44 h. ago Sanatorium review – Ukraine health resort guests seek sanctuary amid shelling

Poignant documentary by Irish director Gar O’Rourke peers into a faded Soviet-era institution where visitors search for relief while war grinds on outsideThere is something ever so slightly Martin Parr-like about this documentary, filmed inside a shabby rundown health resort near Odesa, in Ukraine. It’s not the colour palette, which is Soviet-era pale beige, but the images of holidaymakers: elderly men strutting about in thongs and playing ping pong in their vests; retirees of both sexes glad-ragged at the disco. Like Parr’s photos, the images are funny but not unkind; everyone retains their dignity. The director is Irish film-maker Gar O’Rourke, who planned Sanatorium before the war, but filmed it after Russia invaded Ukraine, which adds a layer of melancholy to the guests’ search for health and happiness.The huge Kuyalnik sanatorium is a time warp with its brutalist architecture and institutional interiors. Back in its glory days, people must have come here in their thousands. Now...

Politics

3 d. ago Putin given the red carpet treatment as he discusses Trump talks with Xi on sidelines of China summit

Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi are among the 20 leaders meeting in China for a security summit

Politics

4 d. ago Covert drone strikes, airport sabotage and nuclear plant fires: All of Ukraine’s boldest attacks on Russia

Experts have said that Ukraine has one of the best combat ready armies in Europe

Events

5 d. ago At least 23 dead in overnight Kyiv attack as UK and EU summon Russian envoys

Missile strikes on Ukrainian capital hit EU and British Council offices in deadliest assault in monthsThe UK and European Union have summoned their Russian envoys after overnight missile strikes on Kyiv killed at least 23 people and damaged the city’s British Council and EU offices, in the deadliest aerial assault on the Ukrainian capital since the Alaska summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.Four children were among those killed after a residential building in the eastern Darnytskyi district was struck in the middle of the night, according to Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko. Continue reading...

Events

6 d. ago UK and EU summon Russian envoys after Kyiv offices damaged in strikes

Overnight attacks kill 18 and severely damage buildings including those housing EU delegation and British CouncilUK politics live – latest updatesThe UK and European Union have summoned their Russian envoys after overnight missile strikes on Kyiv killed at least 18 people and damaged the city’s British Council and EU offices in the most deadly aerial assault on the Ukrainian capital since the Alaska summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.Four children are among the 17 reported dead after a residential building was struck in the middle of the night within the eastern Darnytskyi district, according to Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko. Continue reading...

Events

6 d. ago At least 21 dead in overnight Kyiv attack as UK and EU summon Russian envoys

Missile strikes on Ukrainian capital hit EU and British Council offices in deadliest assault in monthsThe UK and European Union have summoned their Russian envoys after overnight missile strikes on Kyiv killed at least 21 people and damaged the city’s British Council and EU offices, in the deadliest aerial assault on the Ukrainian capital since the Alaska summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.Four children were among those killed after a residential building in the eastern Darnytskyi district was struck in the middle of the night within the eastern Darnytskyi district, according to Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko. Continue reading...

Events

6 d. ago Russia’s devastating attack on Kyiv proves Trump’s Ukraine peace plans have failed. It is time for Europe to show leadership

Starmer and EU leaders may express outrage but they need to take more drastic action to help Ukraine beat Putin, writes World Affairs Editor Sam Kiley

Politics

6 d. ago ‘Massive’ Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv kills at least 14 people

Zelenskyy says Moscow ‘chooses ballistics instead of the negotiating table’ after assault affecting more than 20 locations• Europe live – latest updatesRussian airstrikes have killed at least 14 people in a succession of attacks on Kyiv and wounded dozens in the most deadly night raid on the Ukrainian capital since the Alaska summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.Twelve people were reported killed when a five-storey residential building in the eastern Darnytskyi district was struck in the middle of the night, Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Russia accuses Ukraine of strike on nuclear plant in wave of drone attacks

Moscow says operating capacity of reactor at Kursk site reduced by 50% as Kyiv celebrates independence dayMoscow has accused Kyiv of launching dozens of drone attacks, including one that sparked a fire at a nuclear power plant, as Ukrainians marked 34 years since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union.The drone attack on the Kursk nuclear power plant in western Russia, 37 miles (60km) from the border with Ukraine, caused damage to an auxiliary transformer and forced a 50% reduction in the operating capacity of a reactor, Russian authorities said. Ukraine did not immediately comment on the alleged attack. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago At home and abroad US policy chaos has one constant: Trump’s self

When Putin blamed the 2020 US election result on mail-in voting he bolstered a Trump obsession – just one example of the blurring of international goals and domestic grievancesIt was a language he could understand. Donald Trump had lost the 2020 US presidential election, Russia’s Vladimir Putin told him last Friday, because it was rigged through mail-in voting.Three days later, the president announced that lawyers were drafting an executive order to eliminate mail-in balloting, a method used by nearly a third of Americans that has not been credibly linked to election fraud. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Trump needs to understand what the war in Ukraine is really about | Kenneth Roth

It’s not about Nato or the Soviet Union. It’s about democracyIt may be difficult for a real-estate mogul like Donald Trump to recognize, but Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is not about slices of war-torn land in eastern Ukraine. It is about Ukraine’s democracy. Putin fears that the Russian people will see that democracy as an enticing alternative to his stultifying autocratic rule. Trump is unlikely to secure a peace deal unless he acts on that reality and changes the cost-benefit analysis behind Putin’s continuing war.Much of the public analysis of the Alaska summit between Trump and Putin, and the Washington collection of European leaders protecting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, from the temperamental Trump, has been replete with red-herring issues. For example, Putin did not invade Ukraine because of feared Nato expansion. The unanimous consent of all Nato members required to admit Ukraine is nowhere on the horizon, especially since article 5 of the Nato tre...

Politics

1 week ago Poland scrambles war planes as Russia unleashes hypersonic missile barrage and strikes Ukrainian city near NATO border

Russian attacks on western Ukraine killed one person and wounded multiple others, officials in the country said Thursday as diplomatic efforts to end the three-year war grind on.

Events

2 w. ago The Donald holds court: Photo of European leaders gathered around Trump's desk 'like obedient school children' that sums up Ukraine summit

In the picture, which has gone viral on social media, critics have said EU leaders were made to look like school children while sitting and listening attentively to the US president.

Politics

2 w. ago Recap: Putin suggests hosting Zelensky peace meeting in Moscow during Trump phone call but offer is swiftly rejected

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky will meet, Donald Trump has said after a White House summit with European leaders aimed at bringing an end to the Ukraine war.

Politics

2 w. ago Alaska man gifted $22,000 motorcycle by Russian government after viral interview

An Alaska man might have walked away as the biggest winner of last week’s high stakes summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage

Politics

2 w. ago Vladimir Putin brought a 'super cool' motorbike to his summit with Trump and gave it to me: 'I'm dumbfounded'

As publicity stunts go it was perhaps the most bizarre Putin has ever performed

Politics

2 w. ago There is no ‘Trump Doctrine’ in foreign policy. Just chaos | Sidney Blumenthal

The recent summit meeting in Alaska between Trump and Putin was nothing short of a theater of the absurdAll the elaborate efforts of the European allies to prevent Donald Trump from prostrating himself before Vladimir Putin came to naught at their summit meeting in Alaska. Flattering, coddling and petting the big baby appeared to have been in vain. Before the 15 August summit, the Europeans persuaded Trump to impose new sanctions if Putin would not agree to a ceasefire, which would serve as a prerequisite for any negotiations. But Trump willfully tossed policy like a stuffed animal out of the window of “the Beast,” the presidential car as he eagerly invited Putin to join him for a triumphant chariot ride.The Europeans scrambled once again, trying to get the addled Trump back on the page he was on before the summit. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, sped to Washington to confer with Trump to try to pick up the pieces. At their last encounter, Trump jibed: “You don’t have any ...

Events

2 w. ago Meloni caught making strange confession to Trump at Ukraine summit

Giorgia Meloni was heard telling Donald Trump that she never wants to speak to the Italian press during the summit on Ukraine in Washington, DC on Monday, 18 August.

Politics

2 w. ago How Donald Trump was charmed by Volodymyr Zelensky after embarrassing JD Vance row

In February, Volodymyr Zelensky met with Donald Trump and JD Vance in a disastrous summit in which he was chastised for failing to properly thank the US president and not wearing a suit

Politics

2 w. ago Medvedev mocks European leaders for 'sucking up' to Trump after Zelensky's Oval Office love

Top Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev has mocked European leaders for 'sucking up' to Donald Trump and failing to 'outplay' him during the Ukraine summit in Washington. 

Politics