Vladimir Putin

NATO says the word airmen is offensive and must be replaced by the gender-inclusive term “air force personnel”.

The western military alliance’s woke language manual challenges ­“unconscious bias”.

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It warns that gendered terms are outdated and risk alienating women and minorities.

Words such as serviceman, guardsman, and my guys are out — in favour of “service member”, “guard” and “team”, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Even manning is corrected to staffing.

Critics branded it a farce, saying Nato’s job is deterring Russia, not policing pronouns.

Sir John Hayes, the Common Sense group of MPs chairman, fumed: “Their job is to defend countries, not promote distortion of language.

“These terms are a farce.”

However, the guide says “ranks in the Navy and air force don’t change”.

In January, an ex-Nato commander blasted woke Navy chiefs for renaming a submarine to avoid upsetting the French.

HMS Agincourt was the fleet’s sixth vessel and was named after the 1415 victory by outnumbered English archers.

A move to rebrand the under-construction hunter-killer was thrown out last year as “woke nonsense” by Tory Defence Secretary Grant Shapps.

VLADIMIR Putin has revealed the moment he had a dice with death while riding a motorbike.

The ageing Russian tyrant shared an anecdote of how he almost died as he tried to fire up the engine.

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Speaking to defence minister Andrei Belousov, he said the incident was a time when he “dodged” death.

But Putin did not reveal when or where the moment happened in his story.

The 72-year-old despot said: “I once got on a motorcycle, revved it.

“And it went into a spin and flipped over.

“I just dodged it at the last second. It fell right next to me.”

Putin has long sought to cultivate an image as a macho tough guy as part of his domestic persona.

He has frequently been pictured shirtless doing outdoors activities and sports to reinforce his personality cult.

The tyrant shared the motorbike anecdote dressed in military fatigues – despite being hundreds of miles from the war zone.

He spoke last week at the culmination of anti-Western war games involving Russia and Belarus.

In the past, Putin has appeared with the Night Wolves motorcycle club to help foster his macho image.

The Russian President was photographed riding a Russian-made Ural motorcycle with a sidecar in 2019.

It comes as the warmongering despot’s brutal attacks against Ukraine continue to intensify.

The Kremlin’s forces have launched devastating strikes on Ukraine over the past days.

Yesterday, The Sun reported that Russia had launched 580 drones and 40 cruise and ballistic missiles overnight.

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At least three people were killed and 13 others injured in the savage attacks.

And earlier this week, Russian jets violated NATO airspace over Estonia.

Three MiG-31 jets flew over Vaindloo Island and stayed there for nearly 12 minutes.

NATO allies scrambled Italian F-35s to repel the planes – which had their transponders turned off.

Security expert Will Geddes told The Sun: “What we’re increasingly seeing is incursions into NATO country airspace, whether that be Poland, quite recently on September 10, with drones, whether it be Romania, or now Estonia.

“This is becoming increasingly concerning, as NATO has a joint agreement in terms of protecting their airspace.”

He added: “I think what it really comes down to is the fact that Russia is testing NATO countries, and testing their aerial defence measures.”

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North Korea ‘is in its strongest strategic position in decades’, US military intelligence said in May.

North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has said the use of artificial intelligence is a “top priority” in modernising his country’s increasingly sophisticated weapons technology and building up drone capabilities, state media reports.

During a visit to the Unmanned Aeronautical Technology Complex in the capital Pyongyang on Thursday, Kim presided over performance tests of multipurpose drones and unmanned surveillance vehicles, North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Friday.

According to KCNA, the North Korean leader emphasised “rapidly developing the newly-introduced artificial intelligence technology” as a “top priority” in order to increase his military’s unmanned weapons systems.

Kim also called for “expanding and strengthening the serial production capacity of drones”.

The visit to the aeronautical complex comes just a week after Kim oversaw another test of a new solid-fuel rocket engine designed for intercontinental ballistic missiles, which he hailed as a “significant” expansion of Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities.

North Korea’s military power includes nuclear-armed ballistic and cruise missiles, an increasing stockpile of nuclear weapons and a nascent spy satellite programme, according to the United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

North Korean active duty personnel now number an estimated one million troops, and are supplemented by more than seven million reservists – out of a population of roughly 25.6 million.

The country’s level of AI development is less certain, however.

One report from independent analysis group 38 North found North Korea has engaged in cross-border collaborative AI research with academics in the US, China and South Korea despite sanctions, suggesting it has undertaken “substantial efforts” to catch up in the AI race.

Those efforts have largely relied on China, one of the world’s most dominant AI players, the 38 North report added.

While Pyongyang has long depended on China politically and economically, under Kim, it has steadily sought to strengthen its relationship with Russia.

Last year, Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a mutual defence treaty that raised eyebrows in the West.

Pyongyang may not have benefitted as handsomely as Moscow from the deal.

A German think tank recently reported that while North Korea has provided nearly $10bn in weapons to Moscow, along with tens of thousands of soldiers to help Russian forces battle Ukraine, it has only received some $457m to $1.19bn in return.

Moscow’s aid has consisted mainly of food, fuel, air defence systems and possibly some fighter aircraft for North Korea.

Earlier this month, Kim appeared in Beijing with both his Chinese and Russian counterparts – President Xi Jinping and President Putin – in what analysts viewed as a stark display of North Korea’s desire to take up the world stage.

In May, the DIA reported that North Korea “is in its strongest strategic position in decades, possessing the military means to hold at risk US forces and US allies in Northeast Asia, while continuing to improve its capability to threaten the US”.

For his part, Kim has panned joint US-South Korea drills as “a rehearsal of a war of aggression” against his country.

Here are the key events on day 1,303 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, September 19 :

Fighting

• Ukrainian drones hit a key oil-processing and petrochemical complex in Russia’s Bashkortostan region, as well as an oil refinery in the Volgograd region, as Ukraine escalates its campaign against Russia’s extensive oil and gas sector.
• Russian military units claim to have breached Ukraine’s western village of Yampol and secured new positions near five residential areas in the same area, according to Russia’s state TASS news agency.
• Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has claimed Russia is gaining ground in “almost all directions” along the front lines with Ukraine.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted that Russian losses have mounted in the eastern city of Pokrovsk amid Ukraine’s “heroic defence” of the area.
• Latvian authorities identified debris from a Russian drone found on the Baltic coast, near the country’s port city of Ventspils. Latvia’s Defence Minister Andris Spruds wrote on X that the object was the tail end of a “decoy” Gerbera drone and confirmed it was not explosive.

Regional security

• The United States Department of State has approved the sale of Javelin missile systems to Poland for an estimated $780m. The deal would “support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by improving the security of a NATO ally”, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.
• Ukraine has agreed to train Polish soldiers and engineers in drone warfare defence. The announcement came a week after Polish and NATO forces shot down more than 20 drones violating the country’s airspace during a Russian aerial attack on neighbouring Ukraine.
• The European Commission’s Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said he plans to convene talks with defence ministers next week on creating a “drone wall” along the European Union’s eastern border, a concept that was already under discussion before the most recent incidents of Russian drone incursions in EU airspace.
• Ukrainian anti-drone technology, battle-tested against Russia, was on display at a Taiwanese defence expo this week.

Peace process

• US President Donald Trump said in a Fox News interview that he was “very disappointed” with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his failure to secure a peace deal in Ukraine.
• “The one I thought was going to be easiest [to settle] was going to be Russia-Ukraine, because of my relationship with President Putin. So I’m disappointed,” Trump said.
• In the same interview, Trump proclaimed the US would play a role in post-war peace-building in Ukraine. “After the war is settled, we would help secure the peace. And I think ultimately that’ll happen,” he said.
• Trump said in another joint news conference, after meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, that President Putin “has really let me down”.
• During the meeting, Trump and Starmer discussed ways to increase defence support for Ukraine and “decisively” put pressure on Putin to agree to a peace deal, Starmer said.
• Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took a swipe at Trump in response, according to TASS: “When President Trump says he is disappointed, it seems to me – I can’t say that I know him very well, of course, but I have spoken with him several times, and I have formed a certain impression – that this is partly because he wants quick solutions”.

Politics and diplomacy

• President Zelenskyy said he had spoken with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and thanked him on X for “assistance in returning Ukrainian children abducted by Russia”. In another post, he thanked the United Kingdom’s King Charles for “steadfast support” after the king referenced Ukraine during a dinner with Trump on Wednesday.

I spoke with the Amir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani @TamimBinHamad.

I thanked him for his assistance in returning Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. We greatly value this solidarity and such sincere attention to our children.

I invited Qatar to take part in the…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 18, 2025

Economy and energy

• Russia’s Ministry of Finance announced a new measure to help protect the state budget from oil price fluctuations and Western sanctions as Russian oil and gas sales for September are expected to see a 23 percent reduction compared with last year, the Reuters news agency reports.
• Putin suggested he was willing to raise taxes on the wealthy, such as imposing a luxury tax or higher taxes on stock dividends, to boost Russia’s wartime economy.

Sanctions

• The European Commission is slated to present its 19th package of sanctions against Russia to member states on Friday, which includes a proposal to ban Russian liquefied natural gas, an official said.
• Australia announced new sanctions against 95 “shadow fleet” Russian vessels, which are oil tankers used to evade Western sanctions. The government also lowered the price cap for Russian oil to $47.60 per barrel, down from $60 a barrel, following a similar move by the EU, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Japan.

BRITAIN must square up to Russia over its threats to undersea cables or risk a “catastrophic” attack a report by parliament has warned.

The military is “too timid” defending pipelines and seabed internet cables and must adopt a much more “muscular” approach, it said.

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The report by Parliament’s National Security Strategy Committee called for “punitive consequences” for saboteurs that go beyond calling them names.

It warned: “Otherwise, aggressors that are content with implausible deniability can cause damage with minimal risk.”

It comes after Navy chief General Sir Gwyn Jenkins warned Russia’s sub-sabotage unit GUGI was “regenerating”.

The committee of 22 MPs and peers warned Russia was the “primary threat” capable of causing severe disruption to the UK.

They cited “numerous allegations” of Russia and China using proxy actors to sabotage subsea cables in the Baltic and Indo-Pacific.

They panned Labour’s former telecoms minister Chris Bryant for dismissing their concerns as “apocalyptic”.

The report said: “The Minister (Bryant) suggested that exploring the risks of a co-ordinated attack on subsea infrastructure was unhelpfully “apocalyptic”.

“We disagree. Focusing on fishing accidents and low-level sabotage is no longer good enough.”

The report warned the UK faces a “strategic vulnerability”.

Proper “defensive preparations” could reduce the chances of a sabotage attack, it added.

Sir David Omand, a former GCHQ spychief, warned Britain would be in Russia’s “crosshairs” in the event of a ceasefire in Ukraine.

He said: “We really must expect the Russians to pick on us.”

Professor Kevin Rowlands, from the Royal Navy’s Strategic Studies Centre, told the committee that Russia’s GUGI had over 50 vessels including submarines that could dive to 6,000 metres.

He raised fears over vessels deliberately dragging their anchors to sever seabed cables and saboteurs armed with axes cut cables on land.

He said: “Dragging an anchor over a well‑plotted cable is easy and deniable.

“Pre-positioning any timed charges is difficult and risky for whoever is doing that.

“Using divers is difficult and, again, is trackable.”

He added: “In the future, one-way uncrewed underwater vehicles are probably a way ahead for any adversary.”

The MoD said it was investing “in new capabilities to help protect our offshore infrastructure, using the latest technology”.

It said: “This includes through the UK-led reaction system Nordic Warden, to track potential threats to undersea infrastructure, the high-tech RFA Proteus and Atlantic Bastion – high tech sensors above and below the seas to track submarines.”

The Sun understands the advice came from lawyers paid by the Ministry of Defence to act on behalf of the SAS and its veterans.

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Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says an investigation is under way after drone spotted over government buildings in Warsaw.

Authorities in Poland have said that two Belarusian citizens were detained and a drone was “neutralised” after it was flown over government buildings and the presidential residence in the capital city, Warsaw.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said early on Tuesday that members of the country’s State Protection Services apprehended the two Belarusians, and police were “investigating the circumstances of the incident”.

The Associated Press news agency quoted Colonel Boguslaw Piorkowski, a spokesperson for the protection service, saying that the drone was not shot down by Polish forces but landed after authorities apprehended the operators.

“The impression is that this is not something that flew in from abroad but rather launched locally,” Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz, Poland’s minister of development funds and regional policy, told local media outlet TVN 24, according to the AP.

The minister also advised the public against rushing to conclusions or associating the incident with last week’s high-profile incursion by multiple Russian drones into Polish airspace during an aerial attack on neighbouring Ukraine, the AP reported.

Przed chwilą Służba Ochrony Państwa zneutralizowała drona operującego nad budynkami rządowymi (Parkowa) i Belwederem. Zatrzymano dwóch obywateli Białorusi. Policja bada okoliczności incydentu.

— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) September 15, 2025

Translation: Just now, the State Protection Service neutralised a drone operating over government buildings (Parkowa) and the Belweder. Two Belarusian citizens were detained. The police are investigating the circumstances of the incident.

The reported arrest of the Belarusian drone operators by Polish authorities comes as thousands of troops from Belarus and Russia take part in the “Zapad (West) 2025” military drills, which kicked off on Friday and are due to end on Tuesday.

Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Belarus, closed their frontier crossings and bolstered defences in advance of the exercises, which authorities in Minsk said involve 6,000 soldiers from Belarus and 1,000 from Russia.

Poland is also on high alert after last week’s Russian drone incursions, which led to Polish and NATO fighter jets mobilising to defend against what was described as an “unprecedented violation of Polish airspace” by Moscow.

Polish F-16 and Dutch F-35 fighter jets, as well as Italian AWACS surveillance planes, deployed to counter the drones, marking the first time that NATO-allied forces have engaged Russian military assets since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

One of the drones damaged a residential building in Wyryki, eastern Poland, though nobody was reported injured, according to the Reuters news agency.

On Friday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte announced that the Western military alliance would increase its defence “posture” in Eastern Europe following the Polish airspace violation.

Operation “Eastern Sentry” will include military assets from a range of NATO members, including Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, Rutte said, describing the incursion as “reckless” and “unacceptable”.

Amid the increased tension with Russia, NATO member Romania also reported a drone incursion on Saturday, which led to the scrambling of two F-16 fighter jets as well as two Eurofighters and a warning to Romanian citizens to take cover.

Romanian Minister of National Defence Ionut Mosteanu said the fighter jets came close to shooting down the drone before it exited Romanian airspace into neighbouring Ukraine.

Moscow’s ambassador to Romania was summoned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday, where Bucharest “conveyed its strong protest against this unacceptable and irresponsible act, which constitutes a violation of [its] sovereignty”.

Russia was “urgently requested… to prevent any future violations”, the Romanian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

UKRAINIAN children abducted during the war are forced to make military equipment used against their homeland, chilling research reveals.

Thousands of innocent youngsters shipped to more than 200 sinister camps across Russia are being subjected to brainwashing and being used as pawns by deranged Vladimir Putin.

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Sickenlingly, satelitte images shows children being used as slave labour to assemble drones and other supplies fuelling the tyrant’s war machine in Ukraine.

Military training has been observed at around 40 of the sites holding children as young as eight, including ceremonial parades and drills, and combat training.

Officials told The Sun it shows Kremlin stooges are teaching children to fight against their home, blasting their use as a “weapons” against Ukraine and beyond.

Daria Herasymchuck, advisor and commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation, told The Sun: “For those of us who have observed Putin’s actions up close for more than a decade, we are well accustomed to their evasion, distortion and calculated indifference. 

“We are appalled by the large-scale, logistical and operational capacity Russia is operating in – using children, who are always the most vulnerable victims in armed conflicts, in such a way, is deliberately cruel.”

Since megalomaniac Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and sent to at least 210 facilities inside Russia and occupied territory.

These sites range from summer camps and sanatoriums to a military base, and, in one case, a monastery, according to research by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL).

Russia is known to have engaged in the deportation, re-education, militarisation and forced adopting of Ukrainian children since at least 2014 from the occupied territories of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk.

But since Putin’s ordered his troops in more than three years ago, researchers say these barbaric efforts have siginificantly expanded.

The HRL has used satellite imagery and open source materials to identify and track Ukrainian children snatched during the war.

Its horrifying report, Ukraine’s Stolen Children: Inside Russia’s Network of Re-education and Militarization, reveals the staggering efforts Moscow goes to to brainwash these youngsters.

Children have been rounded up and moved to at least eight different location types.

These are cadet schools, a military base, medical facilities, a religious site, secondary schools and universities, a hotel, family support centers and orphanages, and camps and sanatoriums.

At least two new cadet schools have been constructed, and at least 49 of the 210 locations have been expanded since the start of the war.

Children are forced to develop “fire and naval training skills” at some sites as part of a warped militarisation campaign.

They are required to participate in “shooting competitions and grenade throwing competitions” as well as receive “tactical medicince, drone control and tactics” training.

In one instance, youngsters from Donetsk oblast received “airborne training” at a military base, the HRL’s report – shared with United
Nations Security Council- reveals.

Children have also been used to help produced military equipment for Russia’s armed forces, including drones.

Herasymchuck, of Ukraine’s Bring Kids Back UA initiative, told The Sun: “The report shows Russia is prepared to use Ukraine’s own children as a ‘weapon’ against Ukraine, and Europe more broadly.

“They are being trained to fight against their own homeland.

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“This is all part of Russia’s long-term campaign to erase the Ukrainian identity – central to this is the Russification and militarisation of Ukrainian children as the report outlines.”

Some youngsters have been held temporarily before returning home – while others have been held indefinitely.

As part of Putin’s callous regime to indoctrinate these children, many have been pushed into a network of so-called family centres.

Others have been pushed into Russia’s programme of coerced fostering and adoption – seeing them eventually placed within a Russian family.

For those who return home, Ukraine authorities have been told of the drastic work that has to be done to undo the damage.

Herasymchuck said: “Rehabilitation for children who return from deportation is one of the most sensitive and complex aspects of our work.

“These children have experienced not only physical displacement but also deep psychological trauma.

“When kids return, children often feel confused, disconnected, or afraid.

“These children have been taught not to resist. That is deeply alarming. Some carry guilt or shame. Others return with hostility or denial of their own identity.

“This is why our work does not end with bringing children home.

Children used as ‘weapons’

Exclusive by Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital)

RUSSIA is using abducted and brainwashed children as “weapons”, one of Zelensky’s staff battling to rescue Ukraine’s kidnapped kids warned.

Daria Zarivna told The Sun earlier this year that no peace deal will be brokered until Moscow agrees to return thousands of kidnapped youngsters home.

She warned Vladimir Putin‘s thugs are indoctrinating these youngsters and those living in Ukrainian territory under Russian control.

Bring Kids Back Ukraine operations director Daria said Moscow will push them into joining Russia’s army to use them as a “weapon” against Europe in the future.

Since Putin illegally invaded Ukraine three years ago, tens of thousands of children have been kidnapped and taken into Russia.

Kremlin stooges then disturbingly try to rid the youngsters of their Ukrainian heritage and brainwash them into becoming Russian citizens.

Sinister camps have been set up in Russia where children are sent before having their official documents altered and being placed in Russian families. 

Often the children are told that their loved ones have abandoned them and that they are now part of the Russian Federation. 

Mariana Betsa, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, told The Sun how some children have been abused and suffered sexual violence.

She said: “It’s not just a statistic, 20,000. It’s a life behind every person behind every statistic.

“We have so many families who were separated. We have so many children who were abducted.

“We need to return every single child.”

Presidential advisor Daria meanwhile warned Russia will use the children as a “weapon” against not only Ukraine, but the rest of Europe.

She said: “We are working on keeping this matter in the spotlight and we think that it is extremely important that it be a part of these talks because the Ukrainian children which Russia keeps under its control

“It’s a threat to global security, to Ukraine’s security.

“There are 1.6 million Ukrainian children currently staying in the temporarily occupied territories under the control of Russia.

“They’ve been indoctrinated, they’ve been militarised.”

READ MORE HERE

“Under the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, Ukraine has built a reintegration system that provides each child with a tailored protection and recovery plan.

“Based on children’s needs, they receive medical care, psychological support, legal aid, safe housing, and access to education.”

The Sun previously spoke to one teenager who fell victim to Putin’s evil scheme.

Nastya, then 15, was abducted from Kherson Oblast when it was seized by Putin’s fighters at the beginning of the war in March 2022.

The terrified teenager was placed with a woman who also had ten other children in her care.

She told how she was abused and beat her until she was sent back to the police station where she had originally been held.

Nastya was then enrolled in a college, where she said she was routinely humiliated by soldiers who told her: “You are nothing.”

Eventually, Nastya was able to find a phone and make a call to her mother, who tracked down volunteers in Ukraine to help get her home.

In March 2023, arrest warrants for Putin and his twisted children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova were issued by the International Criminal Court.

Russia attempted to denounce the warrants as “outrageous and unacceptable”.

Lvova-Belova has attempted to portray the forced deportation of Ukrainian children as a Russian rescue mission since being appointed Putin’s children’s commissioner in 2021.

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Here are the key events on day 1,300 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, September 16 :

Fighting

• A Ukrainian drone attack killed two women in the village of Golovchino in Russia’s Belgorod region, Russia’s state TASS news agency reports.
• A man who was seriously injured in a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Belgorod region in April has died in hospital, TASS reports.
• TASS also reported that Russian forces shot down 82 Ukrainian drones in a 24-hour period.
• Russian forces have captured the village of Olhivske in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Monday.
• Ukraine’s Air Force said it shot down 59 of 84 Russian drones fired overnight, while Russia also fired three guided missiles.
• The commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, Robert Brovdi, reported that a Starlink outage affected the entire front line for about 30 minutes, starting at 7:28am local time (04:28 GMT). Ukraine’s forces are heavily reliant on SpaceX’s Starlink terminals for battlefield communications and some drone operations.

Regional security

• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that Poland’s State Protection Service “neutralised a drone operating over government buildings” and the Presidential Palace. Police are investigating the drone incident, and two citizens of Belarus have been detained, Tusk added in a post on X.
• Announcing that the United Kingdom will deploy fighter jets to Poland, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, “Russia’s reckless behaviour is a direct threat to European security and a violation of international law, which is why the UK will support NATO’s efforts to bolster its eastern flank.”
• The UK Foreign Office on Monday called the recent Russian drone incursions into Polish and Romanian airspace “utterly unacceptable”, and summoned Russian Ambassador Andrei Kelin.
• “Russia should understand that its continued aggression only strengthens the unity between NATO allies,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.

• Russia and Belarus continued their Zapad 2025 joint military drills on Monday, with Russia launching a Kalibr missile from a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
• United States military officers observed the joint war games in Belarus, where they were told by Belarusian Minister of Defence Viktor Khrenin that they could look at “whatever is of interest for you”.
• Denmark’s defence minister attended a military exercise in Greenland on Monday with his Icelandic and Norwegian counterparts, the Danish Ministry of Defence said. The US did not send observers.
• Danish Minister of Defence Troels Lund Poulsen said in a statement: “The current security situation requires us to significantly strengthen the armed forces’ presence in the Arctic and North Atlantic.”

Tariffs and sanctions

• US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday that the administration of President Donald Trump would not impose additional tariffs on Chinese goods to halt China’s purchases of Russian oil unless European countries hit China and India with steep duties of their own.
• “We expect the Europeans to do their share now, and we are not moving forward without the Europeans,” Bessent said.
• Russia warned on Monday that it would go after any European state that sought to take its assets after reports that the European Union was looking for new ways to leverage hundreds of billions of dollars of frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine.

United States President Donald Trump has said he is ready to sanction Russia, but only if all NATO allies agree to completely halt buying oil from Moscow and impose their own sanctions on Russia to pressure it to end its more than three-year war in Ukraine.

“I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, which he described as a letter to all NATO nations and the world.

Trump proposed that NATO, as a group, place 50-100 percent tariffs on China to weaken its economic grip over Russia.

Trump also wrote that NATO’s commitment “to WIN” the war “has been far less than 100%” and that it was “shocking” that some members of the alliance continued to buy Russian oil. As if speaking to them, he said, “It greatly weakens your negotiating position, and bargaining power, over Russia.”

NATO member Turkiye has been the third-largest buyer of Russian oil, after China and India. Other members of the 32-state alliance involved in buying Russian oil include Hungary and Slovakia, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

If NATO “does as I say, the WAR will end quickly”, Trump wrote. “If not, you are just wasting my time.”

As he struggles to deliver on promises to end the war quickly, Trump has repeatedly threatened to increase pressure on Russia. Last month, he slapped a 50 percent tariff on India over its continued buying of Russian oil, though he has not yet taken similar actions against China.

Trump’s social media post comes days after Polish and NATO forces shot down drones violating Polish airspace during Russia’s biggest-ever aerial barrage against Ukraine.

Poland and Romania scramble aircraft

Polish airspace has been violated many times since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but never on this scale anywhere in NATO territory.

Wednesday’s incident was the first time a NATO member is known to have fired shots during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

On Saturday, Poland said it and its NATO allies had deployed helicopters and aircraft as Russian drones struck Ukraine, not far from its border.

Poland’s military command said on X that “ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have reached their highest level of alert”, adding that the actions were “preventative”.

Also on Saturday, Romania’s Ministry of National Defence said that the country’s airspace had been breached by a drone during a Russian attack on infrastructure in neighbouring Ukraine.

The country scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to monitor the situation, tracking the drone until it disappeared from the radar” near the Romanian village of Chilia Veche, said the ministry in a statement.

Little sign of peace

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has welcomed the prospect of penalties on states still doing business with Moscow.

In an interview with the US media outlet ABC News last week, Zelenskyy said, “I’m very thankful to all the partners, but some of them, I mean, they continue [to] buy oil and Russian gas, and this is not fair… I think the idea to put tariffs on the countries that continue to make deals with Russia, I think this is the right idea.”

Last month, the US president hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, to discuss an end to the war, in their first face-to-face meeting since Trump’s return to the White House.

Shortly afterwards, he hosted Zelenskyy and European leaders in Washington, DC, for discussions on a settlement.

Despite the diplomatic blitz, there has been little progress towards a peace deal, with Moscow and Kyiv remaining far apart on key issues and Russia persisting in its bombardment of Ukrainian cities.

Russia claims advances

Russia on Saturday said it had captured a new village in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, which Moscow’s forces say they reached at the beginning of July.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said its troops had seized the village of Novomykolaivka near the border with the Donetsk region – the epicentre of fighting on the front. The AFP news agency was unable to confirm this claim.

DeepState, an online battlefield map run by Ukrainian military analysts, said the village was still under Kyiv’s control.

At the end of August, Ukraine had for the first time acknowledged that Russian soldiers had entered the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Moscow had claimed advances at the start of the month.

The Russian army currently controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory.

The Kremlin is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from its eastern Donbas region, comprised of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as a condition for halting hostilities, something that Kyiv has rejected.

The Dnipropetrovsk region is not one of the five Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Crimea – that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.

On Friday, Zelenskyy said that Putin wanted to “occupy all of Ukraine” and would not stop until his goal was achieved, even if Kyiv agreed to cede territory.

Here are the key events on day 1,296 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, September 12:

Fighting

• Anti-aircraft units downed seven Ukrainian drones headed for Moscow early on Friday, according to the Russian capital’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
• Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Sosnivka in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday.
• A “massive” Ukrainian drone attack forced authorities in Russia’s Belgorod region to order children to stay at home while closing its schools and shopping centres, the regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
• The Moscow-installed administration of the Russia-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station accused Ukraine of attacking a training centre at the plant with drones.

Regional security

• The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting to address Russia’s violation of Polish airspace earlier this week, Poland’s Foreign Ministry said.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pushed for a tougher response to the suspected Russian drone incursion into Poland from Kyiv’s allies, saying the move by Moscow was likely aimed at slowing supplies of air defences to Ukraine before winter.
• Polish President Karol Nawrocki claimed the Russian drone incursion was an attempt to test Poland’s and NATO’s capability to react militarily.
• The Russian drone incursion was a “kind of a prelude” to Russia’s upcoming “Zapad” military exercises in Belarus, Poland’s National Security Bureau chief said.
• Russia will not make any further comments on the shooting down by Poland of what Warsaw said were Russian drones in its airspace, the Kremlin said.

• Polish military representatives plan to visit Ukraine for training on shooting down drones, a source familiar with the matter said.
• France will deploy three Rafale fighter jets to help Poland protect its airspace after this week’s drone incursions, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday on X.
• NATO’s allied air command will provide Lithuania with better early warnings of aerial launches against Ukraine that could cross into Lithuania, NATO’s top military commander Alexus Grynkewich said.
• Germany will strengthen its commitment to NATO’s eastern border, including expanding “air policing over Poland” in response to the incursion of Russian drones, a government spokesperson said.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz emphasised the need for Germany’s BND foreign intelligence service to heighten its operational levels in the wake of increased threats of hybrid attacks by Russia.

Military aid

• German arms giant Rheinmetall plans to manufacture artillery shells for Ukrainian forces at a future production plant in Ukraine, Kyiv’s defence minister said.
• Sweden’s Defence Ministry announced plans for 70 billion Swedish krona ($7.5bn) in military support for Ukraine over the next two years.

Politics and diplomacy

• President Zelenskyy said he had discussed joint weapons production with Washington and imposing further sanctions on Russia during talks with US envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv on Thursday.
• A representative of United States President Donald Trump told Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that the US wanted to reopen its embassy in Minsk and normalise ties between the two countries, after Washington closed the embassy in 2022, the State-run Belta news agency reported.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has still not decided on attending the APEC summit in South Korea next month, the Kremlin said.

Sanctions

• Several European Union members including the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Spain summoned their respective Russian ambassadors and charge d’affaires to express official condemnation of Russia violating Polish airspace earlier this week.
• A timeline for the imposition of the EU’s 19th package of sanctions against Russia is still undetermined, after an EU delegation returned from Washington, according to a European Commission spokesperson.
• The US will pressure G7 countries to impose higher tariffs on India and China for buying Russian oil, the Financial Times reported, as the US looks to ramp up sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine.

Poland has intercepted Russian drones that were flying over its airspace after completing a mission in western Ukraine. It’s the first time a NATO member nation has fired shots in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says military defences deployed after ‘multiple violations of Polish airspace’.

Poland has shot down drones over its territory after repeated violations of its airspace during a Russian aerial attack on neighbouring Ukraine, the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces said.

“During today’s attack by the Russian Federation targeting targets in Ukraine, our airspace was repeatedly violated by drones,” the Polish command said in a statement early on Wednesday.

“At the request of the Operational Commander of the Armed Forces, weapons have been used, and operations are under way to locate the downed targets,” the military said.

The army said that Polish and NATO military aircraft had been mobilised to ensure airspace safety.

“Polish and allied aircraft are operating in our airspace, while ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have been brought to the highest state of readiness,” the operational command said.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed that an “operation is under way related to multiple violations of Polish airspace”.

Trwa operacja związana z wielokrotnym naruszeniem polskiej przestrzeni powietrznej. Przeciwko obiektom wojsko użyło uzbrojenia. Jestem w stałym kontakcie z Prezydentem i Ministrem Obrony. Odebrałem bezpośredni meldunek od dowódcy operacyjnego.

— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) September 10, 2025

Translation: An operation is under way related to multiple violations of Polish airspace. The military used armaments against the objects. I am in constant contact with the President and the Minister of Defence. I received a direct report from the operational commander.

Earlier, it was reported that four airports in Poland, including its main Chopin airport in Warsaw, were closed due to military activity.

According to notices posted to the US Federal Aviation Administration’s website, the three other airports closed were Rzeszow–Jasionka airport, the Warsaw Modlin airport, and the Lublin airport. Poland’s military did not mention the airport closures.

The military mobilisation in Poland came after Ukraine’s Air Force reported that Russian drones had entered Polish airspace, posing a threat to the city of Zamosc, but the air force later removed the statement from its Telegram messaging app.

Most of Ukraine, including the western regions of Volyn and Lviv, which border Poland, were under air raid alerts for several hours overnight, according to Ukraine’s Air Force data.

Poland said earlier that it planned to close its border with Belarus at midnight local time on Thursday (22:00 GMT, Wednesday) due to Russian-led military exercises scheduled to take place in Belarus.

Russia and Belarus’s large-scale military exercises, known as the “Zapad” drills, have raised security concerns in neighbouring NATO member states: Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. The “Zapad-2025” (West-2025) drills will be held in western Russia and Belarus from Friday.

Asked about the duration of the border closure, Polish Minister of Interior Marcin Kierwinski said it would only be reopened when the government was sure “there was no more threat to Polish citizens”.

The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had summoned the Polish charge d’affaires to complain about the border closure, which it said “caused significant difficulties”.

It described Poland’s move as “an abuse of its geographical position”.

“The temporary suspension of passage indicates rather an intention to conceal one’s own actions than the existence of any threat from Belarus,” the Foreign Ministry said.

Lithuania’s border guard said on Tuesday that the protection of its border with Belarus and Russia would be strengthened due to the exercises.

Vladimir Putin is on a roll the past few weeks. First President Trump invited him to Anchorage. Then he got a three-way hug with China’s President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a summit in China. And an invitation to a grand military parade in Beijing.

Since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Putin had been shunted to the fringes of summit group photos. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he had been treated as a pariah by the United States and Europe. Indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide, he could travel only to countries that wouldn’t arrest him. In short, Moscow was not being treated with the respect it believed it deserved.

Trump thought that by literally rolling out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska — and clapping as the Russian loped down the red carpet — he could reset the bilateral relationship. And it did. But not the way Trump intended.

The Alaskan summit convinced the Russians that the current administration is willing to throw the sources of American global power out the window.

Trade partners, geopolitical allies and alliances — everything is on the table for Trump. The U.S. president believes this shows his power; the Russians see this as a low-cost opportunity to degrade American influence. Putin was trained by the KGB to recognize weakness and exploit it.

There is no evidence that being friendly to Putin and agreeing with Russian positions are going to make Moscow more willing to stop fighting in Ukraine. Overlooking Russia’s intensifying hybrid attacks on Europe, in February, Vice President JD Vance warned Europe that it should be focusing instead on the threat to democracy “from within.” This followed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth‘s assurances that Ukraine would never join NATO. Trump has suggested that U.S. support for NATO and Europe is contingent on those countries paying up. In an event that sent Moscow pundits to pop the Champagne, Trump told Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office that he just didn’t “have the cards” and should stop trying to beat Russia.

Did any of this bring Putin to the negotiating table? No.

In fact, the Kremlin indicated a readiness to talk with Trump about the war only when Trump threatened “very, very powerful” sanctions in mid-July. This time, he seemed serious about it. The Alaska summit happened a month later. The tougher Trump is with Russia, the more likely he is to get any kind of traction in negotiations. It’s unfortunate that the president has now gone back to vague two-week deadlines for imposing sanctions that never materialize.

Russia believes it will win the war. China has been a steady friend, willing to sell Russia cars and dual-use technology that ends up in drones that are attacking Ukrainian cities. It has also become Russia’s largest buyer of crude oil and coal. Western sanctions have not been biting the Russian economy, though they have nibbled away at state revenues. Europe and the United States have not been willing to apply the kind of economic pressure that would seriously dent Russia’s ability to carry on the war.

Putin keeps saying that a resolution to the war requires that the West address the “root causes” of the war. These causes, for Russia, relate to the way it was treated after losing the Cold War. The three Baltic nations joined Europe as fast as they could. Central and Eastern European countries decided that they would rather be part of NATO than the Warsaw Pact. When Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine started asking for membership in the European Union and NATO, Russia realized it wouldn’t be able to convince them to stay with economic appeal or soft power. It had to use force. Unable to demonstrate the attraction of its suffocating embrace, or the value of its Eurasian Economic Union, Russia believed it had to use force to keep Ukraine by its side. It reminds one of a grotesque Russian expression: “If he beats you, it means he loves you.”

The real “root cause” of the war in Ukraine is Russia’s inability to accept that centuries of empire do not confer the right to dominate former colonies forever. Mongolia learned this. As did the British. And the French. And the Ottomans. The Austro-Hungarians.

Eventually this war will end. But not soon. Russia is insisting on maximalist demands that Ukraine cannot agree to, which include control over territory it hasn’t managed to occupy. Ukraine will not stop fighting until it is sure that Russia will not attack again. Achieving that degree of certainty with flimsy security guarantees is impossible.

In the meantime, Ukrainian cities on the frontline will continue being wiped out, citizens in Kherson will continue being subjects of “human safari” for Russian drone operators, people across Ukraine will continue experiencing daily air raids that send them scurrying into shelters. Soldiers, volunteers, civilians and children will continue dying. Trump appears to care about the thousands of daily casualties. Most of these are Russian soldiers who have been sent to their death by a Russian state that doesn’t see their lives as worth preserving.

Trump is understandably frustrated with his inability to “stop the killing” because he has assumed that satisfying Russian demands is the answer. The opposite is true: Only by showing — proving — to Russia that its demands are unattainable will the U.S. persuade the Kremlin to consider meaningful negotiations. Countries at war come to the negotiating table not because they are convinced to abandon their objectives. They sit down when they realize their goals are unattainable.

Alexandra Vacroux is the vice president for strategic engagement at the Kyiv School of Economics.

In latest development of his weapons arsenal, Kim supervised the test of a new solid-fuel rocket engine for North Korea’s ICBMs.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has overseen a test of a new rocket engine designed for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that he described as marking a “significant change in expanding and strengthening” the country’s strategic nuclear forces.

The country’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Tuesday that the successful test marked the ninth and final ground test of the solid-fuel rocket engine, built with carbon fibre and capable of producing 1,971 kilonewtons of thrust – a measure of propulsive force which is more powerful than earlier North Korean rocket engines.

The KCNA said that Kim expressed satisfaction after Monday’s test, calling the “eye-opening” development of the new rocket engine a “significant change” in North Korean nuclear capabilities.

The announcement that tests on the solid-fuel rocket are now complete comes a week after Kim visited the research institute that developed the engine, and where he unveiled that a next-generation Hwasong-20 ICBM is currently under development.

The development of North Korea’s ICBM arsenal adds to Pyongyang’s efforts in recent years to build weapons that pose as a viable threat to the continental United States, according to defence analysts.

Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions are seen as a means to bolster North Korea’s status as a nuclear power and give it leverage in negotiating economic and security concessions with the US and other world powers.

North Korea also marked the 77th anniversary of its founding on Tuesday, by the current leader’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

In a separate report, KCNA said that Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to Kim and called for strengthened “strategic communication” between Beijing and Pyongyang.

“The Chinese side is ready to join hands in promoting the China-DPRK friendship and the socialist cause of the two countries through the intensified strategic communication and brisk visits and close cooperation with the DPRK side,” Xi wrote, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Last week, Kim joined Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi in Beijing for China’s Victory Day Parade commemorating the end of World War II.

Analysts have said that the rare trip to an international gathering of world leaders was a diplomatic win for Kim, who has fortified his alliance with Russia and China.

Here are the key events on day 1,293 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, September 9:

Fighting

• Russian attacks killed four people and injured 10 in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Governor Vadym Filashkin said in a post on Telegram on Monday.
• Two people were killed and one person was injured as Russian forces launched 449 strikes on 17 settlements in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, Governor Ivan Fedorov said.
• Ukrainian forces launched a “massive” drone attack on Russian-occupied Donetsk, killing two civilians, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported, citing local officials.
• Ukrainian forces recaptured the village of Zarichne in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported in a post on Facebook.
• Russian forces attacked a thermal power generation facility in the Kyiv region overnight, causing localised blackouts and gas outages, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy said.
• Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it detained a citizen of Azerbaijan, alleging he was working with Ukraine to conduct reconnaissance missions for possible attacks on government buildings in Russia’s cities of Yessentuki and Stavropol.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence said that its forces shot down 195 Ukrainian drones and two aerial bombs in a 24-hour period, TASS reported.

Sanctions

• The European Union’s plan for new sanctions against Russia is being closely coordinated with the United States, EU Council President Antonio Costa said.
• Costa’s remarks came as the EU’s top sanctions official, David O’Sullivan, visited Washington, DC, with a team of experts, to discuss possible coordinated sanctions.
• The Kremlin responded to the EU announcement, saying sanctions would not force Russia to change course in the war.
• “No sanctions will be able to force the Russian Federation to change the consistent position that our president has repeatedly spoken about,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Kremlin reporter Alexander Yunashev.

Politics and diplomacy

• The Czech Republic will expel a Belarusian diplomat it has accused of espionage, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. “We will not tolerate the abuse of diplomatic cover for secret service activities,” the ministry said in a post on X.
• The Czech counterintelligence service said that, together with Romanian and Hungarian services, it had “broken up a Belarusian intelligence network being built in Europe”.

• European countries should “adjust” their interests “without false nostalgia” and “expand and strengthen existing [partnerships] even more aggressively than we have done so far,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, regarding Europe’s changing relationship with the United States.

• A German government spokesperson said that Russia’s “ongoing escalation of the war” on Ukraine shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin “does not want to negotiate”, and the war “can only be stopped by enabling Ukraine to maintain its defence and not allowing Putin to succeed”.

WASHINGTON — Facing viral rumors of his imminent death, President Trump emerged in the Oval Office on Tuesday alive and scowling. Core tenets of his economic policies were under strain. Flashy diplomatic overtures to Moscow appeared to be backfiring. And a scandal over a notorious sexual abuser that has fixated his base was roaring back to life in Washington.

It was a challenging week for the president, whose aggressive approach to his second term has begun to hit significant roadblocks with the public and the courts, and overseas, with longstanding U.S. adversaries Trump once hoped to coax to his will.

The president called for an expedited Supreme Court review of an appellate court ruling that he had exceeded his authority by issuing sweeping global tariffs last spring — a decision that, if left standing, could upend the foundation of his economic agenda. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued jobs numbers showing a contraction of the labor market in July, a first since the depths of the pandemic in 2020.

New art lining a hallway in the West Wing features photographs of Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, where Trump said the Russian president had agreed to meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to discuss an end to the war. Yet, three weeks on, Russia had launched its most intense bombardment of Kyiv in years, and Putin traveled to Beijing for a military parade hosted by Xi Jinping, which Russian state media used to mock the U.S. president.

During an appearance in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon, Trump said reaching a deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine has turned out to be “a little bit more difficult” than he initially thought.

And a rare spree of bipartisanship broke out on Capitol Hill — in opposition to Trump’s causes.

A tense hearing at the Senate Finance Committee with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid bare concern over the direction of federal vaccination policy and public health recommendations under his leadership across party lines.

Trump declined to stand behind him wholeheartedly after the hearing. “He’s got some little different ideas,” Trump told reporters, adding: “It’s not your standard talk.”

On Wednesday, moments after a group of more than 100 women pleaded for Trump’s help from the steps of the Capitol seeking transparency over the investigation of their alleged abuser, Jeffrey Epstein, Trump dismissed the matter as a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.

“The Department of Justice has done its job, they have given everything requested of them,” Trump repeated on Truth Social on Friday. “It’s time to end the Democrat Epstein Hoax.”

Trump was close friends with Epstein for more than a decade. But his base has repeatedly called for the release of thousands of files in his case — and some of Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress are set to vote against his wishes for a discharge petition directing the Justice Department to do so in the coming days.

A far-right political activist released hidden camera footage this week of a Justice Department official claiming the agency would redact the names of Republicans, but not Democrats, identified in the files. In the video, the DOJ official also suggested that Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell was recently moved to a lower-security prison as part of a deal to keep her quiet.

Public support for Trump has appeared stable since July, with roughly 42% of Americans approving of his job performance across a series of high quality polls. But the end of the August recess in Washington — and the oncoming flu and COVID-19 season — could return public attention to subjects that have proved politically perilous for the president this week.

Polls show that a majority of the president’s Republican voters support vaccines. They oppose Putin and increasingly support Ukraine. And across the political spectrum, Americans want the Epstein files released, unredacted and in full.

A string of court losses

The president’s agenda suffered several setbacks this week, as federal judges across the country ruled his administration had broken the law in various instances.

In San Francisco, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s deployment of military troops in Los Angeles was illegal and barred soldiers from aiding immigration arrests in California in an order set to take effect next week.

In Boston, a federal judge said the Trump administration broke the law when it froze billions of dollars in research funds awarded to Harvard University. In another court ruling, a judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting dozens of unaccompanied migrant children to Guatemala.

And on Friday afternoon, a federal judge stopped the Trump administration from taking away the deportation protections under Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians living in the United States.

While the court decisions represent a snag for key portions of the administration’s agenda, the cases continue to play out in court — and could ultimately turn in favor of Trump.

Legal experts are closely watching those decisions. In the case of the military troop deployments, for instance, some fear a reversal on appeal could ultimately hand the president broader power to send troops to American cities.

Trump has floated additional federal deployments — to Chicago, Baltimore and New Orleans — in recent days.

Trump reacts to a bad week

Trump greeted the waves of bad news with a characteristic mix of deflection, finger-pointing and anger.

He warned that losing his appeal on tariff policy at the Supreme Court would render the United States a “third world country,” telling reporters, “if we don’t win that case, our country is going to suffer so greatly.” And he said he was “very disappointed” in Putin.

After the parade in Beijing — which was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, a longstanding U.S. ally now ostracized by Trump’s tariffs — drew widespread media attention, Trump wrote on social media that the countries were conspiring together against the United States.

“We’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China,” he wrote.

In another lengthy social media post on Friday, Trump accused Democrats of fueling the Epstein “hoax” as a means to “distract from the great success of a Republican President.”

Days earlier, survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse publicly pressured lawmakers to back a legislative measure to force the release of the sex trafficking investigation into the late financier.

“This is about ending secrecy wherever abuse of power takes root,” said Anouska De Georgiou, who was among the Epstein victims who held a news conference on Capitol Hill.

A few high-profile Republicans also broke with Trump on the Epstein issue, calling for more transparency on the investigation. Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she is willing to expose those who are tied to Epstein’s sex trafficking case.

On a phone call with Trump on Wednesday morning, Greene suggested he meet with Epstein’s victims at the White House while they were gathered in town. He was noncommittal, the congresswoman told reporters.

The survivors left town without a meeting. At the direction of the White House, Republican leadership continues to press Republican members to oppose efforts to release the files.

Here are the key events on day 1,289 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, September 5:

Fighting

• Russian drones killed three people – two men and a woman – and injured three others in the village of Khotimlia in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
• A Russian missile strike on a Danish-sponsored humanitarian demining mission near the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv has killed two people, according to Governor Viacheslav Chaus. Another three were wounded in the attack, which Chaus said had purposely targeted the team from the Danish Refugee Council. All victims were Ukrainian.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed it destroyed a launch site for long-range drones with an Iskander missile strike in the same attack in the Chernihiv region.
• Russian troops have taken control of the village of Novoselivka in Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, the Russian Defence Ministry said.
• Ukraine wants to see improved performance by interceptor drones to counter Russian aerial attacks more effectively, top Ukrainian military commander Oleksandr Syrskii said.

Coalition of the Willing

• Twenty-six nations have pledged to provide post-war security guarantees to Ukraine, which will include an international force on land and sea and in the air, French President Emmanuel Macron said after the “coalition of the willing” group met for a Paris summit of Kyiv’s allies to discuss those guarantees.
• “The day the conflict stops, the security guarantees will be deployed,” Macron told a news conference at the Elysee Palace, standing alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
• Macron initially said 26 nations – which he did not name – would deploy to Ukraine. But he later said some countries would provide guarantees while remaining outside Ukraine, for example, by helping to train and equip Kyiv’s forces.
• Zelenskyy said after the meeting that “we are working out which countries will take part in which security component”. He added that “26 countries agreed to provide security guarantees. Today, for the first time in a long time, this is the first such serious, very specific substance”.
• Germany is ready to step up funding for and training of Ukrainian forces, but will decide on further military commitments, including deploying troops to Ukraine, only after broader conditions are clarified, a government spokesperson said.

• Ukraine must become a steel porcupine, indigestible for present and future aggressors, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after the meeting.
• Macron also said he, fellow European leaders and Zelenskyy held a call with United States President Donald Trump after the summit, and US contributions to the guarantees would be finalised in the coming days.
• Macron said there is “no doubt” about Washington’s willingness to take part in the security guarantees offered to Ukraine, adding that the relevant planning work needed to be finalised with Washington.
• On that call, Trump told European leaders that Europe must stop buying Russian oil that he said is helping Moscow fund its war against Ukraine, a White House official said, striking a combative tone amid slow diplomatic progress to end the fighting.
• “The president also emphasised that European leaders must place economic pressure on China for funding Russia’s war efforts,” the official said.

Sanctions

• The United Kingdom imposed sanctions on 11 more individuals and entities affiliated with the Russian state, targeting those involved in what it said were Moscow’s attempts to forcibly deport and indoctrinate Ukraine’s children.
• Former president and current deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, said Russia would take more Ukrainian territory and go after British property after London said it had spent about $1.3bn raised from frozen Russian assets on weapons for Ukraine.
• Russia has expelled an Estonian diplomat in a reciprocal move, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. In mid-August, Estonia expelled a Russian diplomat over alleged sanctions violations and other offences against the state.
• Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft has secured an additional deal on the supply of 2.5 million metric tonnes of oil to China via Kazakhstan, Interfax news agency quoted Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev as saying.

Regional security

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would “fully support” Russia’s army as a “fraternal duty”, and Russian President Vladimir Putin called the two countries’ ties “special”, North Korean state media KCNA reported.
• Putin also reportedly sent Kim a congratulatory message for North Korea’s foundation day.
• “Your combat force’s heroic involvement in liberating the Kursk territories from the invaders is a distinct symbol of friendship and mutual aid between Russia and North Korea”, Putin’s message read, according to KCNA. “I am confident that we will continue to work together to consolidate the comprehensive strategic partnership between our two countries,” Putin said.

Goodwill messages continued this week’s unprecedented public display of diplomatic unity between Beijing, Pyongyang and Moscow.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told Chinese President Xi Jinping that North Korea will support China in protecting its sovereignty, territory and development interests, as the pair met just a day after an unprecedented show of unity with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing.

The bilateral meeting between Xi and Kim on Thursday came as Russia also hailed North Korea’s role supporting its war in Ukraine, continuing the public display of close relations between Pyongyang, Beijing and Moscow after their meeting at Wednesday’s huge military parade in China’s capital to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.

In an article published on Friday by North Korea’s state-run outlet, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim was quoted as saying, “No matter how the international situation changes, the feeling of friendship cannot change” between Pyongyang and Beijing.

“The DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] will as ever invariably support and encourage the stand and efforts of the Communist Party of China and the government of the People’s Republic of China to defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests of the state,” Kim said after meeting with Xi, according to KCNA.

Xi also reportedly told Kim that China and North Korea are “good neighbours, good friends and good comrades” that share one destiny, and he was willing to “defend, consolidate and develop” the countries’ relations, KCNA said.

KCNA also confirmed that Kim departed Beijing on Thursday, concluding his first trip outside of North Korea since meeting with Putin in Russia in 2023.

Top-ranking Chinese Communist Party officials – including Cai Qi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi – attended a send-off ceremony for Kim, according to KCNA.

During Wednesday’s military parade in Beijing – in which the People’s Liberation Army displayed its latest generation of stealth fighters, tanks and ballistic missiles amid a highly choreographed cast of thousands – Xi hailed China’s victory 80 years ago over “Japanese aggression” in the “world anti-fascist war”.

Putin and Kim were among some 26 mostly non-Western world leaders in attendance, with the pair meeting with Xi for two and a half hours on the event’s sidelines in an unprecedented display of unity. The trio discussed “long-term” cooperation plans, according to KCNA.

Putin and Kim also met prior to the parade, with both leaders praising the deepening military partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Seemingly rattled by the meeting, United States President Donald Trump addressed Xi in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”

A Kremlin aide dismissed Trump’s remarks, saying “no one even had this in their thoughts”.

Following the meeting, Putin also sent Kim a congratulatory message for North Korea’s foundation day, in which he hailed Pyongyang’s support for Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.

“Your combat force’s heroic involvement in liberating the Kursk territories from the invaders is a distinct symbol of friendship and mutual aid between Russia and North Korea,” Putin’s message read, according to KCNA.

“I am confident that we will continue to work together to consolidate the comprehensive strategic partnership between our two countries,” Putin added.

North Korea has controversially sent thousands of soldiers to fight in Kursk – a Russian region briefly occupied by Ukraine – and also provided artillery ammunition and missiles to support Moscow in its war against Kyiv.

During their meeting in Beijing, Kim also reportedly told Putin his country would “fully support” Russia’s army as a “fraternal duty”, KCNA previously reported.

A RUSSIAN oligarch’s estranged wife has won a six-year fight to drag her divorce battle into the English courts.

Natalia Potanina secured a landmark Court of Appeal ruling on Thursday to sue her billionaire ex-husband Vladimir Potanin, who is said to be worth around £15.7billion.

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Potanin is described as Russia’s second richest man and a pal of Vladimir Putin through their shared love of ice hockey.

Potanin is the chief executive of Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest palladium producer and a global nickel giant.

But he was sanctioned by the UK and US in 2022 after Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

The former couple wed in Russia in 1983, where they lived for their entire married life and raised three children.

They split in acrimonious fashion, with Potanin claiming the marriage ended in 2007.

Potanina insists they only separated in 2013, with a Russian court finalising the divorce a year later.

He has previously claimed their marriage ended when her husband calmly told her over tea that he was leaving her for a younger employee.

She said at first she thought it was a “badly-worded joke” but was later told she “didn’t need money” when the subject of a financial settlement arose.

The pair first met as penniless students in the 1970s, when Russia was still under communism.

Potanina argues that her husband only built his fortune after their marriage, and that she supported him throughout his rise.

Despite his £15billion fortune, Potanina was awarded just £30.9million in the Russian courts – less than one per cent of the family wealth.

Lawyers for Potanin argue she actually received around £63m, but she insists the sum barely scratched the surface of their assets.

Now, after years of legal wrangling, Potanina has been cleared to bring a claim in London for financial relief – setting the stage for what could become the world’s biggest-ever marital split.

She is seeking half of her ex-husband’s beneficial interest in shares in Norilsk Nickel, along with half of the dividends paid on those shares since 2014.

She also wants half the value of a lavish Moscow mansion known as The Autumn House, on which the couple splashed out around £111million.

She is thought to be seeking around £5billion in total.

At the heart of earlier disputes was the couple’s palatial family home in Nemchinovo, 17 miles west of Moscow, where they lived with their three children – daughter Anastasia, and sons Ivan and Vasily.

Also up for grabs were two superyachts, including “The Anastasia,” named after their daughter, and “The Nirvana.”

Potanina’s legal team told the court she had earned her share of the fortune through years of marriage and by being the “main carer” of their children.

Her barrister, Charles Howard KC, branded the earlier dismissal of her case “inconsistent and illogical,” accusing the judge of falling into Potanin’s trap of repeatedly labelling her a “divorce tourist.”

Potanin’s lawyers, led by Lord Faulks KC, countered that the couple had “no connection with this jurisdiction during the marriage” and that Potanina only had “recent and modest connections” to England when she applied.

London’s High Court originally threw out her claim in 2019, warning that allowing it would mean “no limit to divorce tourism.”

That decision was overturned in 2021 by the Court of Appeal, only for Potanin to win a narrow 3-2 victory in the Supreme Court last year, which sent the case back to be reconsidered.

Now, judges Lord Justice Moylan, Lady Justice Falk and Lord Justice Cobb have sided with Potanina once again, ruling she had “substantial grounds” to pursue her claim in England.

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They said there was evidence she had “very largely severed her ties with Russia” and that her connection to the country was “increasingly tenuous.”

The ruling added: “The discrepancy between her award of the marital assets and the husband’s retained share was significant.

“The discrepancy between what she had recovered in Russia compared with what she would have recovered had the case been heard in this jurisdiction was equally significant.”

The Sun reported in 2016 that Potanina was living “in exile” in central London, near Westminster Abbey.

She said at the time to be fearing that if she returned to Russia her passport could be seized, preventing her from visiting her son studying in New York.

She also accused her husband of offering her only medical insurance, a driver, and maintenance for their youngest child, rather than a fair settlement.

The blockbuster ruling reignites fears that London will become the “divorce capital of the world.”

Jennifer Headon, head of international family law at Birketts LLP, said the High Court had already warned such a move could open the floodgates to “limitless” divorce tourism.

Sarah Jane Lenihan, partner at Dawson Cornwell, said few had expected such an outcome, asking: “The question now is whether it will open the door for others who have divorced overseas to seek a second bite at the cherry in England.”

Sital Fontenelle, head of family law at Kingsley Napley LLP, said the ruling reinforced the UK’s status as the “divorce capital of the world” and left the “door still open” for future claims.

Peter Burgess, partner at Burgess Mee, added that aspiring “divorce tourists” might now wait to demonstrate their links to England at a full hearing rather than being knocked back early.

She has previously said her situation reflects the discrimination faced by many women in Russia, where “the law is male, the ideology is male,” adding that she had been “deprived of money and driven out of the house.”

Potanina’s solicitor, Frances Hughes of Hughes Fowler Carruthers, hailed the ruling as a “second vindication” of her client’s case, saying Potanina was delighted and now hoped the matter could be “resolved without further delay.”

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A TOP Putin crony has warned the Kremlin might seize the “valuables of the British Crown” if the UK supports Ukraine with money from frozen Russian assets.

Ex-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused “British thieves” of giving Russian money to “neo-Nazis” in a deranged rant on social media.

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It comes after Britain announced a fresh £1 billion support package for Ukraine’s fight against Moscow.

The money for this aid boost was raised using frozen Russian assets, Defence Secretary John Healey revealed.

But in a chilling post on Telegram, Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, threatened revenge from Moscow.

In his bizarre ramblings, he even referred to Foreign Secretary David Lammy as an “English idiot”.

Close Putin ally Medvedev accused Britain of giving Russian money to “neo-Nazis” – in reference to a false Kremlin claim that Ukraine is run by Nazis.

“Consequences? Britain committed an offence,” he posted.

“But given that this money cannot be recovered through legal proceedings for obvious reasons, our country has only one way to return the valuables.

“Return what was seized in kind.”

He further threatened to take hold of additional Ukrainian land “and movable property located on it”.

Medvedev has long been one of Moscow’s most vocal cheerleaders for Russia’s monstrous invasion of Ukraine.

The Putin lackey added that the Kremlin would respond to any “illegal seizure” of frozen funds by “confiscating the valuables of the British Crown”.

“There are still enough of them in different places, including those located in Russia,” he said.

The UK and other Western nations have imposed bruising sanctions on Russia since Putin ordered his forces to invade Ukraine.

Medvedev’s comments come as members of the pro-Kyiv “Coalition of the Willing” held talks yesterday over future security guarantees for the war-torn nation.

Around 30 leaders came to Paris or joined via video link to hash out plans for what comes next if a peace deal is reached.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was among those to join the summit remotely.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “The Prime Minister emphasised that the group had an unbreakable pledge to Ukraine, with President Trump’s backing.

“And it was clear they now needed to go even further to apply pressure on Putin to secure a cessation of hostilities.

“The Prime Minister also welcomed announcements from coalition of the willing partners to supply long-range missiles to Ukraine to further bolster the country’s supplies.”

Medvedev’s ramblings are not the only recent threats against Britain from Kremlin mouthpieces.

Another Putin propagandist has threatened to sink the UK with a new high-speed torpedo.

Vladimir Solovyov called for a Poseidon nuclear torpedo to unleash a tidal wave over Britain and drown the entire population.

He said on Russian state television: “I am not calling for anything, about anything, in any way, I am simply stating – the British say their task is to inflict strategic defeat on us.

“Well, let them say it from underwater.”

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