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EU deadlocked on changes to Russia sanctions ahead of key Ukraine, Greenland talks - Europe live

Guterres also talks about the importance and relevance of the UN in today’s world, as he argues that: “The world does not need the weaker United Nations. It needs the UN strong enough to face the world as it is, and determined enough to build the world as it should be.” He says that in his 10 years he has learned that “the greatest power is not the power to dominate; [but] the power to build a future that works for everyone.” “Our shared future will be forged by whether humanity can govern power wisely, by upholding the law before impunity becomes normalised, by ending wars, before they consume generations. By tackling inequality, before societies fracture. By accelerating climate action, before tipping points are crossed, and by governing artificial intelligence before it governs us. This is the challenge before this General Assembly, the United Nations and humanity itself.” He signs off declaring his resolve to follow these principles in the last 100 days in the office, and pledging he will always keep championing them even once he left the post. “I will continue to stand up for the values of the United Nations Charter, and I will never, ever give up,” he declares to warm applause and a standing ovation. UN general assembly president and Bangladeshi foreign minister Khalilur Rahman is next to speak, with US president Donald Trump expected near the top of the hour.

Superpowers cannot solve world’s problems, UN chief says in final general assembly address

The world’s fault lines have turned from cracks into canyons as superpowers show that they alone do not have the military, economic and technological power to guarantee security, or solve the world’s problems, the outgoing secretary general of the United Nations has said in his final address to the general assembly. In a speech laced with despair but also glimpses of defiant hope, António Guterres warned that over the last decade, largely spanning his 10-year period in office “wars erupted with devastating consequences and dragged on with despicable cruelty. Civilians were targeted. Human rights trampled. Hunger weaponised. Humanitarians killed. International law cast aside. Geopolitical divides have deepened. Inequalities have intensified. Trust has frayed. The climate crisis went from distant warning to daily reality. And artificial intelligence moved at a speed that has blind-sided even those who created it.” Without naming Israel, he also said the actions that followed the Hamas attack of October2023 “was an onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza, with a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed in all my years as secretary general”. He also rounded on profiteering energy companies for “treating the world as an open sewer”, described Africa’s omission from a permanent place on the UN security council as stunning, and called for a new compact to regulate AI. Throughout, the 77-year-old Portuguese politician and diplomat argued that a multilateral system centred on a newly representative UN was the only way to address this new convergence of problems. However, he warned “at the very moment when humanity faces an unprecedented convergence of threats, our mechanisms for collective action are under growing strain”. Without mentioning Donald Trump once, he said what was required was “a recognition, especially by superpowers that their power isn’t so super. Their power has limits. The events of recent years have made that unmistakably clear. Military power alone cannot secure peace. Economic power alone cannot command stability. And technological power alone cannot guarantee security.” It was critical to avoid hegemonic tendencies and what Guterres described as the “great fracture” – the division of the world into two rival blocs with separate economic, technological and security systems. The defining challenge of the age, he said, was that world governance, reflecting the power realities of a bygone age, was not adapting to the way power was being redistributed between and within states. At the same time there was “an extraordinary transfer of power away from governments to a handful of private corporations and individuals. Their reach now extends across politics, economies, information flows, technological development, and the civic space on which societies depend. “Humans are increasingly handing over power to machines – with artificial intelligence agents going rogue, and lethal autonomous weapons going from science fiction to military reality.” The choice was now whether the world was going to continue to fragment with rising tension, transactionalism, and shrinking cooperation or change course towards multilateral system centred on a UN that was balanced and representative. “The test before us is whether power will be exercised with the law – or beyond it,” he said. “We must pass that test. We must defend the charter without double standards. Protect civilians without exception.” He also urged world leaders to stop letting civilians pay the price for the cascading conflicts across the Middle East. Demanding the fighting must stop and humanitarian aid flow, he pointed out the international court of justice last year had ordered that the UN be allowed to fulfil its mandates in Gaza. “Meanwhile violence, displacement and settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank are bulldozing the path to peace and raising the spectre of ethnic cleansing. We cannot allow the two-state solution to disappear before our eyes.” In Ukraine, he said “Russia’s full-scale invasion has subjected a sovereign country to a brutal war in blatant violation of the charter”. But now he also warned that “in parts of Russia – homes, energy and water systems, and transport have come under repeated attack, threatening food and energy supply chains globally”. For decades, he said, “big oil has treated the atmosphere as an open sewer – and cashed in on the consequences. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, five major western oil companies have pocketed nearly half a trillion dollars in profits. Compare that with just $34bn in international public adaptation finance for developing countries in the latest year reported.” “With a super sized El Niño coming towards humanity,” he said, “everyday people are paying more for energy, food and insurance”. Although he admitted a 21st-century security council without permanent African representation was unjust and indefensible, he defended the cash-strapped and much maligned organisation, saying the UN was where the powerful were held to account. The United Nations, he also announced, had “achieved gender parity for the first time in history across all senior leadership … all headquarters … and all professional staff”. “Equality is not a dream,” he said. “It is a decision. If the UN can change so can businesses, parliaments, governments, peace processes.”

‘It’s my duty to tell the truth’: UN chief on the climate crisis, capitalism and reasons to be hopeful

António Guterres, who will finish his second term as UN secretary general on 31 December, has spoken out more strongly on the climate crisis than any of his predecessors. He has criticised “immoral” fossil fuel companies for their “grotesque greed”, warned that we have “opened the gates of hell” and hailed the new “clean energy age”. Before his last UN general assembly, we asked him about making the climate crisis one of the top priorities of his tenure. Why are you so forthright on the climate crisis? Climate is an existential threat. We see political leadership around the world diverted by lots of short-term objectives. Political life lives by the hour, and climate is something whose dramatic consequences will only be seen in the long term. That is why I believe the UN has the obligation to, at every moment, put the climate in the centre of the concerns of the international community, because climate is the most relevant global existential threat. Why have we failed to tackle global heating up to now? There are vested interests that are interested in maintaining the present development model based on fossil fuels. You have a systematic campaign that is strongly financed by the huge profits of the sector that tries to divert attention [from] the impacts of fossil fuels. But also, most people have not yet interiorised the level of risk that we are all facing. I hope public opinion will be more and more impressed by the devastating impacts of climate change, and disasters becoming more and more dramatic. Heatwaves have terrible impacts on health, so there will be a growing consciousness of the devastating impacts of climate change as things get inevitably worse. Is climate breakdown a threat to national security? As the crisis in the Gulf has demonstrated, to base an economy on fossil fuel imports is a severe risk for any country, and security is something that tends to have an enormous importance in decision-making. Scientists tell us we’re coming very close to tipping points that can dramatically accelerate the impacts of climate change. The Gulf Stream [or Amoc, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation] is slowing, as we know. And we could face a huge acceleration of rising sea levels. It will become a world problem, and it’s a clear security problem – an extremely dramatic problem for the security of all countries in the world. Still in many security establishments, energy security is still seen in terms of fossil fuels. But there is a new generation of institutions and thinktanks alert to the risks of climate change and [the crisis in] biodiversity. What difference can the UN secretary general make? The secretary general of the UN has not much power, and there is no money. But there is one thing that I have: a voice. It’s my duty to use that voice without any compromise, to tell the truth and to alert the international community to the dangers it faces. I have not the power to all of a sudden make everybody invest in renewables, but I have the duty to tell people that unless we accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, unless we drastically reduce emissions in the next decade, we will be facing dramatic problems that will impact on the whole of humankind. Have you any regrets about your 10 years in office? We should have done more in building powerful alliances outside the traditional political spectrum. We should be able to do more building those alliances [with grassroots organisations and subnational and local governments]. We have given too much importance to our dialogue with the top political decision-makers and not done enough in the mobilisation of society and establishing a stronger alliance with local authorities. Our democratic systems need to be modernised, and communication with the people, especially with young generations, needs to adapt to the new forms of communication [on the internet and social media]. Some people argue that capitalism is the underlying problem and we cannot solve the climate crisis without fixing that. Do you agree? A market economy can be a very good form of allocation and resources. If you call capitalism the market economy, the problem is not capitalism. But a market economy requires effective governance. And that governance must be made through regulations, and that governance must be within the monopoly of political power, democratically elected. So we can have a market economy – and I still believe it’s the best way to allocate resources, as planned economies didn’t prove to be effective – but we need to have regulatory frameworks established by politically democratic institutions. Unfortunately, in many circumstances we have seen regulatory bodies being controlled by private interests. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen. But many of the biggest emitting countries, and countries with the biggest fossil fuel reserves, are autocracies. What can be done with them? I’m in favour of democracies everywhere, but even in non-democratic regimes [tackling the climate crisis] is important – and it’s important that [modern communications] technologies are not used to increase the authoritarian nature of those regimes. Are there any reasons to be hopeful? Clearly we are not doing enough. But they are developing renewable energy at enormous speeds. The crisis of the Gulf will accelerate that trend, because many of the emerging economies that are the biggest emitters are net importers of fossil fuels and they have a vested interest in developing renewables.

Australia investigating how F-35 fighter jet parts bound for US went missing in Hong Kong

The Department of Defence is examining how F-35 fighter jet parts bound for the US from Australia were unexpectedly diverted to Hong Kong, the acting prime minister, Richard Marles, has said. Marles said “very much everything that has occurred at the Australian end” would be reviewed, but claimed the technology parts were not “sensitive”, as first reported by Politico over the weekend. The parts, which were being transported by another unknown third party on behalf of manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, still remain unaccounted for months later following their unplanned diversion to Hong Kong. The last known location of the fighter jet components – in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China – has sparked concern that some of the program’s technology secrets could have been exposed. “We are examining [Australia’s involvement], but the point I would make here is that we are confident about the way in which we’ve engaged with the program, and through the US’s prime contractor, Lockheed,” Marles said on Tuesday. “My understanding is that there is a sense of comfort, and we’re not talking about sensitive equipment here, or sensitive parts. “Ultimately, though, this is an issue which is going to be managed by the United States and by Lockheed in terms of what has occurred.” Politico reported sources said the “sensitive” shipment contained one of the jet’s canopies, which reportedly contains stealth technology. The US Department of War and F-35 Joint Program Office confirmed they were aware of the “shipment issue”. “We are actively working with US authorities and industry partners to retrieve these components, investigate the incident, and place safeguards to avoid a future occurrence,” the spokesperson said. While many details have not yet been revealed, Michael Shoebridge, a director for Strategic Analysis Australia who has worked in intelligence agencies, said there were two reasons why China, or another adversary, would want F-35 parts – to reverse engineer them, or to learn how to better exploit and attack them. Shoebridge added the shipment’s pitstop in Hong Kong was “such an unexpectedly stupid thing” for the manufacturer or Australia to do. “This is an act of incredible ineptitude and stupidity, and so it’s more the Chinese taking advantage of an incredible stroke of luck brought to them by the stupidity of the people involved,” he said. Last week, the US State Department announced that the Trump administration would continue with the sale of 48 F-35s to Saudi Arabia, despite reported concerns from the US intelligence organisations that China could obtain some of the stealth technology. Australia was one of the early development partners in the F-35. The program spreads the development, supply, management and sustainment of the fighter jets across different countries. More than 70 Australian companies have production and sustainment contracts with the F-35 program. In excess of 700 of the fighter jet’s “critical pieces” are manufactured in Victoria alone, according to the state government. Australia also hosts a regional distribution hub for F-35 parts in New South Wales. Australian companies involved in the program’s supply chain have been awarded contracts valued at over $5.2bn, as of September 2025. Shoebridge said the missing shipment of parts could mean the whole multibillion-dollar fleet is vulnerable to adversaries. “They’re all now carrying the risk of whatever vulnerabilities this has brought to the aircraft,” he said. “So it’s not just a US-Australia issue. It’s every operator of the F-35 program [that] has an interest in understanding what happened and what was potentially exposed.”

Jacinda Ardern and husband Clarke Gayford buy $5.3m home in Sydney’s northern beaches

Jacinda Ardern and her husband, Clarke Gayford, have bought a $5.3m home in Sydney’s northern beaches, according to a source with knowledge of the sale. The former New Zealand prime minister settled on a home in Dee Why after looking at properties in the area including in nearby Curl Curl. The sale – handled by Raine & Horne Northern Beaches and first reported by the Sydney Morning Herald – is the biggest the suburb has recorded this year, according to the source familiar with the transaction. The Guardian has contacted Gayford and a representative for Ardern for comment. In February, Ardern’s office confirmed she was living in Australia, following media reports that she, her husband and their daughter, Neve, had attended open home viewings in Sydney’s northern beaches. “The family has been travelling for a few years now,” a spokesperson from her office told the Guardian at the time. “For the moment they’re basing themselves out of Australia – they have work there, and it brings the added bonus of more time back home in New Zealand.” Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email The spokesperson did not elaborate on when the family arrived in Australia nor what kind of work they were doing, but noted it was not unusual for former leaders to spend time overseas after leaving office. Ardern announced her retirement from politics in January 2023, after five years as New Zealand’s prime minister and the leader of the country’s Labour party. When she was elected to the top job in October 2017, Ardern became the world’s youngest-serving female leader, aged 37, and later became the second woman to give birth while holding elected office. Since leaving office, Ardern has taken up dual fellowship roles at Harvard University, continued her work on the Christchurch Call – a project she established to combat online extremism after the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings – and joined the board of trustees of Prince William’s Earthshot prize. New Zealand has been grappling with a surge in the number of citizens leaving the country because of a weak economy, high living costs and high unemployment. Many of these people have moved to Australia. Additional reporting by Eva Corlett

Trump’s bizarre social media blitz leaves world guessing ahead of UN address

The annual gathering of the United Nations general assembly has historically been a platform for US presidents to display their most serious face and a positive vision to the world. From Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower to John F Kennedy and Barack Obama, over eight decades US leaders have used the setting to expound on grand themes before a global audience at pivotal moments in international affairs. As world leaders and officials gather in New York for the yearly event, and Donald Trump prepares to address them on Tuesday, how he will contribute to this historic catalog of remarks is a matter of speculation. The US president has spent recent days blitzing social media on a variety of topics, from his planned triumphal arch in Washington to a bid to rebrand artificial intelligence, as he contends with an unpopular war and low approval ratings that threaten to drag down his party in November’s US midterm elections. His previous addresses to the assembly suggest that the chances of a non-divisive and uplifting message are low. Last year, Trump shocked the august gathering in his first appearance since returning to the White House the previous January by declaring to those present that their countries were “going to hell” while launching a full-frontal assault on the UN and the concept of open borders. In 2018, during his first presidency, Trump drew laughter from fellow leaders when he opened his address by claiming: “In less than two years, my administration has accomplished almost more than any other administration in the history of our country.” The previous year, he had attacked longstanding allies, singling out Germany for its energy policy, and declaring that the US “can no longer be taken advantage of, or enter into a one-sided deal where the United States gets nothing in return”. This time around, Trump’s recent social media activities hinted at an even more volatile than usual state of mind from a leader who can be erratic at the best of times. Arguably the most eye-catching was his declaration in an early Sunday morning post that he intended to turn his highly controversial planned arch in Washington DC into a military storage facility, claiming – without providing evidence – that the move was requested by the US military. There was a surfeit of others. A post headlined “His Hemisphere” and depicting Trump gazing at a map of the globe ominously hinted at an imperious tone he could strike, less than nine months after US forces seized the former Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, in his compound in Caracas and spirited him and his wife to New York. The Trump administration has since trumpeted a deal giving it control over a significant segment of Venezuelan oil reserves. In another post, Trump postures as the defender of AI – denouncing recent fears that its rapid development could presage the destruction of the human race. Instead, he painted it as the latest target of “many hoaxes, all generated by the radical left dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our country” and announced his plans for an “AI force”– headed by an “AI Czar” – in the image of the space force, established during his first presidency. “AI is the next Industrial Revolution, or Internet, but will be even larger and more impactful, possibly as much as 25% of our country’s GDP,” he wrote. “We are leading China, and the rest of the world, and I intend to keep it that way.” There is every chance Trump returns to previous themes at the UN on Tuesday. In an echo of his 2018 speech, on Friday he posted a list of his “Top 25 Trump Achievements” since returning to office. Trump’s appearance before the general assembly will be his first since his fateful decision to launch, in tandem with Israel, a war against Iran in February. The conflict – despite his predictions that it would last a few days, and result in the collapse of Tehran’s Islamic regime – shows no signs of ending. The regime still stands. Iran’s closure of the strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that was a conduit to one-fifth of the world’s oil exports before hostilities began, has sent global energy prices soaring and stoked inflation in the US, challenging the prospects of Trump’s Republican party in November’s midterms. Polls show a majority of Americans oppose the war, which has further deflated his approval ratings. Further piquancy to Trump’s political dilemma is likely to be added by the presence of Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, at the UN. While Trump has signaled a willingness to meet his Iranian counterpart, Pezeshkian – a relative pragmatist, under pressure from regime hardliners to stand firm and avoid compromise with an enemy still branded by Tehran as “the great Satan” – is thought unlikely to agree to such an encounter. The sting of being snubbed by an Iranian leadership he likes to depict as “dying to make a deal” could add further fuel to a fiery speech before the general assembly and witnessed by a global audience. Traditionally, US presidential speeches to the UN go through a long drafting process and are subject to reviews by the state department, the Pentagon and the intelligence community, as well as fevered last-minute rehearsals. That all may still hold true for this address. Yet equally likely is a no-holds-barred, scattergun diatribe, rehashing the themes of Trump’s recent social media output.

Tuesday briefing: Europe thinks Russia is preparing to test Nato’s limits

Good morning. As the UN general assembly kicks off in New York later today, we anticipate a heavy focus on the ongoing conflicts in Iran, Ukraine and the Gulf – as well as the inevitable body language analysis of Andy Burnham’s first in-person meeting with Donald Trump. But another related conflict is likely to dominate informal discussions: the intensifying acts of sabotage on European states that are believed to trace back to Russia but deliberately fall below the threshold for military response – a so-called hybrid or “shadow war” with the singular purpose of disrupting support for Ukraine. As Vladimir Putin consolidates his grip on power in tightly controlled Russian elections and the Kremlin welcomed further success for the far-right AfD in German state polls yesterday, European intelligence officers have shared with the Guardian their starkest warnings yet about potential Russian attempts to test Nato resolve with an attack on European soil. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Shaun Walker, our special correspondent for eastern Europe, Ukraine and intelligence matters, about whether Europe is already at war. First, this morning’s headlines. Five big stories Yemen | The UK has agreed to provide defensive air support to Saudi Arabia to help counter Houthi fighters and restore stability in the Middle East while driving down the cost of living at home, Andy Burnham has said, ahead of his first meeting with Donald Trump. Environment | The “jaw-dropping” El Niño currently heating up the planet has burst through the highest temperature ever recorded for the phenomenon, several months before its expected peak. Gaza | Israeli and UK military commanders could be requested to give evidence to an inquest concerning three British aid workers killed in Gaza when aid vehicles they were travelling in were hit by an airstrike. US | After President Trump’s snap decision to ban CNN from the White House, the four other networks that comprise the White House’s TV pool decided they would cease their pooled coverage of the president. Slavery | Bones of the enslaver Edward Colston are likely to remain interred in a church in Bristol if and when the currently unused building is given a new lease of life as a community resource, it has emerged. In depth: The line between peace and war In a series of interviews with Shaun Walker in Prague and Riga, European intelligence bosses from the Czech Republic, Latvia and Sweden raised the possibility of an imminent Russian test of Nato, with one suggesting a potential attack could come in a matter of “months, not years”. These sources were speaking days after Polish prime minister Donald Tusk told his parliament that intelligence assessments suggested Russia might launch an attack with drones or missiles on Nato territory in the coming months. French president Emmanuel Macron has also summoned party leaders for an emergency meeting to discuss similar warnings. When I catch up with Shaun in a taxi on the way to Warsaw airport, he’s still assessing the gravity of these warnings. “One thing you always have to bear in mind when reporting on intelligence is that – because the way spy agencies gain information usually remains secret – you often don’t know if a source is talking about a very specific intercept of a plan that’s almost certainly going to happen, or if it’s less concrete chatter that analysts have put together.” His view is that these concerns are not at the level of early 2022, when American intelligence repeatedly warned Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine and had hard evidence of the Kremlin’s plans (as Shaun revealed here). What did surprise him was his sources’ willingness to be quoted: “Normally I go into these interviews assuming that we’re going to talk off the record. All of these people were happy to be on the record, which does suggest they want to get a message out.” (Quick note, readers: “off the record” is a phrase that reporters in books, films and even real life throw about with abandon, but what does it mean? Say your source tells you about seeing a piece of fruit in a bowl. On the record means you can report that Jill Bloggs told the Guardian exclusively: “There’s a banana in the fruit bowl.” Off the record allows you to use that information to aid your investigation, but you mustn’t reveal where it came from. You can approach other fruit bowl-watchers, to check if they agree with Jill’s sighting. Then you might write: “Several sources with knowledge of the fruit bowl confirmed that a banana was present.” It’s a journalistic convention with no legal consequences, of course.) *** What is this hybrid war and how can Europe fight it? This systematic campaign has developed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine four and a half years ago, with common features: designed to seed chaos and anxiety among Ukraine’s allies, while it is often difficult to prove conclusively Russian involvement as Kremlin security services pivot to recruiting local foot soldiers online. Since the beginning of this year, there has been a catalogue of unexplained fires at defence facilities supplying Ukraine in Italy, Bulgaria, Estonia and Slovakia. An explosives-laden drone was discovered next to a Ukrainian cargo plane at Germany’s Leipzig airport. Authorities in Denmark warned Russia is recruiting Danish citizens to sabotage defence firms with ties to Ukraine; in Lithuania, an Ikea was set on fire; and in France, five coffins inscribed with the words “French soldiers in Ukraine” were left under the Eiffel Tower. In the UK, the Rycroft review found online disinformation from hostile foreign states including Russia was warping political discourse when it published in March, while two Russian-linked arsonists who targeted property connected to former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer were jailed in June. Given the recent escalation, it’s not surprising that Shaun observes some EU politicians “getting irritated” with the term ‘hybrid war’, and arguing that such direct attacks amount to more than “grey zone” activity. Although European governments have become much quicker publicly to call out Russian involvement, the challenge for these politicians is deciding what effective measures they can take. After the Leipzig incident, Germany expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats and promised tighter border controls for Russians entering Germany. But the Schengen free movement zone makes this tricky: one of the suspects in the Leipzig incident reportedly entered Europe using an Italian tourist visa. EU sanctions blacklist Russian banks and energy companies, as well as entities in the United Arab Emirates, Thailand and China for helping Moscow evade western restrictions. And there’s a growing willingness among EU nations to clamp down on Russia’s shadow fleet – ships illegally carrying Russian oil and other supplies in the Baltic and North seas. While there are vocal critics who argue these diplomatic and economic measures don’t go far enough, others worry that even more decisive responses would riskdragging the bloc into military escalation. “What Russia is working to is that they know even the most hawkish people in Nato countries would really like to avoid having a direct conflict.” *** What is the mood in Europe? For decades, politicians and analysts in those Baltic states most at risk of Russian aggression have warned western Europe to take that threat more seriously. But that mood has flipped of late, with the secretary general of Estonia’s foreign ministry, Jonatan Vseviov, for example, cautioning against “panic” on social media. These states remain the strongest voices in terms of tangible responses to Russian aggression, but are well aware that the vast majority of Russia’s military capability is tied up in Ukraine. They are also concerned about the impact that a narrative of tanks rolling into Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania has on their societies and economies – which is of course partly the point of concerted Russian psyops. “Somebody put it to me recently – which I thought was the perfect description – that Baltic states prefer western Europe to see it as a chronic rather than an acute problem”. With that in mind, European leaders at the UN in New York this week will be keen to create a united front and wary of interventions from Donald Trump, who has previously dismissed concerns that Russia will strike a Baltic country or other member state to test Nato resolve and repeatedly criticised the alliance. *** Is Europe already at war (and what does that mean)? When Shaun was researching his latest book, The Illegals, about Russia’s deep-cover spies, he waded through archives of KGB documents from the 70s and 80s. They often referred to “the special period”, a Soviet term that described a stage between friendly coexistence and war between communist and capitalist worlds, and was characterised by plans for relentless sabotage. “It sounded a lot like where we are now”, he says. Like Europe, Russia doesn’t want a direct confrontation with the West but it’s clear, adds Shaun, “that their risk appetite is increasing.” The scale of sabotage has led to prominent military voices in the UK and across Europe suggesting that the bloc is already at war – although the very definition of ‘at war’ is now liminal – and that governments ought to be more transparent with their public. Does he agree? Shaun’s one word answer is “no”. The nuance is as follows: “There is a clear campaign from Russia, using methods that are not military, but are pretty aggressive. Some people may consider them as being something close to a war. It’s clearly absolutely nothing like the war in Ukraine.” He suggests that European governments find themselves in a bind domestically. “If they choose to spend on defence rather than social issues, those social issues get worse and voters move to the populist right, the AfD in Germany or Le Pen in France, then you end up with leaders who are very sympathetic to Russia in power.” “There’s a careful path between dismissing this as a fake threat and the kind of alarmist rhetoric that we’re on the path to war and every other issue is secondary.” What else we’ve been enjoying This week, the Guardian is following five Palestinians as they go about their lives, each telling us the story of their day. The latest moving account is from Alaa Hessi, who shares what it’s like to be pregnant in Gaza. Lucinda Everett, newsletters team I learned so many movies by heart in those turbulent adolescent (and younger) years when identities form. So I loved Hannah Marriott’s take on learning Dirty Dancing by heart as a littl’un, and why it’s her feelgood movie as a result. Poppy Noor, newsletters team As someone who has never had the patience (or bladder control) to queue for hours for a front-row concert spot, I was fascinated by Rosalind Adams’ piece about the lengths superfans will go to, to get close to their favourite artists. Lucinda The process of “cuckooing” – where drug gangs take over vulnerable people’s homes – is as terrifying as it sounds, but journalist Max Daly brings another layer to it in his reporting here, that shows the very complex, very human side. Jacqui Housden, newsletters team I loved Rafael Yaghobzadeh’s picture essay about the cold war bunkers in Finland, Sweden and Norway that have been given unlikely second acts as go-kart tracks, swimming pools, children’s soft play centres and more. Lucinda Sport Football | Thomas Tuchel has been rocked by five withdrawals from his England squad because of injuries ahead of the Nations League programme. Football | The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, has agreed to commission an independent governance review after coming under mounting pressure to do so in the wake of the World Cup sale debacle. Cricket | Harry Brook is hopeful that Brydon Carse will break back into his England white-ball teams once the fast bowler is clear of his ongoing disciplinary, describing him as a “very good mate” who is “working on a few things behind the scenes”. The front pages “UK to give support to Saudi jets in bid to counter Houthi fighters”, is the Guardian’s front page today, while the Telegraph says “Burnham sends RAF to help Saudis”, and the Times writes “PM agrees military aid for Saudis over Yemen”. The i Paper has “UK fires torpedo from undersea drone in new warning to Putin” and the FT leads with “Kremlin-aided forgers moved $7bn through global banks”. The Mail leads on “New small boat farce”, the Express splashes “‘More freedom handed to new arrivals than British citizens’”. The Mirror writes “NHS need 55,00 more nurses”. The Sun has “Letby doc: we need a retrial”, and lastly Metro says “Air traffic out of control”. Today in Focus: The Latest Rise of the far right in Germany: how worried should we be? The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has vowed to stay in office despite heavy losses in two state elections that he described as a ‘disaster’. The anti-immigration, Kremlin-friendly Alternative für Deutschland won with 38% of the vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while the leftwing Die Linke was victorious in Berlin. Merz has promised political change, but speculation is growing that his party could soon oust him. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent, Deborah Cole. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Despite 18 million people in the UK having hearing issues, there is still no dedicated centre for the Deaf community. Now, Amanprit Arnold, an urban planner and activist, is campaigning to create one. The DeafCity Hub would be a national centre for Arnold’s community, as well as a co-working and cultural space, and a home for Deaf-sector charities. It would be designed using deaf-friendly architectural guidelines called DeafSpace principles, which include wide corridors and staircases so people can walk next to each other while talking in BSL. This month, the project has landed a year-long “meanwhile” space (a building awaiting redevelopment), which Arnold hopes “will act as an incubator to develop this idea further.” 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