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Fresh Ukraine corruption probe adds to pressure on Zelenskyy ahead of key vote – Europe live

A second suspect accused of taking part ⁠in the 2022 Nord Stream gas pipeline blasts has been arrested in Croatia and ⁠will be ⁠extradited to Germany, German prosecutors said in a statement reported by Reuters. In its statement, the federal prosecutors’ office identified the Ukrainian ⁠national only as Vladimir Z., adding he was arrested in the seafront Croatian city of ⁠Pula by local police forces who acted on a European arrest warrant. Prosecutors had ‌brought criminal charges ‌in July against another Ukrainian, former army officer Serhii K., ‌for involvement in the blasts, accusing him of acting on behalf of Ukrainian state entities. In their statement, prosecutors said trained scuba diver Vladimir Z. was part of a group led by Serhii K. that planted ‌explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm.

Activist forced out of US after criticising Trump-aligned Colombian politician

In the week before Colombia’s presidential election, Beto Coral, a well-known activist living in the United States, travelled to Florida to persuade fellow Colombians not to vote for the far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella. Coral held banners outside polling stations in Miami warning that the millionaire lawyer, whose candidacy was endorsed by Donald Trump, would “help deport all of you”. The following morning the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, issued a memo to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alleging that the activist had used his presence in the country “to conduct political activity” against a Colombian presidential candidate, and that DHS could take steps to “facilitate his departure”. Hours later, Coral was arrested. He said that, over the following 30 days in DHS detention, he was assaulted, deprived of food and water, and held in solitary confinement before securing his voluntary departure back to Colombia in mid-July, after more than 10 years living in the US. Although other immigrants have previously been detained in the US over their political activism – most notably the Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil for protesting against the war in Gaza – Coral’s case is being seen as the first involving remarks about a foreign election. “They detained me simply because I protested against a Trump-backed candidate,” said the 40-year-old activist, whose full name is Franklin Humberto Coral Garrido. Coral, who has no criminal record, alleges that his detention resulted from a request by De la Espriella, who went on to win the election and was sworn in earlier this month to replace the leftwing president Gustavo Petro, with whom Trump had repeatedly clashed. In early June the US deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, wrote on social media about Colombia’s election that those “tempted to undermine or manipulate the democratic process” were putting their visas at risk. “That’s why they call me El Quitavisas (the visa taker)”, he added. De la Espriella replied: “I have the list, dear deputy secretary.” On the morning of 16 June, the same day Rubio issued the memo, De la Espriella posted: “There will be good news for Colombia and for patriotic Colombians abroad,” alongside an AI-generated image of “El Quitavisas” projected into the sky. That afternoon, Coral was arrested. “De la Espriella knew that I was going to be arrested and announced it on X,” said Coral. The US state department and De la Espriella did not respond to requests for comment. Colombia’s new president already knew the activist from his years as a lawyer. De la Espriella represented the former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez in a defamation lawsuit filed in Florida against Coral after the activist accused him of leading paramilitary groups. Coral lost the case and was ordered to issue a public apology. Last May, Coral filed a complaint with the FBI alleging that De la Espriella had secretly recorded a telephone conversation between them and attempted to blackmail him with it. In his memo, Rubio cited the activist’s alleged “use of US courts to target a Colombian presidential candidate” as one of the political activities he claimed Coral had carried out “on behalf of the Petro government”. Coral entered the US on a tourist visa in December 2015 and applied for political asylum in March 2016, saying he had received death threats in Colombia after investigating the death of his father, Humberto Coral Caballero. A police captain who took part in the US-backed operation that brought down the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar in 1993, Caballero was murdered months later. “I had been waiting for a decision on my asylum application since 2016, but I always had legal status and a work permit,” said Coral, who, besides his work as an activist and YouTuber, held “the kinds of jobs immigrants usually have in the US: I drove for Uber, worked in construction, was a cook, a waiter, a baker”. On the day of his arrest, he was returning from the supermarket with his 12-year-old son. He was later transferred six times between detention facilities across four states. “Those journeys were extremely long, and the agents wouldn’t give me water or food,” said Coral, who estimates that he spent “24 of the 30 days” in solitary confinement. “ICE officers shoved me, threw me against the wall and kicked me in the legs,” he added. A DHS spokesperson did not respond to questions about the mistreatment Coral said he suffered, instead sending a statement describing him as “an illegal alien” who “in violation of our nation’s laws, overstayed his visa for 10 years”. Nine Democratic members of Congress sent Rubio a letter on 23 June demanding Coral’s immediate release, arguing that the US government had violated his human rights, including his right to free speech. He was released only after his lawyer, Elizabeth Shaw, secured an agreement allowing him to leave the country voluntarily. In her filing, Shaw argued that Coral had been detained despite facing no immigration charges. She sought his release before De la Espriella’s inauguration, arguing that the incoming government posed “an open, real, and substantial threat” to his life. After briefly returning to Colombia – where he warned Petro that “he could be the next” to be arrested by the US – Coral has since left the country. He said he does not know where he will live next, but even though in theory he could still try to return to the US, as he was not deported, it will not be there – because it is “the worst place in the world for any immigrant”. “I find it paradoxical that Rubio is a Latino, the son of immigrants who came from Cuba in search of a better future for him, and now he persecutes, mistreats, detains and deports an immigrant who entered the country legally,” he said.

Wednesday briefing: Why do people think crime is going up when it isn’t?

Good morning. Apparently, gangs of “feral yobs” now rampage the streets in “lawless Britain,” where even your wing mirrors aren’t safe from brazen thieves. It doesn’t matter that crime is decreasing: most people, when asked, seem to think it’s on the rise. This is the finding of a study from King’s College London published earlier this week, which surveyed nearly 4,000 people in Britain. It found perceptions of crime far removed from reality and shaped more by feelings than by facts. Reform voters are most likely to believe that crime is a growing problem, and many of them think that most people convicted of homicide are ethnic minorities (they aren’t). This isn’t confined to one party, though: the public as a whole tends to wrongly assume most people convicted of homicide are from an ethnic minority when they are not, and to think crime is going up when it isn’t, according to the study. This paradox puts politicians in a tricky position. Tell people they’re wrong and they lose the argument; pledge to crack down and they reinforce the idea that crime is out of control. It also reflects how, on social media, people are disappearing into algorithmically determined rabbit-holes and reaching strikingly different conclusions about reality. For this morning’s newsletter, I spoke to Bobby Duffy, director of the policy institute at KCL and one of the report’s authors, about how to respond. That’s after the headlines. Five big stories UK politics | Andy Burnham has urged local leaders to offer all rough sleepers in England a route off the streets by Christmas, as he pledges another £100m to end street homelessness. Ukraine | Ukraine’s former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has called for a wartime presidential election in the most direct political challenge to Volodymyr Zelenskyy since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. US news | Lawyers representing 29 US states have accused Meta of covering up internal research showing Instagram was addictive for teenagers. Environment | Carbon pollution has fuelled a “massive expansion” of marine heatwaves in Europe this summer, research has found, with some waters recording temperatures 6C higher than normal. UK news | The company behind Grenfell Tower’s flammable cladding gave more compensation to its shareholders than to victims of the disaster, an investigation has found. In depth: When emotion frames perception, myth-busting doesn’t work For the most part, Britain is a far safer country than it was in the past. Rates of homicide in England and Wales are the lowest they have been since 1977. Domestic burglary has decreased by about 50% since 2010. So has vehicle theft, and even phone theft, which has fallen by 70% over the same period. I had to double-check this final statistic with Duffy, as on first glance I thought it couldn’t be right: there has been such a relentless focus on phone snatching, particularly in London, that I’d assumed the opposite. “We’ve verified this a dozen times, as I had exactly the same instinct,” he says. “But phone thefts are way down compared to 2010.” Despite this, most people seem to think that crime is trending upwards. This is particularly the case among Reform voters, who believe that 34% of people are victims of crime each year (the actual figure is 9.7% – still far too many people, but fewer than most seem to assume). Part of the reason for this misperception is that certain highly visible, low-level crimes have increased. The King’s College surveys find that shoplifting has increased by about 70% since 2010, a remarkable surge. Duffy suggests that the general perception of rising crime is tied to a mounting sense of disorder as people see others breaking the rules. Although there is less reliable data on fare dodging, it is a very visible form of disorder (and one that’s been capitalised on by the likes of Robert Jenrick, as a sign of social decay). As Duffy puts it: “people see others completely disregarding the rules in a way that is much more blatant, and it gives a sense of the rules not mattering”. *** Why do people think crime is increasing? It doesn’t help that the media environment is saturated with stories of criminals, which rarely give readers this wider context. Nick Ross, a former presenter on Crimewatch UK, recently told BBC journalist Mark Easton that scriptwriters would sometimes try to insert lines into the programme acknowledging that crime was decreasing. But “time and time again, producers would say, no you can’t say that, that’s not what this programme’s about”. Not all publications run endless stories about serial offenders, and the King’s study finds that people who get their information from newsletters (hello!) or broadsheets are more likely to gauge the actual level of crime, and less likely to think murder is on the rise. But on social media, which is where most people now get their news, creators churn out racist AI slop that feeds into a perception of ambient criminality. RadialB, a creator who has made deepfake videos of masked Black men descending on Croydon, told the BBC that he uses the prompt “roadmen wearing puffer jackets, track suits, and balaclavas” to make his videos, because those are the “funniest” characters. That this content isn’t real has little bearing on its persuasiveness. As Duffy puts it: “people’s feelings and political identities are driven more by emotions than they are driven by facts”. Liberal democracy is rooted in the idea that politics occurs in a shared reality where people are invested in the pursuit of shared facts. But what if those facts have no bearing on what people think? “That’s got huge implications in the sense that simple myth-busting won’t work,” Duffy says. “Because it’s misdiagnosing the cause of why people feel this way in the first place.” *** The right narrative Alongside swipes about “weird Turkish barber shops” and “not seeing a single white face,” the right seems to favour the narrative that crime is rising because it implies things were better in the past, when England had proper binmen, salt and vinegar chipsticks, and fewer immigrants. The King’s study finds that Reform wrongly guess that 70% of people convicted of murder are from ethnic minorities (in fact, it’s 35%), and that almost 44% of those voters think that Britain has a “two-tier justice” system which gives more lenient sentences to ethnic or religious minorities (it doesn’t). Meanwhile, politicians often talk “tough” on crime to appease voters who wrongly believe things are out of control, in turn reinforcing the perception of lawlessness. Consider Portugal’s prime minister saying in 2024 that high-profile raids on immigrant communities in Lisbon were important for creating “visibility”, or Keir Starmer’s pledge to halve violent crime in 2023 despite rates having decreased significantly since the 1990s. “The risk is, if we think everything is going downhill, we won’t pick out the things that are actually going downhill and then act on them,” Duffy says. *** What needs to change? If the misperception of crime is tied to a sense of public disorder, one reaction is to simply criminalise disorder. The most famous example of this was in 1990s New York, where the city instigated a “broken windows” style of policing that criminalised begging and graffiti. Ever since then, sociologists have argued that this approach disproportionately targeted minorities and homeless people. And as Libby wrote yesterday, taking a harder-line approach to antisocial behaviour can put vulnerable people at greater risk. The government recently passed legislation that means shoplifting offences can be charged as general theft, raising their maximum sentence to seven years. The change is yet to come into force. But adding yet more people to an already overcrowded prison system, where opportunities for rehabilitation are scant, feels like a pretty poor solution. A better idea would be addressing the reasons people shoplift to begin with: in the Midlands, for example, the police refer some prolific shoplifters to intensive drugs rehabilitation programmes. “Part of what we’re fighting against here is: how do you reinvigorate town centres, and make people feel like the place where they’re living in isn’t declining?” Duffy asks. “This is caused by massive economic forces, including cost of living pressures. And a lick of paint and mending some broken windows isn’t going to change that.” What else we’ve been enjoying Move over, Mario – Sonic was the real hero of my childhood, so I loved Keith Stuart’s celebration of 35 years of the fastest hedgehog ever. Sam Coare, newsletters team I’m determined to see the inside of the Lloyd’s building when it opens to the public later this year after reading Alice Fisher on this crazy hi-tech oil rig of a landmark. Hettie Sirin Kale makes for fascinating, if not harrowing, listening for the Full Story podcast about her investigation into the author Christopher Berry-Dee, who stands accused by multiple women of violence, rape and sexual assault. Sam Nesrine Malik’s column about what comes after “Woke 1.0” – a movement that had safety, dignity and equal opportunity at its heart – is well worth a read. Hettie Musician and author Stephanie Phillips’ new book, We Were Here: A History of Black People and Alternative Music, is published next week, and if this Rolling Stone UK extract on Blackness being “inherently punk” is anything to go by, it will make for essential reading. Sam Sport Fifa | Israel became the latest Fifa member to officially withdraw their support for Gianni Infantino’s re-election in a letter sent by the head of the Israel Football Association (IFA), Moshe Zuares. Cricket | With Pakistan at a low ebb and England at the start of semi-reset, the series at Headingly looks to be an interesting one. Basketball | The WNBA said in a statement that fans asked by security to cover shirts at Monday’s match that had messages about transgender women participating in women’s sports, should have been allowed to wear the shirts. The front pages “Burnham pledges to get all rough sleepers off streets by Christmas”, is the Guardian’s front page today, while the i Paper writes “No rough sleeper still on streets by the end of 2026, pledges Rayner”. The FT has “Long-term borrowing costs hit highs as inflation and fiscal deficit fears rise”, the Times goes with “Power shift puts growth in hands of No 10 North”, and Metro leads on “PM sticks to his drones as Vlad plots revenge”. The Telegraph splashes “I’m going to cope, King said of cancer”, the Express writes “‘I was longing to tell someone the King has cancer’”, and the Sun’s headline is “Look at my husband … nothing stopped him”. The Latest Russia threatens UK over supplying drones to Ukraine Russia has threatened the UK with ‘consequences’ after reports that British drones were used by Ukraine to strike targets on Russia’s mainland for the first time. The Ministry of Defence has rebuffed these threats, saying the UK is ‘committed to providing equipment Ukraine needs to defend itself against Putin’s illegal invasion’. Annie Kelly speaks to senior international correspondent Luke Harding. Cartoon of the day | Rebecca Hendin The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Breakups are usually the stuff of sad songs, but three shows at this year’s Edinburgh fringe are taking a more inventive approach, Brian Logan writes. Elf Lyons turns the collapse of her relationship into surreal, emotionally charged theatre; Kate Dehnert combines standup, rave and primal scream after a decade-long relationship ends; and Ele McKenzie finds the comedy in moving back in with her parents. Three very different takes on heartbreak, and proof that sometimes the finest comedy material comes from wreckage. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

In cutting joint drills, Trump has given South Korea’s president what he wants. So why is Seoul so uneasy?

At their first summit, in August last year, the South Korean president, Lee Jae Myung, told Donald Trump: “If you, Mr President, become the peacemaker, then I will assist you as the pacemaker.” The remark at the Oval Office captured the thrust of Lee’s approach to North Korea: dial down the military posturing and make repeated peace overtures to revive dialogue, even if they have been consistently rejected by Pyongyang largely over Seoul’s insistence on denuclearisation. Fast forward to this week, and Trump’s move to cut joint military exercises with South Korea echoes what Lee had himself floated, on several occasions, as a possible tool for drawing Pyongyang back to the table. Lee’s broader message is that South Korea should take more responsibility for its own defence and reduce its reliance on others. On Tuesday, he used the moment to renew calls for wartime operational control of the military and progress on his country’s nuclear submarine programme. Trump has delivered on the drills, albeit in the blunt, discourteous fashion typical of the president: via social media, hours before the drills were to begin. Yet the move has inverted South Korea’s usual political lines, where the left-right divide is shaped more by attitudes toward North Korea – hawks v doves, confrontation v engagement – than by economic or social values. Reducing joint drills has long been advocated by some on the Korean left. A rightwing US president imposing the policy on his centre-left South Korean counterpart lands awkwardly for both sides. While some see the reduction as potentially useful for diplomacy, the louder concern in Seoul is that Trump is weakening a key pillar of deterrence, and leaving South Korea with little say over decisions that directly affect its security. That may strain an alliance that has been the bedrock of security on the peninsula since the Korean war. The opposition conservative People Power party has called the decision a “security disaster” and warned of a return to “Korea passing”, a term used when Seoul feels sidelined in matters directly affecting it. Conservative newspapers have been almost unanimous in calling the cut reckless. The influential Chosun Ilbo has gone further, blaming Lee’s government directly for inviting it. The left has not shared that sense of alarm. Hankyoreh, one of the country’s main progressive papers, raised no objection to the substance of Trump’s decision, only to how it was delivered: unilaterally and disrespectfully on social media, calling it “regrettable”. Kyunghyang Shinmun took a more positive view, saying the cut could help create an atmosphere for dialogue with North Korea, so long as deterrence held. Reducing tensions with North Korea and creating space for dialogue are central to Lee’s agenda. The ruling party has been quiet on the move, but openly welcoming Trump’s decision could put it at odds with a base that has generally viewed Trump with suspicion, if not hostility. Aside from the domestic politics, the episode is likely to deepen doubts about Washington’s commitment to its allies, doubts that have been building for years since Trump’s first term, said Prof Jaechun Kim, who teaches international relations at Sogang University, in Seoul. Trust, he argued, is the foundation of any alliance, and remarks like Trump’s reinforce the impression that the US’s obligations are increasingly viewed “through a highly transactional lens”, one that could shape how South Koreans judge US reliability long after Trump has left office. Then there is the issue of the nuclear deterrent. South Korea enjoys protection under the US nuclear umbrella, but public support for an independent deterrent among South Koreans and their neighbours has hovered around or above 70% in recent surveys. The latest news may push that support higher still. Kim said he expects Pyongyang to welcome any sign of friction within the alliance but doubts that it views improving relations with Washington as a priority, given the stronger backing it now enjoys from China and Russia compared with during Trump’s first term. “The irony,” he said, “is that [US] policies intended to reduce American burdens may ultimately strengthen calls for independent nuclear deterrents among US allies.”

Tourists on pastry quest overrun scenic spot in Italian mountains

Hundreds of people overwhelmed a mountain hut in the Italian Dolomites, not for the panoramic views but in search of a creamy pastry, reigniting the debate about social-media-driven tourism. The visitors ventured en masse to the Friedrich August refuge – perched at 2,300 metres (7,500ft) above sea level, between Col Rodella and Passo Sella in Val di Fassa – some reportedly waking up at dawn or camping overnight, just to ensure they could buy a freshly baked krapfen, a traditional German pastry similar to a doughnut, before they ran out. They had been enticed by food bloggers who in videos had promoted the pastries, which cost up to €4 (£3.40) each, while eating them against the backdrop of the Dolomites, causing massive queues along the narrow path leading towards the premises. The queues, rather than deterring the crowds, only brought in more people after images of the scenes were widely shared online. “We only came for this,” one visitor told Rai News, while another said they were attracted by a post about krapfen on Instagram that was accompanied by “heavenly music”. A person who works at the refuge but who wanted to remain anonymous said it had been making the pastries for 30 years without any fuss, and blamed influencers for creating a “chaotic” situation. “We don’t like it,” they said. Neither do the associations representing Italian mountain towns. The issue is not krapfen, they said, but the algorithms ruining the mountain environment by funnelling crowds into beauty spots. “The mountains are not a playground,” said Marco Bussone, the president of Uncem, the national union of mountain communities, in remarks to the online news outlet Fanpage. Francesco Abbruscato, the president of the Veneto branch of the Italian Alpine Club, told Vita.it that image-driven tourism was eroding the true spirit of the mountains. “The main problem is those who visit the mountains without knowing or respecting them,” he said. “Until five or six years ago we did not witness overtourism in precise points or at certain moments in the Dolomites. Now there are iconic places where it is no longer possible to appreciate the beauty as we’re surrounded by dozens of people who take selfies and are only there for that.” Similar scenes played out in Roccaraso, a town in the mountains of Abruzzo, in January 2025 when day trippers descended on the resort in their droves after a TikTok star promoted videos of herself on its ski slopes.

US-led drills to end six days early, South Korea says, amid Trump push for Kim Jong-un talks

South Korea’s military has confirmed that joint military drills with the US will be cut short, days after Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to scale back the exercises. In a statement on Wednesday, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said at the request of the US side, the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise – which began on Monday would end on Friday, six days earlier than originally planned. Separately, joint field training exercises, live outdoor drills held alongside the simulated command exercise, would also be “partially reduced”, though the two militaries were still working out the details, the statement said. A Pentagon official later confirmed the US ⁠military was “substantially” reducing joint ⁠exercises with South ⁠Korea. Trump said on Sunday he was “not happy” with US participation in the exercise, citing his “very good relationship” with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and describing the drills as costly and “hostile” toward Pyongyang. South Korea’s foreign minister, Cho Hyun, told a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday that Seoul had been caught off guard by Trump’s directive. “Our government officials, of course, and the US government officials hadn’t known about it in advance”, Cho said, when asked whether Seoul had been informed. Ahead of Wednesday’s announcement, South Korean broadcasters KBS and MBC and the newspaper Kyunghyang reported, citing unnamed military sources, that the exercise’s second stage, a simulated counterattack against North Korea that Pyongyang has always denounced most sharply, would be scrapped entirely and bring the exercise to an early end. Days before the exercise began, Lt Gen Scott Winter, deputy commander of the United Nations Command, the multinational body that oversees the armistice and contributes personnel to the exercise, described this year’s UFS exercise as “bigger and better than ever”. The US military presence in South Korea dates back to the Korean war, which ended in an armistice rather than a formal peace treaty in 1953, meaning the two Koreas remain technically at war. US troops have been stationed in South Korea ever since, and the country now hosts Camp Humphreys, the largest American military base outside the US. The two militaries train and operate together closely, including through large-scale annual exercises such as this week’s. Previous cuts and cancellations to joint exercises, including in 1992, 1994 and after Trump’s first summit with Kim in 2018, were all decided before the drills began, rather than after they were already under way. Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Trump was pushing aides to arrange a meeting with Kim as early as the northern hemisphere autumn, citing unnamed US officials. The paper said Trump had privately discussed an in-person meeting to take place during his next trip to Asia, which could be in November when he is expected to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Shenzhen, China. Earlier, a social media post from Trump showing an image of Kim surrounded by military officials, speaking into a telephone, captioned “Hey Donald, we cool … right?”. Trump also told reporters Kim had “responded” to his overtures for talks, though he declined to give details. Trump met Kim three times during his first term, including a brief crossing into North Korean territory at the demilitarised zone in 2019. Speculation about a renewed summit has grown since Trump shared an old photograph of the pair together on Truth Social last weekend. Cheong Seong-chang, the vice-president of the Seoul-based Sejong Institute thinktank, said Trump could go further if talks with Kim resumed, potentially suspending the joint exercises altogether or reducing US troop numbers without consulting Seoul. South Korea’s presidential office said this week it would continue to coordinate with Washington on the exercises as president Lee Jae Myung separately renewed calls for greater military independence.

Ukraine war briefing: Would-be parcel bomber convicted in German court

A German court has convicted a Ukrainian man over a plot to send parcel bombs in Europe at the behest of Russian ⁠intelligence. Three Ukrainians were involved in sending two packages with GPS trackers and spare auto parts from Germany to Ukraine in an operation initiated by a Russian state entity, ⁠the court in Stuttgart said. The shipments were designed to identify opportunities for future sabotage. A 30-year-old was sentenced to one ⁠year and three months in prison for acting as an agent for the purposes of sabotage, but has already served his time in pre-trial custody. The two other defendants were acquitted ‌due to a lack of evidence that ‌they were knowingly involved in a plot to commit attacks. The three have been referred to as Vladyslav T, Daniil B and Yevhen B, with their full names withheld under German privacy rules. The Russian embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. European ‌governments have accused Moscow of a “hybrid war” against countries supporting Ukraine’s defence. In 2024, parcels shipped from Lithuania blew up in Germany, Poland and Britain. This month in Germany, officials found a drone carrying explosives at Leipzig/Halle airport. In the UK, a group of men were convicted in 2025 over an arson attack ordered by Russia’s terrorist Wagner group on a London warehouse linked to Ukraine. Several other cases have been before European courts. Mikhail Fedorov, the sacked former defence minister of Ukraine, has called the country to hold elections, Dan Sabbagh writes. Fedorov said Ukraine had to “restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war”. Ukraine is in a state of martial law with elections forbidden by its constitution – however Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in 2025 that he was willing to hold elections if parliament permits it and international allies would assist. Donald Trump’s criticisms of Zelenskyy as “a dictator without elections” petered out after Zelenskyy challenged the US to help him hold them by organising a ceasefire with Russia, which has not eventuated. Estonia is investigating whether Russia was involved in an arson ⁠attack on a building housing a defence contractor, said the prime minister, Kristen Michal. The building used by Milrem Robotics, a maker of unmanned military weapons systems ⁠deployed in Ukraine and elsewhere, was targeted late on Friday. “The ⁠suspects have been identified. One of the lines of investigation is a possible ‌act of sabotage ‌and the involvement of Russia,” said Michal. The Russian embassy in Tallinn did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Ukrainian forces launched what appeared to be one of their biggest drone attacks on Russia since Moscow’s invasion over four years ago. Russia claimed at least 791 Ukrainian drones were launched into several regions, as well as illegally annexed Crimea and the Black and the Azov seas. More than 600 Ukrainian drones flew towards Moscow, said the mayor, Sergei Sobyanin. Again, a Wildberries warehouse was hit, the company said, claiming the damage was insignificant. A Russian rocket attack killed 10 people in Pechenigya village in the Kharkiv region of north-east Ukraine. Another 18 were wounded, said Oleg Synegubov, the regional governor. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media that the strike hit a busy intersection, “a location with a post office and stores, surrounded only by residential buildings”. Andy Burnham, the British prime minister, said the UK would continue to stand by Ukraine after Russia levelled threats at London for supplying the Ukrainian military with drones that hit Russian soil. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had been informed that a drone exploded at a bus stop used by staff of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on Tuesday. Moscow-installed authorities at the illegally occupied Ukrainian-owned plant blamed Ukraine for a drone strike that killed a “nuclear specialist” and wounded 17 others. The IAEA said its chief, Rafael Grossi, called on military commanders to stop “unacceptable actions … [that pose] great risks to nuclear safety”. Both sides regularly accuse the other of carrying out strikes around the site, which Russia has militarised since seizing it in 2022. Meanwhile a ⁠power station in ⁠central Ukraine ⁠halted operations on Tuesday after ⁠it suffered significant damage from a ⁠Russian strike, power ‌firm ‌DTEK said.

Ukraine’s dismissed defence minister calls for wartime presidential election

Ukraine’s recently dismissed former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has called for a wartime presidential election in the most direct political challenge to Volodymyr Zelenskyy since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. The politician, whose abrupt sacking last month triggered a wave of protests, said that Ukraine had to “restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war” in a video address released online late on Tuesday evening. “Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia. We are fighting precisely because we want to remain a free European state,” Fedorov said in his nine-minute speech. Though he did not mention Zelenskyy by name, Fedorov implied the current president presided over a poorly functioning state that was struggling to tackle corruption despite the national emergency. “People cannot endlessly live in a state where they do not understand why certain decisions are made. Why some reforms move forward while others are blocked,” Fedorov said, arguing that Ukraine could fight a war and hold a national poll. “It is particularly dangerous when society develops the feeling that the main criterion for an appointment is not professionalism, results or the ability to transform the country, but personal loyalty to the system,” he said. Elections have been suspended in Ukraine since martial law was imposed at the start of the full-scale invasion by Russia. Zelenskyy’s five-year term ended in May 2024 but there has been little desire in Ukraine to hold a contest while war continues. The US president, Donald Trump, has previously demanded that Ukraine hold an election, though his once-fraught relationship with Zelenskyy has gradually improved over the past year as Kyiv has shown it can hold its own on the battlefield. Fedorov, 35, was Ukraine’s digital minister from 2019 until January, fronting the country’s wartime adoption of drones, before briefly serving in what was considered to be a successful stint as defence minister until July. But he was suddenly dropped by Zelenskyy in a government reshuffle after a falling out with military commander Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi. Street protests followed, leading to the sacking of Syrskyi, but there was no sign Fedorov would be reinstated. On Tuesday Zelenskyy formally nominated Yevhen Khmara, the acting defence minister, to take the post permanently. Khmara’s nomination has to be confirmed by Ukraine’s parliament, and a vote is expected to take place on Wednesday. Artem Bronzhukov, a Ukrainian political analyst, questioned whether it would be practical to hold elections given that Russian bombing was continuing. “Today there is no clear understanding of how to ensure people’s safety in the context of a full-scale war,” he said. There was, he added, “a fairly deep-rooted view within Ukrainian society” that elections are necessary but only after the hot phase of the war ends – and that the country remained “a warring democracy – confirmed precisely by the protests taking place after Fedorov’s resignation from the government”. Protests had been taking place nightly in a square below the presidential office in the heart of Kyiv, but the numbers attending had been dwindling. However, the campaign was relaunched in a special rally on Sunday night that attracted about 2,000 people with regular chants of “Fedorov, Fedorov, Fedorov …” Polling conducted at the turn of the month reported the ex-minister would come third in the first round of a presidential election with 13.1%, behind Zelenskyy on 22.3% and the former head of the armed forces, who is now Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, on 21.4%. The same polling, conducted by the Socis Centre for Social Research, also concluded that Zelenskyy would then be defeated in the run-off election by both Fedorov and Zaluzhnyi. Ukraine uses a two-stage voting system. If Ukraine were to hold an election, it would have to contend with the fact that millions have been exiled and displaced since the start of the war, and that more than 1 million are serving in the armed forces, many on the frontline. About a fifth of the country’s territory is also under Russian occupation.