Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin accused of ‘act of terrorism’ after five killed in passenger train attack
Zelensky says there was no 'military justification' in Russia’s targeting civilians on a passenger train

© AP
Zelensky says there was no 'military justification' in Russia’s targeting civilians on a passenger train

© AP
Drone strike on Ukrainian passenger train kills five and Poland urges Musk to cut Russia’s Starlink access. What we know on day 1,435
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused nearly 2 million military casualties – killed, wounded or missing – between the two countries, according to a study published on Tuesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US thinktank. Moscow’s forces have borne the brunt of the losses, with as many as 325,000 killed out of an estimated total of 1.2 million casualties since the war began nearly four years ago. Ukrainian forces have also suffered major losses – between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties, of which between 100,000 and 140,000 were killed – from February 2022 to December 2025. “Combined Russian and Ukrainian casualties may be as high as 1.8 million and could reach two million total casualties by the spring of 2026,” the thinktank said. UN monitors say civilian casualties have reached almost 15,000 verified deaths since 2022 but that the actual total “is likely considerably higher”.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told NBC in February 2025 that his country had lost nearly 46,000 troops since 2022, with tens of thousands missing or taken prisoner, numbers which analysts consider an underestimate. Russian losses remain a closely guarded state secret, with the last official figures from the Ministry of Defence released in September 2022 putting the toll at 5,937, according to Agence France-Presse. The BBC’s Russian service and the Mediazona outlet, which rely on publicly available data such as death notices, have identified more than 163,000 Russian soldiers killed in four years of war, while acknowledging that the actual number is likely higher.
A Russian drone strike on a passenger train in north-eastern Ukraine has killed five people in an attack denounced as terrorism by Zelenskyy. Prosecutors said fragments of five bodies had been found at the scene of the strike on the train, which occurred on Tuesday near a village in the Kharkiv region. In a post on Telegram, Zelenskyy said the train was carrying more than 200 passengers, including 18 in the carriage that was hit. “Each such Russian strike undermines diplomacy, which is still ongoing, and hits, in particular, the efforts of partners who are helping to end this war,” he wrote.
The train bombing was part of a wave of Russian drone and missile attacks that left 10 dead across the country and dozens wounded, with the injured including two children and a pregnant woman. Three were killed and 32 wounded in a drone strike on Odesa that also inflicted “enormous” damage on a power facility, according to the private energy firm DTEK. The energy minister, Denys Shmyhal, said 710,000 residents of Kyiv remained without electricity and heating in the aftermath of Russian attacks – conditions which could turn deadly in the freezing winter cold. Other casualties occurred in the regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Poland’s foreign minister has urged Elon Musk to cut Russia’s access to the Starlink satellite internet service, which the tech billionaire owns. Radosław Sikorski – who is also the country’s deputy prime minister – spoke out after the US-based Institute for the Study of War said that the Russian army uses Starlink satellites to guide its drone attacks deep into Ukraine. He posted on X: “Hey, big man, @elonmusk, why don’t you stop the Russians from using Starlinks to target Ukrainian cities. Making money on war crimes may damage your brand”. Musk denied in 2024 that Starlink terminals had been sold to Russia; according to Ukrainian intelligence services, the Russian army has obtained terminals through third countries rather than any official contract with Musk.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Anastasia Barashkova/Reuters

© Photograph: Anastasia Barashkova/Reuters

© Photograph: Anastasia Barashkova/Reuters

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s new government satellite communications program, GOVSATCOM, which pools capacity from eight already on-orbit geosynchronous satellites, began operations last week, European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius said Jan. 27. The program is designed to provide secure communications capabilities to the EU and its member states and could expand by […]
The post EU launches government satcom program in sovereignty push appeared first on SpaceNews.
Joël Guerriau sentenced to four years in prison after spiking lawmaker’s champagne with ecstasy
A French court has found a former senator guilty of drugging a female lawmaker with ecstasy with intent to sexually assault her.
Joël Guerriau, 68, was sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday, of which 18 months must be behind bars.
In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Stéphanie Lecocq/Reuters

© Photograph: Stéphanie Lecocq/Reuters

© Photograph: Stéphanie Lecocq/Reuters
Study also says almost half have a mental health issue such as anxiety or depression
Seven out of 10 mothers in the UK feel overloaded and almost half have a mental health issue such as anxiety or depression, new research has revealed.
The survey of mothers’ experiences in 12 European countries also found that most of those in Britain still do the majority of household tasks and caregiving work alone, and that the UK was among the worst for motherhood disadvantaging a woman’s career.
71% of UK mothers feel overloaded – 4% more than the 67% European average
47% of UK mothers suffer from mental health issues, including burnout, compared with 50% in Europe as a whole
31% of UK respondents felt motherhood had a negative effect on their career, higher than the 27% average, with Ireland the highest on 36%
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Alan Turkington/Alamy

© Photograph: Alan Turkington/Alamy

© Photograph: Alan Turkington/Alamy
Attack in Kharkiv region was denounced as terrorism by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said it undermined ‘efforts to end the war’
A Russian drone strike on a passenger train in north-eastern Ukraine has killed five people, prosecutors said, an attack denounced as terrorism by president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Prosecutors said fragments of five bodies had been found at the scene of the strike on the train, which occurred on Tuesday near a village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

© Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
The American leader imperilled the future of the alliance with repeated threats to seize Greenland and attacks on European allies. General Richard Shirreff tells Maira Butt that the US president has turned the international order into a ‘dead duck’

© AP

The German government unveiled a raft of measures to tackle left-wing militancy on Tuesday, including data collection and storage

© Reuters
The incident was the second reported fatal accident in the Austrian mountains in two days

© Getty Images
Move affecting those who have been in Spain five months or more runs counter to anti-migration policies across Europe
Spain’s socialist-led coalition government has approved a decree it said would regularise 500,000 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers, rejecting the anti-migration policies and rhetoric prevalent across much of Europe.
The decree, expected to come into effect in April, will apply to hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and people in Spain with irregular status. To qualify for regularisation, applicants will have to prove they do not have a criminal record and had lived in Spain for at least five months – or had sought international protection – before 31 December 2025.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Pablo Garcia/The Guardian

© Photograph: Pablo Garcia/The Guardian

© Photograph: Pablo Garcia/The Guardian
Manufacturers use method that labels plastic as ‘circular’ and climate-friendly, despite being mostly fossil-based
Europe’s supermarket shelves are packed with brands billing their plastic packaging as sustainable, but often only a fraction of the materials are truly recovered from waste, with the rest made from petroleum.
Brands using plastic packaging – from Kraft’s Heinz Beanz to Mondelēz’s Philadelphia – use materials made by the plastic manufacturing arm of the oil company Saudi Aramco.
This article is part of a cross-border investigation, supported by IJ4EU and coordinated by the independent journalist Ludovica Jona, with the media outlets the Guardian, Voxeurop, Mediapart (France), Altreconomia (Italy), Público (Spain), Investigative Reporting Denmark, Deutsche Welle (Germany) and with reporters Lorenzo Sangermano and Lucy Taylor
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

© Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

© Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters
Designer’s third collection confirms his dream start at the label, as warmth for the women who wear it shines through
It is the biggest job in fashion and Matthieu Blazy is knocking it out of the park. Chanel, the most famous fashion house in the world, with annual sales of almost $20bn (£14.6bn) and a designer lineage that includes Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld, is an intimidating prospect for a 41-year-old Belgian designer who, until his appointment last year, was little known outside the industry. But this haute couture debut, his third collection for the house, confirmed that Blazy is off to a dream start.
The show concluded with a standing ovation from the audience, which included Anna Wintour, Nicole Kidman and Dua Lipa. Backstage, veteran Chanel personnel were high-fiving each other – a remarkable display of giddiness in an industry where cool is all. In the Grand Palais venue, transformed into a willow wood of sugar-pink trees and fairytale giant mushrooms, clients tossed sable coats to the ground and clustered for grinning selfies. By every metric, approval ratings for the new-look Chanel are off the charts.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Christophe Petit-Tesson/EPA

© Photograph: Christophe Petit-Tesson/EPA

© Photograph: Christophe Petit-Tesson/EPA