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Allies did not warn Kyiv of Russian ballistic missile strikes, says Zelenskyy

Ukraine received no early warning from its partners about a Russian ballistic missile strike on Kyiv in which five missiles hit civilian infrastructure, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday. The Ukrainian president described the attack on Monday as “particularly vile”. He emphasised that receiving intelligence from Ukraine’s western allies “helps saves lives, and this is one of the most critical issues”. “This is precisely what helps prevent people from being killed – when there is an early warning about ballistic missiles,” he wrote on social media. He did not apportion blame for the lack of warning, calling it unfortunate. US officials made explicit threats over the weekend to their Ukrainian counterparts that the Trump administration was on the brink of halting intelligence sharing with Kyiv. On Tuesday, however, Trump denied intelligence sharing had stopped. He told reporters: “We are helping them, and we are sharing intel. We want the war to end, so we’re working with them and Russia on getting the war to end.” Trump has demanded that Ukraine stop attacking Russian oil refineries and has blamed Zelenskyy for the rise in fuel prices in the US. On Friday the US president announced a deal with Vladimir Putin to import diesel from Russia, dropping previous US sanctions. Asked on Tuesday whether Russia could use proceeds from the sale to purchase more bombs, Trump sidestepped the question. “That’s a diesel ‌deal, not for us. That’s being released into the world. That’s not being released to us,” he said. Earlier the president claimed Moscow and Kyiv had agreed an “energy ceasefire”, something Zelenskyy described as “news to me”. Ukraine’s leader said his military had not struck Russian oil refineries or energy facilities in the two days following Trump’s Sunday announcement. The Kremlin, however, had ignored the “ceasefire” and continued to bomb Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as before, with multiple attacks, he said. “Russia did not heed the president … the Russians sent absolutely clear signals that they have no intention of refraining from strikes,” he noted on Tuesday. Ukrainian commanders say American intelligence is not needed to identify targets for deep strikes on Russia, with oil refineries marked on Google Maps. But they say it plays a crucial role in warning of Russian ballistic missile launches, and the takeoff of long-range bomber aircraft. In recent months Russia has dramatically stepped up its bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities. Ukraine has struggled to shoot down incoming missiles and jet-powered drones and has appealed to partners to boost its dwindling supplies of US-made Patriot missiles. According to the Financial Times, the Trump administration has also threatened to suspend the procurement scheme under which Ukraine’s European allies buy advanced US systems, which are then sent to Kyiv, including badly needed Patriots. The Kremlin’s systematic campaign against Ukraine’s power grid has led to widespread blackouts in Kyiv and other cities. Putin’s apparent goal is to shut off heating and electricity for millions of civilians this winter, and to trigger a new wave of refugees into neighbouring EU states. Speaking in Warsaw, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, indicated that cooperation with the US was continuing and said the lack of warning about the Kyiv attack was due to a “special type” of Russian weaponry. On Monday, Russia also bombarded the city of Kharkiv, destroying a residential building. Sharing footage from the scene, Zelenskyy said four people had been killed and 41 injured. Rescuers spent the entire night searching for people trapped under the rubble, he added. Meanwhile, 11 sailors were missing after their ship was sunk by a drone attack off the coast of Bulgaria. The incident prompted Bulgaria to summon Russia’s ⁠ambassador. Two cargo ships were hit ⁠by drones overnight and one was sunk, Bulgarian officials said. Bulgaria stopped short of explicitly accusing Russia of carrying out the attacks but the prime minister, Rumen Radev, said their outcome “benefits the Russian Federation”. The row between Washington and Kyiv is the most serious since last year, when Trump threw Zelenskyy out of the White House. Ukraine’s president has said he is willing to stop hitting Russian oil refineries – but only on a reciprocal basis and with “real guarantees” that Moscow will cease its attacks on Ukraine’s own energy sites. “Direct or indirect support for Russia, delaying aid to Ukraine and complicating protection of lives from ballistics – this is what will definitely not work for peace. A strong America, a strong Europe, strong partners are needed,” he said on Tuesday.

At least 160,000 people take to streets in third week of French school protests

More than 160,000 schoolchildren, students and trade unionists have marched in cities across France as protests over high school education continued into a third week and many demonstrators denounced policing tactics. Riot police fired teargas at the end of Tuesday’s marches in Nantes and near the Montparnasse area of Paris, but most of the demonstrations over teacher shortages, overcrowded classes and crumbling school buildings held in cities including Lyon, Lille and Marseille were peaceful. The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg joined an early morning protest outside the Lycée Paul Éluard in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. “Young people are not being included in the conversation,” said Thunberg, 23, who became famous as a teenager through school strikes demanding action on the climate crisis. As lawyers in their robes formed a human chain to protect pupils after accusations of police brutality, Thunberg said: “Our future is being stolen from us and, as we have seen here, schools are not getting the investment they need.” Students outside the high school said Thunberg had encouraged them to continue with peaceful demonstrations. The protests – backed by trade unionists, some teachers and radical leftwing opposition politicians – have shaken a government caught between calls for urgent public investment and pressure to reduce France’s ballooning deficit and debt. France’s interior ministry said 161,500 people had turned out across the country on Tuesday, while similar marches drew more than 260,000 last Tuesday and 75,000 on Thursday. “They’re not listening to us, so we’re going to them,” the university students’ union UE – many of whose members are also demonstrating in solidarity, with an estimated 90% of France’s universities disrupted on Tuesday – posted on social media. High schools in Paris, Marseille and elsewhere were again blockaded. French authorities hope the protests, some of which have resulted in violent clashes with riot police, will peter out during the two-week half-term school holiday that starts this weekend. Louis Létoublon of the student organisation Les Lycéens! said the protest movement had begun in deprived areas outside Paris where families were unable to afford holidays, so the autumn school vacation would not dampen anger. “We are continuing the blockades. We are not budging,” Naouel, a high school student in Brest, told Agence France-Presse. Mariolino, a 16-year-old in Nantes, said: “Those who think the anger will disappear with the holidays just don’t get it.” France is braced for more nationwide protests on Saturday, which could be joined by people angry at rising fuel and energy prices as well as the cost of living. Jérôme Rodrigues, a high-profile member of the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protest movement in 2018 and 2019, was present at the Paris march on Tuesday, and there was speculation that gilets jaunes could return to the streets on Saturday. “There is a lot of anger,” Rodrigues told journalists. He said people felt the government had not answered their concerns, offering only “crumbs” – whether on fuel prices or demands for more funding for schools. Sophie Binet, the head of the leftwing CGT union, said: “Our youth is determined …While there is no answer to demands, the mobilisation will continue.” The education minister, Édouard Geffray, who has said 3,000 substitute teachers are being deployed in schools facing the most severe staff shortages, said on Tuesday that 214 of the country’s 3,700 high schools were completely closed. French media have reported, however, that at least some classes have been cancelled or disrupted in many more schools, and some lycées – for pupils mostly aged between 15 and 18 – have switched wholly or partly to online learning. The country’s president, Emmanuel Macron, called for restraint on Monday, saying the issues “deserve time, consultations, discussion and respect”, as government figures showed more than 6,800 people – mainly minors – had been detained during the protests. About 1,500 people are being prosecuted, the justice ministry has said, while 24 allegations of police brutality against demonstrators are under investigation. More than 200 teenagers, 100 school staff and 700 police officers have been injured. One young protester lost a hand from a police stun grenade, prompting the government to ban their use during the protests, while another lost the use of an eye and a third many of his teeth from a teargas canister fired at close range. Rights groups and students have accused the police of a disproportionate use of force. The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, defended the policing. “When demonstrations take place peacefully, there is no police intervention,” he said. Six months from a crucial presidential election to replace Macron, rival politicians are jockeying to exploit the protests. The far-right frontrunner, Marine Le Pen, has highlighted the damage to schools and called for parents ⁠to foot repair bills, while her radical-left opponent, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has praised the protesters as “incredible” and denounced police brutality.

Yes, the music is lovely, but cathedrals are crumbling | Letter

Jonathan Davies’ article (Abide with me: English choral music is a living part of our cultural heritage – we should cherish it, 7 October) speaks beautifully to the contribution of English choral music to our living cultural heritage, highlighting the importance of cathedral choirs in particular, in giving children access to “world-class musical training, extraordinary cultural experiences and educational opportunities that might otherwise be beyond their reach”. What he misses however, is just how under threat these bastions of England’s religious, cultural and spiritual heritage actually are. Despite recent research from the Theos thinktank suggesting 74% of adults in England have visited a cathedral over the last three years, 80% of cathedrals in England are now in structural deficit. Several have recently reached crisis point, including those in Peterborough and St Davids. One in four cathedrals in England is now charging for entry, and even after significantly diversifying their income portfolios (including through controversial silent discos), they continue to struggle. More than 90% of visitors surveyed by Theos (including 94% of non-religious visitors) thought of cathedrals as a hub for community life, and the same number see them as a symbol of local identity and a way to connect with history and tradition. Despite their significant social and cultural contributions to communities, and being some of our oldest and most historically significant buildings (two are Unesco world heritage sites and many are almost 1,000 years old), cathedrals receive no secure state funding and limited contributions from central church authorities. Unlike museums and galleries offering free admission, cathedrals are also not subject to the same VAT exemptions on repairs or maintenance. This has left many cathedrals crumbling, and their finances with them. Without cathedrals, English choral music would cease to exist. If more is not done to protect them, that reality could be closer than we think. Dr Coco Parkinson-Huggins Researcher, Theos • 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.

Indonesia wildfire fuelled by El Niño razes almost 300 homes

A forest fire on Indonesia’s Sumatra island fuelled by El Niño has razed nearly 300 homes, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate, an official has said, as the country battles devastating blazes and haze. Residents first spotted the fire approaching their village in Bangka Belitung province on Saturday and tried to put it out themselves with portable water pumps, said the head of South Bangka regency, Riza Herdavid. “They thought it was taken care of. But it’s peatland, and there was still a fire smouldering underneath. So, when they assumed it was over, the wind shifted and quickly drove the fire toward the settlement.” The local disaster agency said nearly 1,000 people had fled the village. “My house is gone,” said Leni, a 55-year-old woman staying at a shelter with her family. “There’s nothing left. I could only save myself and take my kids with me … I panicked and didn’t have the time to grab anything.” Riza said the village had been built on what used to be peatland in a protected area, but which was converted into a housing complex last year. This year’s fires have created severe haze locally, with tens of thousands of cases of respiratory illnesses, and caused increased air pollution in Singapore and Malaysia. Indonesia is among the countries worst affected by heat, drought and fire in El Niño years. The government says the current conditions are the worst in a decade. Analysts indicate the area burned and emissions are on track to match the record blazes of 2015, which charred an area of 2.6m hectares and generated 333 megatonnes of carbon. Wildlife has also been devastated as fires have spread around the country. Earlier this week, a group of eight orangutans had to be relocated to the Batu Nyambu protected forest by car and boat. At least 46 of the critically endangered primates have been rescued since August, according to the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency. How many have been killed is unclear, but experts have warned the toll is likely to be huge. The International Union for Conservation of Nature said fire had affected habitats containing 52% of Borneo’s orangutan population. Even when the blazes are finally extinguished, many animals will face shortages of habitat, prey and water as a result of fire damage and drought. Silvered langurs, long-tailed macaques and proboscis monkeys have been found dead in the ashes or by dried-up ponds. Elephants, gibbons, pangolins and turtles are also among the species likely to be affected. The authorities have warned the fires could continue until November, when the El Niño is expected to peak. Indonesia’s president, Prabowo Subianto, ordered the government on Monday to mobilise maximum efforts to extinguish wildfires that have been raging for three months in some places. Thick smoke in a province of Borneo has grounded water-bombing aircraft, according to the disaster agency. The cabinet secretary, Teddy Indra Wijaya, said the government had deployed more than 60,000 personnel on the ground. Agence-France Presse contributed to this report

Zelenskyy says Russia ‘did not heed’ Trump’s call for ceasefire and Ukraine had ‘no early warning’ before strikes on Kyiv – as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia “did not heed” Trump’s call for ceasefire as he worried that Ukraine had “no early warning” before a major strike on Kyiv (11:42, 17:22). But despite frantic speculations, Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha insisted that Kyiv’s intelligence cooperation with the US “continued” (11:37). His comments came as several European foreign ministers lined up to offer their support for Kyiv, despite growing attacks from Russia and political pressure from the US president, Donald Trump (10:22, 10:25, 10:29, 10:31, 10:34, 10:36, 10:43). Elsewhere, 11 people are missing after a drone attack near the Bulgarian cost sunk a merchant vessel and damaged another (9:58, 10:14), a week after a very similar incident, prompting the Bulgarian government to summon Russia’s top diplomat in the country. French trade unions and student groups say that almost half a million people took part in today’s protests across the country, on the fifth day of public mobilisation on the issue (17:22), with the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg also joining the movement (15:45). Pope Leo has been admitted to hospital in Rome for an operation to remove a small growth from his lung, a discovery a top Vatican cardinal said had come “like a bolt out of the blue” (13:08). The US ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, has been asked to resign after several controversies surrounding her conduct were reported by the US press (16:03, 16:23). 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.

Britons travelling to EU countries told not to apply for delayed Etias visa waiver

Britons travelling to EU countries have told not to apply for an Etias visa waiver, with more than 150 websites touting the service despite its introduction being delayed. Non-EU citizens, including UK travellers and those from other visa-exempt countries including the US, Australia and Canada, will soon need to pay €20 (£17) for an electronic waiver to enter the Schengen zone under the European travel information and authorisation system (Etias). The system was scheduled to be come into effect soon after the rollout of the EU’s parallel border scheme, the entry-exit system (EES). Both, however, have been repeatedly postponed, and the persistent problems after the introduction of EES, including the software at French entry points, have meant Etias remains suspended. The director of public affairs at the travel association Abta, Luke Petherbridge, said: “While Etias was due to come into force this year, it is now back on hold. Abta believes it shouldn’t be brought in until EES is fully operational and working properly. “This is particularly important when you consider that European authorities believe over 150 websites offering Etias already exist, but there is only one official site people should apply through when live.” Abta research found awareness was growing of the impending border requirements – up from 41% in 2024 to 56% now. The price to apply has risen from €7 to €20 – over-70s and under-18s do not need to pay – but no date has been set for launch. The pan-European border agency, Frontex, warned about the existence of scam websites long before Etias was to have been introduced. Commercial sites can legitimately apply for the waivers on behalf of clients, but the agency said the risk posed by third parties ranged from data protection and identity theft to extortionate fees. It found that some unofficial websites were also providing inaccurate information over who needed an Etias while mimicking the layout of the official website and using convincing domain names. “If you use one of these sites, not only will you lose money, you are also putting your personal data at risk as well,” Petherbridge said. “What I can’t stress is enough that you can’t – and shouldn’t - apply for an Etias now.” EES is in full operation, but border authorities have been told the EU will not enforce penalties if they continue to suspend the system at entry points when queues escalate. That flexibility has meant the worst fears of the travel industry have largely been avoided this summer. Abta surveys found only 46% of visitors to Europe reporting having full checks, with half of those people waiting less than 30 minutes, and only 13% queuing for an hour. * Gwyn Topham attended Abta’s convention in Maderia. His travel was provided by Abta

Did Ukrainian strikes on Russian datacentres reduce online disinformation?

Over the weekend, Ukraine carried out at least three airstrikes on datacentres belonging to the Russian search engine company Yandex. Reports suggest at least two of these datacentres took significant damage, with Telegram footage appearing to show one on fire. Yandex acknowledged the strikes, and Russian media reported that several websites appeared affected by the downed datacentres. On Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested the strikes had dampened Russia’s massive disinformation operation, saying: “It suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social platforms. There was less hate, less division and fewer provocations.” It is a commendable hope, but experts say the Ukrainian president may have overstated his case. Did Ukraine’s strikes lead to a decline in Russian disinformation? Probably not. While a few graphs went viral on social media suggesting there had been a big decline in activity from Yandex bots, those graphs are unrelated to Russian disinformation. “Our platforms are still monitoring Russian social networks across the world and there is no discernible change in their posting patterns,” said Amil Khan, the chief executive of Valent, a tech startup that tracks disinformation. Khan and his team track about 40 disinformation networks around the world, from the UK to Australia to Syria, and monitor what narratives they put out and how publics respond to them. They have seen no drop in the volume of posts from these networks, saying: “Yandex datacentres have no practical connection to social media bot farms.” So what exactly did happen? Yandex is a search engine which also hosts websites and bots. Data from Cloudflare, which monitors worldwide internet traffic, shows a marked decline in activity from bots associated with the Yandex network on 8 October and 11 October, corresponding to the dates of two of the strikes. The independent Russian news outlet Meduza reports that a number of websites in Russia are down: major banks, retailers, sports apps and Yandex’s services such as Yandex Go and Yandex Eats. It suggests the damage took out a large part of Yandex’s operation and could take months to fully repair. Some online commentators have mistaken the Cloudflare data to mean that the decline in bot activity has led to a major drop in disinformation on social media. But this is not what experts have noticed. What are these different kinds of bots? “The term ‘bot’ can mean many different things,” said Michał ‘Rysiek’ Woźniak, an internet infrastructure expert. “When Cloudflare data shows a precipitous drop in ‘bot’ traffic, that does not mean ‘automated social media troll accounts’, it means ‘software that makes automated web requests on a large scale.’” What Cloudflare picked up was a decline in activity from Yandex’s web crawlers. These are used by search engines to index websites and help users to find them, said Khan. State-sponsored disinformation networks – the kind of “bots” a lot of people misinterpreted this as – could still be affected by the strikes, said Woźniak. “But those effects are going to be much more indirect.” Those networks are far more distributed, and more resilient, said Ned Mendez, the head of research at Alliance4Europe. “Platforms will routinely flag traffic from datacentres as likely automated, so serious bot operations run more through distributed methods, such as residential connections and phone farms, that airstrikes can’t really knock out.” So how could Ukraine disrupt Russian disinformation in Europe? “We can’t simply bomb the bots out of existence, however appealing that might sound,” said Mendez. “They aren’t really a single set of buildings that can be switched off.” Khan said the Ukrainians could consider taking action against companies such as the Internet Research Agency, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner-linked troll farm that was engaged in influence operations until 2023. But another tactic could be to work with Europe to disrupt the supply chain and recruitment pipeline of private sector contractors used by the Kremlin. Another tactic could be to pressure big social media companies to moderate disinformation on their platforms. Khan’s team has successfully worked with Meta to tamp down on inflammatory content in Sudan. But, said Khan, the Trump administration would probably push back on this, hard. “I can see why blowing up datacentres is an easier option.”

Miriam González Durántez launches new centrist party in Spain

The Spanish lawyer Miriam González Durántez has launched a new liberal, centrist party, vowing to clean up politics and give voters an alternative to the dominant socialist and conservative parties as the country gears up for next month’s snap general election. González Durántez, an ex-EU adviser who is married to the former British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, says her new party, Democracia21, will offer a modern, transparent kind of politics that “doesn’t feed on fear, insults or nostalgia”. Democracia21’s manifesto accuses both the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) and the rightwing People’s party (PP) of squandering decades of government for short-term political ends. “In the meantime: housing became unaffordable, young people left, bureaucracy grew like a religion, and bickering took the place of governing,” it says. “Old-school politics turned every problem into a narrative – and every solution into an electoral threat.” Mindful of the corruption scandals that eventually toppled the last PP government – and the graft allegations enveloping the administration and inner circle of the socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez – the new party is promising “a radical political cleanup”, including far greater transparency for parties. González Durántez, who announced that Democracia21 will run in Madrid and Barcelona in the election on 29 November, has also positioned herself on two of the biggest issues facing voters: the housing crisis and immigration. The eviction last month of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid unleashed waves of demonstrations across Spain, led to the setting up of a protest camp in the centre of the capital and prompted Sánchez’s minority government to propose emergency measures to try to make the rental market more equitable. When those measures were voted down by rightwing and far-right parties at the beginning of October, the prime minister announced a snap general election. Speaking at her party’s launch over the weekend, González Durántez accused both the PSOE and the PP of ignoring the housing crisis. “One lot has been in government for eight years and the other controls 80% of Spain’s regional governments,” she said. “What’s going on here is that they only remember about housing when an election comes around and all the people are on the streets.” González Durántez proposed scrapping housing taxes for people under 35, and argued that a young person earning €1,300 (£1,098) a month should not be paying more than €350 a month in rent. She also defended the benefits of controlled immigration and of Spain’s place within the European project, which she described as “absolutely existential” for the country. “Immigration is an asset and an essential competitive advantage for Spain right now,” she said. “We need to get rid of all the xenophobic talk but the state needs to be in control of immigration. We need to decide who comes in; how they come in; when they come in and, if they have to leave, we will also decide when they leave. None of this is contradictory. We need to do all that while ensuring that Europe doesn’t fall into the traps of those political forces that haven’t come to reform Europe, but to break it.” Democracia21 is not the first centrist party to have tried to shake up the traditional socialist and conservative duopoly. The liberal Ciudadanos party, founded in 2006, briefly looked set to push past both the PSOE and the PP, but its decision to lurch to the right and its refusal to back the no-confidence motion that turfed the conservatives out of office in 2018 proved fatal. Ciudadanos’s support was so depleted by the last general election in July 2023 that it chose not to take part in the poll. Sánchez’s decision to call the snap election is another gamble from Spain’s pragmatic and unpredictable prime minister. Polls suggest the PP will comfortably beat the PSOE to win first place, but is unlikely to secure an absolute majority, forcing it to rely on Vox’s support to govern. Sánchez, meanwhile, will be hoping that the PP’s decision to side with Vox and the rightwing Catalan pro-independence Junts party to torpedo the housing proposals will mobilise leftwing and moderate voters. The prime minister, however, is already facing an electoral setback after Spain’s supreme court decided to maintain its suspension of the voting rights of tens of thousands of overseas voters who benefited from a law his government introduced in 2022 offering Spanish citizenship to the descendants of those exiled during the civil war and subsequent Franco dictatorship. The move has angered the PP and Vox, who have accused Sánchez of seeking to create more socialist voters beyond Spain’s borders. Although the suspension looks set to remain in place for the election, the court has said its ruling will not affect those who can prove that their parents or grandparents “suffered exile for political or ideological reasons, or for reasons of belief or sexual orientation”. The PSOE has denounced the political pressure behind the decision as an affront to democracy. “The grandchildren of the Franco regime will be able to vote, but not those of the exiles, just as the PP and Vox wanted,” the party’s organisational secretary, Rebeca Torró, posted on X. “Their fascist agenda has struck at the cornerstone of democracy: the right to vote. We will not stop denouncing this outrage.”