Category: Europe

Populist Peter Pellegrini has been elected president of Slovakia, succeeding the liberal Zuzana Caputova. Mr Pellegrini, 48, defeated the pro-Western Ivan Korčok, a former diplomat, with 53% of the vote. A former prime minister, he is an ally of Prime Minister Robert Fico, and shares the PM’s dovish attitude towards Russia. Mr Fico and his […]

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in downtown Budapest to protest against the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The protest on Saturday was led by Peter Magyar, 43, a former government insider turned critic who used to be married to Orban’s ex-justice minister Judit Varga. Magyar addressed a crowd […]

Türkiye has announced that it has suspended the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty), which was signed in 1990 to ensure mutual arms control between Russia and Europe following the Cold War. “It has been decided to suspend the implementation of the Treaty between the Republic of Türkiye and the other states […]

Nine Egyptian men who were aboard a migrant boat that sank off the coast of Greece last year, killing hundreds of people, are to face trial next month, accused of people smuggling, Greek judicial sources said on Friday. The circumstances of the sinking of the Adriana in June remain a source of dispute between the […]

Ukraine has carried out a drone attack against targets in southern Russia, and claims to have destroyed six Russian planes at an airbase in Rostov region. Security sources told BBC Ukrainian eight more aircraft were badly damaged, and 20 service personnel could have been killed or injured. The Morozovsk base houses Su-27 and Su-34 aircraft […]

Russia says ready for ‘honest’ peace agreement with Ukraiussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday that Moscow is ready for an “honest” peace agreement with Ukraine that would take into account Moscow’s security interests. Speaking at a meeting with ambassadors of foreign countries in Moscow, Lavrov put forward another condition for the peace treaty […]

BBC reports: The Danish military says a missile failure on a navy ship has triggered the closure of airspace and shipping lanes near a major shipping strait off the Danish coast. The National Maritime Authority issued a warning for vessels to avoid part of the Great Belt strait due to a risk of “falling missile […]

The defence aid package provided to Ukraine by Helsinki is worth 188 million euros Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Finnish counterpart, Alexander Stubb have signed a 10-year security agreement in Kyiv. In a statement on X, Zelensky called it a “robust document that proves Finland’s readiness to continue supporting Ukraine in the fight against […]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed into law a bill lowering the military mobilisation age by two years from 27 to 25. Kyiv and Moscow have both faced heavy losses on the battlefield after two years of war, but Russia has benefited from a sizeable advantage in manpower. The move will allow Ukraine to call […]

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has given northern European countries an impetus to beef up their militaries. Norway is to increase the number of conscripted soldiers from 9,000 to 13,500, the Norwegian government announced on Tuesday. “We must have enough people with the right skills at the right time,” Defence Minister Bjørn Arild Gram said. “We […]