, because, of course, the last monologue is a provocation,” she said. She said Lagerpusch, who she described as “traumatised”, was so effective in the role because he was softly spoken, even affable, in conveying his hateful, divisive message. “[But] I was astonished by the stupidity, really. I never ever thought – nobody did – that somebody from the audience would jump on stage and try to hit the actor … I would expect this from the people we are voting against, but not from the people who should be on our side.” Koležnik said her intention with the production had not been to make “liberal, petit bourgeois society in Europe feel good” around a consensus of condemning intolerance, but to leave them scared. “The next wave of fascism, there will not be monsters. There will be normal, nice people,” she said. The critic Christoph Ohrem of the regional public broadcaster WDR attended the premiere and released a brief audio recording of the tumult, which he said recalled something from the age of Shakespeare. He noted Rodrigues’s piece had often triggered intense responses from audiences and concluded it was a “good play” for taking spectators out of their comfort zone. “It’s truly astonishing that a play can still elicit such reactions in 2026,” he said. Rodrigues has said he intended to cause a stir with the play. In his review, Krumbholz placed the blame for the uproar on spectators. “Parts of the Bochum audience, which one would have thought to be among the most theatre-savvy in the country, are apparently too stupid, to put it bluntly, to distinguish between fiction and reality,” he said. People expressed support for the theatre in Bochum on its Instagram page, with one commenter noting that a subsequent performance with stepped-up security measures, and after an appeal for calm by the deputy director Angela Obst, had gone off without incident. Another spectator said of Saturday’s debacle that she had been “shocked how disrespectful some people can be in the theatre” when “the actor was just doing his job”. A third called it “scary” when “supposedly anti-fascist theatregoers storm the stage and attack the actors. This is basically a fascist attitude towards art and theatre and, in my opinion, should never happen.” Rodrigues’s play has won several awards including best foreign performance at Italy’s Ubu awards and the equivalent prize from the French Critics’ Union.