The Dutch government made the move to help individual cases brought by victims’ relatives, the foreign minister said in a letter to Parliament.

A Chechen man shot near Vienna last weekend had spoken publicly of giving Austrian and Ukrainian authorities information about contract killings. He also said there was a price on his head.

Russia’s grievances against what it sees as American bullying and expansion into its own zones of influence have been stacking up for decades.

The International Monetary Fund agreed to lend Ukraine $5 billion over 18 months while stressing the importance of central bank independence. Three weeks later, the central banker quit, citing political pressure.

Environmentalists say illegal logging in the Carpathian Mountains is contributing to flooding. Rising waters forced the partial evacuation of a hospital treating Covid-19 patients.

Status-conscious fast-food joints across Eastern Europe have offered their diners disposable gloves for years. The idea may find a wider audience in the pandemic era.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine won an endorsement for his anti-corruption policies with the approval of a $5 billion lending program from the International Monetary Fund.

Eleven foreign couples, previously barred by coronavirus restrictions, have entered the country to meet their newborns. But births are still outpacing pickups.

The plan is a further blow to America’s weakening European alliances and likely to be welcomed by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

As she endured a difficult recovery from Covid-19, the grandmaster Irina Krush thrived in competition and found familiar support from others in the game.

US president says he may warn Russian counterpart ‘look, if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks’. What we know on day 1,328Donald Trump has threatened to send longe-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine if Vladimir Putin does not end his invasion. “I might talk to him [Putin]. I might say, ‘look, if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks,’” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to the Middle East. The US president said Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy had asked for Tomahawks in a call on Saturday when they were discussing a fresh supply of weapons for Kyiv. “Tomahawks are a new step of aggression,” added Trump. “Do they [Russian forces] want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so.” Trump has been mulling potential supplies of the long-range missiles to Kyiv via European allies ever since his meeting with Putin in Alaska in August failed to produce a peace deal. Putin has previously warned against supplying Kyiv with Tomahawks, saying it would be a major escalation and affect relations between Washington and Moscow. Trump said last week that he has “sort of made a decision” on whether to send ...

Fiona Benson was invited to Lviv’s BookForum by Ukrainian poet-soldier Artur Dron’. She recounts falling in love with the city and its thriving literary culture, before an air raid siren soundsI had been working on Exeter University’s Ukrainian Wartime Poetry project for two years when the invitation came to travel to the country’s largest literary festival. I didn’t exactly relish the prospect of a journey to a war zone, but I was assured that visiting BookForum in Lviv, a city so far west it’s practically in Poland, would be safe. I had been leading poetry workshops with exiles and editing translations of Ukrainian poetry, including soldier Artur Dron‘’s collection We Were Here, published last November. So, when Artur and his translator – the incredible poet Yuliya Musakovska – asked me and language professor Hugh Roberts to attend, I couldn’t say no.What I didn’t expect was to fall in love with the city: its gorgeous architecture, its cafes, its parks full of trees, and its writers. Lviv’s inspired, robust literary culture puts the UK’s own underfunded, last-gasp scene to shame. On the first night of the Forum, Hugh and I attended a nonstop music and poetry event in a nightclub at which both Artur ...

President, attending Gaza summit in Egypt, reiterates he will not step down as opponents lodge no-confidence motions in the government. This live blog is closed

National Assembly president Yaël Braun-Pivet has welcomed the appointment of Sébastien Lecornu’s new government, calling for calm and constructive debate as parliament prepares to convene.

“Our institutions are strong and now ready to work in the interests of the French people,” Braun-Pivet said on social media. “Posturing and political manoeuvring must give way to constructive discussion before the National Assembly. Let the parliamentary debate begin!”

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Bashneft oil refinery in Ufa is 1,400km from Ukrainian border; Zelenskyy says Trump can repeat Middle East peace success in Ukraine. What we know on day 1,327Ukrainian drones have struck Russia’s Bashneft oil refinery in Ufa, 1,400km from Ukraine, causing explosions and a fire, a source in Ukraine’s SBU security service told Reuters on Saturday. “This is the third SBU deep strike in Bashkortostan in the last month … Such strikes demonstrate that there are no safe places in the deep rear of the Russian Federation.”Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Donald Trump to broker peace in Ukraine “[like in] the Middle East” during a phone call on Saturday. “If a war can be stopped in one region, then surely other wars can be stopped as well, including the Russian war,” Zelenskyy said, hailing Trump’s “outstanding” Gaza ceasefire plan and calling for the US president to pressure the Kremlin into negotiations.Russian attacks on Ukraine killed at least five people on Saturday and cut power to parts of Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, according to Ukrainian officials. Two people died inside a church in Kostyantynivka when it was hit, according to local authorities. In Russia’s border region of Belgorod, a truck driver was ...

Ukrainian leader discussed request for Tomahawk cruise missiles in phone call with US president

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, urged Donald Trump to use the momentum of the Gaza ceasefire to broker peace in Ukraine, as the two leaders spoke by phone on Saturday.

Trump and Zelenskyy discussed Ukraine’s request for the US to allow the delivery of Tomahawk cruise missiles to bolster Kyiv’s ability to conduct long-range strikes inside Russia, among other issues, according to Axios.

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Along Donetsk’s frontline, a small counteroffensive by Ukrainian troops aims to help change perceptions about the war among Kyiv’s western allies

As Donald Trump prepared to meet Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August, Russia launched an offensive in eastern Ukraine. Small groups of soldiers pushed forward near Dobropillia and, meeting little resistance, they advanced 15 to 20 km and seized a chain of villages.

It is a small pocket of land, but one that has driven perceptions of the war in the last months. At the time of the Alaska summit, it was seen as proof that Russia had momentum; as Ukraine had taken back territory – albeit in the context of Russian advances elsewhere – it may have contributed to Trump’s dismissive assessment of Moscow’s military as a “paper tiger”.

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Zelenskyy says attacks targeted energy infrastructure as winter looms; boy killed as drones and missiles hit Zaporizhzhia. What we know on day 1,326Power was restored to 270,000 consumers in Kyiv after attacks from Russia knocked it out, Ukraine’s energy minister Svitlana Hrynchuk wrote on Facebook on Friday. People in Kyiv heard blasts throughout Thursday night and many woke up without power on Friday after the huge air attack targeted Ukraine’s energy system. Images posted online showed firefighters working to tackle burning blocks of flats. Hrynchuk did not say how many people had lost power. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the Russian strikes targeted civilian and energy infrastructure as Ukraine prepares for winter temperatures.Russian drones and missiles damaged 12 apartment buildings in the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing a seven-year-old boy and injuring four people, according to the regional governor. The Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said 12 people had been injured, with eight of them taken to hospital.Vladimir Putin rowed back his deputy foreign minister’s declaration that the “momentum” from the Alaska talks had been lost and that the “edifice of relations” between ...

The Gaza ceasefire deal, Russian strikes on Kyiv, protests in Madagascar and Paris fashion week: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

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First lady had pleaded for children in letter that Donald Trump delivered to Russian president at meeting in Alaska

Melania Trump said on Friday that eight Ukrainian children have been reunited with their families after ongoing talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

The US first lady in August wrote a letter to Putin and had her husband hand-deliver it during his meeting with the Russian president in Alaska.

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Exclusive: Leaked files offer a glimpse of the ex-prime minister’s relationship with Christopher Harborne

As he boarded the night train to Ukraine, Boris Johnson had the usual entourage of aides and bodyguards – plus the man who had given him £1m.

Less than a year had passed since Johnson accepted what is thought to be the largest donation ever to an individual MP. It was from Christopher Harborne, one of the UK’s biggest and most private political donors.

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At least 20 injured after hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles target energy infrastructure in Kyiv

A “massive” Russian drone and missile strike has wounded at least 20 people in Kyiv, plunging Ukraine’s capital into darkness early on Friday in what Volodomyr Zelenskyy condemned as a “cynical and calculated” attack.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said Russian forces had targeted “critical infrastructure”, and fragments from downed drones struck several parts of the city. Images posted online showed firefighters working to tackle burning blocks of flats.

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Power cuts were triggered in districts across Ukraine's capital by a 'massive attack' as Russia pummelled the city's infrastructure, cutting off water and energy supplies and triggering a fire in a high-rise apartment building. Nine people were injured. Kremlin forces also hit the south-eastern region of Zaporizhzhia with at least seven overnight drone strikes, killing a seven-year-old and wounding at least three people, according to Ivan Fedorov, the head of the regional military administration.

• ‘Massive’ Russian attack on Ukraine capital triggers blackouts and sets high-rise alight

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