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Russian strikes on Kyiv, the flydubai plane incident, student protests in Paris and Mount Etna erupts – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists
Warning: this gallery contains images some readers may find distressing
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In effort to avoid panic at pumps, Keir Mather insists supply of fuel to Britain is ‘inherently resilient’
The government has sought to avert panic at the pumps, insisting that the UK is not facing a diesel shortage after Donald Trump threatened to cut off US supplies of the fuel.
The transport minister Keir Mather said on Friday that the UK has a wide range of sources of the fuel and is in talks with other European countries over the potential release of emergency diesel stockpiles.
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© Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
© Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
© Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
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Ministers discuss drawing down EU countries’ reserves after Donald Trump threatens to cut off US supplies
Britain is in talks with European allies over releasing emergency diesel stockpiles after Donald Trump threatened to cut off US supplies of the fuel.
Ministers held calls with counterparts from the European Commission (EC), Germany, France, Italy and Ireland on Thursday to discuss whether to draw down reserves after the Trump administration told Germany and France to release their stockpiles to help ease soaring global energy prices or face a US export ban.
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More than 130 people were evacuated from the base near Nowa Deba after delivery arrived with unusual signature
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Kyiv is testing five types of high-speed interceptor drones as Russia ramps up attacks on infrastructure
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Exclusive: Britain’s most senior military officer says Europe must take greater responsibility for its own defence
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Poland accuses Russia of carrying out a coordinated and multi-faceted campaign of sabotage in a bid to deter Ukraine’s backers, writes James C. Reynolds
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Moscow vows to use its ‘entire arsenal, including nuclear weapons’ if threatened
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Estonia says Russia ordered the August arson attack on Milrem Robotics’ Tallinn premises, an Estonian defense company supplying Ukraine with military ground robots.
Russian sabotage operations have been expanding across Europe in recent months, targeting companies, infrastructure and supply chains connected to Ukraine’s defense effort. European authorities have linked or investigated suspected Russian involvement in arson and other sabotage attempts in several countries, as Moscow seeks to disrupt support for Ukraine and intimidate its European backers.
Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said on 29 September that information gathered by Estonia’s Internal Security Service showed the fire at Milrem’s Tallinn premises on the night of 14–15 August was a Russian intelligence-directed sabotage operation. Estonia summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires over the attack.
Estonian authorities had already detained three suspects in connection with the arson, with the suspects apprehended in Latvia. Tsahkna said the perpetrators had been taken into custody and no longer posed a threat to Estonia.
Russia’s attempts to divide, intimidate and sow confusion will fail.
— Margus Tsahkna (@Tsahkna) September 29, 2026
Every act of sabotage only strengthens Allied resolve, increases pressure on Russia and reinforces support for Ukraine.
We will continue to expose, deter and respond. No stone will be left unturned. https://t.co/JfdSbAUGi1
When the investigation was first announced in August, Estonian authorities had not publicly established a Russian connection or disclosed evidence linking Moscow to the fire.
Milrem Robotics makes THeMIS unmanned ground vehicles, which have been used by Ukrainian forces since 2022 for tasks including transporting ammunition, food and other supplies, evacuating wounded troops, and mine clearance.
The company said in August that the fire had not disrupted its production or deliveries to Ukraine. More than 200 of its robotic systems are expected to be operating in Ukraine by the end of 2026, including more than 150 vehicles funded by the Netherlands.
The attack is part of a growing series of suspected sabotage operations targeting companies and facilities connected to Ukraine’s defense effort. In August, Slovak authorities foiled an attempted arson attack on a Ukrainian drone factory, while European investigations have also examined suspected Russian involvement in attacks on defense-related facilities in Czechia, Lithuania and Bulgaria.
Tsahkna said Russia’s campaign is intended to intimidate European countries, divide allies and weaken their support for Ukraine.
“Russia’s sabotage campaign will not achieve its objectives,” the Estonian Foreign Ministry said, adding that Estonia and its allies would continue increasing pressure on Russia and supporting Ukraine.
Tsahkna said Estonia would respond to the attack by increasing both its support for Ukraine and pressure on Russia.
Lithuania is getting its US troops back although the overall American presence in Europe will shrink, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said. He tied the wider drawdown to Washington's demand that Europe take more responsibility for its own defense. Lithuania's case, he suggested, is the exception.
While waging all-out war on Ukraine, Russia keeps probing Europe with drones and sabotage that stop just short of open attack. Its small Baltic neighbors are already preparing their people for a possible invasion, and American soldiers on their soil have long been the clearest sign that attacking them means fighting the US. With Washington weighing a pullback and telling Europe to fend for itself, each US unit that stays on Russia's doorstep carries more weight than its size.
Nausėda spoke in an interview with LNK television on 28 September.
"There will be fewer US troops in Europe. This is partly related to what US President Donald Trump says, to the signals the US administration is sending us that Europe must take on more responsibility itself," he said.
Europe must do more for itself, and it is already doing so, Nausėda added. The US presence in Lithuania matters not only for its military power but also for deterrence, he argued.
"The presence of these troops is precisely what reduces the likelihood of military conflict or military aggression," he told LNK, ELTA reported.
Nausėda called the decision a kind of encouragement for Lithuania. "As the overall number of US troops in Europe decreases, in Lithuania that number will at least remain, will not decrease, and perhaps will even be slightly larger," he said. "In any case, the heavy battalion will be here."
The battalion will keep its Abrams tanks, but an engineer battalion will replace the artillery battalion, Nausėda said on LRT's Savaitė program. The rotation will again last nine months. The Americans will number roughly as before, over 1,000, Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said.
Estonia has also secured the return of US troops, at least temporarily, LRT noted.
More than 1,000 US troops began leaving Lithuania when their rotation ended in early June, and no replacement arrived, LRT said. It was the country's first gap in the US presence since 2020. American heavy battalions have rotated through Lithuania since 2019.
The Pentagon is weighing a withdrawal of about 25,000 US troops from Europe, and possibly as many as 40,000, NBC News reported, adding that no final decision had been made. About 80,000 US troops are now stationed on the continent. Germany, Italy, and Spain would likely be among the countries most affected.
North Korean troops were ‘being selected for training and subsequent deployment’ to Russia
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German chancellor says he is speaking to other heads of state to try and prepare Ukraine for winter
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Warnings of attacks on European countries supporting Ukraine
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Zelensky said the plan is ‘how evil encroaches’
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Ballot spearheaded by populist party said country had drawn dangerously close to Nato and EU, particularly concerning Ukraine war
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Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson said the Baltic Sea has ‘never been better protected’ by Nato jets
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Putin could attack ports, transport and communications in a bid to test Nato’s resolve. Experts tell Maira Butt that Nato members must start preparing for the worst
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At least 15 injured after Russia strikes apartment buildings with guided aerial bomb, claims Kharkiv mayor
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Lithuania says Russia could try to broaden its pressure on Nato countries through attacks on critical infrastructure including ports or airports
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Attacks could include isolated strikes with long-range weapons like drones or missiles, Denmark’s intelligence chief said
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Zelensky warns against use of AI in war and calls for ‘energy ceasefire’ with Russia
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Nato's deputy commander in Europe is warning that Russian president Vladimir Putin is becoming increasingly reckless as the war in Ukraine drags on and as he seeks to divide Western allies
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All but five of Russia’s 32 major oil refineries have been hit by Ukrainian drone attacks, costing the country an estimated $20bn. Experts tell Maira Butt that Zelensky has brought the reality of Putin’s invasion to the doorstep
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Zelensky calls for an ‘energy ceasefire’ with Russia and tells Trump he is ready for a trilateral meeting with Putin
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© Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Russia turned away independent European observers as critics said there were few avenues for genuine dissent in the country’s first wartime parliamentary elections, Maira Butt reports
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Macron and Trump to discuss ‘energy truce and a moratorium in the Black Sea’
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For years, Ukraine’s air defenses blunted Russia’s attempts to terrorize its cities from the sky. Now, after four years of adaptation, Moscow is fielding faster drones, massing ballistic missiles, and finding new ways to overwhelm a Ukrainian air-defense network running short of the interceptors needed to stop them.
Russia’s aerial campaign is becoming harder to contain just as its attacks are killing more Ukrainian civilians. July recorded at least 437 civilian deaths, the highest monthly toll since the early months of the full-scale invasion, with UN monitors pointing to Russian missile and drone attacks as a key factor.
That shift is visible most clearly in Russia’s rapidly expanding use of jet-powered Geran drones. These drones can exceed 400 km/h, making them significantly harder to intercept than the slower, propeller-driven Shaheds Ukraine has spent years learning to counter. Russia reportedly launched as many as 2,850 jet-powered drones in August alone.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Russia’s escalation with the new drones is becoming “increasingly terrorist” and called for urgent efforts to develop defenses against them.
While Ukraine’s Western partners have taken steps to strengthen its air defenses, Russia has spent the same period adapting and expanding its ability to attack from the air. The gap is becoming increasingly visible in the skies over Ukrainian cities.
Russia has increasingly turned its ability to strike deep inside Ukraine into a weapon against civilian life itself: hitting residential areas, fuel stations, railways, energy infrastructure and other sites across cities far from the front.
Since late August, Kyiv has faced near-continuous Russian drone attacks, with Russia increasingly sending waves of drones against the capital throughout the day and night. The shift has made air-raid alerts, explosions and disruptions to daily life a near-constant reality.
For Ukrainians, Russia’s evolving aerial campaign is measured in destroyed homes, injuries, deaths, and lives permanently changed.
In Kyiv, it has also changed everyday life: explosions interrupt sleep and work, people run for shelter as strikes unfold overhead, and the threat of another attack is never far away.
And the pressure is no longer confined to Kyiv. Kharkiv, Odesa, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia are all facing increasingly sophisticated combinations of drones and missiles.
The danger is not simply that Russia is launching more weapons. It is that Moscow has spent years learning which weapons can penetrate Ukraine’s defenses, how to combine them, and how to force Ukraine to spend its most valuable interceptors.
Zelenskyy’s warning captures the urgency: “You cannot simply wait for Russia to perfect its repertoire of killings.”
The jet-powered Geran is only one part of the problem.
Russia has also dramatically increased its use of ballistic missiles. Reuters reported that 228 ballistic and hypersonic missiles were launched in July and the first eight days of August, with more than half being inaccurate RM48U training missiles repurposed for combat.
Ukraine has virtually exhausted its US-made Patriot interceptors, the only systems in its arsenal capable of reliably intercepting Russia’s ballistic missiles, while Moscow continues launching them at a high tempo.
The result is a more complex aerial threat: fast drones that are difficult to intercept, ballistic missiles that are extremely difficult to stop, and large waves of cheaper weapons that can force Ukraine to expend scarce defensive ammunition.
Ukraine is developing new ways to counter them, including interceptor drones specifically designed to hunt down the jet-powered Gerans. But Ukraine is developing these systems as Russia is already deploying its new weapons at scale.
Western countries have continued providing air-defense assistance. Canada, for example, announced a C$350 million package for interceptors earlier this month. But Ukrainian officials continue to say that deliveries remain far below what is needed to protect the country from Russia’s expanding aerial campaign.
Russia has spent years expanding the weapons it can use against Ukraine, while Ukraine and its partners are still racing to develop and supply the systems needed to stop them.
Some of Ukraine’s Western partners are now confronting a threat Russia has spent years developing over Ukraine: an increasingly sophisticated aerial arsenal that could eventually be turned against them.
European officials and defense analysts are increasingly warning that NATO countries themselves lack enough air and missile defenses to deal with a large Russian attack.
Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkēvičs recently said Europe is not sufficiently prepared for the kind of drone and aerial warfare Russia has developed in Ukraine, including because of delays in supplying Ukraine with critical air-defense systems.
Those concerns are no longer hypothetical. On 14 September, an Italian NATO fighter jet shot down a Russian-made Geran-2 drone over Lithuania after it entered the country from Belarus. Poland and Romania have also faced Russian drone incursions since 2025.
This creates a problem that is partly of Europe’s own making. Russia has had more than four years to refine its drones, missiles, production lines and tactics while Ukraine’s partners have often been too slow to provide enough weapons to counter those systems as they were developed and deployed at scale.
In that same period, many European countries continued trading with Russia, particularly in fossil fuels, allowing Moscow to keep generating revenue from European markets even as those same governments were providing military aid to Ukraine.
The result is a Russian aerial arsenal that is more capable than the one Ukraine faced in 2022 – while some of the countries now worried about a future Russian threat lack the air defenses needed to protect themselves.
Western governments helped Ukraine fight Russia’s air war, but not at a scale or speed sufficient to prevent Russia from adapting.
Ukrainian civilians are paying the price for the time Russia was given to expand and refine its aerial warfare. Now, Europe is having to prepare for the possibility that those capabilities could one day be used against it.
Russians are going to the polls for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022
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Sam Kiley, world affairs editor, explains the significance of the insignificant Russian Duma elections
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