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Armenia heads to polls amid Russian pressure and threat of ‘Ukrainian scenario’

The bottling line at the Abovyan cognac factory in Armenia is running at full tilt. Women in white coats and hairnets work the conveyor with practised speed – labelling, stacking, loading pallets – racing to fill a truck. The spirit’s destination is Russia. But it probably won’t make it there. Last month, Moscow announced a ban on imports from Abovyan, alongside two other leading producers of Armenian cognac – the name under which Armenian brandy is sold in Russia. The official reason for the move was sanitary concerns, but it was widely viewed as political pressure aimed at discouraging the country’s westward tilt ahead of parliamentary elections on Sunday. It was the latest in a long line of recent trade restrictions – affecting everything from flowers and fish to fruit and its famed brandy – that the Kremlin has imposed on a nation of 3 million people that sends roughly 40% of its exports to nearby Russia. “We just hope this all blows over,” said Samvel Goroyan, Abovyan’s director, in his office on the outskirts of the capital, Yerevan. “All our cognac is sold in Russia, 7m bottles a year,” he shrugged. “We have nowhere else to go.” For most of its post-Soviet existence since 1991, Armenia was Moscow’s closest ally in the South Caucasus, which bridges eastern Europe and west Asia. It hosted Russian troops, bought Russian weapons and integrated with Kremlin-led political and economic structures. But the relationship has slowly unravelled under the current prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, whose Civil Contract party came to power on the back of a popular revolution in 2018. His push to reorient Armenia towards Europe represents its most significant foreign policy shift since independence, and Sunday’s vote will be a test of that policy, which Pashinyan is pursuing despite the reality of his country’s deep economic dependence on Russia. “Moscow feels it is losing Armenia, that the country has got a bit too big for its boots,” said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow with global analysts Carnegie Europe. “So Moscow is trying to force Pashinyan to make a choice – for Russia.” Last month, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, warned that Armenia could face a “Ukrainian scenario” if it continued its European integration aims. Dmitry Medvedev, the hawkish deputy chair of Russia’s powerful security council, has meanwhile hinted that Pashinyan could suffer the ⁠fate of the Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky, whom Joseph Stalin had killed with an ice pick. Ties between the two countries first nosedived after Azerbaijan – which neighbours both – seized the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in 2023, triggering an exodus of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the enclave. For many Armenians, Russia’s response was a watershed moment. Despite being in a security alliance with Armenia and maintaining peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh, Moscow stood aside as Azerbaijan seized control – exposing the limits of Russian security guarantees. The loss prompted officials in Yerevan to openly question the value of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), the Moscow-led military alliance Armenia had long treated as the cornerstone of its security. Last year, Pashinyan suspended Armenia’s participation altogether. The country drew further ire from Moscow in April, when it hosted a European Political Community summit – with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in attendance. In recent months, Pashinyan has not only spoken about Armenia’s aspirations to join the EU – a prospect that remains distant – but also made inroads with Washington. Donald Trump has publicly endorsed him, while the vice-president, JD Vance, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, have both visited Yerevan, underscoring a level of US political attention and economic engagement it has never previously enjoyed. For Moscow, Armenia’s westward drift comes at a particularly sensitive moment, four years into the grinding war in Ukraine, as it engages in an increasingly complex effort to preserve its influence across the former Soviet sphere and beyond. Areg Kochinyan, the president of the Yerevan-based Research Center on Security Policy, said: “Russians are concerned about losing, in their understanding, yet another country that they see as their rightful sphere of interest. And they are acting on it.” In Moldova and Hungary, the Kremlin has previously sought – without success – to bolster friendly political forces in elections using what western intelligence services have described as a combination of disinformation campaigns and covert influence operations. Analysts and western officials say elements of the same playbook are now being deployed in Armenia. Kremlin backing has flowed toward Pashinyan’s main challenger, Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian-Armenian billionaire whose Stronger Armenia party advocates for closer ties with Moscow. He is currently under house arrest on charges linked to calls for the seizure of power. But despite Moscow’s pressure, opinion polls suggest Pashinyan’s party is on course to comfortably emerge as the largest political force on about 30% of the vote, while Karapetyan trails at roughly 10%. “What’s interesting is this Russian campaign has backfired. It’s only strengthened Pashinyan at home,” said Richard Giragosian, the director of the Regional Studies Center, a thinktank based in Yerevan. De Waal added that the Armenian opposition had largely discredited itself in the public’s perception through its perceived closeness to Russia. “Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party is likely to win the elections more or less by default,” De Waal said. “Not because the prime minister is still popular – he isn’t – but because Armenia’s opposition is even less competent or impressive and too associated with Russia.” Analysts say Moscow has also been careful not to push too hard, as the Kremlin understands that excessive pressure could backfire and fuel further anti-Russian sentiment. Hovhannes Nikoghosyan, an Armenian political scientist, said: “No one can confidently predict how far Moscow will continue pressure if Pashinyan is re-elected, but if he remains in power, Russia will still have to find some modus operandi with the existing political landscape. Leaving Armenia to their geopolitical competitors’ embrace is something Kremlin will not want to do.” Pashinyan, a former journalist, has centred his campaign on what he calls the “crossroads of peace” – a vision of Armenia as a regional transit hub reconnecting long-closed borders with Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey, moving the country beyond decades of conflict and poor connectivity. He has also made clear that, like many Armenians, he seeks diversification rather than divorce from Russia. Pashinyan has stressed that Moscow will keep its large military base in Armenia, and said he would travel to meet Putin shortly after the elections. Giragosian said: “Russia has such dominance that the west is not a peer competitor. Pashinyan’s policies are based on a realistic assessment. Nobody is talking about replacing Russia with France, Europe or the United States overnight.” Still, European leaders have made little secret of their preference for a Pashinyan victory. The Armenian prime minister has cultivated particularly close ties with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the two leaders even performed a musical act together during Macron’s visit to Armenia – with Pashinyan on drums as the French president sang at an official dinner. That support has come despite growing concerns about Pashinyan’s democratic record. Dozens of opposition activists have been detained in the run-up to the election, including allies of Karapetyan. Those criticisms have largely fallen on deaf ears in Brussels. On Thursday, eager to support Armenia’s drift away from Moscow, the EU announced an initial €50m economic support package to help the country weather Russian trade pressure, and vowed further economic cooperation. In a symbolic gesture of solidarity, Ukraine has also begun importing Armenian roses following Russia’s ban on flower imports. But for all Armenia’s efforts to diversify its partnerships, Moscow still holds powerful economic and political levers. Russian officials have hinted in recent weeks that Armenia may no longer be able to rely on the subsidised gas that underpins much of its economy. “When Russia demands to renegotiate the price of subsidised gas, that tells you Armenia has gone too far, too fast,” said Giragosian. “Then there will be a real crisis.”

US threatens to reconsider role in Bosnia and Herzegovina amid rift with Europe

A deepening US-European rift over the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina has broken open with a dispute over a top administrative post, leading to a US threat to “reconsider” its role in international peacekeeping. The American embassy in Sarajevo issued the threat after European states refused to back the US preferred candidate to become the new High Representative for the international community. At a meeting this week in Sarajevo of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) – a multinational group tasked with overseeing the implementation of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement – Washington supported an Italian diplomat, Antonio Zanardi Landi, while the UK, France, Germany and most European states backed France’s envoy to the Western Balkans, René Troccaz. The Trump administration also argued for a weakening of the High Representative’s power to enforce the principles of the Dayton, which ended a war that cost 100,000 lives but has done little to heal Bosnia’s ethnic divide. In a post on X, the US embassy in Sarajevo wrote: “The United States takes note of the European failure to reach consensus around a European candidate and is disappointed these divisions prevented the PIC from fulfilling its task to elect a new High Representative. European indecisiveness, and the PIC’s abdication of its own duty toward [Bosnia and Herzegovina], is forcing the United States to reconsider our role in the current international presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina.” The US no longer has a substantial military presence in Bosnia, where there is a small EU peacekeeping force, but it has continued to play an influential role through the PIC and bilateral relations. The PIC is due to try again to achieve consensus on the High Representative role towards the end of the month, when compromise candidates may have emerged. One European official suggested that the region might benefit if the US reduced its role, amid growing suspicions over the Trump administration’s motives. Last year, it dropped sanctions on Milorad Dodik, the Moscow-backed Serb secession leader, after a reportedly multimillion dollar lobbying campaign in Washington. The US also put pressure on the outgoing High Representative, Christian Schmidt, to resign after he imposed punitive measures on Dodik for undermining the Dayton agreement. At the same time, Trump’s relatives and associates have increasingly been pursuing business interests in Bosnia, which included a visit by the US president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, to the main Bosnian Serb town of Banja Luka in April as a guest of Dodik’s son. Jasmin Mujanović, a Balkans political analyst and author of two books on Bosnia, said it appeared the Trump administration miscalculated its influence over the Europeans in the PIC. “The Americans seemed to think it was sort of irrelevant what the Europeans thought and assumed they were going to fall in line, and I think that was a misreading of the moment,” Mujanović said. “It does not seem like the US had consulted particularly widely with its allies in terms of selecting Mr Landi. “It raises the question in my mind why they are so insistent on Mr Landi. We don’t know what understandings are between Landi and the Americans that make them so enthusiastic for him.” Reports from the PIC meeting in Sarajevo on Wednesday and Thursday was that the US promoted Landi more enthusiastically than Italy itself. Kurt Bassuener, a co-founder of the Berlin-based Democratization Policy Council thinktank, said: “This isn’t just a personnel decision. This is a strategic decision and it has to be integrated with a regional strategy. It would seem that the American position is driven not only ideologically, but its also a business push. It seems like that’s job number one: get concessions, get contracts, and extract, extract, extract.”

How campaigners beat industrial farming in Denmark’s ‘pig election’

Like all new prime ministers, when Mette Frederiksen secured a third consecutive term as Denmark’s head of government this week, she promised her administration would take steps to “improve the everyday lives” of the country’s inhabitants. Unlike most new prime ministers, however, she specified that her left-leaning coalition’s policy programme would be not just for “the people who are in Denmark and the ⁠generations to come” but also “for the animals”. For the home of Danish bacon, an ultra-intensive farming country that produces about 30m piglets a year – against roughly 60,000 human babies – it was a huge moment: a Danish government, seeking existential reform of Denmark’s most iconic industry. It was also the culmination of two years of focused campaigning by animal welfare, environmentalist and residents’ groups that turned March’s ballot into what became known as “the pig election” – and won a comprehensive victory. Britta Riis, the head of Animal Protection Denmark, one of the primary actors in the campaign, said: “I hardly dare say it, but we got more than we asked for. We made pig farming a top political issue. And we’ve won immediate, and systemic, change.” Pigs are to Denmark roughly what cars are to Germany and wine to France. But activists have long campaigned against the extreme breeding practices on the country’s vast, ultra-intensive industrial farms. On average, sows in Denmark wean more than 37 piglets a year, and those in the top 10% of farms nearly 43. That’s far more than other intensive pig producers such as the Netherlands, which manages 31 piglets per sow. In Denmark, sows, which usually have 14 teats, routinely produce up to 20 piglets a litter. Campaigners say pushing an animal’s biology to produce more offspring than it can physically feed causes not only severe physical stress but also an unacceptable mortality rate: roughly 9m piglets die every year in Denmark, more than 25,000 a day. Danish farms also routinely cut the tails off about 95% of surviving piglets to prevent tail-biting caused by stress and confinement in tightly packed pens, while sows are often locked into restrictive farrowing crates where they cannot move. But animal welfare is not the only issue. Nearly 25% of Denmark’s landmass is used to produce feed for pigs, according to an Aarhus University study – and as a result, toxic pesticide residues are present in 56% of drinking water catchment points. Vast quantities of manure are also spread on the fields around farms that can hold up to 25,000 pigs, leaching toxic nitrates into the groundwater. Christian Fromberg, from Greenpeace Denmark, said: “It’s pure corporate capture. Denmark’s big meat exporters and the industrial farming sector have treated our shared water supply like a private, unregulated sewer for decades. Polluted drinking water is the other huge problem with intensive pig farming in Denmark.” Worst-hit is Aalborg, in northern Denmark, in an area of intensive agriculture known as “the nitrate belt”. The municipality took the Danish government to court in February over nitrate levels in its surface and groundwater that have exceeded legal limits for decades. It said the state had failed to take promised measures, forcing the municipality to invest in a drinking water treatment plant that would cost it DKr1.1bn (€147m or £127m) to build and operate over 30 years. People living near pig farms have long complained of the stench, saying they cannot open windows, dry laundry or enjoy their gardens, as well as the toxic effect on local ponds and rivers and the impossibility of selling their homes. Riis said: “All these problems have been building for a long time. We’ve campaigned on the animal welfare issue for years, but nothing changed. The difference, this time, was that we intensified our efforts, we focused on pigs and we worked together.” Dozens of newspaper articles, three shocking TV documentaries on the main public broadcaster, TV2, and a book by an undercover journalist followed, all highlighting what Riis called the “brutal” conditions for animals on industrial pig farms. On the back of evidence in one documentary, three powerful figures in the sector were reported to the police by the Animal Protection Agency for “clear violations” of welfare laws, including the head of the Danish Council on Food and Agriculture trade lobby. A citizens’ initiative demanding reform garnered the 50,000 signatures necessary to prompt a parliamentary debate with 72 hours, a record. Slowly but surely the issue gained public awareness, support and, finally, political traction. Three weeks before the election, the Animal Protection Agency, the Danish Society for Nature Conservation, Greenpeace Denmark and the National Association against Pig Factories, joined forces. The “Alliance for a pig election” was launched by the NGOs along with four left-wing parties to seek a “showdown with an industry that has huge costs for our country in terms of climate, nature, environment, social cohesion and animal welfare”. In the days before the 24 March vote, pig farming became the dominant campaign issue, featuring heavily in candidates’ televised debates. Riis said: “Eventually the Social Democrats [led by Frederiksen], even parts of the right, saw the point. It just took off.” By the time it came to vote, 53% of Danes were telling pollsters that animal welfare would definitely influence how they cast their ballots, while 95% were demanding urgent action to protect the country’s drinking water. Frederiksen’s Social Democrat-led coalition includes two of the parties in the pig election alliance – the Green Left and the Social Liberals – while a third, the Red-Green Alliance, will provide the parliamentary backing necessary for a majority. Part of the price of their backing is in the new government’s programme, announced this week. It includes pledges to end routine tail docking and extreme breeding, and give sows and piglets more space to move. In terms of systemic change, a special commission will be tasked with comprehensively restructuring the entire sector. The stated intention is to shift the industry away from ultra-intensive, confined, export-driven factory farming towards a low-density, sustainable, domestic-facing model. Communities will get the power to prevent new factory farms and the expansion of existing ones, and the nitrate limit in drinking water will be radically reduced from 50mg a litre to 6mg, in line with expert recommendations. In perhaps the biggest change of all, for the first time in 130 years Denmark will not have an agriculture minister. In their place will be a minister for nature and animal welfare, with the agriculture portfolio split between that department and four others. It heralds, campaigners say, a fundamental shift in priorities – and an almighty challenge that may test whether a modern, globalised economy can balance economic prosperity with systemic protections for the natural world. Denmark is the world’s sixth-largest pork exporter. The Council on Food and Agriculture insists that Danish pig farms meet EU space requirements, legal welfare standards are observed and manure disposal is managed responsibly. The lobby has also warned that any big reduction in pig production would have major economic consequences for the country, including job losses. The battle over how far greener agricultural rules can and should be enforced promises to be fierce. For the time being, though, Riis and Fromberg are savouring their wins. “At the moment, we’re pretty pleased,” said Fromberg. “I think it’s fair to say that on paper at least, this is the greenest government Denmark has ever seen.” Riis said hard campaigning and a laser focus on facts – including presenting a financial argument solid enough to convince the political right – had played their part. “At the end of the day, though, this was citizens saying: we have had enough.”

Ukraine war briefing: Putin says ‘no point’ meeting Zelenskyy, insists Russia will win the war

Vladimir Putin has rejected an offer from Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to hold a face-to-face meeting, insisting instead that Russia will achieve its war goals in Ukraine, including seizing all of the eastern Donbas region. Speaking at a St Petersburg economic forum, the Russian president described an open letter from his Ukrainian counterpart containing the offer as rude. He refused to use Zelenskyy’s name, referring to him only as its author, and said he saw “no point” in meeting Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy’s letter, which was published on Thursday, proposed a meeting in a third country such as Switzerland or Turkey. It said diplomacy should start from the current frontline and that Ukraine was ready for a full ceasefire while negotiations took place. Russian forces intercepted 25 drones near St Petersburg early on Saturday, where Moscow is hosting its flagship economic forum, the regional governor said on Telegram. “Combat operations are continuing,” the region’s governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said. Putin had earlier shrugged off embarrassing drone strikes by Ukraine on his home city of St Petersburg during the economic forum, and said his territorial demands on Ukraine were unchanged. He said Russia controlled all of the Luhansk region – a claim Kyiv denies – and more than 85% of Donetsk region. He repeated his demand that Ukraine also give up all of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Zelenskyy said Putin’s rejection showed the Kremlin had no wish to end the conflict. “Unfortunately, the Russian side is once again choosing war. Everyone heard the response. A weak response,” he said in his nightly video address. “I think this response will have disappointed many in the world.” Russian attacks killed five people in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region in three separate incidents on Friday, the regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin, said on Telegram. Kherson is one of four regions that were annexed by Russia six months after Russia’s 2022 invasion. Meanwhile, a sea drone self-destructed near an oil terminal in Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta on Friday, without causing casualties, as Ukraine said Russia jammed the vessel causing it to drift off course. The explosion was the second major incident in a populated area in Romania on Nato’s eastern flank within a week, as the spillover threat from the war in Ukraine increases. A week after Moscow accused Ukraine of a drone attack on the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – Europe’s largest – Russia’s nuclear energy corporation Rosatom has said a Ukrainian drone deliberately struck engineers on Friday who were demining an area around the station, injuring at least three people. Rosatom said the incident occurred at the start of a ceasefire around the plant, brokered by the UN’s nuclear watchdog. The Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest with six reactors, was seized by Russian troops in the early weeks of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Each side has since accused the other of undertaking military actions to compromise nuclear safety. Putin has held a one-on-one meeting with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, which was “good and friendly,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov was quoted as saying on Friday by Russian news agencies. Schroeder, who was German Chancellor from 1998 to 2005, has subsequently worked for Russian state companies and cultivated a close relationship with Putin. Putin last month suggested that he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe, with Schroeder as his preferred partner. But European Union foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels rejected any role for Schroeder.

How a Starbucks marketing stunt spiralled into mass boycotts in South Korea

It was a PR nightmare: customers smashing Starbucks branded tumblers and mugs as fans deleted loyalty apps and cashed out prepaid balances. Amid the uproar, government ministries cut ties with the coffee chain and apology notices were pasted on Starbucks stores across South Korea. The initial shock may have passed, but the anger remains. Hours after launching a marketing campaign called “Tank Day” for its new “Tank” coffee tumbler range on 18 May, Starbucks Korea found itself at the centre of a cultural storm that would force a billionaire chairman to apologise on national television,and see a chief executive sacked. The controversy reverberated all the way to the South Korean president’s office. Starbucks’ Tank Series tumblers and discount campaign was designed to promote “spacious volume” for bigger coffees. But the specific date of the promotion’s launch, and its imagery and wording, reopened the painful wounds of a 46-year-old massacre in South Korea and dictatorship-era torture scandal. Starbucks cancelled the promotion hours after it launched, and its CEO, Son Jeong-hyun, was fired that same day. But it was too late. The anger had already spread, with videos of people smashing the Starbucks mugs and tumblers circulated on social media. Protests were held outside stores and people were incensed Starbucks had launched a tumbler called “tank” on 18 May, and that the coffee chain was declaring it “Tank Day”. Known locally as 5/18, the 18th of May is the anniversary of a 1980 massacre in Gwangju. Over 10 violent days, paratroopers crushed pro-democracy protests against military strongman Chun Doo-hwan. Victims’ groups say hundreds were killed. There was also a problem with a slogan the Starbuck campaign used: “thwack on the desk”. It echoed a notorious cover story used by police after the 1987 torture death of student activist Park Jong-chul. Authorities at the time initially claimed Park died because an officer had used his fist to “hit the desk with a thwack”. Marketers chose the slogan after consulting an AI tool, looking for suggestions, Shinsegae Group said. It turned out some managers who approved the campaign never opened the email attachments showing the marketing material. In a statement issued before his dismissal, Son apologised and pledged company-wide education on historical awareness and ethics. On 19 May, Chung Yong-jin, the billionaire chair of Shinsegae Group, swiftly issued a written apology. Chung’s Shinsegae Group is the parent company behind Starbucks Korea, operating the chain under licence from the Starbucks Corporation. But that failed to quell the outrage. Starbucks is especially popular in South Korea, its third-largest market globally, with more than 2,100 stores nationwide. Following the controversy, card payment volumes at Starbucks stores plunged 26% in a week, according to market data, with May card payments down 10% on the previous month. And customers began demanding refunds from an estimated 400bn won ($260m) held in Starbucks prepaid cards. The musical actor Jung Min-chan stepped down from his production after posting a photograph of himself inside a Starbucks drew public backlash. In attempt to stem the rising anger, Chung issued another apology, on 26 May, this time bowing three times at a televised press conference. “I take it very seriously the fact that many people felt deep pain and anger because of Starbucks Korea’s inappropriate marketing campaign,” he said. Bereaved families and 5/18 organisations rejected Chung’s apology. Park Jong-chul’s elder brother wrote to police, demanding Chung and the former CEO, Son, be charged for insulting the memory of victims. Chung and Son have since been booked as criminal suspects by police. Cho Youngho, a political scientist at Sogang University, says attitudes towards the Gwangju Uprising mirrored the deepest divisions in South Korean society. “For people who supported democratisation in the 1980s and 1990s, now in their forties and fifties, the idea of commercialising, mocking or trivialising 5/18 is simply unacceptable.” The controversy has also turned political. Government agencies stopped ordering Starbucks gift cards and the defence ministry suspended a partnership with the chain. The Democratic party’s leader, Jung Chung-rae, wanted Chung to kneel before the nation in atonement. It did not take long before reverberations reached South Korea’s president Lee Jae Myung, who condemned those responsible as “low-class peddlers”. He raised the prospect of shutting down Ilbe, a far-right online community, similar to 4chan, where mocking of Gwangju victims is common. Far-right groups have kept alive a decades-old, discredited state narrative that the Gwangju protesters were North Korean sympathisers, a claim the supreme court in February ruled was defamatory. Those debates have acquired renewed urgency since Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed declaration of martial law in 2024, which revived public discussion of authoritarianism and state violence. Shinsegae’s investigation found no evidence the Starbucks campaign was deliberate, and Starbucks Korea asked customers to refrain from directing their anger at frontline shop staff. Starbucks Corporation, headquartered in Seattle, which licenses the brand but holds no equity in the Korean operation, said it was “deeply sorry for an unacceptable marketing incident.” “While unintentional, this should never have happened. We recognize the deep pain and offense this has caused, particularly to those who honor the victims, their families, and all who contributed to Korea’s democratization,” it said in a statement. The company said it was reviewing internal review standards and training to ensure the incident was not repeated. “We sincerely apologize to the people of Gwangju, to those impacted by this tragedy, and to our customers and communities.” Prof Cho, who has studied the national struggle over 5/18, said the public reaction reflected more than a marketing failure. “Companies today are expected to respect human dignity and social norms,” he said, adding that the controversy was unlikely to fade soon.

Gulf countries targeted by Iran after exchange of fire with US, in latest threat to fragile ceasefire

The US and Iran exchanged a series of strikes on Saturday morning, in the latest flare-up to threaten the ceasefire in the Middle East war. The US military said it shot down four Iranian drones that were launched toward the strait of Hormuz and struck coastal surveillance radar sites in response. Iran followed hours later, saying it targeted US bases in the region, with Kuwait and Bahrain both issuing air raid alerts. It was the latest in a series of back-and-forth attacks that have strained the tenuous ceasefire in the war and harmed efforts to reach a deal to extend the truce. US central command (Centcom) said early on Saturday that Iranian attack drones “posed an immediate threat to regional maritime traffic,” while the strikes on radar installations were to “defend against further attacks”. The US military is enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports in response to Tehran’s chokehold on the strait – a crucial corridor for global oil and natural gas shipments – which has sent energy prices spiking. Hours later Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they targeted “enemy bases” in the Gulf, after the US strikes on Sirik and Qeshm Island. Kuwait’s military said early Saturday it was responding to “hostile” missile and drone attacks, days after a strike on the country’s international airport killed one and wounded dozens. “Iran fired seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain”, Centcom said, adding that six were intercepted and a seventh did not reach its target. “There are currently no reports of harm to US personnel, and Iranian claims of damaging US 5th fleet headquarters in Bahrain are false,” Centcom said. Earlier on Friday, US president Donald Trump told reporters “the situation with Iran seems to be going quite well”. “We’re going to come out of Iran very quickly and it’s going to be very strong one way or the other, whether it’s a piece of paper or the very tough way,” Trump said at an event with farmers in Wisconsin. Trump is under pressure to find a way out of the war, which has delivered a shock to markets and proven unpopular at home as midterm elections loom. US and Iranian negotiators have for weeks been working to extend the ceasefire by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program. But both sides have continued to call for changes in the deal, with neither side appearing ready to compromise. Asked on Friday why it was taking so long, Trump told NBC it was because “it’s a very hard thing” for Iran, citing their “great independence”. “There are things they never thought they’d be doing that they’re going to have to do. They’ve got no choice, and it takes a little while,” he said in the interview. In other comments on Friday, Trump said Iran still has more than 20% of its missiles left, a figure for the stockpile that was higher than that of 18% which Trump gave last month. He has often claimed to have completely destroyed Iran’s ability to wage war. “They still have capacity. They have some missiles, they have some drones. I would say, percentage wise, maybe 21, 22% of their missiles,” Trump told NBC News in an interview. His administration has also touted the latest ceasefire agreed to this week by the Lebanese government and Israel after US-brokered talks in Washington. That’s despite Iranian-backed Hezbollah – who were not party to the talks – rejecting the agreement and new attacks being launched by both sides. The Israeli military on Friday struck multiple parts of southern Lebanon and issued evacuation warnings a number of villages, including one that has sheltered thousands of people displaced by the fighting. The fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, also threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the strait of Hormuz. Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. With the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

Putin rejects Zelenskyy’s offer to meet and reaffirms Ukraine war aims

Vladimir Putin has rejected an offer from Volodymyr Zelenskyy to hold a face-to-face meeting, insisting instead that Russia will achieve its war goals in Ukraine, including seizing all of the eastern Donbas region. Speaking at the St Petersburg economic forum, the Russian president described the open letter from his Ukrainian counterpart containing the offer as rude. He refused to use Zelenskyy’s name, referring to him only as its author. Asked if they could meet to discuss an end to the conflict, Putin replied: “So far I see no point.” Zelenskyy’s letter, which was published on Thursday, proposed a meeting in a third country such as Switzerland or Turkey. It said diplomacy should start from the current frontline and that Ukraine was ready for a full ceasefire while negotiations took place. The letter also alluded to Russia’s recent military setbacks and the growing fuel shortages in Crimea caused by Ukrainian attacks on crucial supply routes. Hours before the forum opened on Wednesday, Ukrainian drones hit St Petersburg’s oil terminal, sending black smoke billowing into the sky. Putin shrugged off the embarrassing strikes on his home city and said his territorial demands were unchanged. He said Russia controlled all of the Luhansk region – a claim Kyiv denies – and more than 85% of Donetsk region. He repeated his demand that Ukraine also give up all of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Calling for “long-term peace”, he asked: “What is this letter about? Is it a means to create an environment for a personal meeting? Or is it meant to make sure no personal meeting takes place. I think it’s the second.” Speaking to Russian troops, he said: “Keep working, brothers”. Zelenskyy said Putin’s rejection showed the Kremlin had no wish to end the conflict. “Unfortunately, the Russian side is once again choosing war. Everyone heard the response. A weak response,” he said in his nightly video address. “I think this response will have disappointed many in the world.” Putin acknowledged Russia needed to strengthen its air defences but played down Ukraine’s increasingly successful campaign against strategic targets. Ukrainian drones hit five Russian cargo ships in the occupied southern ports of Mariupol and Berdiansk, and in the Sea of Azov, overnight on Thursday. The head of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces, Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, said the vessels had been transporting military fuel and stolen Ukrainian grain. Russia said five sailors from Azerbaijan were killed. Video from their ship showed extensive damage and its bridge wrecked. Zelenskyy’s latest peace offer won approval from key allies, including Donald Trump and France’s president, Emmanuel Macron. Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet Macron, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, in London to inject fresh momentum into attempts to end the war. Observers suggested the letter had been written with Ukraine’s allies in mind and with the objective of needling Putin. It included a pointed reminder to Russia’s president of the lessons for its rulers from history. “When Russia grows tired, change comes,” it noted. A US delegation headed by the chair of the country’s fine arts commission, Rodney Mims Cook Jr, attended the St Petersburg forum. Cook, who is in charge of Trump’s White House ballroom project, passed on the US president’s regards to Putin. From a position in the front row, he said: “President Vladimir Putin, it’s very nice to see you … I love this city and I think you are aware of that. You have a beautiful home town. I do give a good hello from your friend President Trump.” Addressing the plenary session, Putin shrugged off claims the Russian economy was falling apart because of the high costs of the war. The Kremlin’s offensive has put the country’s finances under immense strain, with rising prices, tax hikes and the highest borrowing costs in two decades hitting many citizens hard. The economy shrank by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2026, its first quarterly slump in three years, as strain from the war and western sanctions mounted. “We, of course, hear criticism from all sides that everything has collapsed,” Putin said. “We have descended to the same level at which eurozone countries have been living through for the past few years.” Russia was pursuing a sovereign economy, he said, before making reference to Mark Twain: “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Ukraine has intensified its attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure in recent months, hitting oil depots, refineries and export facilities and threatening to dent Moscow’s most important income stream. By freezing Russian assets abroad, western nations eroded trust in their own currencies, Putin said. “The sanctions and blocking of Russia’s sovereign reserves have irreversibly impacted the standing of international currencies, the dollar and the euro,” he said. “Just like Russia, any other country could lose access to their legitimate assets in dollars or euros, as well as western financial and payment systems.”

Chagossians urge UK to complete islands’ handover to Mauritius

A Chagossian delegation visiting the UK has urged parliamentarians to complete stalled legislation to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which they say has been “hijacked within the halls” of UK politics. The six-person contingent from the Chagos Refugees Group expressed their full support for the UK to conclude an agreement after the government was forced to shelve legislation when the US dropped support for the agreement. “It’s not a question of sovereignty for us, the most important is our rights,” the delegation leader, Louis Olivier Bancoult, told a room full of Chagossians, some native-born, gathered in West Sussex on Friday. “There is not a real will for the British government to find a solution for our people. We need to find a way,” he added. “We’re still suffering and our position is clear, we have the right to live in our birthplace.” In 1996, Bancoult started a legal battle against the UK government and has continued to fight for their return after his family was uprooted in 1965 and unable to return after travelling to Mauritius for his sister’s illness. The delegation has also said the current legal restrictions under the British Indian Ocean Territory regime prohibit resettlement, and criticised far-right UK leaders and press over narratives claiming they are a “pure, isolated race” with no ties to Mauritius, and that they oppose a negotiated settlement. “We have watched with profound concern as the sacred issue of our human rights has been hijacked within the halls of UK politics,” said Bancoult in a parliamentary briefing statement. Delegation member Rosemonde Bertin was deported to Mauritius in 1972 and was the last person to give birth on Chagos Islands, she told the room. She had the opportunity to visit the islands with permission, and regretted how she was unable to spend more than a day in her birthplace. “How can it be that I was born in Chagos, but I cannot go there without permission and other people, third and fourth generation can go and stay there?” she said in creole. Other individuals present, who left as children, spoke of the desire to return to the islands, of their wishes to die in their birthplaces and called for reparations from the British government. Also in attendance was Liseby Elysé, who when forced to leave the islands in 1973, suffered a pregnancy loss at four months. “[We] expect nothing more than justice for the hardship that we have suffered all these years,” said 71-year-old Joseph Bertrand, who lives in the UK after being forcibly moved to Mauritius at the age of 12. “We don’t want heritage visits,” he said. “We want to go there, we want to live there.” The delegation has met parliamentarians including Jeremy Corbyn and David Alton, the chair of the joint committee on human rights, who has long supported the Chagossians in returning to their homeland. “I emphasised my longstanding personal support for their right to return permanently to their homeland where they should be free to determine their own future,” said Lord Alton. Corbyn said it was clear in all aspects of international law that the islands “must” be part of Mauritius, as per an international court of justice ruling. In 2019 an advisory opinion by the ICJ, endorsed by the UN general assembly, found the UK in breach of international law by seeking to maintain its claim to the archipelago. “This has been dragged through the courts for the past 30 years,” said Corbyn. “It’s time the Tory party and Reform stopped fiddling around with some colonial inheritance, which simply doesn’t exist.”