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Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv claims half of Russia’s oil refining capacity destroyed

Long-range Ukrainian strikes have taken out more than half of Russia’s oil refining capacity, hampering Moscow’s ability to supply its forces during the war, the defence ministry in Kyiv has claimed. Ukrainian forces have repeatedly attacked refineries from Moscow to Siberia, sparking a widespread fuel crisis in Russia earlier this year that forced authorities to restrict petrol sales. “Fifty-one per cent of struck refining capacity is a significant blow to the enemy’s economy, to its ability to carry out aggression and supply its troop groupings,” Ukrainian defence minister Yevhenii Khmara said. “Our deep strikes continue to bring the war to Russian territory.” Russian officials have not released figures on damage to the country’s oil infrastructure. But in a rare acknowledgment of the strikes’ economic impact, Vladimir Putin said they had cost Russia roughly 1% of its gross domestic product. “They started attacking oil refineries and openly declared the goal of damaging our economy. Did they achieve their goal? Partially,” the Russian president told a meeting of the Valdai Club forum of international foreign policy experts last Thursday. Donald Trump has blamed Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries for high petrol prices, saying the Iran war was no longer responsible. “What’s driving up Gasoline is no longer the strait of Hormuz, because Record Numbers of Barrels are coming out now on an almost daily basis, but the word, ‘Refineries,’ where Russia’s are being blown up by Ukraine,” the US president posted on his Truth Social platform. Six people were killed and nearly 60 injured when Russian bombs struck a residential area of Ukraine’s north-eastern city of Kharkiv on Monday, officials said. Rescue workers led stunned ‌residents out of badly damaged buildings and flats, guiding them carefully around piles of rubble. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, lies close to the Russian border and has come under regular shelling and drone attacks since Moscow invaded in February 2022. French president Emmanuel Macron condemned Russia’s decision to scale up strikes on civilian infrastructure, saying Moscow “has made the irresponsible choice to intensify its strikes on civilian infrastructure and targets”. Russian drones struck a grain ship in the Black Sea on Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, after Romania reported a ship had caught fire and sunk near its coast with two crew members killed. “A horrific strike by two Russian drones on a civilian vessel in neutral waters carrying corn,” the Ukrainian president said on X, adding that the ship was Turkish-owned and that Azerbaijani and Indian nationals were onboard. Romanian authorities said two crew members had died and 11 were rescued after the 139-metre-long (455 foot) Royad Mammadov caught fire in the Black Sea, an increasing battlefield for drone attacks in the war. War-related objects found in the Black Sea had more than doubled in six months, maritime risk expert Ambrey said last month in a report. At least a third of them carried live payloads. The objects include unexploded ordnance, drones and other unmanned vehicles found washed ashore or floating at sea, it said. Ukrainian drones attacked two facilities at the Russian-held ⁠Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in south-eastern Ukraine overnight on Monday, but there was no threat to nuclear safety, the ⁠head of Russia’s state ⁠nuclear corporation said. Alexei Likhachev, director general of Rosatom, said a driver delivering food for plant employees was killed in the drone attack. According ⁠to Likhachev, a laboratory building and a radioactive waste processing plant were the targets. Ukraine has not commented on the incident. Ukraine has begun using artificial intelligence-enabled robot guns to take down Russia’s new and fast-moving jet-powered drones. For months, Kyiv has been seeking a way to intercept the new Russian drones pounding the Ukrainian capital, even as it faces a dire lack of suitable ammunition to take them out. Presidential adviser Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov said on social media that 12 automated turrets had been installed in Kyiv to counter jet-powered Shahed drones, with more planned. Ukraine’s air force later said it had used the robotic turrets to successfully shoot down Russian jet-powered drones, including the Geran-5, for the first time. “It’s machine vision that is used for the shootdowns,” air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said on Ukrainian television. “Artificial intelligence makes it possible to engage even jet-powered drones.” Germany’s foreign intelligence chief has warned that the country risks being drawn into a conflict with Russia as hybrid attacks ordered by Moscow increase. Martin Jaeger, head of Germany’s BND spy service, told lawmakers on Monday that Russia’s undeclared “shadow war” against Germany and its allies was escalating further and has “taken on a new, more dangerous character”. Berlin has invested record sums into rebuilding its military to deter Russia, and is among the largest supporters of Ukraine in the war with Moscow. In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief ⁠Kaja Kallas said Russia ⁠was putting lives at risk across Europe with hybrid attacks.

Fuel from South Korea being shipped to Russia as Ukraine war grinds on

Fuel is being shipped from South Korea to Russia via sanctioned tankers as Moscow scrambles for supplies amid the war in Ukraine, a move one expert said “undermines” Seoul’s public backing for Kyiv. Guardian analysis of port records and ship-tracking data found that in July and August over 176,000 tonnes of fuel, mostly diesel, was loaded at several South Korean ports on to seven tankers that made 14 voyages to Russia’s far east. Three of the vessels were under sanctions by the UK and EU, and one took on its cargo through a ship-to-ship transfer in South Korean waters – a method that can obscure where a cargo came from and lets ships avoid calling at port terminals. “It is shocking that EU-sanctioned tankers loaded fuel at South Korean ports and carried it to Russia”, said Isaac Levi, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Finnish thinktank. “This undermines the sanctions regime and South Korea’s support for Ukraine.” Seoul has sent Ukraine humanitarian aid and non-lethal military supplies such as helmets, body armour and demining vehicles, and in 2023 pledged $2.3bn in support, most of it in loans. But South Korea has long sought to balance its support for Ukraine with its desire to improve ties with Russia. Throughout the war, Seoul has ruled out sending weapons directly to Ukraine, in line with its practice of not supplying lethal arms to countries at war. Moscow has signalled an interest in restoring relations with South Korea, including trade ties. While the fuel trade involves vessels sanctioned by some of Seoul’s western partners, it does not appear to breach South Korean law. South Korea’s own measures against Russia rely mainly on export controls on goods such as industrial machinery, electronics and vehicles. The shipments, however, risk making Seoul look like a weak link in western efforts to pressure Russia, as relations with Kyiv come under strain over the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea, which Seoul says was meant to remain secret. *** It is unclear who owned or sold the fuel, which South Korean port records do not show. The largest carrier, the sanctioned Layla, made two voyages from the south-eastern port of Ulsan to Vladivostok leaving on 19 July and 10 August and carrying 57,000 tonnes of diesel in total. On the first trip, it told South Korean authorities its destination was Vladivostok, but on the second it said it was bound for Niigata in Japan. Another sanctioned tanker, the Russian-flagged Astoria, which is also under Australian sanctions, loaded nearly 11,000 tonnes of fuel at Ulsan on 1 August, declaring Japan as its destination, before sailing to Vladivostok. The third sanctioned tanker, the Chongchon, never berthed. It took on about 26,000 tonnes of fuel from an unsanctioned tanker, the Celeste I, at an anchorage off the southern South Korean port of Yeosu in early August, then headed to Vladivostok after declaring Singapore as its destination. The owners and managers of the four tankers did not respond to requests for comment. Russia’s capacity to refine oil has been severely disrupted by Ukrainian drone strikes. Its refinery throughput fell in June to its lowest level in more than 20 years, and diesel output is down nearly 30% on last year, according to the International Energy Agency. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the HUR, says Moscow has been forced to import fuel products to feed the “Russian war machine”. According to data from the maritime analytics firm Kpler, the buyers included Rosneft, Russia’s state-controlled oil company, which is under UK, US, EU and Australian sanctions, and NNK, a Russian oil group whose owner, Eduard Khudainatov, and one of its companies, NNK-Oil, are under UK sanctions. In August, Russia imported 368,000 tonnes of oil products by sea, more than seven times the previous month and the highest monthly total since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to Kpler data analysed by CREA. South Korea accounted for 112,000 tonnes, or 31%, of that amount, second only to India. Loadings at South Korean ports began to surge in July, just as the country’s president, Lee Jae Myung, pledged $100m for Ukraine’s reconstruction at a Nato summit in Turkey. A 2025 trade association survey found that nearly 80% of South Korean firms that had stopped exporting to Russia since the war began were open to resuming trade. In March, as the war with Iran shut the strait of Hormuz, South Korea capped exports of certain fuels and imported Russian naphtha under a US sanctions waiver. On 1 October, the UK temporarily exempted South Korea’s existing gas contracts from a ban on maritime services for Russian LNG that takes effect in January 2027. When contacted, South Korea’s foreign ministry did not address the shipments or the sanctioned tankers. In a statement, it said that as “a responsible member of the international community, the government supports, and is actively taking part in, international efforts to help end the war in Ukraine and bring about a peaceful recovery.” It said it had expanded its export controls on Russia under the Foreign Trade Act “beyond strategic items to 1,402 non-strategic items with a high potential for diversion to military use” and was “strictly enforcing” them. The government “continues to monitor the implementation of its export controls on Russia and, where necessary, takes action in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations,” the ministry said. The UK Foreign Office did not answer questions about the UK-sanctioned tankers using South Korean ports, or say whether the shipments had been raised with Seoul. A spokesperson said: “The UK remains firmly committed to the effective monitoring of our sanctions and to working with international partners to increase economic pressure on Russia and reduce the revenues funding its illegal war against Ukraine.”

Flávio Bolsonaro poised to win Brazilian presidency after shock first-round victory

Flávio Bolsonaro is in pole position to win Brazil’s presidential election, after a far-right tsunami propelled him to a shock first-round victory over the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leaving progressive voters reeling. The 45-year-old rightwing candidate received 56.1m votes to Lula’s 53.8m – 47.03% to 45.16% – meaning the 80-year-old leftwinger has a mountain to climb if he is to bounce back in the second round on 25 October. Never, since the return of democracy to Brazil in 1985, has the first-round runner-up managed to turn the game around and win the second ballot. “Miracles are possible in politics. But I don’t see that happening,” the political scientist Miguel Lago said of Lula’s chances of snapping back. “I don’t see Flávio losing this election now.” Speaking outside the White House on Monday, Donald Trump told reporters: “Well, it’s a big victory: close but a very, very big victory. Amazing, actually.” Trump, who is a longtime ally of the Bolsonaro family, predicted the runoff would be “a very close election”. The far-right surge was a triumph – albeit an incomplete one – for the Bolsonaro clan and its 71-year-old patriarch, Jair Bolsonaro. The disgraced ex-president, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election to Lula, saw four relatives elected to congress. His 44-year-old wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, won a seat in the senate, as did his second son, Carlos Bolsonaro, who is 43. Bolsonaro’s youngest son, 28-year-old Jair Renan Bolsonaro, and the ex-president’s 62-year-old brother, Renato Bolsonaro, both won seats in the lower house of congress. Across Latin America’s biggest democracy, key congressional and gubernatorial races were also won by staunch Bolsonaristas including Tarcísio de Freitas, who was re-elected as the governor of São Paulo state, and Sérgio Moro, who was elected governor of the southern state of Paraná. Both men were ministers during Bolsonaro’s 2018-22 government. Bolsonaro’s Liberal party (PL) will now boast the largest caucus in the senate with 28 of its 81 seats. Combined with the seats of other hard-right parties, that number rises to 43, giving the movement an upper house majority. Meanwhile, pro-Lula senate candidates, including the former environment minister Marina Silva, the leftwing veteran Benedita da Silva, and the centrist former planning minister Simone Tebet, suffered bitter defeats. Nikolas Ferreira and Lucas Pavanato, two young Bolsonarista social media warriors, became the best-voted congresspeople in Brazilian history, securing more than 3m votes. “We are experiencing a revolution … The far right is growing in a very consistent way, election after election,” said Lago, calling the election the worst for progressive and moderate centrist parties since the late 80s. Lago believed Lula had managed to interrupt the advance of Bolsonaro’s populist movement in 2022, thanks to positive voter memories of his first two terms, from 2002 to 2010. Back then, a global commodities boom allowed Brazil’s first working-class president to fund major social welfare programmes that helped millions escape poverty. “But it was just an interregnum,” Lago said. Control of the senate should allow pro-Bolsonaro politicians to approve an amnesty for their movement’s charismatic leader, allowing the former president to emerge from the Brasília mansion where he is living under house arrest and reassert his leadership of the far right. “I think he will be freed and I think he will be very important during Flávio Bolsonaro’s [presidency],” said Lago. “Flávio will be running the country and [Jair] Bolsonaro will be doing what he has always done: leading the revolution.” The senate majority may also help Bolsonaro’s third son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, return from self-imposed exile in the US. The 42-year-old, who has close ties to Donald Trump’s Maga movement, was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison earlier this year for coercion – the result of his lobbying the Trump administration to interfere in his father’s coup trial. Eduardo Bolsonaro reportedly hopes to become foreign minister if his brother wins the presidency. The result is good news for Trump, who has been accused of trying to sway the election in Bolsonaro’s favour, and his attempt to expand the conservative “orange wave” sweeping Latin America to its biggest democracy and economy. Recent years have seen a succession of pro-Trump presidents win power in the region, from Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador to Chile and Colombia. One of Trump’s most enthusiastic regional cheerleaders, the Argentinian president, Javier Milei, celebrated Bolsonaro’s “historic” victory against “the communist Lula”. “The American continent belongs to citizens who want to live in freedom,” Milei wrote on X. The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, wished Bolsonaro “good luck in the final” and celebrated his “great victory”. He wrote on X: “I look forward to restoring the extraordinary friendship between Israel and Brazil.” Speaking after Sunday’s result was confirmed, Lula put a brave face on what analysts called a catastrophic night for the left. “From tomorrow we will launch a new campaign: [and in] a campaign with only two candidates we will be able to show the difference between our proposals for Brazil,” he said, vowing to expose his rival’s “dark past”, which involves well-documented ties to members of Rio’s underworld and corruption allegations, which Bolsonaro has denied. But the mood at Lula’s post-election event was reportedly funereal and Bolsonaro goes into the second round as the firm favourite. He is likely to be boosted by the migration of votes from the election’s other rightwing candidates – Ronaldo Caiado, Renan Santos and Romeu Zema – who, between them, won more than 5.5m votes. Santos quickly announced he would endorse neither candidate, considering both Lula and Bolsonaro to be “crooks”. Zema has vowed to vote against Lula’s Worker’s party (PT) in the runoff, while Caiado has yet to declare his intentions. Lula’s best hope may be convincing some of the record 33 million Brazilians who did not vote to turn out next time. “He will need to mobilise these apathetic voters who, in a sense, have already abandoned politics, which will be an extremely difficult task,” said Camila Rocha, a political scientist who studies Brazil’s new right. Rocha has spent recent months interviewing undecided voters and identified “a great deal of voter apathy, especially among those who are not aligned with Bolsonarismo, and who could potentially vote for Lula”. Although Flávio Bolsonaro has held political office for more than 20 years, “for undecided voters, his main positive characteristic is this idea of ‘renewal’, despite his possible involvement in corruption and with paramilitary groups,” Rocha added. Lago believed only a dramatic shift from Lula’s campaign – such as changing the candidate, or a severe scandal involving Bolsonaro – could change the election’s outcome. But he was doubtful that would occur.

Far right on the march and Lula’s failures: key drivers of Flávio Bolsonaro’s Brazil surge

On Sunday night, as the scale of the far-right triumph in Brazil sank in, an adapted football chant rang out in one of Rio’s most leftwing areas. “Let’s turn this around, Lu-laaaaa! Let’s turn this around, Lu-laaaaa! Let’s turn this around, Lu-laaaaa!” crestfallen progressives bellowed while drowning their sorrows after witnessing an excruciating election setback for their leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. But the scale of the challenge facing the veteran leftist looks immense after Flávio Bolsonaro’s shock first-round win, which analysts attribute to a complex lattice of social, political and religious phenomena. “Flávio Bolsonaro’s result shows that Bolsonarismo is a far-right movement … that has put down deep roots in Brazilian society,” said Bernardo Mello Franco, a political columnist for the Rio broadsheet O Globo. “His father [Jair Bolsonaro] was convicted and jailed for attempting a coup d’état [in 2022-23] yet despite this, his allies won elections across the country, and his son is the frontrunner in the second round of the presidential election.” Among the main drivers behind Bolsonaro’s strong showing: The evangelical church Brazil’s evangelical church has expanded dramatically since the 1980s, with evangelical Christians now making up nearly a third of the population. Many evangelical voters – often influenced by church leaders – have thrown their weight behind the radical populist movement built by Jair Bolsonaro, and now spearheaded by his evangelical eldest son. As president from 2018 to 2022, Bolsonaro’s ultra-conservative policies helped him cement a lasting alliance with powerful megachurch leaders such as the televangelist Silas Malafaia. “This religious machine … was put at the service of Bolsonarismo: starting with these pastors who have millions of followers on social media, who buy airtime on TV, who lead churches with millions of members, and who turned themselves into canvassers for the Bolsonaro family,” said Mello Franco. Urban violence Mello Franco believed urban violence was another factor that had turbocharged the “far-right windstorm” sweeping Brazil. Rightwing populists such as the pro-gun Bolsonaros were offering voters “misguided but easy-to-understand solutions” to high crime rates, such as increased police violence, mass incarceration and lowering the age of criminal responsibility. “This appeals to an electorate that is scared of violence and crime,” Mello Franco said. The leading light of such “security populism” in Latin America is El Salvador’s authoritarian president, Nayib Bukele, who has jailed thousands of people, often without due process, in his successful bid to cut murder rates. Mello Franco said El Salvador’s “proto-dictator” and his supposedly “magic solutions” had been held up as an inspiration by Bolsonarista politicians during the 2026 campaign. Such hardline proposals have also been boosted by Donald Trump’s decision to designate Brazil’s two biggest crime groups, Rio’s Red Command and São Paulo’s PCC, as foreign terrorist organizations. On the campaign trail, Bolsonaro and his allies have vowed to “neutralize narco-terrorists” and chemically castrate rapists – promises that appear to have won over many violence-weary voters. Lula’s campaign Analysts say Lula’s failure to focus on day-to-day issues such as crime may have hurt his prospects. The leftwing veteran spent much of the campaign vowing to defend Brazil’s sovereignty from Donald Trump’s “colonial” designs and protect its rare earth reserves. “Meanwhile, what voters wanted were solutions to more immediate problems such as bank debts, the cost of food, and insecurity,” Mello Franco said. During one recent rally in suburban Rio, some Lula supporters visibly zoned out as the president waxed lyrical about critical minerals and artificial intelligence. Political analyst Thomas Traumann, who was spokesperson for the former leftwing president Dilma Rousseff, believed Lula’s third administration had ignored a large chunk of society that was unsatisfied over economic issues or because of controversies involving the supreme court. “The government treated any kind of criticism … as a display of fascism – which undoubtedly exists in Brazil – and elitism, which also exists,” he said. “But what also exists is a group of voters who expected more from the government and who are neither fascists, nor elitists. They are simply people who didn’t like the government and decided to punish it.” A Brazilian Biden? Some critics have also pointed to Lula’s age as his achilles heel and blame him for failing to produce an obvious successor. He will turn 81 two days after the election’s 25 October second round. One recent story in the Economist called Lula “a doddering leftie” and compared him to the “geriatric leader” Joe Biden, who was forced to abandon his 2024 re-election campaign after a disastrous debate performance against Trump. Traumann called questions over Lula’s physical or mental state “ridiculous”. “When you see him speak, you can tell it’s not about this,” he said of the gym-going octogenarian. Mello Franco agreed: “Unlike Biden, Lula has at no point shown any kind of physical frailty or cognitive impairment. I don’t think this was an issue.” But Traumann did see one parallel with the former US president: like Biden, Lula was stubborn, had not listened enough to others, and appeared to have thought decent economic indicators were enough to ensure re-election. “This disconnection from reality reminds me of Biden,” he said, attributing it to “the stubbornness of age”. From the start of the campaign, Lula seemed to believe “the election was in the bag”. “And it wasn’t,” Traumann said. The global far right Many observers saw Sunday’s rightwing victory as another chapter in the global advance of the social media-savvy far right. “We’re seeing this revolution in many other parts of the world. We’re seeing this in the US, we’re seeing it in parts of Latin America, we’re see this in a different way in Europe,” said Miguel Lagos, a political scientist. Lagos believed that in Brazil, the movement was driven by a deep “rage against the classical political elites” including journalists, traditional politicians and intellectuals. Jair Bolsonaro and his son Flávio are career politicians. Between them, they have spent half a century working in Rio’s state legislature or the Brazilian congress. Even so, father and son have managed to portray themselves as Trump-style anti-establishment outsiders who have come to drain a swamp of which they, too, are part. Mello Franco believed Bolsonaro was now the favourite to become president. “But I don’t think the contest is over,” he cautioned. “Brazil is always showing us that plot twists aren’t just possible – they’re practically part of the landscape.”

Flydubai co-pilot originally planned attack for July, investigators believe

Investigators believe the co-pilot who tried to take control of a plane from Dubai to Tel Aviv last week originally planned his attack for July but postponed the hijacking, possibly because a friend was among the crew, regional and Israeli officials have said. The evidence of prior planning suggests that Hamam al-Hammami, 29, may have specifically sought employment with an airline that flew to Israel in order to carry out the attack on last Wednesday’s flydubai ‌flight FZ1073, experts believe. Police and security agencies in at least six countries are scrambling to piece together the background of Hammami, an Omani national, and his intentions, as well as to establish if he acted entirely alone. Hammami allegedly used an emergency crash axe kept in the cockpit to launch a surprise attack on the pilot approximately two hours and 20 minutes after takeoff. The plane was carrying more than 180 passengers – almost all Israeli – and crew on a routine flight. Israeli media have quoted from Hammami’s statements to interrogators since being transferred to United Arab Emirates custody on Thursday to report that he planned to crash into Ben Gurion airport near ⁠Tel Aviv, or possibly another high-profile target nearby. The flight’s captain, Smit Machchhar, said on Saturday that shortly after Hammami had left his seat to pray, he felt a “big blow” to the back of his head. In a phone call with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Saturday, Machchhar said: “The blows kept coming … That’s when I realised that it’s not the aircraft, it’s the other guy who was in the cockpit with me.” Despite his injuries Machchhar was able to unlock the cockpit’s security door to allow passengers to overpower Hammami. A reserve flydubai pilot travelling on the flight took control of the aircraft and landed it at a regional airport in north-western Saudi Arabia, where the co-pilot was detained by Saudi authorities. The investigation into Hammami has now spread to more than eight countries. Authorities in New Zealand and Australia are examining reports that the co-pilot studied in both nations about 10 years ago. Hammami, who has an Omani father and a Syrian mother, is thought to have been employed by Oman Air from 2018 to June 2025, but left the airline after being moved to a desk job out of concerns that he had developed extremist views. He was then hired by Royal Air Maroc, the Moroccan national flag carrier, but did not obtain permission to fly and gave up his job there. Shortly afterward, Hammami was hired at the state-owned flydubai, which has needed pilots as it expands rapidly. The airline conducted checks for a criminal record but not for evidence of radicalisation, officials have said. A key question for investigators is when Hammami began to formulate his plan to attack a plane full of Israelis or target Israel. Netanyahu has claimed Hammami had undergone “radical Islamist indoctrination” and was clearly suicidal, without giving details. Nine hours after the attack, a post was made to an online social media account in Hammami’s name praising Ayman al-Zawahiri, a former al-Qaida leader, as well as a militant responsible for a lethal suicide attack on US troops in Afghanistan in 2009. A second post contained religious imagery. An analysis of Hammami’s X account by a company that uses AI to measure the toxicity of individuals’ social media accounts found dozens of misogynistic posts, including public threats against women. The analysis by Accountability! – which recovered Hammami’s deleted account by scraping internet archives, and reviewed almost 3,000 posts and responses – found repeated use of slurs against women, and a “consistent pattern” of use of terms meaning “whores”, and “filthy feminist”. The researchers also found homophobic slurs directed at men. “Beyond offensive language, the analysis surfaced explicit conditional threats of physical violence … including repeated imagery of stomping on a woman’s head and making her ‘a lesson for others’,” the analysis found. “Online toxicity isn’t just corrosive, it’s a warning sign. This pilot was telling the world who he was in his posts. Had anyone in charge been listening, nearly 200 people might never have been put in danger,” said Gur Megiddo, a co-founder and chief executive of Accountability!. Regional officials said Emirati authorities had shared information about the passengers and crew, including their nationalities, with Israel. The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, said the transportation ministry was responsible for vetting passenger lists from foreign flights but the transportation minister, Miri Regev, said on X that the security agencies handled flight security. Israeli newspapers reported that a key database of foreign pilots had not been checked despite concerns raised by official reports. The attack occurred at a sensitive time for Israel, a week before the anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023 which triggered the war in Gaza, and weeks before a fiercely contested general election in which security – and responsibility for failures to keep Israelis safe – has been a central issue. Opposition politicians have seized on the apparent lapses to attack Netanyahu, who has boasted of his ability to keep Israelis safe. “This is exactly what system collapse looks like,” Yair Golan, the head of the opposition Democrats party, wrote on X. “A transportation minister who completely abandons our skies, and a prime minister who abandons national security.”

UK threatens to expel Israeli diplomats over planned East Jerusalem consulate closure

The UK has threatened to expel one Israeli diplomat for every British diplomat forced to leave Israel as a result of Israel’s decision to close the UK consulate in East Jerusalem later this week. This could mean as many as 27 Israeli diplomats being expelled from the UK, a step that would arguably mark the lowest point in British-Israeli diplomatic relations since the formation of the state of Israel. The mass expulsion threat – more reminiscent of British-Russian diplomatic relations – was first reported by the Israeli newspaper Ynet, citing a message sent to Israeli officials. The UK Foreign Office said it would not comment on speculation, rather than denying the report outright. Israel has threatened to close the UK consulate in East Jerusalem in protest at the UK decision to ban trade in goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and to impose sanctions on British firms that aid, support or facilitate the construction of further illegal settlements. The Foreign Office has been advised informally by the former UK attorney general Dominic Grieve that Israel is acting unlawfully if it closes the consulate on the basis it is sited in East Jerusalem, which is recognised by the United Nations and most of its members, including the UK, as being occupied Palestinian territory. Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, has said that Britain’s ‌decision to impose sanctions was “morally distorted” and accused Britain’s ruling Labour party of being hostile towards the country. The consulate, which Israel’s foreign ministry has said will close on Thursday, is separate from the UK embassy based in Tel Aviv and has a distinct diplomatic role, covering East Jerusalem, the rest of the West Bank and Gaza. It is located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. An Israeli diplomatic source said: “There is no reason for us to respond to speculation about decisions that other countries may or may not take in the future. “We have already demonstrated that any step taken against Israel will be met with an appropriate response, and that will continue to be the case.” The UK national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, travelled to Jerusalem last week in an effort to persuade the Israeli government to rescind or defer the closure of the consulate but the talks failed. It has been reported that Powell opposed the decision of the UK foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, to press ahead with the settlement trade ban decision, fearing that it might play to the advantage of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the national election on 27 October as he seeks to bolster his case that only his brand of leadership can bring Israel security. There is no evidence yet that the UK decision has featured in the campaign, but tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats may raise its profile. The ‌incident highlighted growing frustration among Israel’s longtime allies over its settlements in the occupied West Bank, viewed by much of the world as illegal under international law. In his statement to the UK parliament, Miliband said settler terrorists, supported by Netanyahu’s government, are committing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Israel disputes this. Diplomats from other western countries have been very worried about the closure setting a precedent, and suggest that Britain had to respond strongly to the Israeli move because it has implications beyond the immediate dispute. Shutting down the consulate involves Israel claiming authority in Jerusalem that it does not have under international law, so it is effectively a challenge to the status quo. “We are all concerned because if this (closure of the consulate) goes ahead it would be an incredibly damaging precedent for the status of missions in Jerusalem, which are monitoring the status quo,” said one western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It would be inconceivable for the British government to accept (the closure) because they don’t recognise the authority of the Israeli government over Jerusalem under international law. Particularly as Israel is taking this step over British measures which are simply applying international law.” Israel has also said it is to revoke the credentials of Dutch diplomats from the country’s mission to Palestine, in response to the Netherlands’ ban on imports from illegal Israeli settlements. Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza means diplomats need Israeli accreditation to operate in Palestine. The decision also in effect bars them from Israel-controlled East Jerusalem. France and Canada, which also joined the UK in the settlement trade ban, have not had action taken against them. Miliband received a very warm reception at the UK Labour party conference last week during a speech in which he highlighted his decision to get tough with Israel over illegal settlements. UK-Israeli relations have deteriorated steadily during the war in Gaza begun by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 massacre of Israelis as the UK became increasingly critical of the way in which Netanyahu seemed prepared to tolerate the death of thousands of Palestinians in a bid to render Hamas inoperative, a task both the Conservative and Labour governments thought was unachievable through his methods. The UK has rescinded a large number of arms export licences to Israel as a result and Miliband has spoken of evidence of war crimes in Gaza. He has declined to accuse Israel of genocide on the grounds that he believes this is a matter for international courts alone to determine.

Norway plans temporary ban on smart glasses in some public places

Norway is planning a temporary ban on smart glasses in some public places, amid rising global concern at the spread of the AI-enabled recording devices. The Oslo government is planning a bill to prevent the use of the camera-enabled spectacles in parks, beaches, museums, shopping centres, schools, daycare centres, healthcare facilities, gyms and public events, although private use would still be allowed. There is already a growing patchwork of restrictions on the use of the glasses including in UK and US courtrooms and in pubs, cinemas and restaurants where owners have raised privacy fears. Torgeir Micaelsen, Norway’s minister of digital affairs, said he was “worried that ‌new, powerful technology is being introduced where people risk being ‌photographed, filmed or audio-recorded without knowing it”. “We do not want a society where people worry about being recorded without their knowledge, photographed or filmed in places and situations where they are accustomed to not being monitored,” he said. Norway’s Labour party, which heads a minority government, needs the support of other parties to pass the proposed ban. It said it planned to submit a bill “as soon as possible”, while tasking an expert group with drawing up permanent regulations on the issue. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta sells “smart” versions of Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses that allow users to film, take photos, make phone calls, play music and execute AI prompts. It has sold at least 9m pairs of the Ray-Ban versions since the start of 2023. In the UK restaurateurs such as Jeremy King, who created the Wolseley and Delaunay restaurants, and pub chain Wetherspoons have already said they do not want customers using the devices. Cinemas said in August they had begun introducing policies to ban or restrict the use of smart glasses citing both privacy and film piracy concerns. Last week the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, vetoed legislation that would have penalised citizens for using smart glasses to record people without their permission in changing rooms, doctors’ offices and other spaces people generally consider private. The state already has laws governing unlawful recording. In France, the child welfare group E-enfance said it had this year received about 20 reports of women being filmed without their knowledge using glasses fitted with a camera, the majority of which involved Meta smart glasses. It said the incidents often followed the same pattern: a young girl or woman approached in a public place, filmed without her knowledge, with the clip then posted on social media in the form of a prank or a street interview. Meta has stressed that each pair of glasses is fitted with a tamper-proof LED light that blinks white when the user is recording or taking pictures. It advises users: “Not everyone loves being photographed. Stop recording if anyone expresses that they would rather you not.” A Meta spokesperson said: “We’re excited that our glasses continue to be very popular for listening to music, making calls, or getting live translations, so we’re continuing to expand styles and features around the world. Every pair with a camera has a bright light on the front that blinks when you take a photo or video. It can’t be turned off and the camera is disabled if someone covers or tampers with it -- something smartphones and other camera’s don’t have.”

Nearly 200 students injured in French schools protests as clashes with police continue – as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today. Nearly 200 French students have been injured since the protests began, France’s education minister Édouard Geffray said, at protests and violent clashes with police continued for another day (14:15, 16:49). A 15-year-old boy ‌had his hand ‌blown off at a protest outside a high school in the northern town of Lens, local authorities confirmed (14:04, 17:24). At least 5,000 people – 85% of them teenagers – have been arrested since the start of the protests (16:47). Tuesday is expected to bring even more disruption after different groups called for a national day of protests. In other news, Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has once again staked his political future on a snap general election called after rightwing parties torpedoed emergency legislation to tackle the housing crisis (9:01, 9:04, 9:09, 9:10, 9:13, 9:17, 9:23). Pedro Sánchez is hoping to mobilise voters around the housing crisis and the broader message of hope, with opinion polls suggesting his left-wing government might otherwise struggle to retain power (9:37). As he deals with a fragmented left-wing bloc and criticism over the migration crisis in Ceuta, it’s not hard to see why the prime minister may have decided that an early election was preferable to several more months of legislative deadlock, mud-slinging and uncomfortable headlines (12:33). The opposition leader, the People’s Party’s Alberto Núñez Feijóo, welcomed the move, saying “at last” Spaniards will have a chance to oust the PM (10:24). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.