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Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv’s forces made fastest battlefield gains since 2023, analysis finds

Ukraine is probably leveraging a recent block on Russian troops’ access to Starlink, says Institute for the Study of War; Trump says he wants Kyiv deal with Moscow ‘fast’. What we know on day 1,455

Ukraine recaptured 201 sq km from Russia between Wednesday and Sunday last week, taking advantage of a Starlink shutdown for Russian forces, according to an Agence France-Presse analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The recaptured area (78 sq miles) is almost equivalent to the Russian gains for the entire month of December and is the most land retaken by Kyiv’s forces in such a short period since a June 2023 counteroffensive. The recaptured land is concentrated mainly to the east of the city of Zaporizhzhia, in an area where Russian troops have made significant progress since mid-2025. “These Ukrainian counterattacks are likely leveraging the recent block on Russian forces’ access to Starlink, which Russian milbloggers (military bloggers) have claimed is causing communications and command and control issues on the battlefield,” said the ISW thinktank.

On 5 February, military observers noted disruption of the Starlink antennas used by Moscow on the frontlines, after announcements by Elon Musk of “measures” to end the Kremlin’s use of this technology, the AFP report said. Kyiv claimed that Russian drones were using them in particular to circumvent electronic jamming systems and strike their targets with precision.

Ukraine’s anti-corruption police accused an ex-energy minister on Monday of helping launder kickbacks and stashing millions offshore, a day after he was detained while trying to leave the country, in a case that has shaken Kyiv’s wartime government. The arrest of German Galushchenko was the first major development for months in the “Midas” bribery case, which has loomed over Ukraine’s domestic politics since last year and has reached into President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s inner circle. In unveiling the accusations against Galushchenko, Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency Nabu said it was working with 15 foreign jurisdictions to expand its investigation. Galushchenko has denied any wrongdoing.

Donald Trump said he hoped Ukraine reached a deal with Russia “fast” ahead of Tuesday’s trilateral talks in Geneva. “Ukraine better come to the table fast,” the US president said late on Monday. Senior Ukrainian and Russian officials are to meet for the second round of talks brokered by the Trump administration days before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The two-day meeting in Switzerland starting on Tuesday is expected to mirror negotiations held earlier this month in Abu Dhabi, with representatives from Washington, Kyiv and Moscow in attendance, reported Luke Harding and Pjotr Sauer. Despite renewed US efforts to revive diplomacy, hopes for any sudden breakthrough remain low, with Russia continuing to press maximalist demands on Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence showed more Russian attacks on energy targets lay ahead and that such strikes made it more difficult to reach an agreement on ending the war. “Intelligence reports show that Russia is preparing further massive strikes against energy infrastructure so it is necessary to ensure that all air defence systems are properly configured,” he said in his nightly video address on Monday. Zelenskyy also said Russian attacks were “constantly evolving” and resorting to a combination of weapons, including drones and missiles, requiring “special defence and support from our partners”.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine caused by bombing soared by 26% during 2025, reflecting increased Russian targeting of cities and infrastructure in the country, according a global conflict monitoring group. Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said 2,248 civilians were reported killed and 12,493 injured by explosive violence in Ukraine, according to English-language reports – with the number of casualties for each incident rising significantly, reports Dan Sabbagh. An average of 4.8 civilians were reported killed or injured in each strike, 33% more than in 2024, with the worst attack taking place in Dnipro on 24 June.

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© Photograph: Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Reuters

© Photograph: Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Reuters

© Photograph: Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Reuters

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Taylor Swift concert attack plot: 21-year-old man charged with terrorism in Austria

Unnamed suspect accused of planning to bomb one of singer’s Eras tour shows in Vienna

Austrian prosecutors have filed terrorism-related charges against a 21-year-old who they say planned to attack one of Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna in August 2024.

Three dates in Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour were cancelled after authorities warned of the plot.

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© Photograph: Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP

© Photograph: Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP

© Photograph: Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP

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Anderson Cooper to leave 60 Minutes amid turmoil at CBS News

Cooper is leaving the fabled news show after nearly 20 years amid a shake-up under new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss

Anderson Cooper will leave the CBS News program 60 Minutes after nearly two decades, he said on Monday, in the latest staffing shake-up to hit the storied news magazine amid broader newsroom changes under the new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss.

“Being a correspondent at 60 Minutes has been one of the great honors of my career. I got to tell amazing stories, and work with some of the best producers, editors and camera crews in the business,” Cooper said in a statement. “For nearly twenty years, I’ve been able to balance my jobs at CNN and CBS, but I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they still want to spend time with me.”

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© Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters

© Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters

© Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters

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USA’s Elana Meyers Taylor storms monobob to win first Olympic gold at age 41

It took her five Olympics, but she finally got there: USA’s Elana Meyers Taylor won gold in the monobob on Monday, capping a long and brilliant career.

The 41-year-old competed in her first Olympics at Vancouver 2010, and since then she has won three silver medals and two bronze across two events, the monobob and the two-woman bobsleigh. Her victory at the Milano Cortina Games came down to the final run of the competition with Laura Nolte competing to best Meyers Taylor’s time of 3min 57.93 sec. But the German could not respond and Meyers Taylor became America’s oldest-ever female Winter Olympic champion.

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© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

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Kim Jong-un unveils housing for families of North Koreans killed in Ukraine war

Leader vows to repay the ‘young martyrs’ who died as North Korea intensifies propaganda glorifying troops deployed to fight for Russia

North Korea has said it completed a new housing district in Pyongyang for families of North Korean soldiers killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, the latest effort by leader Kim Jong-un to honour the war dead.

State media photos showed Kim walking through the new street – called Saeppyol Street – and visiting the homes of some of the families with his increasingly prominent daughter, believed to be named Kim Ju-ae, as he pledged to repay the “young martyrs” who “sacrificed all to their motherland”.

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© Photograph: KCNA/Reuters

© Photograph: KCNA/Reuters

© Photograph: KCNA/Reuters

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Wuthering Heights rakes in $77m at global box office on opening weekend

Emerald Fennell’s divisive film is the year’s biggest opening so far, having recouped its entire estimated production budget over the opening weekend

Wuthering Heights has ravished the global box office in its opening weekend, with the new Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie adaptation taking US$76.8m (£56m, A$108m).

Emerald Fennell’s reimagining of Emily Brontë’s novel made US$34.8m in the North American box office from 3,682 locations, making it the year’s biggest opening so far.

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© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

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Ukraine war briefing: Drone attack on Russian port sparks fires ahead of fresh peace talks

Facilities damaged at Taman port while power and water disrupted in Odesa as new round of trilateral talks to begin on Tuesday. What we know on day 1,454

A Ukrainian drone strike ignited fires at one of Russia’s Black Sea ports, officials said on Sunday, ahead of fresh talks aimed at ending the war. Two people were wounded in the attack on the port of Taman in the Krasnodar region, which damaged an oil storage tank, warehouse and terminals, according to regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev. Falling debris from Russian drones, meanwhile, damaged civilian and transport infrastructure in Ukraine’s Odesa region, officials said, disrupting power and water supplies. The attacks came ahead of another round of US-brokered talks between envoys from Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday and Wednesday in Geneva, days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

Ukraine has agreed with European allies on “specific packages” of new energy and military support for Kyiv by 24 February, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday. He had said earlier after a meeting of the so-called Berlin Format of about a dozen European leaders in Munich that he had hoped for new support, including air-defence missiles. “I am grateful to our partners for their readiness to help, and we count on all deliveries arriving promptly,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Russia had launched about 1,300 attack drones, 1,200 guided aerial bombs and dozens of ballistic missiles at Ukraine over the past week alone.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Russia was hoping to win diplomatically what it had failed to achieve on the battlefield, and was banking on the US to deliver concessions at the negotiating table. But Kallas told the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Sunday that key Russian demands – including the lifting of sanctions and unfreezing of assets – were decisions for Europe. “If we want a sustainable peace then we need concessions also from the Russian side.”

Zelenskyy suggested at the Munich conference earlier that there were still questions remaining over future security guarantees for his country. He also questioned how the concept of a free trade zone – proposed by the US – would work in the Donbas region, which Russia insists Kyiv must give up for peace. He told the conference the Americans wanted peace as quickly as possible and that the US team wanted to sign all the agreements on Ukraine at the same time, whereas Ukraine wanted guarantees for the country’s future security signed first.

Russia will not end the militarisation of its economy after fighting in Ukraine ends, the head of Latvia’s intelligence agency said. “The potential aggressiveness of Russia when the Ukraine war stops will depend of many factors: how the war ends, if it’s frozen or not, and if the sanctions remain,” Egils Zviedris, director of the Latvian intelligence service SAB, told Agence France-Presse on the sidelines of the Munich conference, which ended on Sunday. He said lifting current sanctions “would allow Russia to develop its military capacities” more quickly.

Slovak prime minister Robert Fico accused Ukraine of delaying the restart of a pipeline carrying Russian oil to eastern Europe via Ukraine in order to pressure Hungary to drop its opposition to Ukraine’s future membership of the European Union. “We have information that [the pipeline] should have been fixed,” he said after meeting US secretary of state Marco Rubio in Bratislava on Sunday.

Russian army chief Valery Gerasimov visited Moscow’s troops in Ukraine and said the Kremlin’s forces seized a dozen eastern villages in February, the defence ministry said. The claims could not be independently verified.

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© Photograph: Igor Maslov/EPA

© Photograph: Igor Maslov/EPA

© Photograph: Igor Maslov/EPA

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‘That’s hockey’: Canada’s Wilson shuns Olympic tradition and brawls during win over France

  • Wilson and Pierre Crinon ejected after brawl

  • Fighting is rare at Winter Games

Canada’s Tom Wilson shunned tradition on Sunday, deciding to fight during his team’s victory over France in their Olympic ice hockey game.

While fighting is a regular – and tacitly accepted – part of professional ice hockey, it rarely occurs on the Olympic stage. But Wilson dropped the gloves late in Canada’s 10-2 rout of France on Sunday, tangling with Pierre Crinon, who had delivered a forearm to the head of teammate Nathan MacKinnon minutes earlier.

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© Photograph: Xavier Laine/Getty Images

© Photograph: Xavier Laine/Getty Images

© Photograph: Xavier Laine/Getty Images

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‘The ride was worth the fall’: Lindsey Vonn returning to US for further surgeries after downhill crash

  • American fractured tibia in downhill last week

  • Vonn reiterates she has no regrets over crash

Lindsey Vonn is preparing to fly back to America after she fractured her tibia in the Olympic downhill last week, according to the CEO of the US Ski and Snowboard Association.

Sophie Goldschmidt says her team’s medical staff has been coordinating Vonn’s recovery and hopes to accompany her back home to the United States. Vonn has had multiple surgeries in Italy to repair the complex tibia fracture in her left leg.

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© Photograph: @lindseyvonn/Instagram/Reuters

© Photograph: @lindseyvonn/Instagram/Reuters

© Photograph: @lindseyvonn/Instagram/Reuters

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European football: Serie A referees’ chief apologises after controversial Kalulu red card

  • Juventus lost 3-2 in dramatic fashion away at Inter

  • Santos scores on debut to earn Napoli draw with Roma

Serie A’s referee designator Gianluca Rocchi said the match official Federico La Penna was “clearly wrong” in showing the Juventus defender Pierre Kalulu a second yellow card during Saturday’s loss at Inter, and apologised over the incident.

Kalulu was sent off after Inter’s Alessandro Bastoni tumbled to the ground and immediately gestured towards the referee demanding a card, indicating that Kalulu had grabbed his shirt to bring him down. Television footage suggested there was no contact between the players. Juventus, down to 10 men after the sending off, lost 3-2, meaning Inter are now eight points clear at the top.

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© Photograph: Daniele Mascolo/Reuters

© Photograph: Daniele Mascolo/Reuters

© Photograph: Daniele Mascolo/Reuters

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Assailants kill at least 32 in north-west Nigerian villages, residents say

Residents who escaped violence tell of bandits riding in on motorbikes and shooting indiscriminately

Armed assailants on motorbikes killed at least 32 people and burned houses and shops during raids on three villages in north-west Nigeria’s Niger state early on Saturday, local officials and residents who escaped the violence said.

The dawn raids targeted the communities of Tunga-Makeri, Konkoso, and Pissa.

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© Photograph: Reuters

© Photograph: Reuters

© Photograph: Reuters

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European football: Harry Kane double restores Bayern Munich’s six-point Bundesliga lead

  • Inter’s late win over Juventus extends Serie A lead

  • Real Madrid 4-1 Real Sociedad; Lens top of Ligue 1

Harry Kane scored twice in the first half as Bayern Munich cruised to a 3-0 win at Werder Bremen, restoring their six-point lead in the Bundesliga. Borussia Dortmund’s 4-0 win over Mainz on Friday put them within three points of the league leaders but Bayern responded.

Bayern were in control from start to finish in Bremen, with Leon Goretzka joining the England captain on the scoresheet in the 70th minute. Kane now has 26 goals in 22 Bundesliga games this season and 41 in all competitions, 13 of those from the penalty spot.

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© Photograph: Carmen Jaspersen/AP

© Photograph: Carmen Jaspersen/AP

© Photograph: Carmen Jaspersen/AP

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