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Ukraine war briefing: Progress depends on Russia taking peace talks seriously, say Washington and Kyiv

Ukrainian and US officials will hold a third straight day of talks in Miami on Saturday, with Washington saying the two sides agree that “real progress” would depend on Russia’s willingness to end the war. Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner have been meeting top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov and Andrii Hnatov, the chief of staff of Kyiv’s armed forces. “Both parties agreed that real progress toward any agreement depends on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace, including steps toward de-escalation and cessation of killings,” said a summary of the talks. The US and Ukrainian officials “also agreed on the framework of security arrangements and discussed necessary deterrence capabilities to sustain a lasting peace”. The talks in Florida come after Witkoff and Kushner met Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Tuesday to discuss a US plan to end the conflict but the Russian president rejected parts of the proposal and threatened that Russia was “ready” for war if Europe started it. Emmanuel Macron has said there is “no mistrust” between Europe and the US, a day after a report claimed the French president had warned privately there was a risk Washington could betray Ukraine, reports Oliver Holmes. “Unity between Americans and Europeans on the Ukrainian issue is essential,” Macron said during a visit to China on Friday. “And I say it again and again, we need to work together.” The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said they held “very constructive” talks with the Belgian prime minister, Bart De Wever, on Friday over an EU plan to use Russian frozen assets to fund Ukraine, which Belgium has so far refused to endorse. The EC, along with most European governments, prefers a “reparations loan” using Russian state assets immobilised in the European Union due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We agreed that time is of the essence given the current geopolitical situation,” von der Leyen said after the meeting in Brussels. Moscow’s ambassador to Germany, meanwhile, warned that the plan to use frozen Russian assets would have “far-reaching consequences” for the EU. “Any operation with sovereign Russian assets without Russia’s consent constitutes theft,” Sergey Nechaev claimed. Russian drones struck a house in central Ukraine, killing a 12-year-old boy, officials said, while long-range Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted a Russian port and an oil refinery. In Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, a Russian drone attack overnight to Friday destroyed a house where the boy was killed and two women injured, said the head of the regional military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko. In Russia, Ukrainian drones attacked a port in the Krasnodar region on the border with Ukraine, sparking a fire at the Temryuk seaport and damaging port infrastructure, officials said. Ukrainian drones also aimed deeper inside Russia, attacking the city of Syzran on the Volga river, said the mayor, Sergei Volodchenkov, without providing more details. Unconfirmed media reports said Ukrainian drones hit an oil refinery in Syzran. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said a Ukrainian drone struck and damaged a high-rise building in Grozny, capital of Russia’s southern Chechnya region, and vowed to retaliate within a week. The drone had caused no casualties, he said on Friday. Vladimir Putin has told the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, that Russia is ready to continue “uninterrupted” shipments of oil to India, signalling a defiant stance to the US as the two leaders met in Delhi and affirmed that their ties were “resilient to external pressure”. The statement, made on Friday after the annual India-Russia summit, appeared to be directed at western countries – particularly the US – that have attempted to pressure New Delhi into scaling back its ties to Moscow, reports Hannah Ellis-Petersen.

Zootopia 2 bucks trend for Hollywood releases in China as it breaks records for foreign animation

A comedy about animal cops investigating a reptilian mystery has become the highest-grossing foreign animated film ever in China, bucking the trend of declining interest in overseas productions that has resulted in Hollywood films struggling in the Chinese box office. Zootopia 2 (called Zootropolis 2 in some European countries), a hotly anticipated and widely marketed sequel to 2016’s Zootopia, was released in China last week. In its first seven days, it made about 2bn yuan (£213m) in ticket sales, making it one of the best-performing films of the year. On its fourth day of release, it broke the single-day earnings record for an imported film, surpassing the previous record-holder, Avengers: Endgame. The Walt Disney production has a track record in China: the original Zootopia reportedly took 1.5bn yuan in the Chinese box office, making it the country’s highest-grossing animated Hollywood film at the time – a title now taken by its sequel. The American film has performed better in Chinese theatres than in North American ones in its first week. Hollywood once saw China as a huge potential market for boosting box office sales. But in recent years Chinese cinemagoers have chosen domestic productions rather than overseas films. So the success of a foreign movie – the imports of which are strictly controlled in China – has surprised some observers. Chinese cinemagoers and critics say the film’s feelgood energy overrides other factors, especially in a challenging economic and geopolitical environment. “I am grateful that Disney is still willing to present stories like this in such a divided era,” wrote one user on Douban, a Chinese review website. “If this film had been released 10 years ago, I would have said Disney was merely serving another plate of exquisite, old-fashioned dessert. But precisely because it was born into today’s world, I sincerely hope to see more films like this.” Walt Disney’s chief creative officer, Jared Bush, who wrote and co-directed Zootopia 2, has said that the success of the 2016 original took the company by surprise. “We didn’t know that it was going to turn into this phenomenon [in China],” he told the LA Times. Bush said that Chinese regulators had allowed Zootopia to be screened in cinemas for six weeks, rather than the standard four. Shanghai Disneyland resort is home to the world’s only Zootopia-themed land, and last year Disney partnered with the airline China Eastern to make a Zootopia-themed plane. Yu Yaqin, an independent film critic based in Beijing, said the prolonged marketing campaigns in China around the release of the original Zootopia film in 2016 meant that children were very familiar with the characters, which had helped created hype for the sequel. Rance Pow, the chief executive of Artisan Gateway, a film and cinema advisory firm, said that Zootopia 2’s success “demonstrates Chinese moviegoers’ continuing interest in films that resonate, regardless of origin, and the potential of import films to play an important role in the renewed growth of China’s theatrical industry in general”. He added that a new character created for the sequel, Gary De’Snake, a blue-scaled pit viper voiced by Ke Huy Quan, was particularly popular with Chinese audiences. According to the Chinese zodiac, 2025 is the year of the snake. Nonetheless, Zootopia 2’s success bucks the trend for US releases in China. In 2024, 41 Hollywood films were screened in Chinese cinemas, grossing 5.8bn yuan, while domestic productions made 31.7bn yuan. In 2025, 48 Hollywood films have been granted entry into Chinese cinemas. This year’s releases have so far grossed about 5.7bn yuan, with about 40% of that income coming from Zootopia 2. In April, amid a spiralling US-China trade war, the China Film Administration said it was reducing the number of US films that would be granted licences for China. However, the exact details of the restriction were unclear, and this year China has allowed more Hollywood movies into its cinemas than last year. The government has pushed a patriotic trend in blockbuster releases, with many of the most popular films being so-called “wolf warrior” epics such as The Battle at Lake Changjin, a 2021 Communist party-sponsored film that depicts Chinese soldiers battling Americans in the Korean war. China’s biggest success of recent years is Ne Zha 2, a Chinese animation that soared to stratospheric heights earlier this year, earning a total of 15.4bn yuan at the Chinese box office, dwarfing the success of the Zootopia franchise. “Ne Zha 2 is domestically made and Chinese consumers feel closer to domestic movies compared to any other films, not just Hollywood,” Yu said. Yu cautioned that Ne Zha 2’s success was so extraordinary that it should not be taken as a barometer of Chinese cinema in general. She added: “Just because Chinese domestic movies are on the rise, that doesn’t mean there is no need for Hollywood movies. It just means the competition is more fierce.” Additional research by Lillian Yang

‘No mistrust’ between Europe and US over Ukraine, Macron says

Emmanuel Macron has said there is “no mistrust” between Europe and the US, a day after a report claimed the French president had warned privately there was a risk Washington could betray Ukraine. “Unity between Americans and Europeans on the Ukrainian issue is essential. And I say it again and again, we need to work together,” Macron told reporters during a visit to China on Friday. On Friday evening, Donald Trump’s advisers and Ukrainian officials said they would meet for a third day of talks after making progress around the table in Florida on creating a security framework for postwar Ukraine. Earlier, Macron said: “We welcome and support the peace efforts being made by the United States of America. The United States of America needs Europeans to lead these peace efforts.” The German magazine Der Spiegel on Thursday cited a leaked summary of a confidential call between several European leaders in which Macron and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, voiced fundamental doubts about US efforts to negotiate between Ukraine and Russia. The transcript quoted Macron as warning Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that “there is a chance that the US will betray Ukraine on territory, without clarity on security guarantees”. The alleged leak risked angering Donald Trump, whom European leaders have been at pains to flatter, knowing he is the key player in any mediation efforts with Moscow. It also came as European leaders rushed to salvage a sorely needed financing plan for cash-strapped Ukraine. Merz held emergency talks on Friday with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever. When asked about the Spiegel report on Friday, Macron responded: “I deny everything.” Der Spiegel said it had obtained the English summary of Monday’s call, featuring what it said were direct quotations from heads of government. In the transcript, Macron described the current tense phase of the negotiations as harbouring “a big danger” for Zelenskyy. Merz reportedly added that he needed to be “very careful”. “They are playing games with both you and us,” Merz was reported as telling Zelenskyy – a remark believed to refer to a diplomatic mission to Moscow this week by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and the US president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Washington presented a 28-point proposal last month to halt the war in Ukraine, drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies and criticised as too close a reflection of Moscow’s maximalist demands. US and Ukrainian negotiators have since held talks before Witkoff and Kushner headed to Moscow on Tuesday. The pair spent five hours in talks with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin and Witkoff then met Ukraine’s national security council chief, Rustem Umerov, in Miami on Thursday. Moscow and Kyiv have continued to fight, seeking stronger negotiating positions. Russian drones struck a house in central Ukraine on Thursday night, killing a 12-year-old boy, officials said, while long-range Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted a Russian port and oil refinery. Merz will dine in private on Friday with von der Leyen and De Wever, who has expressed opposition to a scheme to fund Ukraine that involves the unprecedented use of frozen Russian assets. With Russia’s attacks intensifying, Kyiv is running out of money. The EU has pledged to keep Ukraine afloat next year and intends to raise €90bn (£80bn) to meet about two-thirds of its needs for 2026 and 2027. Von der Leyen has proposed two main options to raise the funds. The bloc could either borrow against its shared budget on the international markets, she said this week, or issue a loan secured by immobilised Russian assets – mainly held in Belgium – that Kyiv would repay from Russia’s postwar reparations. De Wever, however, told an event in Brussels this week that he was against seizing frozen Russian assets. It was “a nice idea, stealing from the bad guy to give to the good guy”, he said. “But stealing the frozen assets of another country has never been done. “Even during the second world war, we did not confiscate Germany’s money.” In an op-ed in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper on Thursday, Merz told his fellow EU leaders that the decisions they made over the coming days would “decide the question of European independence”. Moscow’s ambassador to Germany, Sergei Nechaev, said in a statement: “Any operation with sovereign Russian assets without Russia’s consent constitutes theft. It is also clear that the theft of Russian state funds will have far-reaching consequences.”

From ‘terrorist’ to national treasure, renowned Māori activist finally tells his own story

There are so many ways to begin telling the story of Tāme Iti, arguably New Zealand’s most recognisable Māori rights activist, who was once branded a terrorist by the state and is now considered by many a national treasure. You could begin with his formative school years at the foot of Te Urewera ranges, where he was made to write the lines “I will not speak Māori” as punishment for speaking his language – lines that have since become a prominent feature of his art and activism. Or the time he pitched a tent outside parliament, his hair long, his face not yet lined with his distinctive full-face tattoo, and pronounced it “the Māori embassy”, making front page news. You could start with his part in organising the famous 1975 Māori Land March that contributed to the creation of the Waitangi Tribunal – a landmark institution set up to investigate breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, the country’s founding document signed in 1840 between Māori tribes and the British Crown. Or the time he was arrested in the infamous 2007 Te Urewera raids, during which police raided the Tūhoe people, under the mistaken belief that Iti was building a domestic terrorist network. The police later apologised to Tūhoe. Iti – who was this year a finalist in the New Zealander of the Year awards – has been making headlines for more than five decades. Now, he is telling the story of his own beginnings. His memoir, Mana, is peppered with photographs of Iti sporting his distinctive bowler hat, alongside images of his art and the people who have fought for Indigenous justice alongside him. It is a personal story, as much as a history of the Māori cultural and political renaissance. “This book isn’t really about me: Tāme Iti,” he tells the Guardian over the phone, while parked up on a road somewhere between Auckland and his home on the East Coast, Whakatāne. “The book is about us during that period of time, my generation.” At times, Mana reads like a rallying cry for the protection of Indigenous rights. “It’s time for an overhaul, it’s time to dismantle the whole infrastructure, down to its very foundation,” Iti writes in his final chapter. “It’s time for new relationships. Our own in the name of our whenua [land] – not someone else’s God, King and Country.” In other moments, the book feels like a thriller – there are art heists, run-ins with speed boats, protests that result in burning cars and flags being shot. But much of it is a deeply personal account of a man trying to make sense of, and ultimately reshape, the society around him. Iti’s commitment to Māori rights and expression, and forcing the country to reckon with its colonial history, took root early in his life. He was born in 1952 on a moving train and has “been on the move ever since”, he says. From the age of two, he was raised by an older couple as a “whāngai” child – a customary care arrangement – in Ruatoki, an economically poor and culturally rich area, near the East Coast of the North Island. As a child he listened to adults discussing the history of his iwi (tribe), Tūhoe, the waves of settler violence against his people, and the confiscation of iwi land. “Those conversations stuck in the back of mind and the rest is history,” he says. At school, he was prevented from speaking his language, and when, aged 16 he moved to Christchurch to take up an interior decorator apprenticeship, he experienced overt racism. Before then, he “never knew that people don’t like you because of the colour of your skin”. Soon, protests against the Vietnam war, and later South Africa’s apartheid, erupted in New Zealand. Iti soon joined the newly formed group Ngā Tamatoa – a Māori youth activist group set up to promote Māori rights, fight racism, and confront government policies. One of Iti’s first actions was establishing the “Māori embassy” on parliament’s lawns in 1972 – the sort of symbolic and theatrical protest action synonymous with Iti’s style, but which older generations, including his birth father, often found difficult to stomach. “My father’s generation was traumatised,” Iti says. “Everything was geared to: ‘how to be a Pākehā [European New Zealander]. God, King and country’.” But that mood changed, as the movement – led by groups like Ngā Tamatoa – gained prominence and started to push the dial on the recognition of Māori rights. Iti’s push to advance Māori rights has – and will remain – influential for generations to come, says Annette Sykes, a Māori rights activist and lawyer who has represented Iti. “He … led the Māori renaissance for land restoration and rights, but was part of the revolution for modern art and reclamation of art forms like tā moko [traditional tattoo],” Sykes tells the Guardian. She says his politics are fundamentally about caring for humanity. “Even though he is a small man, he is a giant in our world.” The final chapter of Iti’s book covers the historic 2024 hīkoi that became the largest ever protest march for Māori rights, and the 2024 Waitangi Day event, which saw record crowds descend on the treaty grounds to confront the government. Since taking office, the coalition government has said it wants to end “race-based policies”. It has ushered in sweeping rollbacks to policies that are designed to improve health, wellbeing and representation outcomes for Māori. During these events, hundreds of protesters wore T-shirts emblazoned with the words“ I will not speak Māori” – lines imbued with new potency, since Iti was forced to write them seven decades earlier. “The present coalition government – they are saboteurs … trying to create chaos out of their own paranoia,” he says, referencing the government’s policies to wind back the use of Māori in public services. “But I don’t care what they think,” he adds. “They are only here for a short period of time; we are here for ever.” Mana by Tāme Iti. Published by Allen & Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand. RRP $49.99. Out now.

Macron denies warning Ukraine about potential US betrayal – as it happened

The Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine is coming to a close. Here’s a round-up of today’s key events, including the results of a summit between Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and India’s prime minister Narendra Modi: French president Emmanuel Macron denied a report that he had said there was a risk Washington could betray Ukraine. He said that unity between Europe and the US was key in the support of Ukraine, adding there is “no mistrust”. “I deny everything,” Macron said, when asked about the report. “We need the United States for peace. The United States need us for this peace to be lasting and robust.” The US wants Europe to take over the majority of NATO’s conventional defence capabilities, from intelligence to missiles, by 2027, Pentagon officials told diplomats in Washington this week. The message was recounted by five sources to Reuters. Such a shift would dramatically change how the US, a founding member of the post-war alliance, works with its most important military partners. Russia’s defence ministry said that its forces captured the village of Bezimiane, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. President Vladimir Putin earlier warned that Ukrainian troops must withdraw from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, which includes Donetsk, or Russia will seize it, rejecting any compromise over how to end the war in Ukraine. A Kremlin aide said Russia is encouraged by negotiations with the US over the Ukraine war and is ready for more talks. Russia and the United States were making progress in talks over a deal on Ukraine and Moscow was ready to continue working with the current US team, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said. Russian drones struck a house in central Ukraine, killing a 12-year-old boy, officials said. Drones struck Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, destroying a house where the boy was killed and two women were injured. Ukraine’s military said that it had carried out long-range strikes overnight on an oil refinery in the Russian city of Syzran and the Temryuk port in the Krasnodar region. Syzran’s mayor Sergei Volodchenkov said Ukraine had targeted the city with drones without providing more detail. Also today: India and Russia signed multiple agreements following a summit between leaders Vladimir Putin and Norendra Modi. Putin said that Russia is ready to continue to provide uninterrupted fuel supplies for India. Russia and India will reshape their defence ties to take account of New Delhi’s push for self-reliance, the two countries said in a joint statement after the summit. Moscow has been India’s top arms supplier for decades and has said that it wants to import more Indian goods in an effort to grow trade to £75bn by 2030 that so far has been skewed in its favour due to New Delhi’s energy imports. Russi proposed that India localise the production of stealth fighter jets, the Sukhoi Su-57, on its territory, said Sergei Chemezov, CEO of the Russian state corporation Rostec, as quoted by the state news agency TASS, Reuters reports. India is the world’s top buyer of Russian arms and seaborne oil.

German MPs rubberstamp military service plan amid school pupil protests

The German parliament has rubberstamped a new model for military service that aims to boost its armed forces as thousands of school pupils demonstrated across the country against the plans. The change will include the obligatory screening of all 18-year-old men to gauge their suitability to serve in the military from 1 January, but does not include conscription, as favoured by some conservative politicians. If the model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of conscription, the defence minister, Boris Pistorius, told the Bundestag. Pupils missed classes to take part in climate protest-style “school strike” demonstrations against the legislation in 90 towns and cities, despite warnings from education authorities that striking could affect their end of year grades. Alicia, a 17-year-old taking part in a demonstration in Kreuzberg, Berlin, said: “I’m striking against conscription and in opposition to the rearmament that’s taking place, not least as I don’t think the government is doing enough to secure peace through diplomatic means.” MPs addressed concerns that young people’s futures were being put at risk amid pressure on anyone born from 2008 to join up. Siemtje Möller, of the SPD, a junior partner in coalition with the chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives, pushed back against what she referred to as the “populist” message of the protest. She said: “We are neither deciding today that you will be obliged to serve in the armed forces, nor that we will be drawing lots to send you to Ukraine as cannon fodder. That is pure populism, or simply nonsense.” Möller expressed the sentiment building in recent weeks that a rise in interest in the German armed forces would ensure enough volunteers would be found to boost numbers to460,000, consisting of 260,000 active soldiers and 200,000 reservists. Germany currently has 182,000 active soldiers and just under 50,000 reservists. In 2011, under Angela Merkel’s government, Germany suspended its military conscription programme, which had been in place from 1956, in order to modernise it for the post-cold war world, where it was thought the focus would be on foreign missions requiring the skills of a professional army rather than conscripts needed to fight a war. Pistorius called the law “a critical step towards our ability to defend ourselves”, adding: “Our allies are looking to us.” The law was passed by 323 votes to 272, with one abstention. Among those against it were the far-right populist AfD and the far-left Die Linke. Desiree Backer, of Die Linke, urged young people to stand up against the law, which she said was “anything but voluntary”, as 18-year-olds would be obliged to fill out a questionnaire. She also pointed to evasive answers given by ministers when questioned over whether they would be prepared to see their own children conscripted. “Young people have other plans than risking their lives for the rich,” she said. The AfD’s Rüdiger Lucassen criticised as “superficial” attempts to attract young people to military service by giving them substantial pay increases and offering them benefits such as financing driving licences and language classes. “Soldiers who come for the pay have no solid foundation for their service,” he said, calling for a military service with a nationalist bent whereby young people would be driven by patriotism, not money, to serve. “The German soldier must know what he is fighting for,” he said, arguing that soldiers should follow the centuries-old tradition to “fight for their country, not for a government”. Critics called Lucassen’s stance problematic for failing to refer in that context to the atrocities committed by German soldiers during the Nazi era. The historic vote took place before another key piece of legislation regarding the German state pension, also expected to have a significant impact on the lives of young Germans. Merz had faced an unusual rebellion within his own party from 18 young MPs who argued that the law, which will keep state pensions at 48% of average wages until 2031, would come at the expense of young people who would bear the brunt of demographic changes that meant ever fewer workers were responsible for the pensions of their elders. The nail-biting vote was considered to be so tight that sick MPs and those with babies were persuaded to be present. In the end, the rebels were won round by a promise that a commission would draw up proposals for more far-reaching changes to the pension system from next year. The vote passed by 319 in favour to 225 against, with 53 abstentions. The law also includes tax incentives for people to continue in the workplace beyond retirement to cope with an acute labour shortage.

Putin vows oil shipments to India will be ‘uninterrupted’ in defiance of US

Vladimir Putin has told the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, that Russia is ready to continue “uninterrupted” shipments of oil to India, signalling a defiant stance to the US as the two leaders met in Delhi and affirmed that their ties were “resilient to external pressure”. The statement, made on Friday after the annual India-Russia summit, appeared to be directed at western countries – particularly the US – that have attempted to pressure New Delhi into scaling back its ties to Moscow. The US president, Donald Trump, in August imposed an additional 25% import tariff on India over its purchase of cheap Russian oil, arguing it was undermining US sanctions and helping Putin bankroll the invasion of Ukraine. The punitive tariffs were met with anger in New Delhi and described by the Indian government as unreasonable and unjustified. India’s relationship with Russia goes back decades and is seen as one of the country’s most important defence and geopolitical alliances. In his statement, Putin made it clear that Russia did not intend to back down faced with US pressure over its energy cooperation with India. “Russia is a reliable supplier of energy resources and everything necessary for the development of India’s energy sector,” Putin said. “We are ready to continue ensuring the uninterrupted supply of fuel for the rapidly growing Indian economy.” Modi did not mention oil directly in his statement, but said that “energy security has been a strong and important pillar of the India-Russia partnership”. In a television interview before his meeting with Modi, Putin had challenged US interference in India’s purchase of Russian oil and said he intended to raise it with Trump. “If the US has the right to buy our [nuclear] fuel, why shouldn’t India have the same privilege?” he said. It was Putin’s first visit to India since his invasion of Ukraine and there was a visible attempt to demonstrate that the relationship between the two leaders had not been disturbed. Modi took the unusual step of greeting Putin directly off the plane and the two embraced each other warmly as old friends before they had a private dinner together on Thursday evening. In his statement, Modi described India’s partnership with Russia as “a guiding star” and said that “based on mutual respect and deep trust, these relations have always stood the test of time”. In the joint statement issued after their talks, both leaders emphasised “that in the current complex, tense, and uncertain geopolitical situation, Russian-Indian ties remain resilient to external pressure”. Before his arrival in Delhi, Putin had vowed to increase cooperation with India and China, in defiance of economic sanctions on Russia from the US and EU. Friday’s bilateral summit resulted in multiple agreements between the two countries in defence and economic cooperation. The two countries finalised an economic cooperation programme until 2030, which aims to double trade to $100bn a year by 2030. The two leaders also agreed to reshape their defence ties. Russia remains India’s biggest supplier of weapons, though this has diminished in recent years as Delhi has worked to diversify. Though no direct mention was made of India’s purchase of specific Russian defence systems, or Sukhoi Su-57 fighter aircraft, they agreed to the joint production of advanced defence platforms.

Edinburgh airport resumes flights after services suspended due to IT problem

Flights have resumed at Edinburgh airport after it suspended operations on Friday morning because of an IT issue in air traffic control. Planes were beginning to take off at about 10.40am, according to a statement posted by the airport on social media. Some planes had waited for about two hours to depart, and some disruption and delays were expected to persist. Inbound flights had been diverted. A spokesperson for the airport said: “Flights at Edinburgh airport have now resumed following the IT issue with ANS (Air Navigation Solutions), our air traffic control provider. “We thank passengers for their patience and understanding.” Passengers were earlier advised to contact airlines for information on flights as the airport and its service provider worked to resolve the problem. Those waiting in the terminal were left unsure for about an hour after the suspension was announced, before news came that operations could resume. EasyJet, British Airways and Ryanair flights were among the airlines caught up in the disruption, with a number of afternoon flights subsequently cancelled and others subject to severe delays. Transatlantic flights operated by Delta and United Airlines were also affected, including an incoming Delta flight from New York that was diverted to Dublin. Among the passengers affected was a mother from Swindon, who said the delays to her flights would mean she would miss her youngest child’s last nativity play. The woman, identified only as Felicity, told the BBC she had travelled up to Edinburgh for a work meeting, and said: “My youngest is in her last nativity and due to the delays I can’t make it home on time.” More than 15 million passengers a year – an average of 43,000 a day – fly in and out of Edinburgh, making it Scotland’s biggest airport, with flights to 155 destinations. Air traffic control issues – and IT failures – have become one of aviation’s most recurrent problems. Edinburgh airport also closed because of a global IT problem with CrowdStrike last July. Edinburgh’s air traffic control services are provided by ANS, which blamed a “technical issue” for the outage. A spokesperson said: “Safety is our number one priority, and our engineers worked at pace to restore system capability as quickly as possible. “We regret the inconvenience that this is causing and thank everyone for their patience.” Nats, which manages most of the UK’s airspace, and has suffered its own high-profile meltdowns, said during the outage it would “work closely with the airlines impacted and support as best we can”. The problem on Friday was understood to be unrelated to the Cloudflare outage that affected websites around the world including Transport for London and Zoom.