Wildfires in Europe, Russian strikes in Kyiv, the Meta trial and swimming in Gaza – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

The US is engaged in a lawless quest to protect American and Israeli officials

The Trump administration has taken another step in its crusade against the international criminal court by imposing sanctions on two more senior ICC officials. The growing number of sanctioned jurists – now 13 – does not change the lawless nature of this quest.

Donald Trump and his henchman, Marco Rubio, want to make the world safe for US and Israeli war criminals. No one should let them.

The suspect is accused of being a member of a team of Ukrainian divers that allegedly planted explosives on the pipelines between Russia and Germany in 2022

Putin’s posturing is a poor attempt to scare off broader Western support for Kyiv, say experts. Suha Kidwai reports

Crisis is the Kremlin’s ‘biggest domestic challenge’ since the outbreak of war against Ukraine, say experts

Nine people, including two children, are missing following Russia’s attack on a Ukrainian mall, according to local official

Ukraine increasingly contributes battlefield-tested designs and operational knowledge, while Britain can provide engineering expertise, industrial capacity, certification, capital and access to international markets

Anti-corruption bodies continue to scalp high-ranking Ukrainian officials amid a widening graft probe. James C. Reynolds and Alex Croft report

Analysts say that Putin could seize assets if cash is needed for his stalling invasion

Mykhailo Fedorov says Ukraine faces ‘systemic crisis of governance’

Poland says it is activating a range of defensive measures in response to the strikes unfolding across the border

Ukraine is projecting the conflict deep into Russian territory

The withdrawals are causing liquidity problems in Russia, a senior finance official said

The economist’s claims come as Ukraine has repeatedly attacked Russia’s oil refineries and largest retailer Wildberries this summer

Nato has raised the alarm over the threat of a Russian attack amid repeated incursions by Moscow’s drones

Lev Shlosberg was sentenced to 11 years in jail on Monday

Ukraine has successfully targeted Wildberries hubs seven times in six weeks as part of a campaign to bring the war to Russia

The attack on the rocket fuel plant was part of what Moscow says was Kyiv’s largest drone attack of 2026

Kyiv has been striking targets beyond enemy lines in recent months

Russian official says suspect was acting ‘on instructions from Ukrainian intelligence agencies’. Kyiv has not publicly commented on the attack

Russian authorities said Kyiv fired around 600 drones to the capital of Moscow

Reports in Russia claim the deceased is a former Ukrainian navy official who defected to Russia

An anti-missile launch pad was left ‘ablaze and sputtering for three hours’, according to Ukraine’s military

The number of Ukrainian citizens holding temporary protection status in EU countries reached 4.41 million as of 30 June 2026, the highest since the mechanism was activated in March 2022, according to data published by Eurostat on 11 August. The total rose by 24,380 (+0.6%) from the previous month.

The displacement is one dimension of the broader demographic damage that Russia's war is inflicting on Ukraine. The country's population has contracted from over 41 million before the full-scale invasion to roughly 31 million, driven by displacement, war casualties, and a fertility rate that has collapsed to among the lowest in the world. Only 23% of Ukrainian women refugees with children say they plan to return, even if the war ends.

The figure has been edging upward since mid-2023. It crossed 4 million in September 2023, reached 4.2 million by October 2024, and has now hit a new high. New decisions granting protection are now falling: EU countries issued 155,640 in the first quarter of 2026, down 17% from the previous quarter, and 2025's annual total was 14% below 2024's — even as the overall number of people already holding the status keeps rising.

The numbers suggest an accumulation effect: fewer people are leaving the system than are entering it. Cumulatively, EU countries have issued 7.1 million temporary protection decisions since March 2022, meaning roughly 2.7 million of those decisions are no longer active — as people returned to Ukraine, moved on, switched to other residence statuses, or were deregistered.

• Germany hosted the most beneficiaries at about 1.29 million (29.2% of the EU total), followed by Poland with roughly 961,000 (21.8%) and Czechia with about 391,000 (8.9%).
• Relative to population, the ranking shifts. Czechia recorded 35.8 beneficiaries per thousand residents, followed by Slovakia (27.2) and Cyprus (26.8), against an EU average of 9.8 per thousand.
• Protection numbers rose in 24 of 27 EU countries. Italy posted the largest absolute increase (+4,115, or +8.8%), followed by Czechia (+3,835) and Germany (+2,960). Poland was the only country with a significant decrease (-6,335, or -0.7%). Belgium and Ireland posted negligible declines.

The EU just extended shelter for Ukrainians to 2028—with a new catch for military-age men

Ukrainian citizens accounted for over 98.5% of all beneficiaries. Adult women made up 43.4%, adult men 27%, and minors nearly a third (29.6%). The share of adult men has risen from 23% in October 2024, around the time Czech Interior Minister Lubomír Metnar's government pushed for the new military-compliance condition adopted by the Council in August.

The EU's temporary protection mechanism, activated in March 2022, has been renewed annually since. The most recent extension, a Council decision that took effect on 5 August, prolonged the framework to March 2028 while adding a new condition: Ukrainian men of military age applying for the first time must now prove they have met their mobilization obligations, including through Ukraine's Reserve+ app. The June data predates that rule, making it a baseline for measuring its impact.

Earlier, Zelensky says his forces struck ‌Russia’s Novorossiysk ‌naval base with drones, ‌missiles and unmanned ‌boats

Ukrainian leader accused Russia of using Korean ballistic missiles to exploit shortages of American air defences

First used in the 1991 Gulf War, the US Patriot air defence system has seen demand spike sharply this year

Ukrainian warns Putin is poised to escalate the conflict as air defences run dry

Ukraine said the attacks on key air defence systems would allow them to strike deeper into Russia