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Ukraine war briefing: Russian embassy in Seoul raises ‘victory will be ours’ banner, drawing complaints

South Korea’s foreign ministry has expressed concerns to the Russian embassy in Seoul over a large banner hung over its building that reads “victory will be ours” in Russian, the Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday, citing officials. The ministry noted the unnecessary tensions the banner could create with South Korean citizens and other countries as it was widely seen as a reference to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the report said. The Russian embassy had yet to remove the banner of the message, which the Soviet Union used during the second world war. Hungary will block the EU’s next package of sanctions against Russia, the country’s foreign minister has said, in the latest step aimed at pushing Ukraine to resume the flow of Russian oil through a pipeline supplying Hungarian refineries. The EU is currently preparing a package against Russia over the war in Ukraine and while negotiations are ongoing, many member countries would like to agree the package in time for the fourth anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday. “At tomorrow’s Foreign Affairs Council, the EU aims to adopt the 20th sanctions package. Hungary will block it,” Peter Szijjarto, the foreign minister, said on X on Sunday. “Until Ukraine resumes oil transit to Hungary and Slovakia via the Druzhba pipeline, we will not allow decisions important to Kyiv to move forward.” Ukraine condemned what it described as “ultimatums and blackmail” by Hungary and Slovakia at the weekend after both governments threatened to stop electricity supplies to Ukraine unless Kyiv restarted the Russian oil flows. Vladimir Putin has said developing Russia’s nuclear forces is now an absolute priority after the expiry of its last remaining nuclear treaty with the US. “The development of the nuclear triad, which guarantees Russia’s security and ensures effective strategic deterrence and a balance of forces in the world, remains an absolute priority,” the Russian president said in a video message on Sunday on Russia’s “Defender of the Fatherland Day” holiday. Putin vowed to keep “strengthening the army and navy” and draw on military experience from the war in Ukraine. Moscow and Washington – the world’s two main nuclear powers – are no longer bound by any arms control pact since the New Start agreement expired earlier this month. A police officer was killed and 24 people wounded after several explosive devices detonated at midnight in Lviv in western Ukraine, the national police said on Sunday, in an attack President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed on Russia. Lviv’s mayor described the incident as a terrorist act and said a 23-year-old female police officer had died. Twelve people remained in hospital, two in serious condition, Andriy Sadovyi said on Telegram. A woman had been detained in connection with the investigation, said the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko. Russia has fired scores of missiles and drones at targets across Ukraine, flattening a residential house in Kyiv on Sunday, reports Luke Harding. Zelenskyy said the Kremlin had launched 297 drones and nearly 50 missiles on Sunday, in the latest in a wave of overnight strikes. He said “a significant proportion” had been shot down as he called on allies to strengthen the country’s air defences against enemy attacks. “Moscow continues to invest in strikes more than in diplomacy,” the Ukrainian president said. “This time, Russian targets included not only energy facilities, but also logistics, in particular railway and municipal water supply infrastructure.” A huge Ukrainian missile attack inflicted serious damage on energy infrastructure and disrupted supplies of power, heat and water in Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, the region’s governor said early on Monday. Vyacheslav Gladkov described the attack as “massive”, affecting both the city of Belgorod, 40km (25 miles) from the border, and the surrounding area. Meanwhile, the Russia-installed governor of the part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region controlled by Moscow, Yevgeny Balitsky, said emergency crews had restored power to most areas hit by cuts after a major Ukrainian attack on energy infrastructure. In Russian-controlled Luhansk in Ukraine’s north-east, a fuel reservoir caught fire after a Ukrainian drone attack on an oil depot, said the Moscow-installed leader, Leonid Pasechnik. Four Moscow airports resumed flights on Sunday after they were earlier suspended for security reasons, aviation regulator Rosaviatsia said. Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Vnukovo and Zhukovsky airports paused operations for just over an hour amid a drone attack on the Russian capital. Air defences downed 71 Ukrainian drones, including 11 flying en route to Moscow, since 2pm (1100 GMT), the Interfax news agency reported, citing the Russian defence ministry.

Duterte refuses to attend ICC pre-trial hearing, as former Philippine leader’s ‘drug war’ case begins

The pre-trial hearing for former Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte for his alleged role in a deadly “drug war” is set to begin at the international criminal court on Monday, despite his refusal to attend the proceedings. Duterte, 80, who was arrested in Manila and flown to The Hague last year, is accused of crimes against humanity over an anti-drugs crackdown in which thousands of people were killed. The ICC will begin a pre-trial hearing to confirm the charges against him, even though Duterte announced last week that he would not appear, saying he is “old, tired and frail” and experiencing memory loss. He said “the claim that I oversaw a policy of extrajudicial killings is an outrageous lie”, and said he did not recognise the court’s jurisdiction. Families of the victims, who have long waited for Duterte to face justice, have accused the former president of cowardice. “He should face everything he did to us and to the families of the [other] victims,” said Sarah Celiz, 61, whose two sons Almon and Dicklie were killed in separate incidents in 2017. Duterte’s supporters have tried to drum up sympathy for the former leader, citing his age and claims that he is unwell. “He never showed us any mercy,” responded Celiz, who for years has campaigned for Duterte to be tried. “My son begged for mercy, but he showed none. So why should we show him mercy? No.” Judges granted a request by Duterte’s defence to waive his right to attend this week’s hearings, but said the reasons given were “speculative”. The court ruled last month that Duterte was fit to attend hearings, rejecting claims by his defence team that he cannot participate because of “cognitive impairment in multiple domains”. Llore Pasco, whose two sons Crisanto and Juan Carlos were killed in 2017 during the anti-drug operations, said in a statement last week that Duterte was “just a coward desperate to escape accountability”. The pre-trial hearing will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to establish “substantial grounds” to believe Duterte committed the charges of crimes against humanity of murder and attempted murder. The hearing will conclude on Friday, and a written decision will be issued within 60 days. If confirmed, the case will then move to trial. Duterte was elected in 2016 after promising a bloody crackdown that would rid the country of drugs. As he was sworn into office he publicly encouraged civilians to kill addicts and said he would not prosecute police for extrajudicial executions. He later stated he would be “happy to slaughter” millions of drug addicts, in a speech in which he appeared to compare himself to Hitler. On a separate occasion, he admitted he had personally killed suspected criminals when he was mayor of his home city of Davao. The ICC’s investigation into the anti-drugs killings covers alleged crimes committed from November 2011 to June 2016, including alleged extrajudicial killings in Davao, as well as across the country during his presidency up until 16 March 2019, when the Philippines withdrew from the court. The total number of civilians killed in connection with the war on drugs is between 12,000 and 30,000, according to estimates cited by the ICC prosecutor. In his statement last week, Duterte described his arrest as a “kidnapping” facilitated by the president Ferdinand Marcos Jr, saying he had been “forcibly pushed into a jet and renditioned to The Hague in the Netherlands in flagrant contravention” of the Philippines’ constitution and national sovereignty. “I have accepted the fact that I could die in prison. But those that desire this fate for me should know that my heart and soul will always remain in the Philippines,” he said. Even as the war on drugs provoked international outrage, Duterte remained highly popular at home. His daughter, the vice-president, Sara Duterte, announced last week that she will run for the presidency in the country’s 2028 election, with polling suggesting she will be a strong contender. Some families of the victims who have spoken out against the war on drugs worry about retaliation if Sara Duterte is elected president. But Celiz said she was unafraid. “Since my sons died, fear is no longer in my vocabulary,” she said. She wanted the court to act quickly to deliver justice, she added. “[The ICC] is our only hope to obtain justice for the victims.” Guill Ramos contributed reporting

Washington and Tehran to hold more nuclear talks as protests reignite in Iran

Iran and the US are expected to meet for a further round of talks in Geneva this week in a sign that Donald Trump’s team believes Tehran is making serious proposals to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and show it is not seeking a nuclear weapon. As fears loomed of renewed conflict after Washington carried out a major redeployment of military assets to the region, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said he thought there was still a good chance of finding a diplomatic solution. He told CBS that negotiators would probably meet on Thursday to discuss and try to make “a fast deal”. Alluding to US assets in the region as potential targets, however, he said: “If the US attacks us, then we have every right to defend ourselves.” The Iranian government, which is suspicious Trump could perform a diplomatic volte-face at any moment by sanctioning a full-scale attack, is also coming under renewed pressure within the country. Student demonstrations at universities in Tehran and the north-eastern city of Mashhad continued for a second day on Sunday, and videos from the latter suggest clashes between students and the state-backed Basij militia turned violent. The universities had reopened on Saturday for the first time since the protests in December and January that led to thousands of deaths, and many of the students had returned to university determined to commemorate those killed and injured. The true number of deaths during the previous unrest is unclear. The government puts the figure at just over 3,000, but human rights groups say a minimum of 6,000. The government has refused to allow a UN-led fact-finding committee to enter the country, insisting its own internal inquiry is sufficient. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, is scheduled to speak at the UN human rights council this week, a move that is likely to lead to large-scale walk outs by other delegates. Trump had initially supported the protesters vocally, telling them “help is on its way” and appearing to threaten to intervene militarily. In recent weeks, however, his focus has shifted to Iran’s nuclear programme as Washington builds a large military presence in the region. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said at the weekend that the US president was questioning why Iran had not yet given in to US pressure. “He’s curious as to why they haven’t ... I don’t want to use the word ‘capitulated’, but why they haven’t capitulated,” he told Fox News. “Why, under this pressure, with the amount of seapower and naval power over there, why haven’t they come to us and said ‘we profess we don’t want a weapon, so here’s what we’re prepared to do’?” Iran’s negotiating position is that it should retain the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under a new verification regime controlled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear inspectorate. Iran would be required to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, allow the IAEA full access to its bombed nuclear sites and in return would be given sanctions relief. As a result, those in the US Republican party calling for Trump to bomb Iran, such as the senator Lindsey Graham, are losing ground. For Trump, however, the main political challenge lies in portraying any new deal as superior to the landmark 2015 agreement that the Democrats negotiated and he pulled out of in 2018 during his first term as president. Araghchi told CBS elements of a new deal could be an improvement on the previous one without being as detailed, because it would commit to Iran’s nuclear programme being “peaceful for ever”. The 2015 deal was time-limited. In practice, experts say, Iran might be left with a right in principle to enrich uranium for nuclear power generation, but its practical capacity to do so would be strictly limited. US officials believe Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and the country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, are becoming increasingly sidelined from the negotiations. They believe Araghchi and the chair of the supreme national security council, Ali Larijani, are leading the strategy. The extent of Pezeshkian’s political irrelevance has been underlined by the mass arrest of his closest supporters in the Reformists Front coalition, an umbrella group instrumental in securing his election in 2024, many of whose members are in jail or face charges of supporting foreign interests. Some have been released on bail, but remain furious that they face charges of siding with the enemy for having criticised the military and security services over their crackdown on the protests. Precise information on how many are in jail or face charges is patchy. Two of the front’s leading figures – Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, the head of its political committee, and Javad Imam, a spokesperson, were released on bail after three and four days in prison respectively. Its head, Azar Mansouri, who is also the secretary general of the Union of Islamic Iran People party, has also been released on bail.

Nigel Farage accused of ‘Maga stunts’ for saying he was denied access to Chagos Islands

Nigel Farage has been accused of “performing Maga stunts” after claiming the British government stopped him from travelling to the Chagos Islands on a humanitarian mission. The Reform UK leader said he had flown to the Maldives to join a delegation bringing aid to four Chagossians who are trying to establish a settlement on one of the archipelago’s islands to protest against Britain’s plans to transfer control of the territory to Mauritius. In a video posted on X on Saturday, Farage claimed the UK government had blocked his trip to the territory, which cannot be entered without a valid permit. Wearing a striped polo shirt and sunglasses around his neck, Farage said: “The British government are applying pressure on the president and the government of the Maldives to do everything within their power to stop me getting on that boat and going to the Chagos Islands. “Now if I was an Isis fighter crossing the Channel to Dover, they wouldn’t give a damn. No, they’d put me in a hotel, they’d give me three meals a day.” However, it is understood that the UK government was not given advance notice of Farage’s intention to travel to the islands and did not know he was in the Maldives prior to his comments on Saturday. Farage reportedly travelled by private jet to the Maldives where he spent just over a day before heading back to the UK for the Gorton and Denton byelection in Greater Manchester on Thursday. A Labour party source said: “Nigel Farage could have spent all weekend campaigning in the byelection in Manchester. Instead he flew 5,000 miles to the Maldives on a $60m private jet, had a moan at the British government, and flew straight back again. Twenty-three hours in the air to stand on a beach, while his candidate in Gorton and Denton has had to make do with the endorsement of Tommy Robinson instead.” Farage’s trip came after Donald Trump threw Britain’s Chagos Islands deal into fresh doubt. The US president has urged Keir Starmer not to “give away Diego Garcia”, the largest island on the archipelago, which is home to a joint UK-US military base. Government sources believe the US president soured on the deal because of the UK’s refusal to permit its airbases to be used for a pre-emptive US strike on Iran, the Guardian reported last week. Up to 2,000 Chagossians were forcibly removed from the archipelago in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for the military base. They were resettled mainly in Mauritius and Britain, with many wanting the right to return to their homeland. Farage said he had intended to travel to the archipelago’s Île du Coin, where the Chagossian campaigners arrived on Monday to establish a settlement. The former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace called Farage’s move a “cheap stunt” and accused him of “performing Maga stunts”, given the entry rules that apply to the entirety of the British Indian Ocean Territory. The UK Foreign Office website states: “The British Indian Ocean Territory is not a tourist destination. There are no commercial flights, access is restricted and you need a permit before you travel.” Wallace posted on X: “There are strict rules and permits about who can visit. Pub bores like Farage need to fill in a form! And the island base is full of serious people doing serious things.” Speaking to the Guardian, Wallace added: “Reform are treating us all for fools. These controls apply equally to all UK bases in Britain. MPs can’t just turn up at nuclear weapons facilities or special forces barracks.” Farage told the Daily Telegraph on Saturday he had received a phone call from a source in the Maldives government warning that the British authorities did not want him travelling to the Chagos Islands. In his two-and-a-half-minute video clip on X, Farage said: “Here I am, a member of parliament, leader of a political party that’s topping the polls. The British government, the high commissioner here, they’re doing everything they can. They’ve got search parties out trying to find me and they do not want me to leave this place.” A spokesperson from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: “Our primary concern at this point is to ensure the safe departure of a group of individuals from an island that is not fit for human habitation, and on which any health emergencies or extreme weather could pose a serious threat to life.” Reform UK has been approached for comment.

We need to promote Gramsci’s famous saying about the optimism of the will | Letter

Your article (‘The time of monsters’: everyone is quoting Gramsci – but what did he actually say, 14 February) rightly points to Antonio Gramsci’s actual thoughts on the morbid symptoms that appear as one world order disappears. But we also need to promote his other famous saying about “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”: the need to acknowledge the dire situation we face, while never losing hope that resistance can overcome evil. This is all the more important since the mainstream media overload us with reporting on “bad” news that creates a sense of hopelessness, while reporting very little on the resistance to it – resistance that is far more widespread than most people get to know, and which would generate a sense of hope. One of my hopes is that the Guardian does more to report the latter. Prof Helen Colley Manchester • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

France to summon US ambassador over comments on far-right activist’s death

The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, has said he will summon Charles Kushner, the US ambassador to France, over comments related to the killing of the French far-right activist Quentin Deranque. Deranque was beaten to death in Lyon last week during a fight with allegedly hard-left activists. The US embassy in France and the US state department’s bureau of counter-terrorism said they were monitoring the case, writing on X that “violent radical leftism is on the rise” and should be treated as a public safety threat. Deranque’s death has put France on edge, stoking tensions between left and right ahead of the 2027 presidential vote. It has also drawn international attention. Donald Trump’s administration denounced what it called “terrorism” in France on Friday, prompting pushback from Paris. “We reject any use of this tragedy, which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends,” Barrot told Le Monde, France Inter and France Info. “We have no lessons to learn, particularly on the issue of violence, from the international reactionary movement.” The foreign ministry did not announce when the ambassador, the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, would be summoned. Deranque, 23, died of head injuries after clashes on the sidelines of a 12 February demonstration against a politician from the leftwing France Unbowed party in Lyon. His death has been called “France’s Charlie Kirk moment”, referring to the killing last year of the US far-right commentator. More than 3,000 people marched in Lyon on Saturday in tribute to Deranque, with authorities deploying heavy security for fear of further clashes. The US state department’s under secretary for public diplomacy, Sarah Rogers, said on Friday that Deranque’s killing showed “why we treat political violence – terrorism – so harshly”. “Once you decide to kill people for their opinions instead of persuade them, you’ve opted out of civilisation,” she wrote on X. The state department’s bureau of counter-terrorism separately posted: “Violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety” – a post shared in French by the US embassy account. Deranque’s killing has also caused a diplomatic feud between France and Italy, whose rightwing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has warm ties with Trump. She called the death “a wound for all of Europe”, prompting the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to criticise her for speaking about French domestic affairs. Macron called for calm on Saturday during the Lyon march. Six men suspected of involvement in Deranque’s death have been charged over the killing, and a parliamentary assistant to a radical leftwing MP has been charged with complicity. Barrot said he had other topics to discuss with Kushner during the summons, including US decisions to impose sanctions on Thierry Breton, a former EU commissioner responsible for supervising social media rules, and Nicolas Guillou, a French judge at the international criminal court. He said they had been targeted by “unjustified and unjustifiable” measures, that he described as attacks on EU autonomy and the independence of the international justice system. Kushner was also summoned in August last year over a letter to Macron alleging the French state did not do enough to combat antisemitism. Foreign ministry officials met one of his representatives because he did not attend the summons personally. France’s Tribune de Dimanche newspaper reported that Macron had written to Trump asking him to lift the sanctions against Breton and Guillou. Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report