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Thursday briefing: Andy Burnham wants to remake Britain from the regions up. Can it work?

Good morning. Over the summer, I interviewed more than 40 people who are trying to influence the new Labour government for the Guardian Long Read, among them thinktank researchers and politicians. The piece, published this morning, tries to work out how radical Andy Burnham intends to be. So far, his big idea is to give more power and money to England’s regions than ever before – and while “devolution” isn’t a word that sets pulses racing, this plan could be genuinely transformative. Yet, since writing the piece, one thing that has nagged at me is the wider picture. Local media has been gutted. Mechanisms for scrutinising local authority finances have disappeared. Local services and the public realm have been vaporised. Cash-strapped councils have made risky investments and gone bankrupt. All of this amounts to something bigger than a single crisis of accountability; the state’s legitimacy has been eroded, leaving people disenchanted with and distrustful of politics. Burnham is hoping that devolution will renew people’s faith in democracy. But the wider context poses huge risks to this project before it has barely even begun. Today’s newsletter discusses these risks and opportunities with Josh Halliday, the Guardian’s north of England editor, who wrote yesterday about the need for greater scrutiny of mayors. First, the headlines. Five big stories Climate crisis | The UK has warned that the climate crisis and coming El Niño threaten national security and defence around the world, presenting foreign ministries with the findings of an explosive report suppressed under Keir Starmer. US news | A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore ⁠White House ⁠access to journalists from CNN, MS Now and Politico, ⁠saying his ban on the three media outlets was ⁠likely unconstitutional. Education | Teenagers are to be offered a range of new vocational GCSEs under a radical shake-up of the school system in England designed to tackle a crisis that has left nearly a million young people out of work or training. Conservatives | People claiming universal credit would have their payments cut by a third if they have not paid enough national insurance, under a Conservative plan condemned by one charity as “a fast track to increased poverty”. Football | Andy Burnham has signalled he may lift the ban on drinking alcohol in the stands at football matches, suggesting it is “unfair” for fans to be singled out when it is permitted for other sports. In depth: ‘A seminal moment … but the risks are huge’ Burnham, with his behind-the-scenes TikTok video of No 10 North, has made devolving power away from Westminster his central big idea. “If anything had brought me into parliament, it was a mission to close the North-South divide,” he wrote in his 2024 book, Head North. “Seeing how things worked from the inside, I finally understood why England has always felt like two countries.” The clearest statement of this intention since he became prime minister is a paper his cabinet published in July, which outlined plans to let mayors keep a share of income tax generated in their areas and give them greater control over skills, transport and public services. “These plans are a seminal moment in terms of how Britain is run,” Josh Halliday tells me. “But the risks are huge. It just takes one or two bad scandals – such as the bankruptcy of Birmingham council – to really damage the legitimacy of the whole project.” Here’s how those risks break down. *** The media | A shrinking local press Burnham was the mayor of a city comparatively well-served by the media. The Guardian was founded in Manchester and continues to have a newsroom of reporters there (including Josh). Despite the ongoing decline of regional journalism, flourishing media start-ups and subscription newsletters in cities like Manchester, Glasgow, and Birmingham have proven there is still demand for quality local journalism. There have also been wider initiatives to address England’s “news deserts”, such as the BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service. But the bigger picture is one of endless closures and cuts. Reach, the owner of regional titles in England, announced a further round of 220 redundancies (though plans to create 60 new roles) two weeks ago. Even Burnham, who started his career writing for publications such as Tank World, moved to London to find work in journalism. Josh, who graduated from Sunderland university in 2010, used to dream of working for a local newspaper, but found it difficult to even get a work experience placement. “There are fewer and fewer local journalists, which means fewer people keeping an eye on council meetings or scrutinising budget reports,” he tells me. “And that’s really worrying.” *** Local democracy | Participation has been ‘squeezed’ Journalism isn’t the only institution that holds politicians’ feet to the fire. Civil society plays a crucial role, but the cost of living crisis and the gradual erosion of the institutions that bind people together have diminished people’s involvement in politics. “We often talk about the cost of living crisis as a financial squeeze,” Sarah Longlands, the chief executive of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies in Manchester, tells me. “But it’s also squeezed people’s ability to turn up at local campaign groups, to attend town council meetings, to run as councillors themselves, because they’re just focused on the day-to-day of getting by.” For most people, politics isn’t about nuclear deterrents or Westminster white papers, but about how often the bins get emptied or whether the library stays open. In recent years, local authorities have sold off local assets and outsourced public services to faceless providers. This, Sarah says, has robbed people of institutions that give them a stake in their communities. “Take away publicly funded local services, and you take away the frontline engagement and relationship between councils and communities that form part of democracy,” she says. She is particularly concerned that Burnham may decide to go ahead with a plan to reorganise local government that he inherited from his predecessor. Those plans are now on pause, but two professors recently described in the Guardian’s letter pages how the scheme could result in the disappearance of as many as 75% of England’s existing councils, eliminating institutions that have close ties to communities, and making services even more anonymous and detached. *** Scrutiny | Who will keep an eye on the money Over the last decade there’s been a vacuum of information about the financial decisions taken by councils. In 2015, David Cameron abolished the Audit Commission, a body that scoured local governments’ accounts every year. Since then, some struggling councils have gone on reckless spending sprees, buying office blocks and shopping centres while cutting back on local services. Some have since declared bankruptcy. “The National Audit Office will get called in to investigate, but only once there’s already been an emergency,” Josh tells me. “They’re not a safeguard against financial crises.” The Starmer government introduced plans for a new Local Audit Office, which should help address some of these problems, and Burnham’s government is expected to publish further details of its plans for accountability in a few weeks’ time alongside its first budget. Amid all this is a wider question about how to make the devolution of power genuinely democratic. Sarah suggests that any new authority or mayoralty should commit to an ongoing citizens’ assembly, where residents can collectively decide how new resources are allocated, and scrutinise government spending. “The government mainly talks about devolution as a way to drive growth,” she says. “But this could be a cutting edge way to redesign British democracy, so it really works for people.” What else we’ve been enjoying Nesrine Malik examines why enslavement remains absent from mainstream British history in our sister newsletter, The Long Wave, after the Guardian revealed new detail of domestic slave traders and the institutions they funded. Libby Ammar Kalia’s ranking of 100 unusual crisp flavours is both useful and an absolute hoot. It also seems to have been a brave undertaking, considering some of Ammar’s verdicts: “they leave a luminescent blue powder on your fingers and smell of urinal cakes”. Lucinda Everett, newsletters team Not only are adults failing to act effectively on the climate crisis, we’re also rubbish at explaining its realities to kids. So I was pleased to read that New York Climate Week is getting some help from Sesame Street. Libby I enjoyed Matthew Pearce’s interview with author Russell Warfield, who argues that Zack Polanski’s “eco-populist” package is “not a departure from Green tradition, but the culmination of a 50-year evolution which has turned the party into the main electoral force on the British left.” Lucinda Dani Garavelli’s diary of her visit to Mussolini’s birthplace in this week’s London Review of Books is a timely reminder of the echoes of Il Duce in Italy’s current politics. Libby Sport Football | Manchester United have reported an annual loss for the seventh successive year, taking the club’s combined losses to £444m since 2019. Rugby | Steve Borthwick has secured a boost for his preparations for next year’s World Cup thanks to an overhaul in the refereeing of Prem matches for the coming season designed to help England’s hopes in Australia. Football | Cristiano Ronaldo said he considered quitting international football after the World Cup, but confirmed he plans to play on for Portugal and hopes to reach 1,000 goals for club and country. The front pages The Guardian leads with “PM unveils new vocational GCSEs in biggest exam shake-up in decade”. The Telegraph has “Tories to ban spending benefits on alcohol”, while the Times follows the same story with “Tories to cut benefits for long-term unemployed”. The Mail characterises the announcement as “Kemi’s ruthless crackdown on benefits street”. The i has “EU Brexit chief: UK can get a Canada-style membership deal with us”. The Financial Times reports “Healey weighs smaller fiscal headroom to reduce tax rises”. The Mirror covers the crash of an RAF jet under the headline “Miracle no on was killed”. And the Sun looks at the reported axing of alcohol bans in football stadiums with “Going down going down going down.. rather nicely!” Today in Focus: The Latest Has Burnham proved he can handle Trump? Andy Burnham has navigated his way through a first high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump at the UN general assembly in New York. The prime minister’s aides were delighted with how the meeting went, as Trump praised the US-UK relationship and described Burnham as a ‘natural businessman’. The anticipated sticking points – the Chagos Islands, West Bank settlement sanctions and Ireland – appear not to have derailed the talks nor cast a shadow over the future relationship. Lucy Hough speaks to policy editor Kiran Stacey. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad The landmark documentary 7 Up, which launched 63 years ago, followed the lives of 10 boys and four girls in England, beginning when they were seven years old, and returning every seven years. As its final season, 70 Up, concludes, seven people have shared the profound effects the show has had on them over the decades. “The series changed my life,” says Martin Forsey, 65. “I retrained and became a sociologist and anthropologist because of it.” Lyle Jackson, 72, was inspired to become a documentary photographer and producer, and went on to win 18 regional Emmys. And others found important life lessons within the show. “It seemed that the real measure of success was not academic or material achievements after all,” says Sheila Lambe, 63, “but familial love and finding peace.” Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

Israel facing water shortages caused by destruction of Gaza’s treatment plants

Israel is facing weeks of water shortages after an exceptional algae bloom crippled much of its desalination capacity, in a crisis scientists say was triggered when Israeli attacks destroyed much of Gaza’s wastewater infrastructure, causing a massive discharge of untreated sewage. “Pollution does not recognise political borders,” said the Zalul Environmental Association, an Israeli NGO dedicated to protecting the country’s seas and shores. “The discharge of untreated sewage from the Gaza Strip into the sea is contributing to the worsening crisis affecting the Israeli desalination facilities. The wastewater contains nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which feed microalgae and cyanobacteria and may intensify their blooms.” Despite last year’s US-brokered ceasefire, Gaza remains gripped by a severe water and sanitation crisis. The Palestinian territory is plagued by rodents, and sewage floods its coastline after Israel destroyed its wastewater treatment plants. Just across the border, a vast bloom of microalgae stretching up to 60 miles (100km) long has clogged filters at five of Israel’s six main desalination plants, which were shut down for days and have since been operating at a reduced level. Experts say that after nearly three years of war, the environmental consequences of the destruction in Gaza are now spilling back into Israel. “The discharge of untreated sewage from Gaza into the sea increases risks to Israel’s water production infrastructure along the southern Mediterranean coast,” said Jack Gilron, a professor emeritus and desalination expert at Ben-Gurion University’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research. “The current incident reinforces the need to prepare against threats to one of Israel’s main sources of drinking water.” Since 7 October 2023, Israeli bombardment has destroyed 90% of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure, according to a report by Médecins Sans Frontières. Direct strikes have been carried out on wells, carrier lines, reservoirs and desalination units. Gaza’s water crisis remains severe. Before the war, 80% the territory’s supply came from an aquifer under the coastal strip, but that supply is now contaminated by seawater and wastewater and unfit for human consumption. Most of Gaza’s drinking water came from desalination plants and three pipelines controlled by the Israeli water authority, but those pipelines were cut at the start of the war and have only partially reopened. Meanwhile, damaged or destroyed distribution networks have left much of the population reliant on water trucks. For many, this means a stark choice between drinking an extra cup of water or saving it to wash their hands and prevent disease, with acute diarrhoea among the leading causes of illness. “We carry water in jerry cans,” said Nas al-Barawi, 34, a mother of five from Beit Lahia. “We walk with heavy containers or wait for hours in queues. Much of the water is unsafe, and children suffer recurring stomach infections, diarrhoea and skin rashes. Damaged sewage networks and failed pumps have also left wastewater flowing between tents and through residential areas.” Omar Shatat, the deputy executive director of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility in Gaza, said all five of the territory’s wastewater treatment plants were out of service, leaving an estimated 45,000 cubic metres of untreated sewage to flow into the Mediterranean every day. In addition, about 15,000 cubic metres of untreated waste a day seeps into the groundwater from soakaway pits, particularly in the informal camps in al-Mawasi. “This is a catastrophic situation environmentally and from a public-health perspective,” Shatat said. “The sea is heavily polluted, and the first people affected are Gaza’s residents and displaced people because they are in direct contact with the highest concentrations of sewage.” Pat Griffiths, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s spokesperson in Gaza City, said the situation was only likely to get worse with the onset of winter. “Palestinians live surrounded by wastewater. It’s all around them. It’s where they eat, where they get water, where they walk,” he said. Shaimaa al-Katari, 37, who has been displaced to al-Mawasi, said: “We have nowhere to dispose of the water from washing dishes and clothes. We have to let it run into the street, which causes pools of stagnant water to form. Algae and mosquitoes then spread around them and the streets become dirty. We suffer from foul smells, mosquitoes at night and flies during the day, as well as rodents.” Rats have infested parts of Gaza for months, thriving amid raw sewage and piles of rubbish accumulating around overcrowded camps for displaced people. Israeli communities near the Gaza border have also been grappling with an unprecedented rat infestation, with rodents swarming homes and gardens. “The consequences [of the war] do not stop at the border,” said Nada Majdalani, the Palestine director of EcoPeace Middle East, an environmental peacebuilding organisation. “We are already seeing an increase in hepatitis A in Gaza. I believe we are on the verge of a catastrophe. And a serious outbreak in Gaza would not necessarily remain within Gaza’s borders.” In Israel, authorities are urging people to use water “judiciously” until the system is fully restored. Water supplies have been reduced in the south of the country, and farmers have been instructed to halt irrigation, which economists say will cause food prices to rise. Zalul and EcoPeace urged Cogat, the Israeli agency charged with administration of Gaza, to help restore the territory’s sewage system and allow wastewater to be treated in Israeli-controlled areas. Cogat did not respond to a request for comment. Zalul said: “If the pollution continues, its impact could eventually be felt throughout the country. When the marine environment is contaminated, both people and nature suffer. Regardless of which side of the border they are on.”

Venezuela being ‘reborn’, Rodríguez tells UN – as it happened

We’re winding up this live coverage of day two of the UN general assembly and Xi Jinping’s arrival in the US for high-stakes talks with Donald Trump. You can read our full reports on the UN forum and the talks summit, and below is a recap of the day’s main news. Thanks for being with us. Donald Trump welcomed Xi Jinping to the US and took the rare step of greeting the Chinese leader on the tarmac at an air force base outside Washington DC as Xi began a three-day state visit. Xi said China and the US should be “partners rather than rivals” and that Chinese and US interests were “deeply intertwined”. “The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the goal of making America great again can fully go hand in hand,” he said in written comments. Trade, artificial intelligence and the Iran war are expected to be prominent in the talks. The US and China agreed to a two-month extension of their trade war truce to 10 January, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said as Xi arrived. The deal came after lengthy talks between Bessent and his Chinese counterpart, vice-premier He Lifeng. Venezuela’s interim leader told the UN her country was coming back strong after “setbacks” this year and thanked Trump for being willing to resume diplomatic relations after the US military spirited her predecessor Nicolás Maduro out of the country. “Today, Venezuela is being reborn,” Delcy Rodríguez told the general assembly in New York. Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian described the US as the true bully and terrorist in the Middle East while insisting Iran had always shown a commitment to the negotiating table. In a defiant speech to the UN general assembly Pezeshkian repeatedly vowed that Tehran would never bend the knee to the US. But he balanced defiance with a willingness to talk – see Patrick Wintour’s report here. Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Moscow that Ukraine would strike back and make the coming winter deeply painful for Russia if the two sides ⁠could not agree a truce on energy ⁠attacks before the cold sets in. He urged leaders to keep choking Russia’s revenues and impede its war efforts, while singling out Vladimir Putin’s role in driving the war. Polish president Karol Nawrocki warned that without accountability, international law was not more than “a declaration without any real power”. Asian markets were mixed on Thursday as traders eyed the Trump-Xi summit. Hopes of business deals have been dimmed by there being no Chinese CEOs in Xi’s delegation, Agence France-Presse quoted two sources as saying. Oil prices cooled after jumping sharply. President Javier Milei condemned the UN as he warned that Argentina would take “matters into our own hands” in its dispute with Britain over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, while accusing the UN of being filled with “parasites”. See Daniel Boffey’s report here. Syria’s interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa harshly criticised Israel’s occupation of southern Syria and told the UN general assembly the Golan Heights was an inseparable part of his country. The US has invited Vladimir Putin to attend the G20 summit of world leaders being held in Miami in December, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said.

Elif Eralp: ‘Germany’s Zohran Mamdani’ who vows to be a mayor for all Berliners

Elif Eralp launched her election bid last autumn with the blunt statement: “People like me are actually not supposed to become mayor in this country.” So the fact that the 45-year-old lawyer and daughter of political migrants from Turkey is on the verge of becoming Berlin’s next mayor and the capital’s first leader of Turkish origin is quite the moment in German politics. After last weekend’s city state election, in which her far-left party, Die Linke, came first with more than a quarter of the votes, Eralp has become a household name. The mood at Die Linke’s election celebrations on Sunday night was electric. Eralp, whose candidacy has helped propel the party from the doldrums to the brink of heading a coalition government in Berlin for the first time, was feted as a star. Some commentators suggested Germany was “having a [Zohran] Mamdani moment”, in reference to the democratic socialist mayor of New York. (One of his advisers was summoned to Berlin to help Eralp weeks before the poll. Her campaign was modelled on that of the veteran US senator Bernie Sanders.) “In our city, love and justice won over hate … this signal goes out into the world,” Eralp said at her victory party, the “hate” a pointed reference to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, which was celebrating coming first in another regional election. Even in liberal Berlin, the populist party made considerable gains. It was Die Linke, however, that came out on top. With about 26% of the vote, the party not only outperformed the centre-left Social Democrats, whose presence has dominated Berlin politics for decades, and the Greens. It was also well ahead of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the conservative party of the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, which had previously held the mayoral position. A lot is now at stake for Eralp, who has promised to be “a mayor for all Berliners”. Eralp, who was chosen in particular by the young (47% of whom voted for her) and who mobilised thousands of otherwise non-voters thanks in part to intensive door-to-door campaigning and social media, generated most interest with her ambitious promise to take on corporate giants over unaffordable housing in the German capital. Once described as “poor but sexy” by a former mayor for its low cost of living, Berlin’s rents have soared in recent years. In her nomination speech, the lawyer said: “I’m running so that our city becomes affordable again, so that real estate speculators don’t decide what happens to our city, but rather we do together.” She called sky-high rents a defining social issue, saying: “This city belongs to all of us, not to the speculators.” Merz has led the charge against Eralp’s plans to expropriate more than 200,000 Berlin flats from their corporate landlords, saying her policy – decried by some as “socialism on speed” – would have “calamitous effects” on the economy. The chancellor has said he will push for laws to prevent her plans. Eralp has pledged to plough on. It is not a given that Die Linke will take control of Berlin’s towering Rotes Rathaus, or red city hall, named after its red brick and not its association with leftwing politics. Eralp’s victory has been overshadowed by accusations that Die Linke has failed to tackle antisemitism within its own ranks as well as charges that the party has tolerated – and at worst courted – the support of criminal gangs. The Social Democrats and the Greens, potential coalition partners, have said they need urgent clarification on these alleged affiliations before they agree to be associated with Die Linke. Die Linke’s leadership has repeatedly denied the accusations while vowing to clampdown on any antisemitism in its ranks. On Tuesday it announced that one of its Berlin MPs, who is alleged to have connections both to criminal gangs and a terrorist-related, pro-Hamas organisation, would “suspend his parliamentary duties until further notice”. On Monday, Eralp sought to reassure critics. “Any form of glorification or trivialisation of violence or terror is completely out of the question,” she said. “I stand by that, and for me the promise of protection applies unequivocally to Jewish people just as it does to Muslims, Christians and all people in our city.” Eralp has been keen to stress the ordinariness of her life. She lives with her husband and two children in a rental flat in her own constituency of Kreuzberg, in south-central Berlin, one of the city’s most diverse quarters and home to one of Germany’s liveliest Turkish communities. Her children attend a state school in her kiez, or neighbourhood, and she has kept her family away from the cameras “for their own safety”, she says. Much of her campaigning in the district was carried out in Turkish. Unlike most Turkish migrants, Eralp’s parents did not come to Germany as Gastarbeiter, or guest workers, from Eastern Anatolia but were trade unionists and socialists from Istanbul who were imprisoned after a military coup for their political beliefs. Her mother, Hülya, a well-known feminist in Turkey, was only allowed out of jail because she was heavily pregnant with Eralp. She and Eralp’s father, Selçuk, a doctor, fled to Germany, where their daughter was born in Munich in 1981. The family experienced a complicated asylum process, which Eralp has said helped shape her view of the world. “I’ve experienced a lot about what it means when authorities make decisions you don’t understand. I’ve also felt racism and discrimination first-hand, so my life story has a lot to do with where I’ve ended up now,” she has said. She recalls how her parents often put up asylum seekers in their home over many years, and the 15 years of struggle that her mother, a trainer for nurses, faced before her qualifications were recognised in Germany. At the age of 10, Eralp founded a conservation club with friends in her parents’ garage, and later she went into the anti-nuclear movement. After studying law at the University of Hamburg, she moved to Berlin for two years of obligatory practical legal training, ending up working in the parliamentary group of Die Linke and later switching to the Berlin state parliament. She said she was inspired to join Die Linke in 2017 in direct response to the entry of AfD, an anti-immigration party, into the Bundestag for the first time. In 2019, with fellow members and supporters of Die Linke who had refugee and migrant backgrounds, she co-founded Links*kanax, an alliance that aimed to increase the visibility of the migrant-progressive voice within the party and beyond. When she was 12, Eralp says, she wanted to become a human rights lawyer “to fight against all these injustices I’d seen”. Now, she says, “I’m doing what I set out to do, not in a courtroom, but in the political sphere”.

The long-range drone war: Ukraine and Russia scramble for supremacy in the skies

Finally, in the dead of night, the threat above has passed. The rain has eased and the Ukrainian drones are ready, prepared by a ground crew shrouded in hard-to-detect green and red lights. A small succession of Ukrainian Fire Point FP-2 craft, miniature monoplanes with a 6-metre wingspan and more than 100kg of explosive, line up for an attack mission into occupied Luhansk, over 200 miles away. The drone’s main piston engine is a familiar scooter’s buzz, but its launch booster is something else. The jet sound reverberates, almost painfully. A burst of fire lurches into the distance, the last of which signifies it is time for Ukraine’s 413 Raid drone regiment to pack and go. The launch of an FP-2 drone during the mission into occupied Luhansk It is a scene that is now played out nightly by dozens of Ukrainian crews, reflecting a fast-changing conflict that began with tanks, then artillery, but is now pivoting beyond a first generation of drones. Death and destruction are delivered by new weapons in growing volumes, hundreds of miles beyond the frontline, and at targets that are military, industrial and economic but that affect civilians too. But just as Ukraine has developed its drone and missile capability to almost match Russia’s – after its cities were subject at times to hundreds of drone strikes a day – Moscow has transformed its drone arsenal with a jet-powered revolution. The balance of power remains uncertain. Pilots of the 413 Raid drone regiment preparing an FP-2 for launch Raid is a specialist drone unit, created two years ago, and has been operating Ukrainian-designed and -built FP-2 attack drones since last autumn, according to Skipper, a former corporate IT worker with a master’s in computer science who is now one of its commanders. If, he says, there was only one crew that could run two missions a week when they started, today he says “we can do 10 times more, or even more”. Speaking in a car as the rain pelts down, Skipper cautions there is “a flipside” when asked if long-distance wars are easier to fight because nobody has to be killed visibly. “They can do it as well,” he says – Raid’s crew are targets too. “Maybe you don’t see the enemy with your own eyes, but still it’s a very dangerous game,” he adds. The FP-2 was only first publicly acknowledged by Ukraine last September. It is designed to attack hardened targets at a mid-range, to disrupt Russian logistics to the frontline. The success of Raid and others engaged in mid-strike bombing has helped grind the pace of the invaders’ advance to a near halt. Russia gained a modest 90 square kilometres of Ukraine in August, compared with 505 sq km a year earlier, and western officials estimate it is losing 6,000 more soldiers a month than it can recruit. In Ukraine’s sprawling military, the specialist drone units of the Unmanned System Forces, including Raid regiment, work and overlap with army units working closer to the frontline and special forces. A major attack, such as the attack that disabled the Moscow refinery about 300 miles from the border on 20 September, involves several working at once. A long-range attack could involve launching up to 300 drones, though the target is to be able to launch 1,000 a night, in what soldiers describe as an “orchestra”, where cheap drones identify an air corridor towards the final target. An employee walks past a plume of smoke rising from a fire at the Russian e-commerce firm Wildberries’ logistics complex near the town of Podolsk, outside Moscow, on 16 August. Photograph: Tatyana Makeyeva/AFP/Getty Images The long-range, $75,000 FP-1, sister to the FP-2, has been used to repeatedly attack warehouses, refineries and other military-economic sites at a depth of 1,800 miles inside Russia, causing the country’s crude oil production to fall by 7.7% in a year, according to figures from the International Energy Agency, and interest rates to remain at 14%. “Both sides are getting better at translating deep strikes into economic effects,” says Sidharth Kaushal, of the Royal United Services Institute. A refinery burning in Moscow after Ukrainian drones strikes, 21 September. Photograph: EyePress News/Shutterstock Mission planning is rarely shown, but a short-range drone unit operating in the eastern Donetsk front – Unit 17, Special Operations Centre – is happy to show their war work from their dacha. Znakhar, 33, a software coder before the full Russian invasion, is one of a squad of English-speaking men in their early 30s. During the day, he clicks on fresh, static targets – artillery, electronic jamming systems – that have been added to a common system from western satellites or Ukrainian reconnaissance drones, studying their pictures for extra information. Pilots of Unit 17, Special Operations Centre, posing for a portrait next to a Sych mid-strike drone The temporary base of pilots of Unit 17, Special Operations Centre. Right: the ‘drop bombs’ Unit 17 used for middle strikes At night, the crew use a $25,000 Sych drone, which looks like a large model aeroplane. If the rain holds off, they can fly two to six bombing runs, dozens of miles behind enemy lines. Znakhar, whose call sign means healer or herbalist, draws up an initial flight path in seconds with a few clicks on a map, then adjusts the route to avoid population centres, high ground and known interceptor drone launch sites. What’s changed recently? “More drones,” he says. “Russian drones.” Colleagues such as Ananas, 30, head out at night, taking more precautions than they did when the unit started drone work two years ago, preparing launches underground where once they could work in a field. He studied architecture, then worked as a 3D artist in a video game studio. “I play a lot of video games,” he says, “so I’m good with a gamepad. It’s a big plus because now I’m a pilot.” It’s a narrowing of the gap between fiction and reality. *** On the other side, Moscow always has ballistic and cruise missiles available, allowing it to bomb anywhere inside Ukraine since February 2022. It imported delta-winged Shahed drones from Iran in the war’s first year to boost its long-range attack numbers, and developed a family of cheap battlefield drones plus its own version of the Shahed. But since May there has been a notable set of upgrades, allowing Russian forces to strike Ukraine more effectively with fast, jet-engined drones, allied with a new ruthlessness of targeting. Firefighters working at the site of a Russian drone strike on Kyiv business centre on 23 September “Russia never stops,” Serhii Beskrestnov, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s defence technology adviser, said during an interview in Kyiv punctuated by an air raid and explosions in the distance. The original Iranian delta wing Shahed (known by Russia as the Geran-2) has been redesigned and a jet engine added. The new Geran-4, with more aerodynamic wings, flies at anywhere from 300km/h (186mph) to 550km/h, while the cigar-shaped Geran-5 is even faster, at closer to 600km/h. It is similar in speed to a new light cruise missile, the Banderol. The prediction is that Russia will make 36,000 jet Shaheds in 2027, a further 10,000 Banderols, plus a similar number of cheap cruise missiles, the Dan-T. All could be used to bomb Ukraine’s strained electricity, heating and water systems this winter. The new weapons, whose Telefly engines are made in China, are faster than the Ukrainian interceptors, designed to stop the old piston-engined Shahed Geran-2s. Shahed interception rates, once over 90%, are down to 60% against Russia’s newer models, with predictable results. The aftermath of a Russian attack on ammunition storage in Myla village, Kyiv region, in August A mix of jet- and traditional-engined drones made a rare morning attack into the centre of Kyiv on Wednesday, bombing a market near the central railway station and business centre, killing two people and injuring 41. At the end of August, a Geran-4 hit an ammunition dump at Myla, outside Kyiv, killing 38 and destroying homes nearby. Another struck Ukraine’s SBU domestic intelligence agency in the centre of Kyiv, though it may have been controlled in its final phase by a Russian agent on the ground. Food supplies in Kyiv supermarkets are uneven after sustained attacks on warehouses in August; petrol stations in the capital were targeted in early September. The aftermath of a Russian Geran-5-type jet-powered drone strike on an Ukrnafta petrol station in the Holosiivskyi district of Kyiv, 15 September. Photograph: Libkos/Getty Images *** Ukrainian military propaganda is excellent at highlighting successful missions on social media, but the wider picture of the impact of its drone strikes on Russia is harder to discern. “This spring we had a really nice time and almost every night we could see one, two, three, four systems destroyed,” Skipper says. “Since June, July, they are just hiding.” Other Ukrainian military sources emphasise that Russia has improved its jamming capabilities, and cheap strike drones are simply not as accurate now. In this long-distance war, civilian casualties are climbing. New UN figures show 2,222 killed in Ukraine during the first eight months of 2026, more than in all of 2025. In August, 368 were killed in Ukraine and a further 113 reported dead in Russia. Warehouses owned by Ukrainian supermarkets, its Nova Poshta postal service and e-commerce groups were hit at least 32 times. Wildberries and Ozon warehouses in Russia were bombed 17 times by Ukraine. Firefighters at a warehouse in the Kyiv region after a Russian attack The impact could be harder for Ukraine. “Russia has advantages that Ukraine does not,” says Kaushal. “A more diversified range of long-range weapons, more of an air defence network and more slack as a society, because its people have not faced so much pressure for so long.” Ukraine, meanwhile, faces economic pressure at a time when its war budget is overspent and needs to find £40bn more next year. Yet, though war is escalating as the technology changes, neither side is close to defeat or a crisis. Tests will come if Russia tries to mobilise up to 300,000 men after parliamentary elections – and as Ukraine tries again to refinance and, most urgently, get through the winter. Back in their soldiers’ dacha, Ananas and Znakhar wonder if the war will ever end. “Sometimes I catch this feeling,” Ananas admits, then Znakhar comes in: “We just need to hang on one more day than them.”

Defiance, threats and a ‘rebirth’: five key points from day two of the UN’s big gathering

The rubber hit the road this week at the UN general assembly at a time of global urgency, with the Middle East crisis reverberating through markets around the world, AI sparking existential concerns, and few signs of cooperation between the US and China in their great power rivalry. World leaders have gathered in New York to make their feelings known, both at the podium and at crucial meetings on the sidelines. Amid the chaos of the politicking and background briefings, here is a selection of key points we saw on day two. No bending the knee for Iran Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, balanced defiance against the US with an openness to dialogue, in an address that had been in doubt as it was unclear he would be issued a visa to enter the country. “We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists,” he said. “Our innocent people have been the targets of cowardly attacks and aggressions imposed upon our country.” Referring to the United States, Pezeshkian added: “Yes, they did hit us, but we did not bend the knee.” The US delegation walked out of the room. At the podium, Pezeshkian held up images of children killed in the strike on a school in Minab, which a UN fact-finding mission had found “reasonable grounds” to say was carried out by the US. Despite Donald Trump’s earlier public musings on whether to “annihilate the Islamic Republic”, the US president said there had been a “very good” meeting on the fate of the strait of Hormuz between Tehran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Xi Jinping gives it a miss The biggest thing not happening at the UN general assembly could well be any involvement by Xi Jinping. Amid crises in Ukraine and the Middle East that have seen Beijing accused of being at best unhelpful, Donald Trump rolled out a 100ft red carpet to personally meet his counterpart at Joint Base Andrews instead of the White House, a move not seen for decades. The two will talk about AI, trade and Taiwan during a state dinner and tea, but China will be represented at the UNGA by vice-president Han Zheng. On his arrival, Xi said “our two countries should be partners rather than rivals”, according to state news agency Xinhua, and a modest extension of their trade truce was announced, but expectations of a big breakthrough are low. ‘Today, Venezuela is being reborn’ Venezuela’s interim president described the “rebirth” of her country, as she addressed for the UN for the first time since the abduction of her old boss on the orders of Trump. Delcy Rodríguez, speaking as Nicolás Maduro languished in a prison nearly in Brooklyn, promised elections at an undisclosed point in the future and said her government had started a “political dialogue with opposition sectors”. Earlier, she had watched as Trump defended the US intervention in her country, saying: “It was a war … [and] to the victor belong the spoils”, an allusion to the controversial 65bn-barrel oil deal she agreed, which the president called “the largest oil deal in history”. ‘Russia’s revenues must remain a target’ As the war grinds towards its fifth winter, Ukraine’s president was clear-eyed about how to hurt Russia: hit the Kremlin’s coffers. “Russia’s revenues must remain a target,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the assembly. “When someone gives Russia more money through trade, they give this war more time. And that is exactly why we insist on limiting trade with the aggressor, and why we are burning Russia’s revenues ourselves,” he said. The president flagged that the upcoming winter could be “very harsh for us”, given the annual onslaught against its energy infrastructure, but warned that Kyiv could “make it painful for Russia too”. Ukraine has used long-range drones to strike Russian warehouses, ‌port infrastructure and oil refineries, but Trump has pressed Zelenskyy to “stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia” because it was causing a global shortage. Although Russian president Vladimir Putin is not at the UN, Trump has invited him to December’s G20 in Miami, which would mark a significant step in welcoming Putin back on to the world stage. Coming up ... Netanyahu New York is bracing for protests, both in the assembly hall and on the streets, when Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks on Thursday against a background of growing international condemnation, most recently over violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. New York mayor Zohran Mamdani told demonstrators this week he would protect their “right to [protest] in this city” but tempered his earlier promises to arrest Netanyahu as a war criminal. Palestinian representatives are calling for diplomatic missions to bring staff for a planned walkout of Netanyahu’s speech. Netanyahu is expected to deliver a hardline message aimed not just at world leaders, but also to his own electorate in Israel ahead of elections next month. Trump and top US officials are not expected to meet Netanyahu, but will be listening carefully to his words – 60% of American Jews in a poll released this week hope Netanyahu is voted out in October.

Ukraine war briefing: Moscow hammers Kyiv as Zelenskyy urges leaders at UN to keep choking Russia’s revenues

Russia hammered Kyiv with drones in daylight attacks on Wednesday hours before Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with world leaders at the UN general assembly. Two people were killed and 41 wounded in Ukraine’s capital. Palls of black smoke floated above the city following the latest in what have been daily Russian attacks that torment Ukrainian civilians. The drones set off fires and damaged buildings in Kyiv and elsewhere in Ukraine overnight, authorities said. The attacks continued early into Thursday with emergency crews dispatched to three ⁠districts, said Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko. “Explosions in ‌Kyiv, The ‌capital is under attack ‌from ballistic missiles. Remain in shelters!” Klitschko wrote on Telegram. Unofficial Telegram channels showed what was described as a fire lighting up the horizon. A Russian ⁠aerial bomb attack ⁠also killed five people ⁠and injured six on Wednesday ⁠in the village of Oleksandrivka ⁠in Ukraine’s eastern ‌Donetsk ‌region, the regional governor ‌said. Vadym Filashkin, writing on Telegram, said Russian forces had dropped ‌four bombs on the village, near the city of Kramatorsk. Zelenskyy urged world’s leaders Wednesday to keep choking Russia’s revenues and impede its war efforts, telling the UN general assembly that “Russia’s revenues must remain a target.” “When someone gives Russia more money through trade, they give this war more time. And that is exactly why we insist on limiting trade with the aggressor, and why we are burning Russia’s revenues ourselves,” he said. Zelenskyy also reiterated his warnings to Moscow that Ukraine would strike back and make the coming winter deeply painful for Russia, if the two sides ⁠cannot agree a truce on energy ⁠attacks before the cold sets in. Ukraine and its allies are racing to secure limited agreements on energy infrastructure and Black Sea shipping before winter, fearing renewed Russian strikes on power and heating facilities, while Moscow continues to show little interest in wider negotiations ⁠to end the war. “Ukrainians understand that this winter could be very harsh for us. But in response, we will have no choice but to make it painful for Russia too,” Zelenskyy told the UN meeting. ⁠The US has invited Russian president Vladimir Putin to a December G20 meeting in ⁠Miami, Florida, where ⁠he could hold a summit with Donald Trump, US secretary of state Marco Rubio ⁠said on Wednesday. The Kremlin said Russia would consider the invitation. Rubio, speaking after meeting Russian foreign minister Sergei ⁠Lavrov on the sidelines of the UN general assembly, said the US remained ‌open to engaging ‌with Russia on the war in Ukraine, despite stalled efforts ‌to bring an end to the conflict. “We’ve invited President Putin to the G20. We think it’s an opportunity for him to engage not just with the president but with other world leaders. We hope that’s an invitation ‌he’ll accept,” Rubio said. Zelenskyy said on Wednesday he had signed a “drone deal” with Finland’s president, ⁠another in a series of agreements offering to combine Kyiv’s technical expertise with other countries’ industrial capacity. Zelenskyy met Finnish ⁠president Alexander Stubb, ⁠along with Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in New York. “And today we just signed a Drone Deal with Alex (Stubb) – an important step for jointly protecting our ⁠people and an even stronger partnership between our countries,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. Ukraine has transferred two North Korean prisoners of war to ⁠South Korea, Zelenskyy said on Thursday in his address to the UN. “Recently, we sent two ⁠North Korean prisoners ⁠of war to the Republic of Korea,” Zelenskyy said in his speech. “These guys are not easy to capture alive. One of them, ⁠when he realised he was going to be taken prisoner, tried to kill himself. And he was shocked that fate did not let him ⁠die.” Zelenskyy did not provide more details about the return. According to some estimates, North Korea has sent up to 15,000 soldiers since 2024 to support Russia’s war against Ukraine. Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has announced that Australia will provide $60m more in support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion during an emotional meeting with ⁠Zelenskyy in New York. Albanese became emotional as he paid tribute to his “friend” Zelenskyy in his fight against Russian aggression. “[His] leadership has been, I think, quite extraordinary, leading people in circumstances which are extraordinarily difficult,” he said.

OpenAI’s Altman and Anthropic’s Amodei address UN security council

Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic, heads of two of the world’s largest artificial intelligence companies, addressed the United Nations security council on Wednesday in separate briefings on AI safety. “We have a choice in front of us,” Altman told the council. “AI can either be more like a new renaissance of creativity and discovery, or more like a new industrial revolution of upheaval and disarray.” Altman and Amodei spoke as their companies face increasing scrutiny over the safety of their products. Public alarm over AI has grown in response to warnings from Anthropic researchers earlier this month that the technology could destroy humanity within the decade. Leaders of AI companies, including Altman and Amodei, have since called for a slowdown on advancing AI and more international cooperation on the technology’s safety standards. Altman, who sat at the corner of the security council’s horseshoe-shaped table and spoke for about 10 minutes, touted AI’s benefits to productivity while also warning of its potential abuses. He advocated for governments to come together to build a future where AI is guided by democratic institutions, rather than one where people feel like the technology is “something being done to them”. “If AI is to be democratic, the most important decisions cannot be made by labs in San Francisco alone. They must be shaped through democratic processes and by governments accountable to the people that they serve,” Altman said. The OpenAI CEO’s speech contrasted with some of his company’s lobbying efforts and the political action committee of its president, Greg Brockman. The pro-AI Leading the Future PAC has accrued more than $100m and spent millions targeting candidates who support stronger regulation on the AI industry. Altman’s speech also nodded to some of the concerns from Anthropic researchers about AI’s existential risk, warning the council against falling into “doomerism”. Altman argued there was instead a “middle path” through the safety debate that should be based on three principles: AI systems must remain under human control; AI must benefit people, from helping doctors treat patients to boosting entrepreneurs; and the technology must “empower people individually”. Amodei, who addressed the council via video call, repeated many of the points that he made in a 12 September blog post that called for increased global cooperation and oversight of AI. He advocated for several forms of international agreements, including a ban on using AI to develop biological weapons and global standards for testing new AI models. While Altman steered his address away from engaging with the warnings of existential risk that have made headlines this month, Amodei reiterated his concerns about developers losing control of AI while also framing his company as an industry leader on safety. “If managed poorly, I even believe that AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole,” Amodei said. “At Anthropic, we believe we have the best track record in the industry for preventing these risks”. AI regulation has shot up the political agenda after researchers at OpenAI’s arch-rival Anthropic warned the technology could wipe out humanity within years. These concerns are a regular refrain within sections of the AI community, who fear the technology could trigger devastation for a variety of reasons ranging from aiding development of bioweapons to triggering a financial catastrophe. Earlier, Amodei called for a slowdown in AI development, which was supported by OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk. Both Amodei and Altman have long cast themselves as stewards of AI and sought to shape how the technology is publicly received. Their companies are also jockeying for the lead in the AI race, with both eyeing potentially record-setting initial public offerings that would value each at more than $1.5tn.