Author: Press Room

Ukraine’s former Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov called for wartime elections just hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy formally nominated Yevhen Khmara as his permanent successor, effectively closing the door on Fedorov’s return to government. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In a video entitled “Address of Mykhailo Fedorov to the People of Ukraine,” released a month after his dismissal sparked nationwide protests, Fedorov said Ukraine should find a way to restore elections despite the ongoing fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion. “We must not let Putin decide when Ukrainians can choose their government,” he said. “Democracy is not a peacetime luxury. Democracy is part of what…

Published on 18/08/2026 – 22:50 GMT+2 French film producer Nicolas Altmayer and his partner, Dior public relations director Mathilde Favier, have died in a car crash in France, according to local authorities. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The couple were travelling through the Deux-Sèvres department of western France when their vehicle hit an oncoming truck while attempting an overtake, Nicolas Leclainche, the deputy public prosecutor in the town of Niort, said. Altmayer, 61, was a film producer known for his work on titles such as “In the House, the “OSS 117” series, and “Young & Beautiful.” Favier, 57, was a director in Dior’s…

Published on 18/08/2026 – 21:08 GMT+2 The dispute between Italy and Germany over the sharing of responsibility for migrants is becoming increasingly heated. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The Italian Interior Ministry has now released new figures on private rescue vessels and is demanding financial compensation from Germany. Since Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni took office in October 2022, German aid organisations have, according to Rome’s figures, brought around 22,500 migrants to Italian ports. In total, about 42,300 people have arrived in Italy on board private rescue ships during this period. This means that, by Italy’s calculation, more than half of these arrivals…

Published on 18/08/2026 – 9:13 GMT+2 Ukraine’s parliament returns to work on Tuesday after its summer break, reconvening with two of the government’s most sensitive wartime portfolios still without heads. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT When the Verkhovna Rada voted in Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi’s new cabinet on 16 July, it approved every post except two: defence minister and foreign affairs minister. For a month now, the defence ministry has been without permanent head, amid Russia’s intensifying ballistic missile attacks, an unusual situation for a country defending itself from the full-scale invasion for over four years. Under Ukraine’s constitution only the president can…

Published on 18/08/2026 – 17:39 GMT+2 The European Commission confirmed on Tuesday that all people illegally remaining in Ceuta would be returned following the massive migrant influx that took place in late July. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “The priority is now for the Spanish and for the Moroccan authorities to maintain control of the situation and to ensure a swift return of all those who illegally remain in Ceuta”, European Commission spokesperson Markus Lammert said Tuesday at a press briefing. Lammert stressed that returns are covered by EU law, adding that they are regulated under “the return directive” and soon the “EU…

Published on 18/08/2026 – 16:51 GMT+2•Updated 16:54 Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha welcomed his Belgian counterpart Maxime Prevot to Kyiv on Tuesday, with the pair forced to meet in a bomb shelter as an air alert rang out across the capital. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “Due to Russian drones attacking our capital, we held our talks underground in the @MFA_Ukraine bomb shelter—a daily reality for millions of Ukrainians, shared by our Belgian guests today,” Sybiha wrote in a post on X, sharing images of the two ministers sitting in a cramped, windowless room. Air raid sirens have become a familiar sound in…

A Russian attack on a village in the Kharkiv region of northeast Ukraine killed at least 10 people, the local governor said on Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The strike comes amid a surge in civilian deaths in the four-and-a-half-year war. Russian forces “carried out a rocket strike on Pechenigy,” a village around 40 kilometres from the Russian border, Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on social media. “According to preliminary information, 10 people were killed,” he added, with eight people wounded. The strike damaged private houses and shops, he added. The Kharkiv region, parts of which are occupied by Russian forces,…

The Veterinary Directorate-General of Greece’s Ministry of Rural Development and Food has lifted the ban on the transport of local dairy products off Lesbos by private individuals visiting the island. Their transport had been prohibited for months because of an outbreak of the animal disease foot-and-mouth in herds on the island. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Under the new decision, dairy products that have been aged for more than two months are now considered “safe products” and may be taken off Lesbos by private visitors, both by ferry and by air. Among these are: feta, ladotyri, kasseri, graviera, kefalotyri. In practice, this means…

Published on 18/08/2026 – 13:03 GMT+2 A German court on Tuesday handed a jail sentence of one year and three months to a Ukrainian man for spying for Russia and helping prepare possible acts of sabotage. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The court in Stuttgart acquitted two other Ukrainian men who were on trial for the same plot, which involved posting test packages containing GPS trackers to Ukraine, a plan the court found was aimed at “disrupting transport and infrastructure.” The court said the 30-year-old Ukrainian man was “most recently resident in Switzerland” and was guilty of “spying for the purposes of sabotage.”…

Published on 18/08/2026 – 12:12 GMT+2 A coalition of 26 businesses and civil society organisations representing more than 11,500 companies is urging the European Commission to make low-carbon criteria mandatory in EU public procurement rules ahead of a revision expected on 9 September. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In a letter sent to the Commission on 18 August and led by the Italian Climate Change think tank ECCO, the signatories say public authorities spend around €2.5 trillion a year on procurement, equivalent to about 16% of EU GDP. However, they argue Europe is not using that purchasing power aggressively enough to create demand…