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Zelenskyy under growing pressure to reinstate sacked defence minister

Volodymyr Zelenskyy was under growing pressure to reinstate his sacked defence minister on Wednesday, after campaigners said they would continue indefinite nationwide protests until Mykhailo Fedorov got his job back. On Tuesday, Zelenskyy bowed to public demands by firing Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. He appointed Mykhailo Drapatyi as the new head of the country’s armed forces, as part of a radical reshuffle of the top military command. But Zelenskyy’s attempts to defuse popular anger by offering Fedorov a new government role so far appear to have failed. Fedorov has reportedly turned down the post of deputy prime minister for technological development. Instead, he wants to be reinstated as defence minister, arguing that it is the only way of implementing his ambitious plan for modernising and reforming Ukraine’s army. The post is no longer vacant after Zelenskyy appointed a special forces commander, Yevhenii Khmara, as acting minister. Protesters have called for a rally to be held on Friday evening outside Zelenskyy’s presidential office in Ivana Franka Square, Kyiv. The announcement – made by prominent veteran Dmytro Koziatynsky – suggests that Ukraine’s political crisis is likely to roll into a second week. “We should not forget about the second demand of the protest – to return Mykhailo Fedorov to the position of minister of defence,” Koziatynsky wrote on social media. He added: “We must do everything possible to ensure that the government hears and satisfies all the demands of society.” One senior army source told the Guardian that Zelenskyy faced a major dilemma. “If he reverses his decision, this would be a big victory for Fedorov. It would be humiliating for the president and reveal him to be weak. But if he doesn’t, the protests will keep going,” they said. In recent months Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces have carried out a series of long and mid-range strikes on Russian territory, as well as on occupied southern Ukraine and Crimea. Targets have included oil refineries and military depots, as well as ships and oil tankers in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea. Overnight, Ukrainian drones hit warehouses belonging to the Russian online retailer Wildberries, sparking large fires in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk. The attacks were part of an ongoing campaign to cripple Russia’s economy, so that it can no longer fund its war. Zelenskyy held a meeting on Wednesday with his top generals. Afterwards, Drapatyi wrote on Facebook that he had been given instructions to “intensify offensive operations in all domains”. He said other tasks included planning operations behind enemy lines, developing new technologies, and building up the military’s capabilities. Drapatyi’s appointment has been met with widespread approval. Ukraine’s former president Petro Poroshenko said the army trusted him. “I know him as a strategically minded, brave, and decisive man. He cherishes people. The Ukrainian people place great hopes in him,” Poroshenko said. One high-ranking military figure also welcomed Drapatyi’s appointment but said he faced significant challenges. “It won’t be easy,” they predicted. One was the likelihood that Vladimir Putin will bring in some form of mobilisation after elections in September, flooding the battlefield with new Russian recruits. The crisis in Ukraine’s military leadership was triggered by a generational conflict between Fedorov, a 35-year-old tech-savvy moderniser, and Syrskyi, a 60-year-old Soviet-trained traditionalist. Last week Zelenskyy said he had tried to mediate between the two sides, before firing Fedorov as a last resort. In a valedictory post, Syrskyi defended his record, which includes defending Kyiv and Kharkiv in the early weeks of Russia’s 2022 invasion. He said Ukraine had retaken more than 700 sq km (270 sq miles) of Ukrainian territory this year and said that he had created a separate drone branch of the armed forces – the first of its kind in the world. “I am handing over to my successor an army that is not only holding the defence but is also on the offensive – with initiative, with structure, with people who know how to beat the enemy,” he said. He added that he sincerely hoped the offensive would continue, adding: “Everything is in place for this.” As part of his shake-up, Zelenskyy said ⁠major general ⁠Ihor Skybiuk would replace ⁠Andrii Hnatov as the head of ⁠the general staff. ‌The president described Skybiuk as a “highly experienced officer who defended Ukraine shoulder ‌to shoulder with the new commander-in-chief.” Russian bloggers have acknowledged that Drapatyi is a formidable opponent. “He’s smart, strong, and hates Russia,” one remarked. They also noted that he had risen from battalion commander to head of the armed forces – a career which is practically impossible in Russia, where promotions are decided on the basis of connections and “intrigue”. The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Drapatyi’s appointment would not alter the situation on the frontline. “I don’t think this will lead to any changes,” Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Moscow has no intention of stopping its full-scale offensive, which has lasted for nearly four and a half years.

Mykhailo Drapatyi: Ukrainians hope new commander will end army’s ‘Soviet culture’

Through a haze of smoke, a lone Ukrainian armoured vehicle suddenly burst into view. The BMP-2 accelerated towards a barricade of tyres and debris, smashing through it in seconds as protesters scattered. Behind the controls, on the chaotic streets of Mariupol on 9 May 2014, was a little-known officer named Mykhailo Drapatyi. The footage became one of the defining images of Russia’s first attempt to seize eastern Ukraine, and made Drapatyi one of Ukraine’s military heroes. Twelve years later, he has the top job. On Tuesday night, the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, named the 43-year-old major general as the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, putting him at the head of the military as Kyiv tries to shift the momentum of the war. The appointment was one of the few wartime decisions in Ukraine to command near-universal support, reflecting Drapatyi’s high standing across the country’s political, military and civil society circles, and helping to steady the political mood after days of turmoil in Kyiv. Days earlier, thousands of demonstrators had taken to the streets after the dismissal of the popular defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who had clashed with the then commander-in-chief, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, over the conduct of the war. Drapatyi’s appointment is likely to be welcomed by many of the protesters, particularly after Drapatyi publicly backed Fedorov in his dispute with Syrskyi. “Society expected change,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies. “It’s not only about changing how the war is fought or how the battlefield is managed. We also needed to restore confidence at home after the protests and return the focus to managing the war.” Drapatyi belongs to a younger generation of Ukrainian commanders formed by more than a decade of fighting, and built his reputation on the frontline. Supporters say he took up drone warfare early, and pushed authority down to junior officers and expected them to answer for their own decisions. Perhaps more importantly for many Ukrainians, he represents a break with the Soviet-style command culture soldiers associated with Syrskyi, whom critics accused of relying on costly frontal assaults and spending soldiers’ lives too freely. “[Drapatyi] is a critic of Soviet-style thinking and micromanagement, and he recognises the problems with lying inside the military,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Bielieskov described Drapatyi as “humane and open to dialogue” – qualities he said were unusual among Ukraine’s senior military leadership. He said Drapatyi commanded respect among both career officers and those who joined the military after 2022, because he had risen through the ranks on merit and understood the realities of the battlefield. Drapatyi’s military career began after graduating from the Kharkiv Institute of Tank Troops in 2004, when he joined the 72nd Mechanised Brigade. After Russia’s full-scale invasion, Drapatyi helped halt the Russian advance towards Kryvyi Rih and played a key role in the liberation of Kherson. As Moscow regained the initiative, he was repeatedly dispatched to Ukraine’s most difficult sectors, stabilising the front around Pokrovsk before eventually being appointed commander of the joint forces. Drapatyi has also been unusually outspoken about the need to reform the army’s internal culture. In a social media post last year, he criticised what he described as “an atmosphere of fear, lack of initiative, [and] imperviousness to feedback”, arguing that such attitudes undermined the military’s effectiveness. After a Russian missile strike on a training ground killed dozens of soldiers under his command, Drapatyi publicly accepted responsibility and offered his resignation rather than shift the blame on to subordinates – a gesture that won him widespread admiration and reinforced his reputation as one of Ukraine’s most accountable commanders. “President Zelenskyy made the best possible choice,” said the Ukrainian military analyst and veteran who writes under the pseudonym Tatarigami. “It will take time for changes to take effect. But I know many soldiers have renewed hope for change, and that is very important for morale.” Analysts warn, however, that expectations may have run ahead of what the job allows. Drapatyi is expected to improve battlefield management and the army’s day-to-day functioning. But many of Ukraine’s most pressing wartime challenges lay beyond the authority of any commander-in-chief, said Bielieskov. Long-running tensions between the defence ministry and the general staff remained unresolved, while the politically fraught issue of mobilisation reform continued to weigh on the war effort, Bielieskov said. “There is a risk that in six months he will be blamed for problems he cannot fully control. Many of the biggest challenges facing Ukraine lie outside his mandate.”

Geoffrey King obituary

My father, Geoffrey King, who has died aged 82, was a prolific research scientist whose papers on geophysics have been cited more than 30,000 times. His most influential contribution was a 1994 paper, published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, that revolutionised earthquake forecasting. After early work at Cambridge University, he moved to the US in 1987 to work at the US Geological Survey in Colorado and then in 1990 to France, where he spent 20 happy years as a research professor at the Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris. He became a naturalised Frenchman and greatly enjoyed telling me how much better France was than the UK. Born in Kampala, Uganda, Geoffrey was one of the four children of Peggy (nee Wells) and Basil King, both British geologists. Basil was working with the Uganda Geological Survey mapping the Rift Valley. When Basil was appointed to the staff of Glasgow University, the family returned to the UK. Geoffrey went to school in Glasgow, a city he adored, and then Haberdashers’ boys’ school in Elstree, Hertfordshire. There his final school report ominously said, “[Geoffrey] must appreciate that the future is shaped in the present: it would be a great pity if his ambitions were not realised through a want of determined application.” But at Durham University, my father found himself, albeit by way of all the exciting new freedoms the 1960s offered. He loved ideas and exploring the new; asking questions was exciting, questioning orthodoxy essential. He went on to gain a first in applied physics and then a Cambridge PhD spent in a disused railway tunnel in Yorkshire designing better instruments to record earthquakes. Geoffrey and his father may remain the only people to have had a (terrible, but scientifically accurate) poem published in the scientific journal Nature. About plate tectonics, it appeared in 1971 – the opening lines read “They put a girdle around the Earth/And named it the Worldwide Rift/It helps explain the ocean floor/And Continental Drift”. The work possibly closest to his heart came later, when he explored how seismically active landscapes gave early humans a survival advantage – the cliffs and rocky features provide natural places to hide, hunt and farm. When he left the UK in the 1980s, in part, this was disgust at the Thatcher government’s policies on tertiary education. I also suspect he annoyed his stuffier academic colleagues, who tried to get him to stick to orthodoxy or – even worse - do some administration. As a personality, he was mischievous. As a father, he was a whirlwind - fun and always a little rebellious. He adored socialising – being among like-minded people from a range of disciplines was a joy. From his flat in Paris on the right bank of the Seine, he hosted large dinner parties full of wine, cheese and rabbit stews made in an enormous slow cooker. Last year, he told me with conviction: “I’ve had an amazing life.” Geoffrey and my mother, Anna, separated when I was young. He is survived by me, three grandchildren, Esmé, Juno and Benedict, and his younger twin siblings, Peter and Diana.

New Ukraine army chief vows to step up counteroffensive as EU bids to finalise fresh Russia sanctions – as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today. Ukraine’s new commander in chief Mykhailo Drapatyi said Ukraine’s ⁠armed forces have been tasked ⁠with stepping ⁠up counteroffensive actions (13:51), as he took over the role after president Volodymyr Zelenskyy reshuffled key military personnel. Zelenskyy also hosted senior US officials fdor talks on “protecting Ukrainian sky” (17:09), a day before US secretary of state Marco Rubio is set to meet with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov for talks in Manila (11:39). Earlier, Zelenskyy praised the army’s overnight attack on Russian logistics hubs, saying “we are … bringing the war back home, to Russia” (9:35). Meanwhile, EU ambassadors are locked in discussions on the 21st package of sanctions against Russia, with critics saying that the bloc’s sanctions policy is reaching its limits as several countries pushed back against some of the proposals (9:30, 12:59). In other news, Hungary’s ⁠former nationalist prime minister Viktor ⁠Orbán confirmed ⁠that prosecutors had taken ⁠his Fidesz party’s servers during a ⁠raid on Tuesday, complaining about the actions of the new government led by Péter Magyar (10:57). Morocco’s foreign ministry said it ⁠was concerned by the death of a ⁠national during ⁠a police arrest in Bologna in Italy and urged ⁠a “thorough investigation” (13:32). At least 15 people were injured after two trams collided on a key bridge in Rotterdam in the Netherlands (13:29). Firefighters continued to battle huge blazes in Spain and France on Wednesday, amid as extreme temperatures continue to affect large parts of Europe (13:36, 15:48). 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.

France records more than 5,700 excess deaths during June heatwave

France recorded more than 5,700 excess deaths during its June heatwave, authorities have said, as swathes of southern Europe continue to endure another record-breaking period of extreme temperatures. The French national health agency said on Wednesday that it had recorded 5,764 excess deaths ⁠between 17 June and 2 July, an excess mortality rate of 36%. More than half of the “unprecedented” total were recorded between 25 and 27 June, with deaths of people aged ⁠75 and older accounting for about two-thirds of the excess mortality, the agency said. Those who lost their lives between 17 June and 2 July died of “all causes”, none yet clearly linked to the heat, it said. France reported slightly fewer excess deaths – 5,722 – over the whole summer last year. The announcement came as firefighters in Spain battled one of the country’s largest ever wildfires, which has burned about 32,000 hectares (79,000 acres) in the Guadalajara region north of Madrid, forcing the evacuation of 1,200 people from 34 villages in the sparsely populated area and confinement orders in 14 others. Authorities said on Wednesday that the fire was beginning to stabilise, and residents of five villages were allowed to return home. The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said on a visit to the area that Spain had already suffered 22 major wildfires so far this year, four times more than in the same period last year. More than 100,000 hectares had burned, the same as the whole-year average over the past decade, he said, adding that more must be done to prevent fires. “We must raise public awareness and not trivialise the climate emergency,” he said. Spain’s national weather agency, Aemet, said the danger of wildfires remained “very high or extreme” and was expected to increase further in the coming days. It urged people to exercise extreme caution amid highs of 42-44C and a dry westerly wind. Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent and scientists say human-driven climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, while also creating conditions for sudden, destructive storms. The Guadalajara fire comes less than two weeks after a deadly blaze devastated a small expatriate community in southern Spain, killing 13 people including several foreigners in one of the country’s deadliest wildfires on record. Spain’s ecological transition minister, Sara Aagesen, described the Guadalajara blaze as “one of the largest in the recent history of our country”, with data showing it was exceeded only by the 37,000 hectares burned by a fire in north-west Spain last year. In France, where two firefighters died in their vehicle in the south-western region of Gironde on Tuesday, authorities urged people to avoid using barbecues in areas experiencing heatwaves, saying nine out of 10 fires started as a result of human activity. A wildfire has burned through 2,500 hectares in the south-eastern Var department, forcing 400 people to flee. “The situation has been very difficult, 1,100 firefighters fought all night,” William Vogl, a spokesperson for the Var firefighters, said. In Greece, where temperatures were forecast to top 41C, authorities banned outdoor work at peak midday sun. In Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, 11 people were admitted ‌to hospital, three with serious injuries, after a severe storm on Tuesday. In Italy, several fires burned across Sicily on Wednesday, prompting scattered evacuations. The country’s civil protection agency has declared all of the island at the highest risk for wildfires, with high winds and 40C-plus temperatures fuelling several blazes. Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

Austria opens police station at Hitler birthplace to deter neo-Nazi tourists

Austria has opened a police station in the birthplace of Adolf Hitler in an attempt to “neutralise” its toxic legacy, after years of debate over how to stop neo-Nazis visiting it as a pilgrimage site. Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in a rented flat in the centre of Braunau am Inn and spent the first weeks of his life there. Now the building will be the workplace of a police unit specialised in tackling narcotics trafficking, with the new occupants meant to put off Nazi displays, which are illegal under Austrian law. Given the community’s proximity to the German border, it is on a key drugs running route, according to district police commander Stefan Haslberger. The conversion, whose estimated cost reached €20m, followed an intense public discussion about how to deter today’s fascists from using the site as a shrine. News agency APA reported that even construction rubble from the remodelling had been disposed of in a secret location to avoid it becoming a gathering place for Hitler devotees. At the opening ceremony, the Austrian interior minister, Gerhard Karner, called it a “new chapter” in which the building would be a “place of democracy, the rule of law, security”. At the same time, he said, “memory will not disappear”. In recent years skinheads laid roses and wreaths for the Nazi leader’s birthday before the elegant building’s ochre facade, while extremists and drunken revellers posed for pictures doing the straight-armed Hitler salute. Local people, fed up with such stunts, often call the former residence the “house of evil”. An expert commission tasked with determining a future for the building had recommended a “use for social or charitable, or for official or administrative purposes”. It said a museum on the site could continue to draw rightwing extremists, especially those whose “blood and soil” ideology particularly reveres birthplaces and gravesites. Demolition, on the other hand, would obfuscate an important chapter of local history. Polls showed a majority of Austrians preferred it to become a centre for promoting democracy. The building, parts of which stem from the 1600s, hosted an inn and brewery with flats on the upper floors, one of which was briefly occupied by the Hitler family. A decade ago, the Austrian government agreed to take over ownership from a private proprietor, who had previously rented it out to the interior ministry, which used it as a care home for people with disabilities. It stood empty from 2011, with a small memorial stone outside taken from the former Mauthausen concentration camp whose inscription only hinted at its problematic past: “For peace, freedom and democracy. Never again fascism. The millions who died serve as a warning.” German news magazine Der Spiegel reported recently that hackers had replaced the building’s proper address on Google Maps with the street number 88 – neo-Nazis code for Heil Hitler based on the eighth letter of the alphabet. The government said it hoped the opening of the police station would foster the “neutralisation of the whole place” and repel Hitler admirers. Hitler’s private apartment as Nazi leader on Munich’s Prinzregentenplatz has served as a police station since the late 1940s while his official residence in Berlin’s Reichskanzlei was destroyed by bombing during the second world war. Germany under Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, a fact that historians say led many in the country to long dismiss its shared responsibility for the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes. The far-right Freedom party (FPÖ), which was founded by former Nazis, won the most votes in an Austrian general election for the first time since the war in September 2024 but was unable to take power because mainstream parties refused to form a coalition with it. Since then, support for the FPÖ had continued to rise.

Andy Burnham’s domestic revolution could unobtrusively pull Britain closer to Europe

Europe’s leaders queued up this week to welcome Andy Burnham as Britain’s seventh prime minister since the Brexit vote – all expressing the hope that his tenure would continue the thaw in EU-UK relations initiated by his predecessor, Keir Starmer. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission chief, said she was looking forward to strengthening cross-Channel ties, adding that a “very good” first discussion had confirmed a common commitment to “bringing the EU and UK closer and closer”. France’s Emmanuel Macron said he hoped for a deeper relationship that gave “new momentum to the partnership” between the EU and the UK. Germany’s Friedrich Merz said he, too, was looking forward to forging an even closer bond. But what, realistically and concretely, can Europe expect from the Liverpudlian dubbed the “King of the North”? How might his approach to the bloc differ from Starmer’s much-trumpeted (and as often maligned) “reset” in post-Brexit relations? We know practically nothing about what Burnham’s foreign policy might look like: his priorities, as Paul Taylor noted, are famously domestic. We do know his baseline instincts are pro-European: he argued against the “isolation” of Brexit in 2016. Last year, he said he hoped Britain might rejoin the EU during his lifetime. This year, campaigning for the byelection he had to fight and win in order to become PM, in a constituency estimated to have voted 65% leave, he carefully clarified his position. Brexit “has been damaging”, he said, but, he added, “I also believe the last thing we should do right now is rerun those arguments.” His aim was to “unify the country”, not divide it further, so he was “not proposing that the UK considers rejoining the EU”. But even if his headline focus is on the UK, Burnham knows Britain’s “economic stagnation, declining relative living standards and latent social discontent” are at least partly down to the huge Brexit hit to UK trade and investment, Taylor wrote. “Even without the compelling security and geopolitical reasons for rapprochement with the EU,” he argued, “closer engagement with Britain’s main export market would be a no-brainer to deliver healthier growth.” But how exactly, given the immovable red lines laid down in the Labour party’s last election manifesto – no single market, no customs union, no freedom of movement – might Burnham go about it? Starmer’s longed-for “reset” was all about security cooperation and easing Brexit trade barriers. Ironically, Burnham’s focus on industrialisation, regionalism and economic sovereignty could ultimately bring the UK closer to the EU. In a detailed analysis for the UK in a Changing Europe thinktank, Joël Reland argued that Burnham’s growth agenda, centred on domestic devolution rather than diplomacy, meant negotiations with the EU may drop down the list of UK priorities. But while the new prime minister may speak a lot less about trade access, his vision for building the UK’s “sovereign capabilities” – in fields such as AI, energy, digital infrastructure – closely mirrors the EU’s own “strategic autonomy” drive. Burnham’s desire to reduce UK reliance on foreign-owned datacentres and US-centric tech policy aligns well with Brussels’ tech sovereignty package, perhaps leading to pragmatic UK-EU cooperation in areas such as critical minerals and cloud storage. In short, argued Reland, Burnham may sound markedly less pro-European than his predecessor in 10 Downing St, “but he is formulating an economic and security agenda which could bring London into closer line with Brussels”. If this happens, UK-EU relations could see occasional leaders’ summits replaced, for example, with project-based re-engagement via platforms such as the EU’s committee of the Regions, and stronger support for the UK-EU joint parliamentary assembly. At the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank, senior policy fellow Anthony Dworkin likewise observed that Burnham was likely to ground foreign policy very much in local economic realities, in a way Starmer never did. In the short term, Dworkin argued, the new government’s focus will certainly be on completing the three EU-UK agreements that were due to signed at a UK-EU summit meeting on 22 July, but will now be held sometime in the autumn. As Jennifer Rankin explained, the two sides are due to sign deals on reducing paperwork and certification for fresh food; linking emissions trading systems; and an exchange scheme allowing 18- to 30-year-olds to study and work in the EU and UK. Longer term, the ECFR suggested, Burnham’s drive for regional regeneration – such as green manufacturing in the north – could connect directly to EU supply chain partnerships, structurally repositioning the UK alongside the EU in key sectors. Jill Rutter at the Institute for Government observed that Starmer had spent substantial political capital on warm rhetoric toward the EU, but his intended reset had delivered only modest economic returns due to Labour’s structural red lines. Burnham would face an early choice, Rutter said, over “how much personal effort he puts into pulling this reset over the line – and what price he is prepared to pay for that – as well as how much emphasis he puts on further rounds”. In short, Andy Burnham’s pragmatic domestic industrial goals naturally overlap with EU policy. Without shouting about it, by aligning the UK with the EU’s own priorities, he may just achieve a quieter, but far more effective UK-EU partnership. We’ll see. *** Call the Doctor Turns out if you spend nearly four decades writing European allsorts from Athens to Aarhus and Prague to Poitiers, eventually someone gives you a strange-looking hat. Last week, I was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of London for my reporting on Europe. Personally, to be honoured for doing a job you love (well, most of the time) was, of course, doubly gratifying. But 10 years after the UK voted to leave the EU, it was also, I like to think, a nod to history’s biggest ever experiment in cooperation over conflict. Europe is, most certainly, not perfect. But the fact so many of you subscribe to this newsletter, and read the rest of the Guardian’s expanded European coverage, shows how much you think it matters – and never ceases to fascinate, surprise and frustrate. Stick with it. To receive the complete version of This Is Europe in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.