#ukraine

#ukraine

Ukraine's national anti-corruption bureau, known as Nabu, says it has uncovered a high-level criminal scheme at the heart of government. It involves Ukraine's nuclear energy body, Energoatom, that runs three nuclear power plants supplying Ukraine with more than half of its electricity. A group of insiders allegedly received kickbacks of 10-15% from Energoatom's commercial partners. If these suppliers failed to pay up, they were removed from a list of approved counter-parties or not reimbursed for services already given.

Air defense topped the agenda at talks between Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and France's Emmanuel Macron. And a Russian drone attack on Ukraine's Odesa region has caused fires at port and energy facilities. DW has more. Zelenskyy (L) and Macron signed a letter of intent on the purchase of fighter jets at the Villacoublay air base near ParisImage: Christophe Ena/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

Roman Surovtsev was prompt in picking up his two daughters from school every afternoon. It's important to him to be there for his smiley 3- and 5-year-old girls, peppering them with questions about what they learned and who they played with. At home with his wife Samantha, he would always be facilitating the bubbles at bath time, meticulously brushing out tiny blonde and brunette ponytails, and tucking the giggling girls into bed after reading to them.

"At home, I never cry," she told DW in an exclusive interview after the event. "Only here, far away from home, I realize how much pressure I'm under, and how my normality is not normal elsewhere in Europe."

NABU said in a post on social media on November 10 that the investigation has been ongoing for 15 months with some 1,000 hours of audio recordings gathered. "The activities of a high-level criminal organization have been documented," the bureau said. "Its members have built a large-scale corruption scheme to influence strategic enterprises in the public sector, in particular JSC 'Energoatom,' NABU said.

Bulgaria is preparing to seize control of Lukoil's Burgas oil refinery and sell it to a new owner after the Russian oil company came under US sanctions, according to Bulgarian media reports. Burgas is Bulgaria's only oil refinery and as part of Lukoil is at risk of having to shut down because of the sanctions. The US joined Britain last month in imposing sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, over Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.

Italian officials have reacted with outrage after Russia used the partial collapse of a medieval tower in central Rome to claim that Italy's support for Ukraine has drained funds needed to preserve its cultural heritage. The Torre dei Conti, a 29m-tall fortified residence built near the Colosseum in the 13th century, partially collapsed on Monday (4 November), causing the death of a Romanian worker who was trapped under rubble for 11 hours.

that was but but Norah, that was Joe Biden's war, not my war. I inherited that stupid war. That should not have been a war. That would've never happened if I were president. And by the way, for four years it didn't happen. There was never even a doubt. Then the election was rigged and stolen, and all of a sudden you see them forming up at the line. And now I come back and I'm gonna get that one solved too.

Ukrainian authorities were working to restore power to Donetsk after Russian attacks on infrastructure caused outages, Ukrainian regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on Sunday. The claim could not be independently verified, as most of the eastern region of Donetsk is controlled by Russian troops. Russian forces have stepped up attacks on Ukraine's power grid in recent weeks as winter draws near.

Vadym Voroshylov, a well-known Ukrainian MiG-29 pilot with the call sign Karaya, wrote on Instagram this week that the JAS-39 Gripen "is the only fighter jet in the world I'd be willing to sell my soul for." He said that this jet us "ideal option" for Ukraine today and also reliable for the future. Voroshylov's post came after Ukraine and Sweden signed a letter of intent to export up to 150 JAS 39 Gripen E fighter jets to Kyiv.

Putin said on Sunday that Russia had successfully tested its unique nuclear-capable Burevestnik cruise missile, which the Kremlin described as part of efforts to ensure the country's national security. When asked on Monday by reporters onboard Air Force One about Russia's nuclear missile test, Trump said Putin should focus on ending the war with Ukraine rather than testing missiles. Trump said the US had a nuclear submarine right off their shores that did not need to travel such distances.

He was in charge from 2014 to 2024 and this documentary, with remarkable access, shows us his final 12 months day-by-day, moment-by-moment after Joe Biden had persuaded him in 2023, when his tenure was technically at an end, to stay on for another year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Perhaps, until that moment, Stoltenberg had been happy to assume that for all the meetings and stress, the secretary-generalship was an agreeable prestigious technocratic position without any real danger.

Russian and Ukrainian forces are interlocked in desperate battles for control of Ukraine's eastern towns of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, which Moscow considers a gateway to the remaining unoccupied areas of the Donetsk region. On Sunday, Valery Gerasimov, Russian chief of staff, told President Vladimir Putin his 2nd and 51st Combined Arms Armies were advancing along converging axes and have completed the encirclement of the enemy in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says pursuing forfeiture of a seized Russian cargo plane that has been parked for years at Toronto Pearson International Airport has forced the government to disentangle the aircraft's complex ownership structure. This is a legal process, but it's also in the context of: How else can we help Ukraine in its time of need?' Anand said at a Friday news conference. The owners of the Antonov aircraft used complex corporate structures that have required significant time to disentangle.

Ukrainian National Police reported that a man detonated a grenade on a train station platform in Ovruch city in Ukraine's Zhytomyr region, killing three people, as well as himself, and injuring 12 others. The three people killed were all women. Police did not say if the attack, which occurred near Ukraine's border with Belarus, was connected to Russia's war in Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine wants the US to stay involved in efforts to end the war after a meeting of western allies in London that took place without president Donald Trump.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban led what he called a "peace march," stressing his opposition to military support for Ukraine, while his main challenger, Peter Magyar of the Tisza Party, led a competing protest. In an address to the crowd in front of parliament, Orban reiterated his opposition to EU military aid for Ukraine as well as potential EU and NATO membership for the country.

Spain is joining the joint purchases of U.S. military equipment by NATO countries for shipment to Ukraine. The decision was confirmed by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez upon arriving at the meeting of the European Council this Thursday in Brussels. This is a proposal that NATO launched a few weeks ago. I had the opportunity to speak with President Zelenskiy [] and I informed him that we were going to join this program, the Spanish leader stated in response to questions from the media.

European leaders are meeting on Thursday with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Brussels to reaffirm support for Kyiv. The president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, welcomed Zelenskyy, addressing him as future member of the European Union. The meeting comes as the 27 member bloc formally adopted a 19th package of sanctions against Russia for its war against Ukraine that includes a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas imports.

Zelenskyy has painted his meeting last week with Trump as a success that yielded progress on acquiring new air defence systems, a contrast from reports that Trump had berated him with obscenities in the White House. In comments to the media on Sunday that were embargoed until Monday, the Ukrainian president described Trump's message at the meeting as positive, even though Zelenskyy did not secure Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not been invited but said he is ready to join. Asked if troops could deploy if a deal was reached in the next two weeks, Healey said: "If President Trump can broker a peace, then we will be ready to help secure that peace". But he added that Ukrainians must be the "people who will decide how and what" is negotiated in any peace talks.

Trump continues to try to force an end to the fighting, which has been ongoing since Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022. The US leader has not presented any detailed proposals, and wavers in his approach. But he has grown increasingly frustrated with faltering peace efforts. In recent months, he expressed disappointment at Putin for not making meaningful concessions after the two met in Alaska in August.

After all, the Hungarian capital was the site of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine gave up the thousands of nuclear weapons it had inherited upon the breakup of the Soviet Union in return for assurances that Russia would respect Ukraine's territorial integrity. Putin broke that promise with his 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea, with his decade-long military offensive in the Donbas region, and then with his all-out invasion in 2022.