Europe

Moscow's mayor said about 600 drones headed for the city overnight; Russian missiles struck Kyiv and Kryvyi Rih.

Geopolitics

The Rhine gauge at Kaub fell to six centimetres overnight into Saturday, the lowest ever measured there, halting most freight. Hungary is sinking two barges to raise the Danube at its nuclear plant's cooling intake.

Economy

A wildfire in Belgium's Hautes Fagnes has become the country's largest on record and forced evacuations near the German border. Belgium called in EU air support on Saturday.

Geopolitics

TASS reported on Sunday that Ukraine's losses from unused port capacity have risen to about $1.75 billion and that agricultural exports have dwindled by roughly 60 percent. The figures come from the Russian state agency alone and are not independently confirmed.

Economy

Thousands of Syrians have had their refugee protection status revoked in Germany this year, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Sunday, pointing to the changed situation in their home country. The responsible authority is expanding its reviews.

Geopolitics

The Paris public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the hack of the French tax portal impots.gouv.fr, in which the attackers extracted data on taxpayers and companies, Le Monde reported on Saturday. The finance ministry called the operation more sophisticated than previous attacks and said affected users would be contacted from Monday.

Technology

Le Monde reports that companies with opaque ownership registered in Cyprus and Malta are competing for the market in erotic AI services, moderating their content little and training their models on data of doubtful legality. The newspaper also describes strong growth in intimate role-play with chatbots, driven by advances in text- and image-generating AI, with widely varying practices.

Technology

Chinese-owned AESC has shelved the expansion of the UK's largest electric-vehicle battery gigafactory after talks with Jaguar Land Rover stalled, the Guardian reported on Saturday. The paper calls the decision a sign of a slowing shift from petrol and diesel to electric cars.

Economy

Locals spotted a suspicious object on a beach in Sakarya, the third piece of drone wreckage found in Turkey within a single day, the Turkish newspaper Nefes reported according to TASS. On Saturday, the agency IHA reported wreckage of unknown origin on the coast in Istanbul's Arnavutköy district.

Geopolitics

Secondhand booksellers in the UK and Ireland are reporting a flurry of bulk orders from mystery buyers, the Guardian reported on Saturday. The orders come after Anthropic was found to have spent millions on books to scan for data acquisition.

Technology

Italy lowered the alert level for volcanic activity at Mount Etna from red to orange, and Catania airport again handled arrivals and departures on Saturday, FAZ reported. Major restrictions remain in place and the eruption continues, according to Bloomberg.

Geopolitics

Hundreds of firefighters and army vehicles are battling what North Rhine-Westphalia's government calls the state's largest forest fire. Britain's prime minister called his country a 'powder keg'.

Geopolitics

Russia has turned down Kyiv's offer of a mutual halt to attacks in the Black Sea. Strikes on ports on both sides continue.

Geopolitics

Russia's government said on Friday that fuel supply to filling stations remains strained in several regions. Two are now rationing sales.

Economy

The New York Times reported on Saturday that Russia ran a covert campaign against Moldova's pro-Western government. Poland said a day earlier that it had detained a man recruited by Russian intelligence for a planned killing.

Geopolitics

France's Constitutional Council struck down the ban on social media for under-15s on Friday, citing freedom of expression and privacy. It is a setback for Macron, who championed it.

Technology

Extreme heat has pushed Europe's harvests weeks early and cut yields. Low rivers are throttling freight and reactor cooling; Britain gave farmers £65m on Friday.

Economy

Washington has circulated a questionnaire among NATO members asking how far they back President Donald Trump's foreign policy, Bloomberg reported on Friday. It comes as the United States prepares deep cuts to its forces in Europe.

Geopolitics

Spain and Morocco massed police and troops at the Ceuta border before online calls for a crossing on Saturday. Some 5,000 migrants from the late-July influx remain in the enclave.

Geopolitics

Italian Eurofighter jets shot down a drone that had entered Latvian airspace on Friday, a decision the defence ministry said was taken to avert a threat to Latvia's population. Separately, drone debris was found on a Romanian holiday beach, where police and gendarmerie secured the site and tourists were evacuated while the origin of the aircraft is being established.

Geopolitics

Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Taras Vysotsky said Ukrainian grain exports have fallen 70 percent since the beginning of August, while opportunities remain to partly increase shipments via rail and Danube ports, TASS reported. Ore exports dropped 27 percent over seven months, with revenue at $1.08 billion and $148 million in July, and Bloomberg reports that crop buyers cut off from the Black Sea are turning to other origins.

Economy

Ash from Mount Etna has largely paralysed Catania airport, the busiest in Sicily, for about a week, and the airport has repeatedly been closed completely. Le Monde reports more than 1,000 cancelled flights and tens of thousands of stranded travellers, while Al Jazeera says flights are suspended until at least Saturday afternoon.

Geopolitics

The public finances directorate DGFiP said 678,000 users were affected by the hack of impots.gouv.fr and that it will notify each victim individually with advice on the precautions to take. Bercy acknowledged the intrusion on Thursday, according to Le Monde, which describes it as another data leak from the French state.

Technology

Germany's 40 Dax companies together earned more than ever before, while industry cut more than ten thousand jobs a month, the FAZ reported on Friday. Bloomberg reported the same day that the German car industry's workforce has shrunk to its smallest in more than 20 years.

Economy

The ruble-denominated MOEX index fell 4.29 percent over the week and the dollar-denominated RTS index lost 5.13 percent, TASS reported on Friday. The central bank put the decline of the ruble's real effective exchange rate in July at 4.7 percent, and banks in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan sharply raised fees for cash ruble deposits by nonresidents, according to RBC.

Economy

Nigel Farage won the Clacton by-election with 63 percent, ahead of the novelty candidate Count Binface on 27 percent, after giving up the seat over an undeclared donation. Parliament's standards watchdog has resumed its investigation into his finances, and Farage says voters do not care about the allegations.

Geopolitics

Kyiv has offered Moscow a mutual halt to attacks on civilian ships in the Black Sea, sent via a third country. Moscow says no formal proposal has reached it.

Geopolitics

Romania took its only nuclear plant off the grid on Thursday after drought pushed the Danube to record lows. Moldova, which leans on Romanian power, is exposed.

Economy

Ukrainian drones have fully shut Russia's Orsk refinery, with repairs put at up to six months. Bloomberg reports Russian diesel exports at their lowest in years.

Economy

Poland detained a Russian recruited by Moscow's intelligence services over a plot to kill a man with Ukrainian and US passports, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday. He called it the first Russian-ordered attack on a US citizen in a NATO state.

Geopolitics

Britain recorded 38.1C on Thursday, its hottest day of 2026, while a wind-driven forest fire forced more than 250 people off beaches in northern Greece.

Geopolitics

British GDP expanded 0.4 percent in the three months to June, but analysts cited by The Guardian expect the resilience to fade. Rising energy costs and persistent inflation point to a harder autumn.

Economy

Gazprom said on Thursday that European underground storage holds 13.4 billion cubic metres less gas than a year ago and is refilling very slowly. Greek politician Panagiotis Lafazanis told TASS that the EU's ban on Russian pipeline gas and LNG by 2027 would hit Greece hardest, and that the planned Vertical Corridor to Ukraine remains only on paper.

Economy

The Swiss government wants to give the financial regulator stronger powers, including fines, a freeze on bonuses and early intervention when trouble is suspected, Le Monde reported on Thursday. The package is Bern's answer to the collapse of Credit Suisse three years ago, which forced UBS to absorb its rival.

Economy

An explosion and a fire struck an ammunition factory at Colleferro, about 40 kilometres southeast of Rome, on Thursday, Italian authorities and local media said. The plant, the former Sammel Difesa works, belongs to the German-French manufacturer KNDS; the cause and possible injuries were initially unclear.

Geopolitics

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said about 5,000 migrants are still in Ceuta after the mass crossing, with about 880 police officers and 714 Civil Guard personnel deployed in the city, TASS reported. On Wednesday, Spain rejected any discussion of the status of Ceuta and Melilla.

Geopolitics

A US oil company says it could be on the verge of a major discovery in Greenland, but people on the island are lining up against the project, the New York Times reported. The National reported that Greenland has delayed the venture's drilling plans, pushing the wells back to the winter of 2027.

Geopolitics

Europe's most active volcano is throwing out unusually large amounts of ash, and over the past week hundreds of flights have been cancelled and the plans of tens of thousands of travellers disrupted. Mountain guides are still taking visitors close to the lava.

Geopolitics

Bloomberg reports that Uber and the Chinese self-driving company Pony AI will deploy 2,000 robotaxis in Europe, the largest such rollout attempted on the continent. It would give a Chinese autonomous driving firm a substantial foothold in a market where regulators have moved slowly.

Technology

The French economy ministry has confirmed part of a hacker's account of a breach of the tax portal Impots.gouv.fr, including that its services detected the intruder in June without saying anything publicly at the time. The site holds the tax records of practically every French household.

Technology

The Sverdlovsk region's election commission has rejected the candidate list of the pro-war Rodina party for the regional legislative assembly, days after Rodina's own lawsuit barred the antiwar Yabloko party from the State Duma race. A Moscow court also ordered the in-absentia arrest of comedian Sasha Dolgopolov on charges of rehabilitating Nazism, and a court in Novosibirsk ordered activist Larisa Mikhailova held for two months.

Geopolitics

Ukrainian drones hit Novorossiysk and Russia's Krasnodar region overnight into Wednesday, halting all three grain terminals at the country's main wheat port. Three people were killed, among them an eight-year-old.

Geopolitics

France's ecology minister put this summer's heat at up to €15bn; a British thinktank counted £4.4bn in lost output. Record-low rivers are hitting freight and power.

Economy

Putin threatened on Wednesday to seize European ships over EU confiscations of Russian vessels. NATO the same day blamed Moscow for drones over Poland and Romania.

Geopolitics

Oil tanker rates out of the Black Sea hit a record on Wednesday after a drone barrage, Bloomberg reports. The war's squeeze on the region's ports is feeding through to European grain prices.

Economy

A cyberattack on a Polish medical software provider has exposed personal and health data on nearly 19 million people. Polish authorities disclosed the breach on Wednesday.

Technology

Rosstat put second-quarter growth at 1.3% on Wednesday, above official forecasts. Petrol queues and purchase limits have returned in a dozen regions after Ukrainian refinery strikes.

Economy

Russia's Supreme Court barred Yabloko, the only party campaigning for peace with Ukraine, from the State Duma election on Monday, citing copyright and campaign financing, and never ruled on whether calls for peace amount to extremism, Meduza reports. Sources close to the Kremlin told Meduza that the party's registration in late July was an experiment that was dropped once the polling came back.

Geopolitics

Morocco's interior ministry said on Wednesday it had reinforced security along the borders with the Spanish enclaves and made arrests after fresh social media calls for mass crossings. The European Commission announced a communication tool agreed with Meta and TikTok to counter the disinformation that fed the crossings of 30 and 31 July.

Geopolitics

The cabinet on Wednesday approved a draft law lifting many restraints on the BND and the domestic intelligence service, allowing them to actively disrupt attackers rather than only observe them. The Green politician Konstantin von Notz said the reform overshoots its target and warned of chaos and legitimacy problems.

Geopolitics

Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest at $2.3 trillion, reported on Wednesday a record profit of 1.75 trillion crowns ($184.3 billion) for the first half of the year, driven largely by a rally in Asian technology stocks. Its chief executive said the record returns leave him more nervous, not less.

Economy

The British government is preparing rules meant to prevent the misuse of advanced AI models to design biological weapons, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. The obligations would fall on model developers rather than on users alone.

Technology

Ukrainian and American units faced each other in an exercise in which Ukraine's drones prevailed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Neither the location nor the timing of the exercise has been reported.

Geopolitics

Electricity network operators in western Europe prepared for the fall in photovoltaic production during the solar eclipse on Wednesday afternoon, an output that has become increasingly important in France's energy mix, Le Monde reported. In Spain, authorities urged eclipse watchers to be wary of wildfire risks, according to the New York Times.

Economy

Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to Belgrade on Saturday to meet Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic over artillery shells and restated that Kyiv does not recognise Kosovo's independence, Politico reports. The remarks caused an uproar that reached Pristina, where a "Free Ukraine" banner was taken down the next day, and Albania, which reacted sharply.

Geopolitics

Russian missiles, drones and glide bombs killed at least ten people across Ukraine overnight into Tuesday. Kyiv says North Korean missiles were used.

Geopolitics

Spain is fighting its most destructive wildfires in years as a new heatwave puts Europe on alert. German crews battle forest fires while towns ration drinking water.

Geopolitics

An unidentified drone closed Hanover airport's runways for 90 minutes overnight into Tuesday, a week after the explosive drone at Leipzig. Romania destroyed two suspected Russian drones at sea.

Geopolitics

A study reported on Tuesday traces the mass entry into Ceuta to viral videos of the first crossings. Morocco is building a four-metre barrier near Fnideq.

Geopolitics

Persistent low water on the Rhine is forcing the first companies to cut production, and shifting deliveries entirely to road is barely possible, FAZ reported on Tuesday. Swiss Re put worldwide economic losses from natural disasters in the first half of the year at $100 billion, a sharp decline.

Economy

President Vladimir Putin pardoned Robert Gilman, 32, on humanitarian grounds, and US officials said the release was not part of an exchange, Meduza and Le Monde reported on Tuesday. The former Marine, convicted in 2022 of violence against a police officer and held in a penal colony in Voronezh, is on his way to a hospital in Texas, according to the advocacy group Global Reach.

Geopolitics

Authorities in Sochi urged residents and tourists on Tuesday to avoid using their cars because of a fuel shortage, and a fire broke out at a Rosneft refinery in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, the state news agency TASS reported. The same day, Russia's central bank cleared bitcoin, ether and tether for exchange trading, and Lloyd's List reported that the United States had sold two seized shadow-fleet tankers for scrap.

Economy

Hungarian lawmakers on Tuesday approved Andras Baka, the former supreme court chief who was dismissed during Viktor Orban's time in office, as head of state. Le Monde reports that the government has also filed a complaint over Orban's communications spending.

Geopolitics

The Alliance de la presse d'information générale, which represents nearly 300 French dailies, said on Tuesday it had filed a complaint with the competition authority over Google's AI-generated summaries. It wants the regulator to make Google honour the commitments it gave in 2022.

Technology

The independent outlet Verstka reports that Russia's Defence Ministry launched a programme called 'Choice' in 2024, soliciting volunteers at women's prisons for service as front-line medics, and documents rape by commanders as well as criminal cases against the women who reported it. Meduza carried the investigation on Tuesday, alongside reports that Moscow's Gulag museum has been replaced by a state museum about the Nazi genocide of the Soviet people and that Sergey Nedovodin, a founder of the radio station Ekho Peterburga, died at 61 after being beaten outside his Moscow home.

Geopolitics

BSW founder Sahra Wagenknecht said that excluding a party with 40 percent of the vote is undemocratic and held out the prospect of her party abstaining, the FAZ reported on Wednesday. Handelsblatt wrote that the AfD has become a governing option in Saxony-Anhalt after the state election.

Geopolitics

Ukrainian drones killed at least 13 people in the Russian refinery city of Nizhnekamsk on Monday. Russian strikes then hit Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv.

Geopolitics

Amber heat alerts cover most of England from Tuesday as Britain enters its fifth heatwave of the year, with 36C or higher forecast.

Geopolitics

Russia's Supreme Court struck the only antiwar party, Yabloko, from the September Duma ballot on Monday, granting a suit by the pro-Kremlin party Rodina.

Geopolitics

Germany's inland shipping association expects the Rhine gauge at Kaub to fall to single digits this week, splitting the waterway. Chemical firms and retailers warn of bottlenecks.

Economy

US officials believe last week's explosives-laden drone at Leipzig/Halle airport came from Russia, American media report. Berlin speaks of a new level of danger but names no culprit.

Geopolitics

Chinese carmakers reached fresh sales highs in western Europe even with EU tariffs in force, the Global Times reported on Monday. US outlets link the shift to the war's effect on fuel and to German brands' slide in China.

Economy

Ceuta's mayor has demanded an internment centre for the thousands of migrants still in the enclave. Spain and Italy keep their border checks before a mass crossing called for 15 August.

Geopolitics

Moldova's foreign ministry recalled its ambassador from Moscow for consultations after a drone crashed in the village of Crocmaz near the Ukrainian border, Meduza reported on Monday. According to TASS, Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Galuzin said armed provocations in Transnistria would be regarded as an attack on Russia, while Meduza reported that more than 60,000 residents of the breakaway region have applied for Russian citizenship under a simplified procedure.

Geopolitics

Pristina and Tirana said a statement by Serbian President Vucic on the course of the Ibar river was destabilising and ran counter to international conventions, Koha reported. Vucic answered that the river was an internal Serbian matter and that he did not see what it had to do with Albania.

Geopolitics

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday on a shift in Europe toward conscripting women for war. The available report does not specify which countries are involved or when such measures would take effect.

Geopolitics

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that British authorities found a component in the country's naval drones which had been sending signals to China. No further details, such as the type of component or the drones affected, were available.

Technology

The Bank of Russia recommended on Monday that lenders support small and medium-sized businesses affected by what it called terrorist attacks, a reference to Ukrainian drone strikes on warehouses and logistics sites, and urged them not to charge penalties for overdue payments or demand early repayment. Kommersant reports that Russian book publishers are suspending sales on the Wildberries marketplace as drone attacks continue to hit the platform's warehouses.

Economy

Overnight strikes into Sunday killed at least seven people in Russia and Ukraine, authorities on both sides said.

Geopolitics

Germany's inland shipping association expects the Rhine gauge at Kaub to fall to a single digit this week for the first time, splitting Europe's busiest waterway in two.

Geopolitics

Ukrainian President Zelensky said on Sunday that Pyongyang is preparing a deployment of that size to Russia. Reuters and Nikkei Asia carried the statement; the figure is not independently confirmed.

Geopolitics

Spain checked 199 arrivals from Italy at its six largest airports on Saturday, the first day of retaliatory controls. Rome calls the step unacceptable and keeps its own checks.

Geopolitics

Two drones were spotted over a Bundeswehr base near Bonn that reportedly holds Patriot components, days after an explosives-laden drone was found at Leipzig/Halle airport. Berlin is expanding its drone defences.

Geopolitics

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday that Belgrade could divert the Ibar river and leave the Gazivode plant without water, citing the treatment of Serbs, and called Europe's actions against Russia a hybrid war that has the continent on the brink of a larger conflict. Pristina removed the Ukrainian flag after Volodymyr Zelensky's remarks on Kosovo during his visit to Belgrade, and protesters in Tirana marched on the Serbian and Ukrainian embassies.

Geopolitics

Turkish officials said on Sunday that passage through the Turkish Straits to the Black Sea is continuing smoothly after delays linked to the war between Russia and Ukraine. TASS reports that the owner of the MV Reyhan Sari, attacked by a drone in July while carrying coal from the Russian port of Taman to Trabzon, plans to take Ukraine to international arbitration.

Economy

Daniel Kinahan appeared before a Dublin court after his extradition from Dubai, and Irish prosecutors charged him with directing a criminal organisation. Le Monde reports that the 49-year-old was remanded in custody, accused of running the KOCG between 2015 and 2017; according to Politika, the group smuggled weapons and drugs worth tens of millions of dollars into Europe.

Geopolitics

FIFA has dismissed calls for president Gianni Infantino to step down over allegations about his conduct, describing a concerted and ongoing effort to undermine the governing body and its president. In an interview published on Sunday, La Liga president Javier Tebas said the Infantino era is over.

Geopolitics

Russian drones destroyed a family home near Kyiv early on Saturday, killing a three-year-old boy and his grandparents. Ukrainian drones set Russia's Ilsky oil refinery ablaze the same day.

Geopolitics

Spain began checks on air and sea arrivals from Italy at midnight on Saturday, answering Rome's suspension of Schengen free travel over the Ceuta crossings.

Geopolitics

After a surge of attacks on ships, Turkey has begun restricting Black Sea traffic, Bloomberg reported on Saturday. Its foreign ministry warns the escalation could hit food security.

Economy

Drones were seen over a German military base days after an explosives-laden drone was stopped at Leipzig/Halle airport. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt calls Germany a daily target of hybrid warfare.

Geopolitics

Romania finished blowing up four barges in the Danube overnight to lift water levels at the Cernavoda nuclear plant. Drought and heat are fuelling fires from Spain to Albania.

Geopolitics

A drone entered Bulgarian airspace on Saturday and exploded close to the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline, which links Turkey to Ukraine, near the Romanian border. Bulgaria's defence ministry said the drone was of a type widely used by Ukrainian armed forces but that nothing currently suggests a deliberate incident, while Kyiv denied targeting the country.

Geopolitics

Politicians from Germany, France and the United States, among them Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, are pressing the EU to use Russia's frozen assets to finance Ukraine, which could soon run out of money, the FAZ reported on Saturday. The same day the US Senate approved a new Russia sanctions bill, which Chinese state media called political coercion in global energy supply chains.

Economy

Ukrainian drones have increasingly targeted warehouses of Wildberries, Russia's largest e-commerce company, on which many Russians rely, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Billionaire co-founder Tatyana Kim faces her biggest test yet, according to The New York Times.

Economy

Volodymyr Zelensky met Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade on Saturday, and the two agreed to work toward a free-trade agreement by the end of the year and to have Serbia help rebuild Ukrainian cities. Vucic said he would back Kyiv's EU accession and that military cooperation had not been discussed, while pro-Russian demonstrators protested outside the presidency.

Geopolitics

Andras Baka, removed as Supreme Court president in 2012 after denouncing Viktor Orban's judicial changes as a disguised purge, has accepted the nomination of Peter Magyar's governing camp for head of state. Fidesz and the KDNP say they will not take part in the parliamentary vote.

Geopolitics

An anonymous flagging service told the Guardian that reports from children in Britain about sexualised or "nudified" images of themselves have surged. A watchdog says AI tools are making such content easier to produce.

Technology

Russian air attacks on a suburb of Kyiv killed at least three people on Saturday, and a drone damaged a football stadium in Odesa. In the Donbass, Russian troops are closing in on the twin cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Geopolitics

US intelligence has tied the explosive-laden drone stopped at Leipzig/Halle airport on Tuesday night to Russia, the Wall Street Journal reports. German federal prosecutors are running a counterterrorism investigation.

Geopolitics

Ukraine has completely stopped exporting agricultural products through the Black Sea after Russian strikes on Odesa, a route that carried about 85% of such exports before July, Agrarian Policy Minister Taras Vysotsky said. TASS reports 6,835 vehicles queued at the Polish border and a drone strike on the Turkish cargo ship MV Gulluk near Novorossiysk, while Bloomberg reports that Washington says Kyiv will avoid targeting tankers and a Black Sea oil site.

Economy

Ukrainian drones struck a warehouse of Wildberries, Russia's largest online marketplace, in Yekaterinburg more than 2,000 kilometres inside Russia, sparking a fire, the merged company RWB said. Daily Sabah reports the disruption is hitting tens of thousands of small businesses, while TASS says Ukrainian forces attacked Donetsk-region territory 30 times in a day, wounding 11 people including two children.

Geopolitics

New US intelligence warns that Russia may seek to provoke NATO at a time when American munitions stocks are dwindling, the Wall Street Journal reported. Lithuanian Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas said Moscow may be weighing strikes on critical infrastructure in the Baltic region using captured Ukrainian drones, according to Bloomberg News.

Geopolitics

Half of England and all of Wales are officially in drought after England recorded its driest July since records began almost two centuries ago, the Guardian reported on Friday. Hungary separately warned of a dramatic economic hit from drought combined with a nuclear power outage, according to Bloomberg.

Geopolitics

Spanish checks on travellers arriving from Italy took effect at midnight on Saturday and are to run until 7 September, Le Monde and the Guardian reported, a response to controls Italy introduced on 1 August for air and sea traffic with Spain after the rush on Ceuta. Madrid has threatened proportional measures and urged Rome to lift its controls no later than 9 August, according to TASS citing Reuters.

Geopolitics

Ukraine struck oil facilities deep inside Russia overnight into Thursday, setting the Yaroslavneftorgsintez refinery in Yaroslavl on fire. Russia's Defence Ministry said air defences downed 605 drones over Russian regions, occupied Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.

Geopolitics

Russia says a Ukrainian drone hit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on Saturday, cutting external power for one hour. On Thursday its foreign ministry called for a response from the international community.

Geopolitics

Power plants in six EU countries are idle because rivers are running low and warm, while shallow water has crippled cargo shipping on the Rhine. The European Commission called the bloc's energy situation tense on Thursday but saw no immediate supply risk.

Economy

Nearly a week after the mass crossing into Spain's enclave of Ceuta in late July, officials put the death toll at around 100. Up to 5,000 people remain in the city, and Morocco lists about 60 of its citizens as missing.

Geopolitics

Police said the drone carrying an explosive device at Leipzig airport was found next to a Ukrainian aircraft loaded with ammunition, and the federal prosecutor's office is investigating what it calls an attack on Germany's transport and logistics infrastructure. A minister said a ripped detonator stopped the device from going off; a Washington newspaper linked the incident to Russian intelligence, according to Politika, while German investigators have not said who was behind it.

Geopolitics

Ukraine's requests for additional air-defence interceptors are falling flat because Western allies are reluctant to give up missiles they may need for their own defence, the New York Times reported on Thursday. Russian strikes on Ukraine have intensified in the meantime.

Geopolitics

A Ukrainian attack on the Bryansk region killed two civilians and injured six in Novozybkov, damaging several cars and a filling station, TASS reported on Thursday, citing preliminary data. Meduza the same day published what is known about the victims of a Ukrainian drone that came down and exploded on Monday on a beach at Arkhipo-Osipovka, part of Gelendzhik, while people were on the sand and in the water.

Geopolitics

Russia's defence ministry said its forces hit Ukrainian army infrastructure and logistics centres over the past day and that Ukraine lost roughly 1,395 troops across all frontline areas, figures reported by TASS and not independently confirmed. Russian analyst Vitaly Kiselyov told TASS that Kyiv has lost 80% of its ports and uses the remaining civilian port infrastructure to bring in fuel and NATO-issued uniforms.

Geopolitics

Putin, who had long kept a conspicuous distance from monetary policy, made clear twice in July that Russia's central bank needed to lower its key rate, Bloomberg reported on Thursday in an account relayed by Meduza. Bloomberg also reported that Russia's war economy is fuelling pay gains that companies cannot afford.

Economy

Russia's overnight missile and drone attack on Kyiv and its region on Wednesday killed 17 people; Ukrainian defences intercepted none of the ballistic missiles. NATO's secretary general now says he is working urgently to secure interceptors for Ukraine.

Geopolitics

Hundreds of people gathered in the Moroccan town of Fnideq this week, holding up photos of relatives missing since some 72,000 people crossed into Spain's enclave of Ceuta late last month. Officials now put the death toll close to 100.

Geopolitics

German police found a drone with an explosive device beside a parked Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle, a NATO and DHL logistics hub, in the night to Wednesday. Germany's interior ministry calls it a professional hybrid threat scenario.

Geopolitics

Drought has pushed the Rhine to historic lows, bringing freight traffic on Germany's most important waterway to a near standstill. Record heat across Europe is straining power plants, farms and health services.

Geopolitics

A Ukrainian drone and missile attack on an industrial facility in Russia's Kursk region killed four people and injured several others, regional governor Alexander Khinshtein said on Wednesday. Meduza, reviewing 40 days of the campaign, counts at least 20 Wildberries warehouses and at least 25 oil refineries and other oil and gas sites hit, knocking out a third of Russia's refining capacity.

Geopolitics

A car bomb in Yekaterinburg critically injured Vladimir Tkachuk, head of the drone producer Uraldronzavod, and killed his bodyguard, who was inside the vehicle, TASS reported on Wednesday. It was the second attack on a Russian drone developer within a week; reporting also tied a Moscow restaurant explosion last week that killed the son-in-law of Aerospace Forces commander Alexander Chayko to an apparent attempt on Chayko himself.

Geopolitics

Russia has begun deploying a missile unit manned by North Korean troops and plans to station it in the Voronezh region, Andrii Cherniak of Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate told Reuters in a report published on Wednesday. The claim comes from Ukrainian intelligence and is not independently confirmed.

Geopolitics

President Vladimir Putin announced changes to the Russian military command on Wednesday, appointing Denis Lyamin, former chief of staff of the battlegroup Center, to oversee unmanned systems forces and Colonel General Solodchuk as deputy defence minister for combat service support. TASS says the changes target material and technical supply for the troops; military analyst Boris Rozhin expects a faster pace of drone production and new unmanned units.

Geopolitics

Russia and Ukraine are producing ever larger numbers of innovative aerial weapons while ground combat is largely static, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Ukraine accused Russia of a war crime after a video showed a drone attacking a vegetable seller in Kherson.

Geopolitics

Russia's UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya said on Wednesday that Ukraine is attacking staff at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in order to cause a man-made disaster. Rosatom head Alexey Likhachev accused Ukrainian forces of using drones at night to mine the access road, disrupting shift changes, food deliveries and emergency medical transport; the claims, carried by TASS, are unverified.

Geopolitics

EU interior ministers held emergency talks on Tuesday over last week's mass crossing into Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta. A Spanish forensic commission has put the death toll at 77.

Geopolitics

Ukrainian drones killed five people in an industrial zone in the Moscow region overnight into Tuesday and set a Wildberries logistics warehouse ablaze in the Leningrad region. A day earlier, a drone came down on a packed beach near Gelendzhik, killing seven, among them children.

Geopolitics

Russian strikes on the Ukrainian cities of Sumy and Mykolaiv killed four civilians overnight on Tuesday. Ukraine the same day accused Russia of a war crime over a drone that hunted a street vendor in Kherson.

Geopolitics

Italy has suspended Schengen free movement at its border with Spain over last week's mass crossing into Ceuta. At an emergency videoconference on Tuesday, EU interior ministers closed ranks behind Madrid instead.

Geopolitics

Europe's fourth heatwave of the summer has pushed the Rhine and Danube to record lows, taking nuclear reactors offline in France and Hungary. Barge freight is being cut back or moved to rail.

Geopolitics

Türkiye's foreign ministry renewed its call for Black Sea safety on Tuesday after a drone attack injured several crew members on two civilian vessels; TASS said the crew of the Nadezhda are under medical care in Novorossiysk following what it called a Ukrainian drone attack, and reported another ship ablaze off Odesa. Russian insurers have effectively stopped covering war and terrorism risks for cargo ships in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, the business outlet RBC reported, citing industry sources.

Geopolitics

Politico reported that the EU is trying to phase out software from the US company Palantir, and that the success of the effort will determine Europe's digital sovereignty, according to TASS. A NATO official, speaking anonymously to Politico, said the alliance uses Palantir AI to process satellite imagery and to manage combat operations.

Technology

Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority issued the licence for the world's first underground disposal facility for spent nuclear fuel, TASS reported on Tuesday. The authority said the facility meets the safety requirements set out in the Nuclear Energy Act and Decree.

Technology

European Commission spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen said the Commission continues to work on a complete and permanent trade ban on Russian oil supplies to Europe, according to TASS. The Russian agency reported the statement on Tuesday against the background of EU gas and electricity problems.

Economy

Russia's defence ministry said its troops had taken the community of Baksheyevka in the Kharkiv region and that Ukrainian forces lost roughly 1,435 soldiers across all frontline areas in 24 hours, according to TASS. Duma lawmaker Alexey Chepa said Volodymyr Zelensky's 40-day plan is failing and that Ukraine lacks air defence systems and reserves to plug gaps along the line of engagement.

Geopolitics

Ukrainian agriculture stands to lose $3 billion in 2026 because port closures are blocking exports, TASS reported on Tuesday, citing Reuters. Purchase prices for grains and oilseeds in Ukraine have fallen by an average of 30 percent.

Economy

Russia is expanding its shadow fleet of gas carriers by adding secondhand vessels and its first domestically built tankers, the Financial Times reported, citing maritime analytics data. Meduza relayed the report on Tuesday, linking the build-up to a looming Western ban on Russian liquefied natural gas supplies.

Economy

Tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on Thursday and Friday, and most have since gone back. EU interior ministers hold emergency talks on Tuesday after Italy and Denmark demanded Spain's temporary suspension from Schengen.

Geopolitics

A Ukrainian drone came down on a crowded beach at Arkhipo-Osipovka near Gelendzhik on Monday, killing seven people, among them three children. Russian officials put the combined toll from the coastal and Crimean strikes at 11.

Geopolitics

Le Monde reported on Monday that historically low levels on the Danube have forced several central European countries to shut down part of their nuclear reactors, and that Hungary has told companies to prepare for an energy crisis. Bloomberg reported the same day that the Rhine had fallen to its lowest level since 1880, threatening freight traffic on Europe's main inland waterway.

Economy

Apple has gone to court against a Home Office order demanding access to the encrypted iCloud data of British users. The Guardian reported the challenge on Monday, a year after London dropped a similar demand.

Technology

Military expert Andrey Marochko said Russian forces took control of nearly 600 square kilometres and 32 settlements in the war zone during July, the state agency TASS reported on Monday. The figures come from the Russian side and are not independently confirmed.

Geopolitics

Meduza reported that General Alexander Chayko, who commanded troops that carried out the Bucha massacre in Ukraine, appears to have been the target of Saturday's explosion at the Balzi Rossi restaurant on Barrikadnaya Street in Moscow. Russia's Foreign Ministry and its embassy in Italy accused Ukraine of involvement, and Meduza counted at least six attacks on Russian generals away from the front over two years, three of them fatal.

Geopolitics

Clinicians and patients in Erlangen are treating autoimmune disease with CAR-T cell therapy, a method developed against cancer, FAZ reported on Monday. Some patients who had previously been given no hope of survival have since had babies.

Technology

Sellers on the Russian marketplace Wildberries may have lost 215 to 280 billion roubles because of Ukrainian drone strikes on the company's warehouses, according to an estimate by analyst Sergei Semko cited by Forbes Russia. Bloomberg reported that Kyiv's shifting pattern of strikes is adding uncertainty around Russian oil.

Economy

Bloomberg reported on Monday that the war with Iran left Belgium wholly dependent on Russia for liquefied natural gas in July. The report is the only source and gives no import volumes.

Economy

US envoy to NATO Matthew Whitaker said there is no agreement between NATO and Kyiv on producing Patriot systems by winter and that Washington is 'going to do first things first', TASS reported on Monday. He said talks with Ukraine on the production are moving forward.

Geopolitics

A drone struck a Turkish-owned roll-on/roll-off cargo ship in the Black Sea on Monday and critically injured three crew members, Turkish maritime authorities said according to Daily Sabah. The report does not say who launched the drone.

Geopolitics

The death toll from last week's mass crossing into Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta has risen to at least 72, up from 67. Most of the tens of thousands who got in have since gone back to Morocco.

Geopolitics

Ukrainian drone attacks on more than a dozen Russian regions killed at least nine people on Sunday, among them a 13-year-old girl in Belgorod region. Russian strikes on Ukraine killed at least five the same day.

Geopolitics

Rosatom says a Ukrainian combat drone struck inside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant overnight into Sunday. The Russian operator reports no explosion and unchanged radiation levels.

Geopolitics