Economy weathered a fraught geopolitical landscape to reach 5% target but structural challenges at home ‘are not going away’, say experts

Chinese authorities can say they hit their growth goals last year, but Donald Trump’s ongoing trade aggression, a slow-motion housing market collapse and unhappy consumers remain major challenges for the world’s second-largest economy.

Data released on Monday showed the Chinese economy grew by 5% in 2025, steady on the year before and hitting the official target of “around” that pace.

Kyiv’s forces say 30 Russian strikes recorded across 15 locations while hundreds of thousands left without electricity in occupied Zaporizhzhia. What we know on day 1,426

Moscow kept up its hammering of Ukraine’s energy grid in attacks that killed at least two people overnight to Sunday, according to Ukrainian officials. At least six people were wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk region, the emergency service said. Russia also targeted energy infrastructure in Odesa region, it said. A fire broke out and was promptly extinguished. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that repairing the country’s energy system remained challenging “but we are doing everything we can to restore everything as quickly as possible”. The Ukrainian president said two people were killed in overnight attacks across the country that struck Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi and Odesa and included more than 200 drones. The military said 30 strikes had been recorded across 15 locations. One person was killed in the second-largest city of Kharkiv, said mayor Ihor Terekhov.

Ukrainian drone strikes damaged energy networks in Russia-occupied parts of southern Ukraine, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power, according to Kremlin-installed authorities there. More than 200,000 households in the occupied part of southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region had no electricity on Sunday, the Kremlin-installed local governor said. Nearly 400 settlements have had their supply cut because of damage to power networks from Ukrainian drone strikes, Yevgeny Balitsky said on Telegram.

Ukrainian crews have started repair works on the backup power line connecting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to the power grid, under a ceasefire brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based UN organisation said on X post on Sunday. The fate of the plant – occupied by Russia and the largest in Europe – is a central issue in ongoing US-brokered peace talks.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has said a US invasion of Greenland would make Russian president Vladimir Putin “the happiest man on Earth” in a newspaper interview. Sanchez said any military action by the US against Denmark’s Arctic territory would damage Nato and legitimise the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. “If we focus on Greenland, I have to say that a US invasion of that territory would make Vladimir Putin the happiest man in the world. Why? Because it would legitimise his attempted invasion of Ukraine,” Sanchez said in an interview in La Vanguardia newspaper published on Sunday. “If the United States were to use force, it would be the death knell for Nato. Putin would be doubly happy.“

Ukraine’s top negotiator said talks with US officials on ending the war with Russia would continue at the World Economic Forum opening this week in the Swiss resort of Davos. Rustem Umerov, writing on Telegram, said on Sunday that two days of talks in Florida with a US team including envoy Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner had focused on security guarantees and a postwar recovery plan for Ukraine.

US army issues prepare-to-deploy orders amid tension over ICE killing, though it is unclear if units will be sent

The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty soldiers in Alaska to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota, the site of large protests against the government’s deportation drive, two US officials told Reuters on Sunday.

The US army placed the units on prepare-to-deploy orders in case violence in the midwestern state escalates, the officials said, though it is not clear whether any of them will be sent.

• La Liga lead cut to one point after surprise 2-1 defeat

• Füllkrug scores first goal in Italy since leaving West Ham

Real Sociedad damaged Barcelona’s title defence with a surprise 2-1 home victory as Hansi Flick’s side fell to a first defeat in 12 matches. The Catalan side, who hit the woodwork four times and had two goals disallowed, now lead their rivals Real Madrid by only a point at the top of La Liga after Álvaro Arbeloa’s side beat Levante on Saturday.

Sociedad, now unbeaten in four games under their new American coach Pellegrino Matarazzo, had Carlos Soler sent off late on but managed to hold on.