The Syrian army has declared a rural area east of Aleppo a “closed military zone” amid fears of renewed clashes with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. A military source said the SDF destroyed three bridges connecting areas it controls with government-controlled areas. Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi has the latest from Aleppo.
Published On 13 Jan 202613 Jan 2026
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These are the key developments from day 1,419 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published On 13 Jan 202613 Jan 2026
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Here is where things stand on Tuesday, January 13:
Russia also initiated a separate missile attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and air defence units have been deployed to repel it, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, warned residents to take cover. There were no immediate reports on casualties or damage to properties and infrastructure in the attack.
Russian drones struck two foreign-flagged vessels, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said, the second such attack in four days on Black Sea shipping. Kuleba said the vessels were sailing under the flags of Panama and San Marino, and that one person was injured.
Russia attacked energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, causing blackouts that affected at least 33,500 families, Ukraine’s largest private energy firm DTEK said, describing the damage as “significant”.
Emergency crews are struggling to restore heat and power to beleaguered Kyiv residents, more than three days after Russian strikes on energy infrastructure.
Kuleba said on Telegram that 90 percent of Kyiv’s apartment buildings have had their heating restored, leaving fewer than 500 dwellings still to be connected. But Mayor Klitschko put the number with no heating at 800, with most living on the west bank of the Dnipro River.
Last year was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022, a record driven by intensified hostilities along the front line and the expanded use of long-range weapons, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said. Conflict-related violence in Ukraine killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in 2025, a 31 percent rise in the number of victims from 2024, the monitor said in its monthly update.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said the target it hit last week with a hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile was a Ukrainian aircraft repair plant in Lviv. The Lviv State Aviation Repair Plant is located near the Polish border. Russia described the target as disabled.
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard has called for greater pressure on Moscow. She suggested the European Union should ban companies from providing any support to Moscow’s oil and gas shipping fleet, introduce sanctions against Russian fertilisers and stop the export of luxury goods to Russia.
Finnish police said they lifted the seizure of a Russia-linked ship, which had been held on suspicion of sabotaging an undersea telecommunications cable running across the Gulf of Finland, from Helsinki to Estonia.
The investigation into the Russia-linked ship will nevertheless continue. Some of the ship’s crew remain under a travel ban, according to the head of the investigation at Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation, Risto Lohi.
A US-linked investor group won the rights to develop Ukraine’s Dobra lithium deposit in the central Kirovohrad region, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced on Telegram. The deal is seen as a test case for drawing Western capital into a front-line economy, while trying to deepen ties with Washington.
The Sudanese army is renewing efforts for an operation to retake the Kordofan and Darfur regions from the control of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), as the civil war rages deep into its third year.
The army has been assessing the RSF’s capabilities and resources in readiness for launching the military operation with a large number of military formations fully prepared to launch an attack, it said.
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Any full-scale operation to liberate Kordofan in central Sudan and Darfur in the west would surpass the Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) recapture of the capital, Khartoum, in March in terms of the planning that has taken place before the mission, it added.
Reporting from Khartoum, Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said the Sudanese army had reorganised and redeployed troops in various parts of Kordofan.
“We have also seen the Sudanese army retake control of territories in the Kordofan region as well as launch air strikes and drone strikes on several RSF positions in Darfur and Kordofan,” she said.
“And it looks like these are the preparations or the first steps of that offensive that the army has been speaking about in efforts to regain control of territories in Kordofan and Darfur,” Morgan added.
The SAF on Friday said it inflicted heavy losses on the RSF during a series of air and ground operations carried out in Darfur and Kordofan.
In a statement, the military said its forces conducted strikes against RSF positions, destroying about 240 combat vehicles and killing hundreds of fighters.
It added that its ground forces had succeeded in pushing RSF fighters out of wide areas in Darfur and Kordofan, and operations were ongoing to pursue remaining elements.
Darfur Governor Minni Arko Minnawi said the recent military action by the SAF in Kordofan has prevented the RSF from laying siege on North Kordofan’s capital, el-Obeid.
But Morgan said people on the ground in the Kordofan region were not reassured by these words and want to see more definitive action from the SAF.
“They want to be able to return to their homes with the RSF withdrawing or retreating from the areas that they have taken over. So far, that is not happening,” she said.
In the meantime, attacks continue. A drone attack carried out by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, an RSF ally, on Monday reportedly killed five people in Habila in South Kordofan state.
The RSF’s recent resurgence in the vast regions of Darfur and Kordofan has displaced millions more people.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, while the RSF has been implicated in atrocities in Darfur that the United Nations said may amount to genocide.
Recently, the UN described el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, as a “crime scene” after gaining access to the largely deserted city for the first time since its takeover by the RSF in October, which was marked by mass atrocities.
International aid staff visited el-Fasher after weeks of negotiations, finding few people remaining in what was once a densely populated city with a large displaced population.
More than 100,000 residents fled el-Fasher after the RSF seized control on October 26 following an 18-month siege. Survivors reported ethnically motivated mass killings and widespread detentions.
Fierce fighting and global funding cuts have pushed more than 33 million people towards starvation in what has become one of the world’s severest humanitarian crises, nongovernmental organisations said on Friday as the war passed its 1,000th day.
The conflict has displaced 11 million people internally and abroad and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
Prime Minister Kamil Idris announced on Sunday the government’s return to Khartoum, after nearly three years of operating from its wartime capital of Port Sudan.
In the early days of the civil war, which began in April 2023, the army-aligned government fled the capital, which was quickly overrun by the RSF.
The government has pursued a gradual return to Khartoum since the army recaptured the city.
“Today, we return, and the government of hope returns to the national capital,” Idris told reporters on Sunday in Khartoum.
Published On 12 Jan 202612 Jan 2026
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Residents of a Kurdish neighbourhood in Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, have passed through government checkpoints to find blackened walls, burned-out vehicles and debris-strewn streets.
They returned home on Sunday after days of deadly clashes.
The fighting, which erupted in Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods on Tuesday after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on plans to integrate the SDF into the national army, killed dozens of people and displaced some 155,000, according to Syrian authorities.
The battles were the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
By Sunday, the government had taken full control of the two areas, having agreed to transfer SDF fighters from the districts to Kurdish autonomous regions in the country’s northeast.
The United Nations said it was trying to send more convoys to the neighbourhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgently needed supplies.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says his country is ready for war but also for dialogue, after US President Donald Trump said the US is considering ‘very strong options’ in response to Iran’s crackdown on antigovernment protests.
Published On 12 Jan 202612 Jan 2026
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These are the key developments from day 1,418 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published On 12 Jan 202612 Jan 2026
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Here is where things stand on Monday, January 12:
Russia launched an air attack on Kyiv overnight on Monday, sparking a fire in one of the city’s districts, according to the Ukrainian military. Ukrainian air defence units were trying to repel the attack, said Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration.
Ukraine’s military said it had made “direct hits” on three drilling platforms in the Caspian Sea belonging to Russia’s Lukoil oil firm. The military said it hit the V Filanovsky, Yuri Korchagin and Valery Grayfer platforms.
The United Kingdom announced that it will develop a new deep-strike ballistic missile for Ukraine to support the country’s war efforts against invading Russian forces. Under the project, named Nightfall, the UK seeks to develop missiles that could carry a 200kg (440 lbs) warhead over a range of more than 500km (310 miles).
Sweden said it will spend 15 billion Swedish crowns ($1.6bn) on air defence, aimed at primarily protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure, as the country continues to ramp up its forces in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Army-aligned government returns to the capital, which was quickly overrun by the RSF in the early days of war in 2023.
Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris has announced the government’s return to Khartoum, after nearly three years of operating from its wartime capital of Port Sudan.
In the early days of the civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023, the army-aligned government fled the capital, which was quickly overrun by rival troops.
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The government has pursued a gradual return to Khartoum since the army recaptured the city last March.
“Today, we return, and the Government of Hope returns to the national capital,” Idris told reporters on Sunday in Khartoum, which has been ravaged by the war between SAF and RSF.
“We promise you better services, better healthcare and the reconstruction of hospitals, the development of educational services … and to improve electricity, water and sanitation services,” he said.
For close to two years, the Sudanese capital – comprised of the three cities of Khartoum, Omdurman and Khartoum North (Bahri) – was an active battlefield.
Entire neighbourhoods were besieged, rival fighters shot artillery across the Nile River, and millions of people were displaced from the city.
Between March and October, 1.2 million people returned to Khartoum, according to the United Nations.
Many found a city with barely functioning services, their homes destroyed and neighbourhoods pockmarked by makeshift cemeteries authorities are now exhuming.
The war is estimated to have killed tens of thousands of people in the capital alone, but the complete toll is unknown, as many families have been forced to bury their dead in makeshift graves.
According to the UN, the rehabilitation of the capital’s essential infrastructure would cost some $350m.
In recent months, the government has held some cabinet meetings in Khartoum and launched reconstruction efforts.
The city has witnessed relative calm, though the RSF has carried out drone strikes, particularly on infrastructure.
Battles rage elsewhere across the vast country.
South of Khartoum, the RSF has pushed through the Kordofan region, after dislodging the army from its last stronghold in Darfur last year.
Sudan’s army on Friday said that it inflicted heavy losses on the RSF during a series of air and ground operations carried out over the past week in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.
In a statement, the military said its forces conducted strikes against RSF positions, destroying about 240 combat vehicles and killing hundreds of fighters.
It added that ground forces had succeeded in pushing RSF fighters out of wide areas in both Darfur and Kordofan, and that operations were ongoing to pursue remaining elements.
The RSF did not immediately comment on the army’s statement, and the information shared by the army could not be independently verified.
The conflict has left 11 million people displaced internally and across borders, and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.
Recently, the UN described el-Fasher in North Darfur as a “crime scene” after gaining access to the largely deserted city for the first time since its takeover, marked by mass atrocities by the RSF in October.
International aid staff visited el-Fasher following weeks of negotiations, finding few people remaining in what was once a densely populated city with a large displaced population.
More than 100,000 residents fled el-Fasher for their lives after the RSF seized control on October 26 following an 18-month siege, with survivors reporting ethnically motivated mass killings and widespread detentions.
SAF soldiers have also been accused of committing atrocities during the brutal war.
A few months into President Trump’s second term, federal appeals court Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III — a conservative appointee of President Reagan — issued a scathing opinion denouncing what he found to be the Trump administration’s unlawful removal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to his native El Salvador, despite a previous court order barring it.
“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done,” Wilkinson wrote. “This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
Two months later, U.S. District Judge William G. Young, also a Reagan appointee, ripped into the Trump administration from the bench for its unprecedented decision to terminate hundreds of National Institutes of Health grants based on their perceived nexus to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Young ruled the cuts were “arbitrary and capricious” and therefore illegal. But he also said there was a “darker aspect” to the case that he had an “unflinching obligation” to call out — that the administration’s actions amounted to “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community.”
“I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this,” Young said, explaining a decision the Supreme Court later reversed. “Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?”
In the year since an aggrieved and combative Trump returned to the White House, his administration has strained the American legal system by testing and rejecting laws and other long-standing policies and defending those actions by arguing the president has a broad scope of authority under the U.S. Constitution.
Administration officials and Justice Department attorneys have argued that the executive branch is essentially the president’s to bend to his will. They have argued its employees are his to fire, its funds his to spend and its enforcement powers — to retaliate against his enemies, blast alleged drug-runners out of international waters or detain anyone agents believe looks, sounds and labors like a foreigner — all but unrestrained.
The approach has repeatedly been met by frustrated federal judges issuing repudiations of the administration’s actions, but also grave warnings about a broader threat they see to American jurisprudence and democracy.
When questioning administration attorneys in court, in stern written rulings at the district and appellate levels and in blistering dissents at the Supreme Court — which has often backed the administration, particularly with temporary orders on its emergency docket — federal judges have used remarkably strong language to call out what they see as a startling disregard for the rule of law.
Legal critics, including more than a hundred former federal and state judges, have decried Trump’s attacks on individual judges and law firms, “deeply inappropriate” nominations to the bench, “unlawful” appointments of unconfirmed and inexperienced U.S. attorneys and targeting of his political opponents for prosecution based on weak allegations of years-old mortgage fraud.
In response, Trump and his supporters have articulated their own concerns with the legal system, accusing judges of siding with progressive groups to cement a liberal federal agenda despite the nation voting Trump back into office. Trump has labeled judges “lunatics” and called for at least one’s impeachment, which drew a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
After District Judge Brian E. Murphy temporarily blocked the administration from deporting eight men to South Sudan — a nation to which they had no connection, and which has a record of human rights abuses — Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer, the administration’s top litigator, called the order “a lawless act of defiance” that ignored a recent Supreme Court ruling.
After District Judge James E. Boasberg began pursuing a criminal contempt investigation into the actions of senior administration officials who continued flights deporting Venezuelan nationals to a notorious Salvadoran prison despite Boasberg having previously ordered the planes turned back to the U.S., government attorneys said it portended a “circus” that threatened the separation of powers.
While more measured than the nation’s coarse political rhetoric, the legal exchanges have nonetheless been stunning by judicial standards — a sign of boiling anger among judges, rising indignation among administration officials and a wide gulf between them as to the limits of their respective legal powers.
“These judges, these Democrat activist judges, are the ones who are 100% at fault,” said Mike Davis, a prominent Republican lawyer and Trump ally who advocates for sweeping executive authority. “They are taking the country to the cliff.”
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg began pursuing a criminal contempt investigation into the actions of senior administration officials who continued flights deporting Venezuelan nationals to a notorious Salvadoran prison.
(Valerie Plesch / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The judges “see — and have articulated — an unprecedented threat to democracy,” said UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “They really are sounding the alarm.”
“What the American people should be deeply concerned about is the rampant increase in judicial activism from radical left-wing judges,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson. “If this trend continues it threatens to undermine the rule-of-law for all future presidencies.”
“Regardless of which side you’re on on these issues, the lasting impact is that people mistrust the courts and, quite frankly, do not understand the role that a strong, independent judiciary plays in the rule of law, in our democracy and in our economy,” said John A. Day, president of the American College of Trial Lawyers. “That is very, very troubling to anybody who looks at this with a shred of objectivity.”
Last month, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced his office’s 50th lawsuit against the Trump administration — an average of about one lawsuit per week since Trump’s inauguration.
The litigation has challenged a range of Trump administration policies, including his executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of many immigrants; his unilateral imposition of stiff tariffs around the world; the administration’s attempt to slash trillions of dollars in federal funding from states, and its deployment of National Guard troops to American cities.
The battles have produced some of the year’s most eye-popping legal exchanges.
In June, Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled against the Trump administration’s decision to federalize and deploy California National Guard troops in Los Angeles, after days of protest over immigration enforcement.
An attorney for the administration had argued that federal law gave Trump such authority in instances of domestic “rebellion” or when the president is unable to execute the nation’s laws with regular forces, and said the court had no authority to question Trump’s decisions.
But Breyer wasn’t buying it, ruling Trump’s authority was “of course limited.”
“I mean, that’s the difference between a constitutional government and King George,” he said from the bench. “This country was founded in response to a monarchy. And the Constitution is a document of limitations — frequent limitations — and enunciation of rights.”
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled against the Trump administration’s decision to federalize and deploy California National Guard troops to Los Angeles.
(Santiago Mejia / San Francisco Chronicle)
Francesca Gessner, Bonta’s acting chief deputy, said she took Breyer’s remarks as his way of telling Trump and his administration that “we don’t have kings in America” — which she said was “really remarkable to watch” in an American courtroom.
“I remember just sitting there thinking, wow, he’s right,” Gessner said.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently paused Breyer’s order, allowing the troops to remain in Trump’s control.
In early October, U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut barred the deployment of Oregon National Guard troops to Portland, finding that the conditions on the ground didn’t warrant such militarization. The next day, both Oregon and California asked her to expand that ruling to include California National Guard troops, after the Trump administration sent them to Portland in lieu of Oregon’s troops.
Before issuing a second restraining order barring deployments of any National Guard troops in Oregon, a frustrated Immergut laid into the Justice Department attorney defending the administration. “You’re an officer of the court,” she said. “Aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order, which relies on the conditions in Portland?”
More recently, the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration in a similar case out of Chicago, finding the administration lacked any legal justification for Guard deployments there. Trump subsequently announced he was pulling troops out of Chicago, Los Angeles and other Democratic-led cities, with California and other states that had resisted claiming a major victory.
Bonta said he’s been pleased to see judges pushing back against the president’s power grabs, including by using sharp language that makes their alarm clear.
U.S. District Court Judge Karin J. Immergut, shown at her 2018 confirmation hearing, barred the deployment of Oregon National Guard troops to Portland.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)
“Generally, courts and judges are tempered and restrained,” Bonta said. “The statements that you’re seeing from them are carefully chosen to be commensurate with the extreme nature of the moment — the actions of the Trump administration that are so unlawful.”
Jackson, the White House spokesperson, and other Trump administration officials defended their actions to The Times, including by citing wins before the Supreme Court.
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said the Justice Department “has spent the past year righting the wrongs of the previous administration” and “working tirelessly to successfully advance President Trump’s agenda and keep Americans safe.”
Sauer said it has won rulings “on key priorities of this administration, including stopping nationwide injunctions from lower courts, defending ICE’s ability to carry out law enforcement duties, and removing dangerous illegal aliens from our country,” and that those decisions “respect the role” of the courts, Trump’s “constitutional authority” and the “rule of law.”
Just after taking office, Trump said he was ending birthright citizenship. California and others sued, and several lower court judges blocked the order with nationwide or “universal” injunctions — with one calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”
In response, the Trump administration filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court challenging the ability of district court judges to issue such sweeping injunctions. In June, the high court largely sided with the administration, ruling 6 to 3 that many such injunctions likely exceed the lower courts’ authority.
Trump’s policy remains on hold based on other litigation. But the case laid bare a stark divide on the high court.
In her opinion for the conservative majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that universal injunctions were not used in early English and U.S. history, and that while the president has a “duty to follow the law,” the judiciary “does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation.”
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett accused Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson of pursuing a “startling line of attack” that unconstitutionally aggrandized the powers of judges at the expense of the president.
(Mario Tama / Getty Images)
In a dissent joined by fellow Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that enforcement of Trump’s order against even a single U.S.-born child would be an “assault on our constitutional order,” and that Barrett’s opinion was “not just egregiously wrong, it is also a travesty of law.”
Jackson, in her own dissent, wrote that the majority opinion created “a zone of lawlessness within which the Executive has the prerogative to take or leave the law as it wishes, and where individuals who would otherwise be entitled to the law’s protection become subject to the Executive’s whims instead.”
As a result, the president’s allies will fare well, the “wealthy and the well connected” will be able to hire lawyers and go to court to defend their rights, and the poor will have no such relief, Jackson wrote — creating a tiered system of justice “eerily echoing history’s horrors.”
In a footnote, she cited “The Dual State” by Jewish lawyer and writer Ernst Fraenkel, about Adolf Hitler creating a similar system in Germany.
Barrett accused Jackson of pursuing a “startling line of attack” that unconstitutionally aggrandized the powers of judges at the expense of the executive. “Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”
Jackson questioned why the majority saw a “power grab” by the courts instead of by “a presumably lawless Executive choosing to act in a manner that flouts the plain text of the Constitution.”
Legal observers across the political spectrum said they see danger in the tumult.
“I never have been so afraid, or imagined being so afraid, for the future of democracy as I am right now,” Chemerinsky said.
He said Trump is “continually violating the Constitution and laws” in unprecedented ways to increase his own power and diminish the power of the other branches of government, and neither Republicans in Congress nor Trump’s cabinet are doing anything to stop him.
While the Supreme Court has also showed great deference to Trump, Chemerinsky said he is hoping it will begin reaffirming legal boundaries for him.
“Is the court just going to be a rubber stamp for Trump, or, at least in some areas, is it going to be a check?” he said.
Davis said Trump has faced “unprecedented, unrelenting lawfare from his Democrat opponents” for years, but now has “a broad electoral mandate to lead” and must be allowed to exercise his powers under Article II of the Constitution.
“These Democrat activist judges need to get the hell out of his way, because if they don’t, the federal judiciary is gonna lose its legitimacy,” Davis said. “And once it loses its legitimacy, it loses everything.”
Bonta said the Constitution is being “stress tested,” but he thinks it’s been “a good year for the rule of law” overall, thanks to lower court judges standing up to the administration’s excesses. “They have courage. They are doing their job.”
Day, of the American College of Trial Lawyers, said Trump “believes he is putting the country on the right path” and wants judges to get out of his way, while many Democrats feel “we’re going entirely in the wrong direction and that the Supreme Court is against them and bowing to the wishes of the executive.”
His advice to both, he said, is to keep faith in the nation’s legal system — which “is not very efficient, but was designed to work in the long run.”
Polls have opened in 100 townships across the country, with the military claiming 52 percent turnout in the first round.
Myanmar has resumed voting in the second phase of the three-part general elections amid a raging civil war and allegations the polls are designed to legitimise military rule.
Polling stations opened at 6am local time on Sunday (23:30 GMT on Saturday) across 100 townships in parts of Sagaing, Magway, Mandalay, Bago and Tanintharyi regions, as well as Mon, Shan, Kachin, Kayah and Kayin states.
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Many of those areas have seen clashes in recent months or remain under heightened security.
Myanmar has been ravaged by conflict since the military ousted a civilian government in a 2021 coup and arrested its leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, leading to a civil war that has engulfed large parts of the impoverished nation of 51 million people.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, which swept the last election in 2020, has been dissolved along with dozens of other antimilitary parties for failing to register for the latest polls.
The election is taking place in three phases because of the ongoing conflict. The first phase unfolded on December 28 in 102 of the country’s 330 townships, while a third round is scheduled for January 25.
Some 65 townships will not participate due to ongoing clashes.
The military claimed a 52 percent voter turnout after the December 28 vote, while the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which analysts say is a civilian proxy for the military, said it won more than 80 percent of seats contested in the lower house of the legislature.
“The USDP is on track for a landslide victory, which is hardly a surprise given the extent to which the playing field was tilted in its favour. This included the removal of any serious rivals and a set of laws designed to stifle opposition to the polls,” said Richard Horsey, senior Myanmar adviser for Crisis Group.
Myanmar has a two-house national legislature, totalling 664 seats. The party with a combined parliamentary majority can select the new president, who can pick a cabinet and form a new government. The military automatically receives 25 percent of seats in each house under the constitution.
On Sunday morning, people in Yangon, the country’s largest city, cast their ballots at schools, government offices and religious buildings, including in Aung San Suu Kyi’s former constituency of Kawhmu, located roughly 25km (16 miles) south of the city.
As she exited her polling station, 54-year-old farmer Than Than Sint told the AFP news agency she voted because she wants peace in Myanmar, even though she knows it will come slowly given the fractured country’s “problems”.
Still, “I think things will be better after the election”, she said.
Others were less enthusiastic. A 50-year-old resident of Yangon, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said, “The results lie only in the mouth of the military.”
“People have very little interest in this election,” the person added. “This election has absolutely nothing to do with escaping this suffering.”
The United Nations and human rights groups have called the elections a “sham” that attempt to sanitise the military’s image.
Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said earlier this week that the election was “not a free, fair, nor legitimate election” by “all measures”.
“It is a theatrical performance that has exerted enormous pressure on the people of Myanmar to participate in what has been designed to dupe the international community,” Andrews said.
Laws enacted by the military ahead of the vote have made protest or criticism of the elections punishable by up to 10 years in prison. More than 200 people currently face charges under the measure, the UN said, citing state media.
Separately, at least 22,000 people are currently being detained in Myanmar for political offences, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
The Syrian government says its forces have reasserted control over violence-hit neighbourhoods in Aleppo after dozens of fighters with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) laid down their arms after days of intense fighting.
Syria’s Ministry of Interior spokesman, Nour al-Din al-Baba, said on Saturday that government forces had taken near-complete control of Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh areas, adding that operations were nearing their “final moments”.
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“The Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood has almost been completely captured,” al-Baba told the Syrian News Channel.
Fighting flared up on Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Ashrafieh and Bani Zaid after Syrian forces and the SDF failed to implement a March 2025 agreement to reintegrate the Kurdish forces into state institutions.
Tensions spiked after the deadline for the deal passed at the end of last year, with the Kurdish fighters refusing to leave areas of Aleppo that have been under SDF control since the early days of the Syrian war, which erupted in 2011.
On Saturday, dozens of fighters surrendered and were taken on buses to SDF-controlled areas in the country’s northeast, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas reported from Aleppo.
“Compared with what we have seen over the last three days, it is quiet in Aleppo,” he said.
Calm was restored after a brief escalation earlier in the day, which saw a drone attack believed to have been launched by the SDF hit a governorate building during a news conference attended by several high-ranking Syrian officials.
Serdar Atas said Governor Azzam al-Gharib had been delivering a news briefing on the latest developments when the blast took place, blackening the upper floors of the building.
The SDF denied the reports, saying its fighters did not attack a civilian target.
In a statement carried by the SANA state news agency, Syria’s army said the Kurdish-led force fired more than 10 drones in Aleppo, causing numerous injuries and extensive property damage. It accused the group of using Iranian-made drones.
Serdar Atas said that Syrian forces were sweeping the city’s neighbourhoods for explosives and mines.
“However, the government says there are still some SDF factions that are fighting back and refusing to lay down their arms and surrender,” he said.
The clashes in Aleppo – which the city’s Health Directorate said have killed 23 people, including civilians, and wounded 104 others – have marked the fiercest fighting since longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s fall in December 2024.
They have also underscored the major challenges facing Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has pledged to unite the country following al-Assad’s removal.
Steven Heydemann, a professor of Middle East studies at Smith College in the United States, told Al Jazeera that the presence of SDF forces in Aleppo neighbourhoods had been a “source of friction” with the central government in Damascus.
Since the March 2025 integration deal was signed, Kurdish leaders have expressed concerns over security guarantees and political representation, while Damascus has pushed to reassert control over all remaining autonomous areas.
“Aleppo is Syria’s largest city, the linchpin of northwestern Syria’s commercial, political and industrial life,” Heydemann told Al Jazeera.
“So to have enclaves in Aleppo outside the control of the central government was always going to be very difficult for the government to swallow.”
On Friday, the Syrian Ministry of Defence gave Kurdish fighters a six-hour window to withdraw from Aleppo to their semi-autonomous region in the northeast of the country as part of a ceasefire.
But Kurdish councils that run the city’s Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh districts rejected any “surrender”.
Government forces then entered Sheikh Maqsoud on Saturday and carried out sweeps of the neighbourhood, confiscating weapons and detaining or disarming SDF fighters, according to Syrian officials.
Nearly 180,000 people have been displaced from the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh areas due to this week’s fighting, with authorities warning them not to return due to ongoing operations and the risk posed by unexploded ordnance.
Meanwhile, both sides have continued to trade accusations of attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Tom Barrack, the US special envoy for Syria, on Saturday urged “all parties to exercise maximum restraint, immediately cease hostilities, and return to dialogue” after a meeting with al-Sharaa and Minister of Foreign Affairs Asaad al-Shaibani.
Barrack added that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s team was ready to facilitate engagement between the two sides to advance the integration process.
Reporting from Damascus, Al Jazeera’s Ayman Oghanna said that Washington can “do the most” to boost talks between the Syrian government and the SDF.
“The US has enjoyed a strong relationship with the SDF for over a decade. The US helped build up and train the SDF, it fought alongside the SDF, and 1,000 US troops remain in SDF territory, where they work closely together in the effort to eradicate ISIL (ISIS) from Syria,” Oghanna said.
“But the US has also recently strengthened its ties with Damascus,” he added.
The United Nations also voiced alarm over the fighting, warning of the humanitarian consequences and calling on all sides to respect international law and ensure civilian protection.
These are the key developments from day 1,417 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published On 11 Jan 202611 Jan 2026
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Here is where things stand on Sunday, January 11:
Jan. 9 (UPI) — Pope Leo XIV warned that “war is back in vogue” in his State of the World address Friday to ambassadors who are accredited to the Holy See.
The annual meeting is one of the most significant events in the Vatican’s yearly calendar and helps to define its diplomatic positions for the year, according to Vatican News.
The pope took the moment to reference the United States’ recent capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
“The principle established after the Second World War, which prohibited nations from using force to violate the borders of others, has been completely undermined,” he said.
“I renew my appeal to respect the will of the Venezuelan people, and to safeguard the human and civil rights of all, ensuring the stability and concord,” the pope added.
He called for an “immediate cease-fire” in Ukraine and expressed his support for a two-state solution to bring peace to the Middle East, while giving Palestinians a “future of lasting peace and justice in their own land.”
Pope Leo lamented what he called a decline in multilateralism and global cooperation, leading to peace instead of armed conflict.
“They do not, therefore, wish to have peace, but only the peace that they desire,” he said.
He said such a global mentality led to two world wars during the 20th century, but eventually produced the United Nations, which the pope said is tasked with “safeguarding peace, defending fundamental human rights and promoting sustainable development.”
Among other topics mentioned were a rising risk of nuclear war and the emergence of artificial intelligence.
He urged a renewed effort to control the proliferation of nuclear arms as the New START Treaty is scheduled to expire in February amid efforts by North Korea and Iran to join the ranks of nuclear powers and Russia’s repeated threats to use nuclear arms against Ukraine and others if compelled to do so.
Meanwhile, the emergence of AI “requires appropriate and ethical management” to ensure it is used to better the world and its societies and does not cause harm, Pope Leo said.
He also addressed matters involving migration, human trafficking and crime and cautioned against “undermining the dignity of migrants and refugees.”
Then he addressed the need for greater communication to help people of differing backgrounds to more effectively communicate and establish meaningful connections, rather than remaining divided by language and using it to cause harm instead of doing good in the world.
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas recounts scenes from Aleppo amid escalating clashes between the Syrian army and SDF forces.
I arrived in Aleppo early on Wednesday morning after receiving reports of serious clashes between the Syrian army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). What I encountered was far worse than I expected.
Heavy artillery shelling was constant, extreme. My team came under attack four times; one bullet hit our equipment.
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This round of clashes, we quickly understood, would not be easily contained like earlier bouts over the past year.
The root of the conflict is the government’s demand for the SDF, which has tens of thousands of troops, to integrate into state institutions, as per an agreement reached between the two sides last March. But there are numerous disputes over how that should happen, including the number of SDF troops that will join the army.
Fighting has centred in heavily populated parts of Aleppo, specifically the districts of Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud. In total, these areas have about 400,000 inhabitants. Within 24 hours of fighting erupting, 160,000 fled their homes. It was like an exodus.
On Thursday, when the fighting peaked, people struggled to make their way through the streets without being caught in the crossfire. Children screamed and cried in panic. Families held each other’s hands and clothes in order to not lose track of each other.
One elderly man said he had seen enough after nearly 15 years of civil strife: “May God take my soul so I can rest,” he said.
An elderly woman, barely able to walk, fell to the ground amid the crowd and several people trampled over her. I saw her son break into tears as he tried to pull her from the ground.
The last time I saw scenes like this was in 2014, when ISIL (ISIS) attacked Syria’s Kurdish-majority town of Kobane. There was an overwhelming sense of despair, helplessness, and a feeling that everything was ending.
On Friday, the warring parties agreed to a morning ceasefire and the SDF leadership agreed its fighters would lay down their heavy weapons and leave the area. However, when buses arrived to take them, more fighting broke out. When the buses came back later, the same thing happened. Our sources told us this was due to divisions within the SDF, with more radical factions resisting the calls to lay down their arms.
The back and forth ended with the Syrian government setting a deadline of 6pm (15:00 GMT) on Friday for remaining civilians to flee, after which it would restart military operations against SDF targets. Heavy fighting has since resumed in Sheikh Maqsoud.
The government, careful to avoid the perception of demographic engineering, has said that once it clears the area of SDF fighters, everyone will be able to come home. It has stressed that this is not a fight between Arabs and Kurds, but between government forces and a non-state force.
Meanwhile, people from Aleppo are sitting between hope and fear. On the one hand, they hope an agreement is finally reached between the SDF and Syrian army so they can return to their homes. But on the other hand, after 15 years of civil war, they fear that history could be repeating itself.
These are the key developments from day 1,416 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published On 10 Jan 202610 Jan 2026
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Here is where things stand on Saturday, January 10:
The Syrian army is locked in intense fighting in Aleppo after Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters refused to withdraw under a ceasefire, as more civilians fled their homes to escape the violence in the northern Syrian city.
Aleppo’s emergency chief Mohammed al-Rajab told Al Jazeera Arabic that 162,000 people have fled fighting in the city’s Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhoods.
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A Syrian military source has told Al Jazeera Arabic that the army is “making progress” in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood, the epicentre of the most intense fighting, and now controls 55 percent of the area.
Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said that the military had arrested several members of the SDF in its latest operations in Sheikh Maqsoud, which the army announced on Friday evening after a deadline for Kurdish fighters to evacuate the area, imposed as part of its temporary ceasefire, expired.
Syria’s Ministry of Defence had declared the ceasefire earlier on Friday, following three days of clashes that erupted after the central government and the SDF failed to implement a deal to fold the latter into the state apparatus.
After some of the fiercest fighting seen since last year’s toppling of Syria’s former leader Bashar al-Assad, Damascus presented Kurdish fighters a six-hour window to withdraw to their semi-autonomous region in the northeast of the country in a bid to end their longstanding control over parts of Aleppo.
But Kurdish councils that run the city’s Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh districts rejected any “surrender” and pledged to defend areas that they have run since the early days of the Syria’s war, which erupted in 2011.
Syria’s army then warned it would renew strikes on Sheikh Maqsoud and urged residents to evacuate through a humanitarian corridor, publishing five maps highlighting targets, with strikes beginning roughly two hours later.
As violence flared, the SDF posted footage on X showing what it said was the aftermath of artillery and drone attacks on Khaled Fajr Hospital in Sheikh Maqsoud, accusing “factions and militias affiliated with the Damascus government” of “a clear war crime”.
A Defence Ministry statement cited by the state-run news agency SANA said the hospital was a weapons depot.
In another post on X, the SDF said that government militias were attempting to advance on the neighbourhood with tanks, encountering “fierce and ongoing resistance by our forces”.
Later, the Syrian army said three of its soldiers had been killed and 12 injured in SDF attacks on its positions in Aleppo.
It also claimed that Kurdish fighters in the neighbourhood had killed more than 10 Kurdish youths who refused to take up arms with them, then burned their bodies to intimidate other residents.
The SDF said on X that the claims were part of the Syrian government’s “policy of lies and disinformation”.
At least 22 people have been killed and 173 others wounded in Aleppo since the fighting broke out on Tuesday, the worst violence in the city since Syria’s new authorities took power after toppling Bashar al-Assad a year ago.
The director of Syria’s civil defence told state media that 159,000 people had been displaced by fighting in Aleppo.
The violence in Aleppo has brought into focus one of the main faultlines in Syria, with powerful Kurdish forces that control swaths of Syria’s oil-rich northeast resisting integration efforts by Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government.
The agreement between the SDF and Damascus was struck in March last year, with the former supposed to integrate with the Syrian Defence Ministry by the end of 2025, but Syrian authorities say there has been little progress since.
Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh have remained under the control of Kurdish units linked to the SDF, despite the group’s assertion that it withdrew its fighters from Aleppo last year, leaving Kurdish neighbourhoods in the hands of the Kurdish Asayish police.
Marwan Bishara, senior political analyst with Al Jazeera, said there were significant gaps between the two sides, particularly when it came to integrating the Kurdish fighters into the army as individuals or groups.
“What would you do with the thousands of female fighters that are now part and parcel, of the Kurdish forces? Would they join the Syrian army? How would that work out?” said Bishara.
“The Kurdish are sceptical of the army and how it is formed in Damascus, and of the central government and its intentions. While … the central government is, of course, wary of and sceptical that the Kurds want to join as Syrians in a strong united country,” he added.
In the midst of the clashes, Syria’s President al-Sharaa spoke by phone with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying he was determined to “end the illegal armed presence” in Aleppo, according to a Syrian presidency statement.
Turkiye, which shares a 900-kilometre (550-mile) border with Syria, views the SDF as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which waged a four-decade armed struggle against the Turkish state, and has warned of military action if the integration agreement is not honoured.
Turkiye’s Defence Minister Yasar Guler welcomed the Syrian government operation, saying that “we view Syria’s security as our own security and … we support Syria’s fight against terrorist organisations”.
Omer Ozkizilcik, nonresident senior fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council, told Al Jazeera that Turkiye had been intending to launch an operation against SDF forces in Syria months ago, but had refrained at the request of the Syrian government.
Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration in Syria’s northeast, accused Syria’s authorities of “choosing the path of war” by attacking Kurdish districts in Aleppo and of trying to end deals between the two sides.
Al-Sharaa spoke with Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani on Friday, affirming that the Kurds were “a fundamental part of the Syrian national fabric”, the Syrian presidency said.
The former al-Qaeda commander has repeatedly pledged to protect minorities, but government-aligned fighters have killed hundreds of Alawites and Druze over the last year, spreading alarm in minority communities.
A spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed “grave concern” over the ongoing violence in Aleppo, despite efforts to de-escalate the situation.
“We call on all parties in Syria to show flexibility and return to negotiations to ensure the full implementation of the March 10 agreement,” said Stephane Dujarric.
France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was working with the United States, which has long been a key backer of the SDF, particularly during its fight to oust ISIL (ISIS) from Syria, to de-escalate.
French President Emmanuel Macron urged al-Sharaa on Thursday to “exercise restraint”, reiterating his country’s desire to see “a united Syria where all segments of Syrian society are represented and protected”.
VATICAN CITY — In his most substantial critique of U.S., Russian and other military incursions in sovereign countries, Pope Leo XIV on Friday denounced how nations were using force to assert their dominion worldwide, “completely undermining” peace and the post-World War II international legal order.
“War is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading,” Leo told ambassadors from around the world who represent their countries’ interests at the Holy See.
Leo didn’t name individual countries that have resorted to force in his lengthy speech, the bulk of which he delivered in English in a break from the Vatican’s traditional diplomatic protocol of Italian and French. But his speech came amid the backdrop of the recent U.S. military operation in Venezuela to remove Nicolás Maduro from power, Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and other conflicts.
The occasion was the pope’s annual audience with the Vatican diplomatic corps, which traditionally amounts to his yearly foreign policy address.
In his first such encounter, history’s first U.S.-born pope delivered much more than the traditional roundup of global hotspots. In a speech that touched on threats to religious freedom and the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion and surrogacy, Leo lamented how the United Nations and multilateralism as a whole were increasingly under threat.
“A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies,” he said. “The principle established after the Second World War, which prohibited nations from using force to violate the borders of others, has been completely undermined.”
“Instead, peace is sought through weapons as a condition for asserting one’s own dominion. This gravely threatens the rule of law, which is the foundation of all peaceful civil coexistence,” he said.
Leo did refer explicitly to tensions in Venezuela, calling for a peaceful political solution that keeps in mind the “common good of the peoples and not the defense of partisan interests.”
The U.S. military seized Maduro, the Venezuelan leader, in a surprise nighttime raid. The Trump administration is now seeking to control Venezuela’s oil resources and its government. The U.S. government has insisted Maduro’s capture was legal, saying drug cartels operating from Venezuela amounted to unlawful combatants and that the U.S. is now in an “armed conflict” with them.
Analysts and some world leaders have condemned the Venezuela mission, warning that Maduro’s ouster could pave the way for more military interventions and a further erosion of the global legal order.
On Ukraine, Leo repeated his appeal for an immediate ceasefire and urgently called for the international community “not to waver in its commitment to pursuing just and lasting solutions that will protect the most vulnerable and restore hope to the afflicted peoples.”
On Gaza, Leo repeated the Holy See’s call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and insisted on the Palestinians’ right to live in Gaza and the West Bank “in their own land.”
In other comments, Leo said the persecution of Christians around the world was “one of the most widespread human rights crises today,” affecting one in seven Christians globally. He cited religiously motivated violence in Bangladesh, Nigeria, the Sahel, Mozambique and Syria but said religious discrimination was also present in Europe and the Americas.
There, Christians “are sometimes restricted in their ability to proclaim the truths of the Gospel for political or ideological reasons, especially when they defend the dignity of the weakest, the unborn, refugees and migrants, or promote the family.”
Leo repeated the church’s opposition to abortion and euthanasia and expressed “deep concern” about projects to provide cross-border access to mothers seeking abortion.
He also described surrogacy as a threat to life and dignity. “By transforming gestation into a negotiable service, this violates the dignity both of the child, who is reduced to a product, and of the mother, exploiting her body and the generative process, and distorting the original relational calling of the family,” he said.
Winfield writes for the Associated Press.
As a ceasefire between the Syrian army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces collapses, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric reminded all parties that they’re bound by international humanitarian law to protect civilians.
Published On 9 Jan 20269 Jan 2026
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Fierce fighting and global funding cuts have pushed more than 33 million people towards starvation.
Millions of people in Sudan are in urgent need of humanitarian help, aid organisations have warned, as the war in the east African state marked its 1,000th day.
Fierce fighting and global funding cuts have pushed more than 33 million people towards starvation in what has become one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, nongovernmental organisations said on Friday as the grim anniversary passed.
Warning that Sudan’s hunger crisis is reaching unprecedented levels, the groups called on global governments to raise efforts to end the war between the country’s military rulers and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which began in April 2023.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, while the RSF has been implicated in atrocities in Darfur that the United Nations says may amount to genocide.
The paramilitary group’s recent resurgence in the vast states of Darfur and Kordofan has forced the displacement of millions more people.
A new UN assessment in North Darfur shows more than half of young children are malnourished – one of the highest rates ever recorded worldwide, said Islamic Relief in a statement.
“More than 45% of people across Sudan – over 21 million people – are suffering acute food shortages and a recent Islamic Relief assessment in Gedaref and Darfur found 83% of families don’t have enough food,” the statement reads.
Separately, a coalition of 13 aid agencies called on the British government, as the UN Security Council penholder, to push for increased funding for the humanitarian response and to drive action to end the fighting.
In a statement, they warned that the world’s largest food crisis has left more than 21 million people facing acute food shortages, noting that millions of displaced people have been forced into unsafe, overcrowded settlements, rife with hunger and disease outbreaks, and gender-based violence.
“The conflict has driven the collapse of livelihoods and services, with an estimated 70 to 80 percent of hospitals and health facilities affected and non-operational, leaving roughly 65 percent of the population without access to healthcare,” the statement said.
“This war cannot be allowed to go on any longer. For 1,000 days we’ve seen our country ripped apart and civilians attacked, starved and forced from their land,” said Elsadig Elnour, Islamic Relief’s senior programme manager in Sudan.
Yet with the Trump administration in the United States having led huge cuts in humanitarian funding, aid for Sudan is forced to compete with other conflict-plagued locations such as Gaza, Ukraine and Myanmar for an ever smaller pot.
The UN said last month, as it launched its 2026 appeal for aid funding, that it faced “brutal choices”. Due to a plunge in donor funding, it said it was being forced to ask for just $23bn, about half the amount it needs, despite humanitarian needs globally being at an all-time high.
“Sharp cuts in foreign assistance have further weakened humanitarian operations, stripping funding from essential programmes, meaning people won’t have enough to eat and feed their families, have access to basic healthcare, clean water and sanitation, or a safe place to live, with a heightened risk of gender-based violence,” the statement issued by the 13 aid agencies warns.
“Sudan cannot be allowed to fade into another forgotten crisis, worse, a neglected one. The scale of suffering is immense, and we have witnessed the exhaustion and fear etched into the faces of people arriving in search of food, shelter and safety,” said Samy Guissabi, country director for Action Against Hunger in Sudan.
Al Jazeera witnessed injured civilians arriving at an Aleppo hospital as intense artillery fire streaked across the sky and ricocheted off buildings. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Syrian army have been engaged in increasingly intense fighting after integration talks broke down.
Published On 8 Jan 20268 Jan 2026
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PARIS — Laurent Vinatier, a French political scholar serving a three-year sentence in Russia and facing new charges of espionage, has been freed in a prisoner swap with France, officials said Thursday.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on X that Vinatier is “free and back in France,” expressing “relief” and “gratitude” to diplomatic staff for their efforts to win his release.
In exchange, Russian basketball player Daniil Kasatkin, jailed in France and whose extradition was demanded by the United States, was released and returned to Russia on Thursday, Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, said in a statement.
Russian state news agency Tass released what it said was FSB footage showing Vinatier in a black track suit and winter jacket being informed about his release, to which he said “Thank you” in Russian, being driven in a car and boarding a plane after Kasatkin descended from it. It wasn’t immediately clear when the video was filmed.
Vinatier was arrested in Moscow in June 2024. Russian authorities accused him of failing to register as a “foreign agent” while collecting information about Russia’s “military and military-technical activities” that could be used to the detriment of national security. A court convicted him and sentenced him to a three-year prison term.
Last year, Vinatier was also charged with espionage, according to the FSB — a criminal offense punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison in Russia.
The scholar has been pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the security agency said.
France’s Foreign Ministry said that Vinatier was being welcomed at the Quai d’Orsay alongside his parents by Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.
The ministry said that Barrot informed ambassadors of Vinatier’s release “at the moment of the president’s tweet,” during a closed-door address. Barrot would post publicly “after his meeting with Laurent Vinatier and his family,” the ministry said.
Putin has promised to look into Vinatier’s case after a French journalist asked him during his annual news conference on Dec. 19 whether Vinatier’s family could hope for a presidential pardon or his release in a prisoner exchange. The Russian president said at the time that he knew “nothing” about it.
Several days later, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia had made “an offer to the French” about Vinatier.
Vinatier is an advisor for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Switzerland-based nongovernmental organization, which said in June 2024 that it was doing “everything possible to assist” him.
The charges that he was convicted on relate to a law that requires anyone collecting information on military issues to register with authorities as a foreign agent.
Human rights activists have criticized the law and other recent legislation as part of a Kremlin crackdown on independent media and political activists intended to stifle criticism of the war in Ukraine.
In recent years, Russia has arrested a number of foreigners — mainly Americans — on various criminal charges and then released them in prisoner swaps with the United States and other Western nations.
The largest exchange since the Cold War took place in August 2024, when Moscow freed journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, fellow American Paul Whelan, and Russian dissidents in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free.
Kasatkin, the Russian basketball player freed in Thursday’s swap, had been held since late June after his arrest at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport at the request of U.S. judicial authorities and was held in extradition custody at Fresnes prison while French courts reviewed the U.S. request.
Kasatkin’s lawyer, Frédéric Belot, told the Associated Press that the player had been detained last June at the request of the United States for alleged involvement in computer fraud. Belot said that Kasatkin was accused of having acted as a negotiator for a team of hackers. According to the lawyer, Kasatkin had purchased a second-hand computer that hadn’t been reset.
“We believe that this computer was used remotely by these hackers without his knowledge,” Belot said. “He is a basketball player and knows nothing about computer science. We consider him completely innocent.”
Belot, who represents both Vinatier and Kasatkin, added that the French researcher is “totally innocent of the espionage acts that were alleged against him.”
Corbet, Adamson and Petrequin write for the Associated Press.
The comments come as the Kremlin slammed a plan for France and the UK to send peacekeepers to Ukraine after a ceasefire.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said an agreement on a security guarantee from Washington is now “essentially ready” to be finalised by US President Donald Trump, following days of negotiations in Paris.
In a post on X on Thursday, Zelenskyy said the document – a cornerstone of any settlement to end the war, which would guarantee Washington and other Western allies would support Ukraine if Russia invaded again – was almost complete.
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“The bilateral document on security guarantees for Ukraine is now essentially ready for finalisation at the highest level with the president,” he said.
He said the talks in Paris, involving teams from the US and Europe, had addressed “complex issues” from the framework under discussion to end the nearly four-year war, with the Ukrainian delegation presenting possible solutions for these.
“We understand that the American side will engage with Russia, and we expect feedback on whether the aggressor is genuinely willing to end the war,” he said.
Washington, which on Tuesday endorsed the idea of providing security guarantees for Ukraine for the first time, is expected to present any agreement it reaches with Kyiv to Moscow, in its attempt to broker an end to the conflict.
Kyiv says legally-binding assurances that its allies would come to its defence are essential to deter Moscow from future aggression if a ceasefire is reached.
But specific details on the guarantees and how Ukraine’s allies would respond have not been made public.
Zelenskyy said earlier this week that he was yet to receive an “unequivocal” answer about what they would do if Russia did attack again.
Zelenskyy’s comments came as Russia rejected a plan that emerged from the Paris talks for European peacekeepers to be deployed to Ukraine as “militaristic”, warning they would be treated as “legitimate military targets”.
On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed a declaration of intent with Zelenskyy in Paris, setting out the framework for troops from their countries to be deployed to Ukraine after a ceasefire was reached with Russia.
But in Russia’s first comments in response to the plan, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova denounced the proposal as “dangerous” and “destructive”, dampening hopes the plan could prove a step in bringing the war to an end.
“The new militarist declarations of the so-called Coalition of the Willing and the Kyiv regime together form a genuine ‘axis of war’,” Zakharova said in a statement.
“All such units and facilities will be considered legitimate military targets for the Russian Armed Forces,” she said, repeating a threat previously made by Putin.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that it would not accept any NATO members sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine.
In his social media post, Zelenskyy also called for more pressure on Russia from Ukraine’s supporters, after further Russian missile attacks on energy infrastructure, which, he said, “clearly don’t indicate that Moscow is reconsidering its priorities”.
“In this context, it is necessary that pressure on Russia continues to increase at the same intensity as the work of our negotiating teams.”
The attacks left Ukrainian authorities scrambling to restore heating and water to hundreds of thousands of households in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions.
“This is truly a national level emergency,” Borys Filatov, mayor of Dnipropetrovsk’s capital Dnipro, said on Telegram.
He announced power was “gradually returning to the hospitals” after the blackouts forced them to run on generators. The city authorities also extended school holidays for children.
About 600,000 households in the region remained cut off from power in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukrainian energy company DTEK said.
Civilians were seen fleeing several northern Aleppo neighbourhoods en masse as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian military escalate their fighting after a breakdown in integration talks. Estimates vary widely, but some have placed the number of evacuees at more than 100,000.
Published On 8 Jan 20268 Jan 2026
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