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A Chinese missile destroyer fired live rounds for the first time inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) during a drill on Sunday, a day before Chinese and Philippine sailors clashed in the South China Sea. Three Chinese warships and a Russian frigate were spotted sailing between Okinawa’s main island and Miyako island into the Pacific on Thursday, before being picked up again around 330km south-west of Okinotori in the early hours of Sunday morning. The Chinese missile destroyer then issued a warning to shipping that it would be carrying out the drill, which reportedly included machine guns using live ammunition. The drill was conducted about 180km from Okinotori, the southernmost island of Japan, which extends its EEZ to the waters around it. Tokyo sees the drill – which prompted the mobilisation of air and sea surveillance efforts – as “part of a move by the two militaries toward strengthening their cooperation,” Japan’s top government spokesman Minoru Kihara said at a Tuesday briefing. Japan told Beijing via diplomatic channels that the drill “could have endangered the navigation of nearby ships”, according to Kihara. “We will continue to monitor with concern the behaviours by Chinese and Russian vessels in the waters around our country,” he added. Beijing disputes Okinotori’s designation as an island, maintaining that it is a reef and the waters around it are not part of Japan’s EEZ, and therefore that it is free to operate there. A Chinese aircraft carrier and research ship both entered the waters in 2025, but this is the first time Japan’s defence ministry has acknowledged that a foreign navy vessel has fired live rounds in the EEZ. Japan contacted China through diplomatic channels over the incident and is continuing its surveillance of the area. Chinese and Russian military exercises have ramped up around Japan since Tokyo’s relations with Moscow have soured over the war in Ukraine, and a row that erupted with Beijing over Sanae Takaichi’s comments on Taiwan in November 2025. The Japanese prime minister said a Chinese attack on self-ruled Taiwan could spark a Japanese military response. On Monday, a Chinese vessel also approached the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, which is controlled by the Philippines but claimed by Beijing. The Philippine navy stationed there sent rubber dinghies to deter the Chinese boat. According to Philippine authorities, one of their sailors suffered a serious head injury when a Chinese crew member allegedly struck him with a wooden baton. China disputed this version of events, saying its personnel issued warnings and that Philippine crew members attacked first using long poles and other implements. The Philippines won a landmark case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016 that found China’s sweeping claim of sovereignty in the South China Sea had no basis under international law, a decision that Beijing continuously rejects. The Philippine and Chinese foreign ministers are due to hold talks at a meeting of the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) scheduled to start in Manila on Tuesday. The US condemned China’s actions as the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, arrived in the Philippines for the Asean summit. “China’s troubling pattern of provocations against the Philippines’ legitimate maritime operations undermines regional peace and stability and directly contradicts China’s repeated commitments to resolve disputes peacefully,” said the state department. Rubio wrote in an article published in Philippine media on Tuesday that the US affirmed its commitment to “freedom of navigation in south-east Asia”. “This freedom is by no means guaranteed. If these waters were to fall under the control of a power willing to use trade as a geopolitical weapon, both the United States and the Asean states would face serious new threats to their sovereignty, security, and economic future.” It was not yet confirmed whether Rubio would meet directly in Manila with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, though he said he was open to doing so. China has territorial disputes with six countries in the South China Sea as well as with Japan, India and Bhutan. With Reuters
Ukraine fired more than 400 drones toward Moscow, the city’s mayor said on Monday. Russia had earlier bombarded Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with ballistic missiles. The Ukrainian attack around Russia’s capital started a fire at the Yuzhnye Vrata industrial park – another Wildberries warehouse site like those hit over the weekend in strikes that Voldodymyr Zelenskyy said were because of the warehouses’ involvement in the Russian war effort. The Astra news outlet reported a fire at an oil depot in Podolsk, about 20km (12 miles) south of Moscow. Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, confirmed that Ukrainian forces hit logistics facilities and an oil depot in the Moscow region, adding that Kyiv’s forces also struck two vessels belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet transporting sanctioned oil and four dry cargo ships in the Black Sea. Russian has launched more ballistic missiles against Ukraine in July so far than it is thought to produce each month, the Institute for the Study of War thinktank said on Sunday. “Russia appears to be dipping into its stockpiles to continue increasing the number of ballistic missiles it launches against Ukraine, as these missiles have a higher success rate than drones and cruise missiles.” A Russian attack on an infrastructure facility in Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa on Monday killed at least three people and injured three others, a city official said. There were further deaths in the eastern cities of Pavlograd and Kramatorsk, and in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia. Russian strikes have killed 28 people in the southern Odesa region in July, said the regional governor, Oleh Kiper. “If you take since the beginning of July, the Odesa region was under constant daily shelling. There were days when 13-15 air raid alerts had been announced in the region.” Ukraine’s military commander in chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, was widely expected to lose his job, Luke Harding writes, amid signs that Zelenskyy has bowed to protests triggered by his sacking last week of the modernising defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. Ukraine’s general staff denied media reports Syrskyi was about to be sacked, but Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, hinted at it, saying “the public’s position has been heard” and the situation was being resolved “professionally and constructively”, urging “everyone to keep calm”. One source in the armed forces confirmed Syrskyi’s imminent departure. “His destiny is decided. The question is who will replace him. There are a few important requirements. The person should be known and popular so everyone applauds,” Budanov said: “The enemy is closely watching every one of our internal disputes and waiting for us to start fighting among ourselves … work is under way. Results will follow.” Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s Belgorod border region killed six people on Monday, authorities said, while Kyiv reported eight deaths after Russian attacks. The acting governor of Belgorod, Alexander Shuvaev, said a Ukrainian drone struck a passenger coach, and another strike killed a man at a car wash. Ukraine denies targeting civilians. Ukraine’s seaports authority said a cargo vessel under the flag of the West African country of Guinea Bissau was hit by Russian forces on Sunday shortly after it left the port of Odesa, killing 10 of its crew, including five sailors from Syria. Eight people were rescued from the ship, which was carrying Ukrainian corn, it added. India said four of its nationals were among those killed and another was injured in attacks the day before on the grain-carrying ship MV Golden Leo near the Ukrainian port in Odesa. An Indian foreign ministry statement condemned the strike. Ukraine’s navy said five people were killed and another five missing. The dead included a Ukrainian maritime pilot. Syria meanwhile said it “strongly condemns the repeated attacks targeting commercial vessels with Syrian sailors and crews aboard in Ukrainian ports and nearby maritime areas in the Black Sea, and the resulting deaths and injuries among Syrian sailors”.
As part of the Trump administration’s continuing attack on left-leaning groups, the US state department has listed several activists and organizations as “front groups and fellow travelers” for Cuba, including Hasan Piker and Amazon Labor Union founder Chris Smalls. In a 100-page report released on Monday, the state department denounces Cuba as the “capital of 21st-century communism”, accusing the Cuban government of carrying out a “campaign of subversion” that has “infiltrated the highest reaches of the US government, recruited and cultivated generations of American activists [and] backed an unprecedented wave of leftwing terrorism on American soil”. The state department report alleges that the so-called campaign is “designed to turn America against itself” and singles out several left-leaning activists and organizations, including the Democratic Socialists of America, Isra Hirsi – the daughter of Minnesota Democratic representative Ilhan Omar – New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, and journalist Amy Goodman, citing their criticism of US policy toward Cuba or participation in Cuba solidarity movements. Describing the DSA, of which Mamdani is a member, the report says the organization “serves as a particularly potent illustration of the ideological victory of Cuba’s effort to position itself as the spiritual capital of Third Worldist radicalism”. It accuses the DSA of maintaining a “fierce, almost religious commitment to the cause of the Cuban regime – not because the group is controlled by Cuban agents, per se, but because that commitment is now simply the de facto policy orthodoxy on the American far left”. Trump has doubled down on similar messaging in recent days, using the term communism at political rallies and presidential engagements alike. For more than 60 years, the US has maintained a sweeping economic embargo on Cuba, in addition to crippling sanctions imposed by numerous administrations. Despite US claims that its policies are designed to pressure the Cuban government, Havana and many international critics including human rights organizations say they have severely hurt the island’s economy. The report comes just days after the state department, led by Marco Rubio – the son of Cuban immigrants and one of the US’s most outspoken critics of Cuba’s communist government – imposed further sanctions on the country, targeting its tourism ministry and several state-owned companies. The sanctions come as part of the Trump administration’s “comprehensive push to end the Cuban regime’s malign activities, both in Cuba and across our hemisphere”. Rubio has long advocated for “maximum pressure” toward Havana, arguing that easing US sanctions only strengthens Cuba’s communist government. Throughout his political career including his time as a senator, Rubio has backed tighter economic restrictions and repeatedly accused the Cuban authorities of repressing political dissent and fueling violence across the region. Earlier this month, Cuba suffered its third nationwide blackout in six months amid an oil blockade imposed by Trump on the island of 9.6 million people, prompting many residents to say that “living like this is agony”.
Nicaragua’s long-serving president, Daniel Ortega, has said the country will hold no further elections to prevent the opposition from coming to power. The 80-year-old authoritarian leader, who has been in office since 2007, also said he would work with the congress he controls to pass new laws that would “build a wall” against the opposition. Ortega made the announcement on Sunday during the official ceremony marking the 47th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista revolution, in which he helped overthrow the brutal dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. Although his administration and that of his wife and “co-president”, Rosario Murillo, had already been marked by the steady erosion of democracy in the Central American country, many are describing his announcement as a significant rhetorical escalation. “With this decision, Ortega and Murillo have sealed the country’s transition to a full-fledged family dictatorship,” said Tiziano Breda, Latin America senior analyst at the NGO Armed Conflict Location and Event Data. During a speech in front of thousands of state employees who, according to local media, had been coerced into attending, Ortega said: “There will be no more elections here so that they [the opposition parties] can try to seize the government, seize power.” The president, who had not appeared in public for 61 days, added: “We will work with the National Assembly and the relevant institutions on laws, because we need laws that build a wall, a barrier, against the coup plotters and the traitors who sell out their country.” The elections were due to take place next year, but Ortega gave no details on whether they would be cancelled or whether the opposition would be barred from taking part – something that has already happened in practice. During the 2021 campaign, his regime outlawed parties and jailed all opposition presidential hopefuls. Breda said: “Ortega and Murillo are evidently afraid of the idea that the slightest political opening could create the conditions for dissent to manifest and threaten their grip on power, possibly suggesting that their already feeble domestic support is further falling. “Therefore, instead of staging a rigged election, they have opted to eliminate electoral competition altogether.” Last year, Ortega pushed through a series of constitutional reforms that included extending the presidential term from five to six years and promoting his wife, then vice-president, to the position of “co-president”. The US refers to their administration as the “Murillo-Ortega dictatorship”. During his speech, the Nicaraguan president criticised the US over the January operation that abducted the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro: “With all their power, they stormed the presidential palace, where Nicolás and his wife, Cilia [Flores], were. They killed the entire security detail there – most of them were Cubans – and took them away to imprison them in the US. It is monstrous.” The president said preventing the opposition from returning to power was necessary to protect the country from the “coup plotters” who, he claimed, had been behind the nationwide protests of 2018 – when, according to organisations including the UN, his regime carried out a violent crackdown that killed more than 350 people, wounded hundreds, jailed thousands and forced nearly 1 million Nicaraguans into exile. Recently, the UN, the US, human rights organisations and 30 former Ibero-American presidents have directly blamed Ortega and Murillo for the death of the Indigenous leader and four-term congressman Brooklyn Rivera, 73, who spent nearly three years “unjustly imprisoned” by the regime, the US state department said. According to organisations including Human Rights Watch, there are about 50 political prisoners in the country. The regime has stripped 546 people of their citizenship and shut down more than 5,600 non-governmental organisations, 29 universities and 58 media outlets.
The US military said it has launched its 10th consecutive round of strikes on Iran to force the reopening of the strait of Hormuz. Earlier on Monday, Iran’s president said the country is in a “full-scale war” after the US expanded its aerial campaign and Tehran struck Washington’s Gulf allies, even as diplomats said talks to de-escalate were continuing. Iranian media reported strikes around Tabriz, believed to hold underground missile bases, as well as Bushehr, home to the country’s only operational civilian nuclear power plant. The US military said it had struck “military command centres, air defence and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks”. Iran launched attacks against Bahrain, which hosts the US navy’s fifth fleet, and Kuwait, in addition to striking tankers in the strait of Hormuz, which carried a fifth of global oil and gas supplies before the war. Bahrain said its air traffic systems were damaged by the strikes, but that traffic was not affected. The Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen also announced a blockade of Saudi ports. “The reality is that today the Islamic Republic of Iran is engaged in a full-scale war,” the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said in a statement on Monday, warning it might have to endure more strikes. Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump signalled an escalation in tactics, saying on Monday that Iran would “pay” for killing US soldiers “many times over” after multiple service members were killed in action over the weekend. The US military on Monday identified two soldiers killed in Jordan while defending against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks. An examination of remains is under way to determine whether they belong to a third service member who was reported missing in that attack. And in Iraq, another US service member died after “a controlled detonation” of an Iranian drone. Since the war began, 17 US service members have been killed. Iran’s health ministry said on Friday that 50 people had been killed and more than 500 injured in the current round of fighting. The latest tit-for-tat attacks came as the region lurched back towards a total war despite an interim peace deal agreed last month. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) to halt attacks and open the strait is more than halfway through a 60-day implementation period that was intended to provide breathing room for diplomacy. Shipping in the strait has slowed to a trickle as a result of the fighting and the price of oil reached its highest in a month, passing $90 (£67) a barrel, exacerbating the global energy crisis. A Houthi blockade of Saudi ports announced on Monday could further strain global energy markets as Saudi Arabia was using the Red Sea route to export millions of barrels of oil and circumvent Iran’s closure of the strait of Hormuz. The group said it was responding to what it called Riyadh’s targeting of Sana’a airport last week after it was bombed by the Saudi-backed Yemen government, and that it would answer a “blockade with a blockade”. But in a sign that talks could still stop the escalating round of conflict, an Iranian official told Reuters that mediators gave Iran a proposal for a 10-day-ceasefire to find ways to revive the MoU. The proposal follows a statement by Iran that diplomacy with the US was continuing despite the fighting, without giving details on the content of the discussions. Iran’s interior minister was expected to travel to Islamabad on Monday, Agence France-Presse reported. Hours earlier, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the US was still open to negotiations with Iran, but that “it has to be real”. “We’re going to continue to respond. If the door opens to diplomacy – if the guys that want to do something productive for Iran win and take control of that system, or take control of the negotiations – that’ll be a very positive development,” Rubio said. Mediators including Qatar and Pakistan have continued to speak to both sides during the current round of escalation in an attempt to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table. As the strikes began early on Monday, a ship caught fire in the strait of Hormuz near the coastline of Oman in the southern corridor the US military has encouraged ships to use to avoid Iran’s control. The crew safely abandoned the vessel, while the ship was recovered by a tug boat, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed two oil tankers were blown up after attempting to transit through the southern route, but there was no independent confirmation. The IRGC also claimed to have launched a “surprise attack” on an enemy command centre in the al-Tanf region of Syria, in a statement reported by the state news agency IRNA. After Iran targeted sites in Jordan on Sunday, Israel warned of the danger of the strikes spilling across its borders, reigniting a direct regional conflict that had been restrained even as tensions between the Trump administration and Iran have soared again. “If Iran fires missiles at Israel, we will attack them with full force,” said the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, on Sunday. The US is expected to send dozens of additional refuelling planes to Israel as part of a reinforcement of its force posture in the region, a US official told Reuters. Trump has threatened to target Iran’s power stations and bridges to try to compel Tehran to loosen its hold on the strait of Hormuz. The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, defended the Trump administration’s strategy for the war, but argued that the mission had since shifted toward ensuring oil shipments could move through the strait. “We did a pause to try to get an agreement with the Iranian people to allow oil to flow without them attacking it,” Wright said on Sunday. “They’ve proven unwilling to do that, and we’ve pivoted. Now what we’re doing is assuring that that oil and gas and other products can flow through the strait of Hormuz with or without Iranian cooperation.” The US also announced that the “pilot zone” scheme in Lebanon had begun in three villages in the south, after peace talks in Rome between the governments of Lebanon and Israel. Under the programme, Israel will withdraw soldiers from areas it occupies in south Lebanon, to be replaced by the Lebanese army, which will be tasked with dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure in the areas. The US state department spokesperson Thomas Pigott said on Monday that the scheme started in the villages of Froun, Srifa and Zawtar al-Gharbiya. The Associated Press contributed reporting
The Hungarian chess legend Judit Polgár has said she will not accept the nomination for president, only a day after the prime minister, Péter Magyar, said he would ask her to take up the largely ceremonial role. Magyar had said he would meet Polgár on Monday to discuss the matter. “Our country needs unity, peace and a president that all Hungarians can be proud of,” he wrote on social media. “Judit Polgár’s name has been synonymous with talent and perseverance for decades.” Polgár, 49, said later in a Facebook post that she was grateful to be asked but added: “I do not feel enough strength within me to take on the historic responsibility of uniting a divided nation, so I am unable to accept the request.” Polgár – the subject of the documentary Queen of Chess, released in February – is the only female player to have been ranked in the world’s top 10 of the male-dominated sport. She is the only woman to have crossed the rating of 2700, the threshold that many consider the definition of a super grandmaster. The latest developments come after a months-long standoff between the newly elected Magyar and Tamás Sulyok, the president appointed during the former leader Viktor Orbán’s time in power. Since his landslide victory in April, Magyar has repeatedly called on Sulyok to step down, accusing him of being a puppet who had failed to stand up for the country as Orbán’s rightwing, nationalist Fidesz party was criticised for weakening democratic institutions and undermining the rule of law. Hungary’s parliament – where Magyar’s centre-right Tisza party holds a two-thirds majority – voted last week to back a constitutional amendment that included an immediate end to Sulyok’s term. From there, Sulyok had five days to sign off on the amendment. The manoeuvre was criticised by several rights groups in Hungary, including Human Rights Watch, which said the rushed constitutional changes to oust the president were “reminiscent of [the] Fidesz era”. Magyar, however, has insisted that the changes are needed as part of a wider push to loosen Orbán’s lingering grip on the country. As news emerged that Sulyok had signed the legislation, bringing an end to his time in office, Magyar proposed nominating Polgár as his replacement. The idea was first floated in an open letter signed by 16 prominent Hungarians, including Ernő Rubik, theinventor of the Rubik’s Cube. Born in Budapest, Polgár, who will turn 50 in a few days, had been the top-ranked female player for 25 years when she retired in 2014. She became the youngest grandmaster in the world at the age of 15, breaking the record set in 1958 by Bobby Fischer. She won victories against several male world champions including Garry Kasparov in 2002. Since being swept into power on the promise of “regime change”, Magyar and his party have moved swiftly to dismantle the bastions of Orbán’s 16 years in power, from suspending news broadcasts by public media outlets with ties to the former prime minister to abolishing the sovereignty protection office, which had allowed intelligence services to access information on individuals and organisations without judicial oversight. Additional reporting from Reuters
Ukraine’s commander in chief Oleksandr Syrskyi is widely expected to lose his job amid signs that Volodymyr Zelenskyy has bowed to pressure from protesters and will reshuffle the army’s top leadership. Over the past five days, thousands of demonstrators have gathered outside the presidential office in Kyiv, chanting: “Syrskyi out.” They have demanded Zelenskyy reinstate Mykhailo Fedorov, who was fired as defence minister last week after a clash with Syrskyi and the general staff. Aged 35 and a moderniser, Fedorov is widely credited with improving the country’s position on the battlefield during the six months he was in the job. In a newspaper column published on Monday, Syrskyi said he was “surprised to learn the minister and I had a conflict”. “I perceived our relationship as a working one: with complex issues, with different positions. This is how it should be between two institutions during a major war,” he wrote. He offered a personal apology, saying that if he had offended Fedorov, he was “sorry”. The general added: “I can be harsh. But I ask you, and everyone who is following this story with enthusiasm: let’s focus not on the personal, but on the global. On victory.” Syrskyi also insisted it was wrong to accuse him of a “lack of strategy” and said he was at war with Moscow, not the defence ministry in Kyiv. “My job is war. Strategy, the frontline, the people. That is what I do and will continue to do,” he said. Ukraine’s general staff denied media reports on Monday that Syrskyi was about to be sacked. It said Syrskyi and his deputy, Andriy Hnatov, continued to carry out their duties. “Dismissal from these posts takes place on the basis of a decree by the president of Ukraine,” it added. Despite these denials, Zelenskyy’s influential chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, hinted that the government had listened to the popular mood. “The public’s position has been heard,” he said. The situation was being resolved “professionally and constructively”, he added, urging “everyone to keep calm”. “The enemy is closely watching every one of our internal disputes and waiting for us to start fighting among ourselves … work is under way. Results will follow,” he said. The noisy protests began last Thursday. Several demonstrators waved cheese graters – a pun on the commander’s name, which sounds like cheese in Ukrainian. Zelenskyy confirmed last week that the relationship between Fedorov and Syrskyi had broken down. After his firing, Fedorov said Ukraine’s top brass had blocked reforms with “bureaucratic impediments” and ignored data, instead rewarding brigades that were loyal to Syrskyi personally. One source in the armed forces confirmed Syrskyi’s imminent departure. “His destiny is decided. The question is who will replace him. There are a few important requirements. The person should be known and popular so everyone applauds,” they said. “But they should also not have open political ambitions so as not to create a new rival. It should be an experienced military guy who listens to the president and does what he wants to do,” the source added. On Monday, Zelenskyy held meetings with several possible replacements. The senior commanders included Mykhailo Drapatiy, the head of Ukraine’s joint armed forces. Drapatiy cemented his reputation by driving a tank through a pro-Russian blockade in 2014, when Russia first tried to seize the eastern city of Mariupol. The meetings with top military figures were attended by Yevheniy Khmara, whom Zelenskyy appointed as defence minister. It is unclear if Fedorov will be reinstated – a key demand from demonstrators – or brought back into government in another role. Protest organisers say that Zelenskyy has a deadline of Friday to give Fedorov his old job back. If this doesn’t happen they promise a “general indefinite protest” in towns and cities across the country. Zelenskyy praised recent long-range Ukrainian strikes on targets in Russia. “They have produced results against logistics facilities and an oil depot. The targets were more than 400km from our border. Two shadow fleet tankers and four cargo ships were also struck in the Black Sea,” he said. “We are responding, justly, to every Russian strike against our cities and communities. This war must be brought to an end, and that is only possible by increasing the pressure on the sole cause of this war – Russia,” Zelenskyy added.