Russia’s battlefield gains in Ukraine last year were the highest since 2022, an AFP analysis showed, as Kyiv was set to host security advisers from allied states on Saturday despite Moscow’s unrelenting strikes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said around 15 countries would attend the talks, along with representatives from the European Union and NATO, with a US delegation joining the meeting via video link.

The talks – and a subsequent summit of leaders from the so-called coalition of the willing planned for next week in France – are the latest in a flurry of efforts to end the nearly four-year war.

Zelensky said in a New Year’s Eve address that a US-brokered peace deal was “90 percent” ready, though the important issue of territory remains unresolved.

The diplomatic push comes as Russia presses its advantage against outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian troops on the battlefield.

The Russian army captured over 5,600 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory in 2025.

The Russian army captured more than 5,600 square kilometres, or nearly one percent, of Ukrainian territory in 2025, according to an analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which works with the Critical Threats Project.

This includes areas that Kyiv and military analysts say are controlled by Russia, as well as those claimed by Moscow’s army.

The land captured is more than in the previous two years combined, though far short of the more than 60,000 square kilometres Russia took in 2022, the first year of its all-out invasion.

Source: AFP

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, days before Russia holds talks on a US push to end the war in Ukraine.

Orban is seen as one of Putin’s closest allies in Europe and he has consistently angered his Nato and EU allies by undermining solidarity against Russia.

“We are aware of your balanced position on the situation in Ukraine,” Putin told Orban in remarks carried by Russian state TV.

Posting later on social media, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said the Hungarians had got what they came to Moscow for: guaranteed supplies of Russian oil and gas, and agreement to continue the construction of the Paks nuclear power station.

Reacting to news of Orban’s visit, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, the EU’s biggest member state, told reporters: “He is acting without a European mandate and he is doing so without consulting us but that is nothing new.”

Referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Merz said of Orban: “He has his own ideas about ending this war. So far, they have not been realised. If someone has a better idea than us, then that is very welcome. Unfortunately I just doubt that this time will be more successful than last time.”

Putin thanked the Hungarian prime minister for proposing Budapest as a potential venue for a Russia-US summit with President Donald Trump.

“Trump immediately said: ”We have good relations with Hungary, you have good relations with Viktor, and I do too, so I suggest this option.’ Of course, we happily agreed,” Putin said.

According to Reuters news agency, Orban told Putin that Hungary was “interested in peace” and added: “Our meetings today give me the opportunity to confirm, Mr President, that Hungary is ready to provide a platform for such negotiations.”

However, the atmosphere when the delegations met in Moscow appeared surprisingly frosty and at one point Orban inadvertently bumped into his Russian host, after shaking hands with other members of the Russian delegation.

One independent Hungarian media outlet also suggested that Putin’s words had been mistranslated into Hungarian, to sound more positive.

Plans for a Budapest “peace summit” were proposed last month but they were shelved, reportedly because the Russian side had refused to compromise on Putin’s maximalist demands for an end to the war.

The Hungarian leader’s Fidesz party faces parliamentary elections in April and polls suggest that for the first time in 15 years it could be defeated at the ballot box. If he were to host a Trump-Putin summit in Budapest, it could help boost his chances of re-election.

Orban, who last visited Moscow in July 2024, has repeatedly challenged EU attempts to end European imports of Russian oil and gas.

He billed Friday’s visit as the second leg of a strategy to ensure Russian energy supplies this winter, for Slovakia and Serbia as well as Hungary.

Earlier this month in Washington, he secured exemption from US sanctions on Russian fuel – but only as long as he remains in power.

Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Orban has claimed to have been on the side of peace and told Hungarian state radio last week that “Europe has decided to go to war in Ukraine”.

He has strongly backed Trump’s 28-point peace plan to end the war and during frantic diplomacy after it emerged, the Orban government and pro-Orban media have accused EU leaders of “war-mongering” for trying to adapt the plan to take account of Ukraine’s objections.

Joining Orban and Putin in the Kremlin were leading Russian officials, including Putin aide Yuri Ushakov, who is part of Russia’s negotiating team with the US.

In a letter this week to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the Hungarian leader called for immediate, unconditional peace talks, for the EU to launch direct negotiations with the Kremlin. He stressed his opposition to further EU funds for Ukraine, and rejected the use of frozen Russian assets to fund Ukrainian defence.

Source: BBC

France’s top appeals court on Wednesday rules in a case of alleged illegal campaign financing against former president Nicolas Sarkozy – his last chance to escape adding a second definitive conviction to his growing rap sheet.

The Court of Cassation in Paris will rule on whether a lower court was right to convict him of illegal financing in his failed 2012 re-election campaign.

If it upholds Sarkozy’s conviction, he will serve a six-month term, possibly with an electronic bracelet.

Sarkozy, a one-term president from 2007-2012, has faced a series of legal challenges since leaving office.

Wednesday’s hearing is his last chance to escape a second conviction after he was sent to jail last month in a separate case related to an earlier election campaign.

In that trial, the 70-year-old was found guilty of allowing aides to seek to collect money for his 2007 presidential run from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

His 20 days behind bars made him the first post-war French leader to serve jail time before he was released on November 10 under judicial supervision pending an appeal in that case also.

In December last year, he exhausted his last legal recourse in a third case, after being convicted of trying to extract favours from a judge.

He served that sentence with an electronic ankle tag, which was removed in May after several months.

Campaign funding accusations

The case under review on Wednesday focuses on charges that Sarkozy’s right-wing party worked with a public relations firm, Bygmalion, to hide the true cost of his 2012 re-election bid.

Prosecutors said Sarkozy spent nearly €43 million (almost $50 million) on his 2012 campaign, nearly double the permitted amount of €22.5 million.

Unlike his co-defendants, he was not implicated in the double-billing system allegedly used to cover costs but was held accountable as the beneficiary of illegal campaign financing in his capacity as a candidate.

Sarkozy has denied “any criminal responsibility” in the case, denouncing the allegations as “lies”.

A lower appeals court in February last year confirmed his conviction in the case, but the Court of Cassation could order a retrial if the appeal is found to be valid.

Despite his legal problems, the ex-leader remains an influential figure on the right.

He was received by President Emmanuel Macron before entering prison and Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, a former protege, sparked criticism by meeting Sarkozy inside Paris’s La Sante jail.

A court later barred Sarkozy from seeing the minister and other officials as part of restrictions tied to his release from prison.

A fortnight after his release, the ex-leader announced he would publish a book next month about his experience of serving three weeks in jail.

Source: AFP

Stamps in people’s passports will be replaced by biometric checks for people travelling in and out of the EU from 12 October, officials have confirmed.

The Entry/Exit System (EES) will replace the current paper checks and will mean passengers from the UK will need to have their fingerprints and faces scanned to cross an EU border.

The scheme will be rolled out across member nations over six months, meaning it will not be fully implemented until 10 April 2026.

It was due to come into effect last November but has been beset by technological delays.

Under the new system, non-EU citizens, including people from the UK, will need to register their biometric data along with their passport details to enter an EU country.

Anyone who refuses to provide the biometric data will be denied entry into the EU.

Currently, travellers have to present their passport to a border official to be checked and stamped.

The data will be collected at the point of departure – either at an airport, port or train station – where there will be dedicated booths for scanning fingerprints and taking a photo.

This record will then be valid for three years and means on later trips border officers will only need to verify a person’s biometrics, which the EU hopes will take less time. People with ePassports will also be able to use e-gates.

There is no cost for EES registration.

For most tourists, digital records will only be held for three years and a day – but for those who overstay the 90-day limit without a visa will have their data held for five years.

The system aims to tighten border security but has raised concerns of long queues. The UK government has warned travellers to “be prepared to wait during busy times” when the scheme begins, as the checks will take several minutes to complete.

However, the EU has said that, once implemented, the EES will shorten waits at the border by enabling faster checks and allowing passengers to provide their information in advance.

Since the UK left the EU, airports at many popular European holiday destinations have seen long queues of British travellers as their passports have required checking and stamping.

There have also been long queues at the Eurotunnel, and the new system sparked concerns that waiting times for people travelling to and from France by car would only be exacerbated by the new system.

Passengers will be given hand-held devices to register in their cars, while French border checks have been implemented on British soil at the Port of Dover, the Eurotunnel’s Folkestone end and Eurostar’s St Pancras terminal.

In May, the UK and EU struck a deal which allowed for UK nationals to use EU e-gates – but only after the EES is introduced.

“Once the EES is in place, UK nationals will therefore be able to use e-gates where they are available, provided they are registered in the system,” an EU Commission spokesperson told the BBC at the time.

Some European countries, including Germany and Bulgaria, already allow e-gate access for UK citizens.

Source: BBC

Russia’s Investigative Committee says former Russian transport minister Roman Starovoit has been found dead, apparently with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

He was dismissed earlier on Monday by President Vladimir Putin.

No reason for Starovoit’s dismissal was given and deputy transport minister Andrei Nikitin was announced as his replacement shortly after.

The Investigative Committee said it was working to establish the circumstances of the incident.

Starovoit was appointed minister of transport in May 2024.

Before that, Starovoit had served as governor of the Kursk region for almost six years, until May 2024.

The region was partly seized by Ukrainian troops in August 2024 in a surprise offensive. Moscow only recently managed to drive out the Ukrainian forces, although in late June Kyiv said it was still holding a small area of territory inside Russia.

Starovoit’s successor, Aleksey Smirnov, was only in post for a short while. He was arrested in April and was later accused of embezzling funds that had been allocated for the building of fortifications on the border with Ukraine.

According to Russian outlet Kommersant, Starovoit was about to be brought in as a defendant in the same case.

It is unclear when, exactly, Starovoit died.

The head of the State Duma Defence Committee, Andrei Kartapolov, told Russian outlet RTVI that his death occurred “quite a while ago”.

Earlier on Monday, before Starovoit’s death was announced, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was pressed by reporters on whether the dismissal meant Putin had lost trust in Starovoit over the events in Kursk.

“A loss of trust is mentioned if there is a loss of trust. Such wording was not used [in the Kremlin decree],” Peskov replied.

Source: BBC

France’s First Lady has been caught on video slapping French President Emmanuel Macron in the face upon their arrival at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Numerous videos of the incident, which went viral over the weekend, show Brigitte Macron pushing the French president in the face as the hatch opens. Macron then pauses, turns to face outside the plane, and flashes a smile and waves, before moving out of frame just before the couple gets off the presidential plane.

Initial reports said the multiple videos showing the shocking incident were fakes. However, it was later confirmed that the incident caught on world cameras was real, with reports saying the couple had been arguing earlier.

The Elysee Palace claimed the couple were “having a laugh.” Macron himself said he and his wife were simply “horsing around.”

His wife, who belongs to a wealthy aristocratic family, opened the doors for Macron’s miraculous rise to power.

She is Macron’s former teacher and 24 years his senior. Macron met Brigitte when he was just 15 years old.  Macron was a student and a classmate of Brigitte’s daughter. Macron’s former teacher got divorced from her husband in January 2006 and married Macron the next year.

Unbeknownst to most people, Brigitte hails from a covert world of French politics and power, almost hidden from the public. In a short while after his marriage to her, the French nation and the international community witnessed one of the most astonishing rises to power.

Political analysts say the young Macron’s incredible rise would have been almost impossible without her connections to people in high places.

Source: Press TV

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s World War II Victory Day parade began in Moscow on Friday, an event the Kremlin hopes will rally patriotism at home and project strength abroad as its troops fight in Ukraine.

More than 20 foreign leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, attended the annual parade this year, the fourth since Moscow launched a full-scale military assault on its neighbour in February 2022.

Officials promised that commemorations this year – the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany – would be the “biggest” ever, with Putin ordering a “humanitarian” truce with Ukraine over the holiday.

Source: France 24

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he has ordered his forces to “stop all military activity” in Ukraine, as he declared an “Easter truce” until the end of Sunday.

He said the 30-hour truce would last until 22:00 BST on Sunday (00:00 Moscow time), adding that Russian forces should be prepared to respond to “any possible violations”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv would adhere to the truce, but accused Moscow of breaking it.

“If Russia is now suddenly ready to truly engage in a format of full and unconditional silence, Ukraine will act accordingly – mirroring Russia’s actions,” he said.

“Our actions are and will be symmetrical. The proposal for a full and unconditional 30-day silence remains on the table — the answer to it must come from Moscow,” he wrote on X.

He said fighting continued in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions and Russian drones were still in use, but added that some areas had become quieter.

Zelensky said Ukraine would be ready to extend a truce beyond 20 April, seemingly referring to an earlier proposal from the US for a 30-day ceasefire which Ukraine had already agreed to.

Responding to Putin’s initial announcement, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on X: “Putin has now made statements about his alleged readiness for a cease-fire. 30 hours instead of 30 days.”

“Unfortunately, we have had a long history of his statements not matching his actions. We know his words cannot be trusted and we will look at actions, not words,” he added.

Putin announced the temporary truce at a meeting with his chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov.

“Based on humanitarian considerations… the Russian side announces an Easter truce. I order a stop to all military activities for this period,” Putin told Gerasimov.

“We assume that Ukraine will follow our example. At the same time, our troops should be prepared to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations by the enemy, any aggressive actions.”

The Russian defence ministry said its troops would adhere to the ceasefire provided it was “mutually respected” by Ukraine.

It is not the first time a pause in fighting has been suddenly announced – a previous attempt at a ceasefire during Orthodox Christmas in January 2023 fell apart after both sides failed to agree on a proposal.

Reacting to Putin’s truce announcement, a Foreign Office spokesman in the UK said: “Now is the moment for Putin to truly show he is serious about peace by ending his horrible invasion and committing to a full ceasefire, as the Ukrainian government has called for – not just a one day pause for Easter.”

Source: BBC

Thieves stole a £4.8m solid gold toilet from Blenheim Palace in an “audacious raid” which took just five minutes, a court has heard.

The toilet was plumbed in and fully functioning as part of an art exhibition at the Oxfordshire stately home in September 2019.

Michael Jones, 39, from Divinity Road, Oxford denies a charge of burglary. Fred Doe, previously known as Frederick Sines, 36, from Windsor, and 41-year-old Bora Guccuk, from west London, have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to transfer criminal property.

Their trial at Oxford Crown Court was told the toilet was most likely broken up and was never recovered.

The toilet was part of an art exhibition at Blenheim Palace

Prosecutor Julian Christopher KC told the court that a gang of five in two vehicles drove through locked gates of Blenheim Palace in the early hours of 14 September 2019 and smashed their way into the building with sledgehammers.

The court heard that the sledgehammers were left at the scene.

A photograph was taken about 17 hours before the toilet was stolen and Mr Christopher told the court that Mr Jones had taken it while he was “there as part of the reconnaissance for the burglary”.

Mr Christopher told the court the raid took just five minutes.

He added: “The work of art was never recovered. It appears to have been split up into smaller amounts of gold and never recovered.”

A fourth man, James Sheen, 40, from Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, pleaded guilty to burglary, transferring criminal property and conspiracy to do the same in April 2024, jurors were told.

Entitled America, the 18-carat gold toilet was part of an exhibition by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan.

It weighed 98kg and was insured for $6m. Gold prices at the time would have seen the gold alone worth £2.8m in September 2019, the court was told.

The prosecutor said a series of messages, voice notes and screengrabs discovered on Mr Sheen, Mr Doe and Mr Guccuk’s phones showed the trio negotiated a price of £25,632 per kilo for around 20kg of the stolen gold.

It was claimed Mr Guccuk, who ran the jewellers Pacha of London in Hatton Garden, would make a profit of about £3,000 for every kilo he sold on.

The palace is a Unesco World Heritage Site and was the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill.

The trial continues.

Source: BBC