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Widespread violent clashes erupted from peaceful cost-of-living protests in Milan over the weekend, leaving a trail of vandalism, injuries and more than 200 detentions across northern Italy, and pushing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to convene an urgent national security meeting on Monday.

Organized demonstrations drew more than 5,000 demonstrators to Milan’s streets on Saturday, with tensions escalating quickly when a subset of masked protesters began launching paving stones, discarded bins and street furniture at responding police officers. Law enforcement ultimately deployed crowd control measures including tear gas and water cannons to disperse the unrest, which spilled over into Sunday. Clashes also spread to other major northern Italian cities, triggering pre-emptive security actions in multiple urban centers.

Official Italian local media reports confirm that over 200 people have been taken into custody in connection with the violence, with 80 percent of those detained being minors. Prosecutors in Milan have already requested prison sentences for five adult arrestees charged with multiple offenses including looting, vandalism and resisting arrest. Multiple people, including serving police officers, were treated for injuries sustained during the confrontations. In Turin, authorities detained several individuals found transporting cobblestones and tools specifically intended for breaking windows, while Bologna’s central train station was temporarily closed as a safety precaution amid fears of spreading disorder.

In her first public remarks following the unrest, Meloni drew a clear line between legitimate protest and destructive action. “To demonstrate is a right. To lay our cities to waste is not,” the prime minister stated Saturday, labeling the violent actors as “hooligans” who hijacked the original demonstration to spread widespread chaos. With a national general election scheduled for 2025, Meloni has issued a direct call to political opposition groups to issue unambiguous, unanimous condemnation of the rioting. Writing on the social platform X, she emphasized that “any hesitation becomes justification” for the violence.

The leader of Italy’s main opposition Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, pushed back by confirming her party’s longstanding rejection of all violent action, while warning that the unrest should not be used to silence the grievances of thousands of peaceful protesters across the country who face severe economic hardship amid soaring living costs.

Local leaders have also raised alarms about the character of the unrest. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala described the violence as an alarming “new phenomenon” that draws momentum from a broader unstable international context, linking the disorder to similar unrest seen across the globe. “I witnessed smashed shop windows, looted stores, and frightened citizens,” Sala told Italian news agency Ansa, noting “what happened here is what we are seeing in many cities around the world.”

The Italian unrest follows a pattern of youth-led economic protests across Europe, where mostly peaceful demonstrations have been marred by isolated outbreaks of rioting. Similar clashes have been recorded in recent weeks in France, Spain and Albania, with hundreds of thousands of protesters marching in neighboring France against economic policies and living costs earlier this month. Friday saw student-led anti-government protests across multiple Italian cities, which set the stage for the larger weekend demonstrations that devolved into violence in the north of the country.

On Sunday evening, an Austrian Airlines commercial flight traveling from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport to Vienna was forced to make an emergency diversion to Bulgaria’s capital Sofia after a verified bomb threat was received against the aircraft, multiple authorities and aviation sources have confirmed.

The flight, identified as Austrian Airlines Flight 82 carrying a total of 57 people — 51 passengers and six crew members — was transiting through Romanian airspace when the threat was communicated, prompting the flight crew to immediately divert toward the nearest suitable major airport, Sofia’s Vasil Levski Airport. According to an official statement released by Bulgaria’s Ministry of Transport, local authorities activated full emergency response protocols immediately after receiving the diversion alert, including scrambling a MiG-29 fighter jet from the Bulgarian Air Force to escort the passenger airliner through the final approach and landing.

The jet, an Airbus A320, touched down safely at Vasil Levski Airport roughly three hours after departing Tel Aviv, and all passengers and crew were quickly evacuated from the aircraft as planned. No injuries or harm have been reported among anyone on board, and a full security sweep of the plane and all passenger luggage was completed within 30 minutes of the emergency landing. Investigations into the origin and credibility of the threat are already underway, led by Bulgarian law enforcement and aviation security authorities.

Austrian Airlines, a subsidiary of German aviation giant Lufthansa, confirmed the bomb threat in a brief statement to AFP, but declined to release additional details about the nature of the threat or the investigation as of press time. The BBC has reached out to Lufthansa for further comment on the incident, and no additional statement has been issued to date.

This latest aviation security incident comes amid a string of recent safety scares across European and Middle Eastern airspace. Just one month prior, a Flydubai flight en route to Tel Aviv was the target of a hijacking attempt, when a passenger claiming to be a pilot attacked the aircraft’s captain mid-flight. The attempt was foiled when other crew members and passengers restrained the attacker, and the flight diverted to Saudi Arabia for a safe landing with no casualties. Last week, another false alarm triggered military responses in two European countries: Croatia and Germany both scrambled fighter jets after a commercial flight traveling from the Greek holiday island of Corfu to Nuremberg, Germany accidentally transmitted an erroneous hijacking alert, with no actual threat present on board.

In a revealing new BBC World Service documentary, two Russian men secretly affiliated with Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (GUR) have gone on record to share unprecedented details of their covert operations targeting military infrastructure and personnel within Russia’s borders. The rare firsthand account pulls back the curtain on the shadow network of opposition-aligned Russians supporting Ukraine’s war effort from inside enemy territory. Polish independent journalist Marcin Mamon, who produced the documentary *Shadowmen: Russians working with Ukraine*, profiles two operatives using the pseudonyms Ivan and Foma, each describing distinct roles in the GUR’s coordinated campaign inside Russia.

Ivan, who operates from within Russia, claims to have directly supported Ukrainian drone strikes on key military assets including strategic bombers and munitions factories located on Russian territory. He told Mamon he conducts on-the-ground reconnaissance of military sites, hides drone components in pre-positioned locations across the country, and even smuggles explosives near high-value targets. Mamon verified that Ivan shared reconnaissance video of one such mission near a Russian military airfield. If captured, Ivan would face decades in prison on terrorism charges. He recalled one close call when Russian security officers stopped his car for inspection while he was carrying handmade explosives, yet he avoided detection.

To reduce the risk of the entire network being compromised, Ivan says there is no formal hierarchical structure to the operation, and he has never met any other operatives working for the GUR inside Russia. A former member of Russia’s political opposition, Ivan says he is motivated by ideology: he opposes both Vladimir Putin’s regime and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and he believes accelerating the war’s outcome could lead to the collapse of the Putin government. “If Putin loses the war, his regime might fall, and we are working to speed that up,” he told Mamon. He added that even small, covert actions can have outsized impact: properly assembled drone components smuggled by operatives like him can become formidable weapons capable of destroying military assets worth millions of dollars in a single strike. He also acknowledged constant danger, saying, “Fear follows me everywhere. This is Russia.” Even so, he remains optimistic that long-term change is coming, noting “Putin won’t live forever.”

Foma, the second operative, is a former member of the Russian elite who now lives in exile in Poland. He says he runs a network of roughly 300 to 500 undercover volunteers inside Russia that conducts surveillance on high-level Russian military officers and other targets identified by the GUR. He stresses that his network only collects intelligence and never carries out attacks itself. Foma trains new volunteers remotely through online tutorials, teaching them surveillance tradecraft such as trailing targets without being detected, and prohibits recruits from carrying phones while on observation missions to avoid leaving a digital trace. He shares target dossiers with volunteers that include full biographical details, vehicle information, and residential locations, and his network maps everything from weapons storage facilities and military unit positions to the home addresses of senior officers and strategic bomber pilots. Foma says his network conducts independent vetting of all GUR-suggested targets to confirm they are involved in military actions against Ukraine, a step he says justifies the work: “People who commit terrible acts in Ukraine on behalf of Putin must know they will eventually pay for their actions. I want them to be afraid.”

Foma did confirm that his network provided intelligence on Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, a senior Russian officer assassinated by a car bomb in Moscow in December 2024, noting that tracking the general took extensive effort as he frequently changed his schedule and hid his movements. Foma estimates his network has a few dozen operatives split between Russia, Ukraine, and other European countries, with cross-border members handling logistical support such as tracking targets’ digital footprints. Like Ivan, he emphasizes operational security through decentralized structure, warning that any large formal grouping or digital communication trail would quickly lead to the network being rolled up by Russian security services.

While the GUR has publicly confirmed that both Ivan and Foma are working for the agency, even Ukraine’s intelligence service says it cannot independently verify every detail of their claims. When pressed on whether Ivan can be fully trusted, one of his GUR handlers admitted, “I’m not sure of anyone except myself.” Many of the specific activities described by the two men cannot be independently verified by the BBC. That said, Ukrainian officials have openly acknowledged their broader strategy: Kyiv has confirmed it carries out coordinated drone strikes on what it calls legitimate military targets inside Russia, and it admits using undercover agents to support these operations.

For months, there have been media reports of Russian sabotage networks working for Ukraine, but this is one of the first times an operative on the ground inside Russia has spoken publicly about his activities. Since the full-scale invasion began, there have been multiple high-profile assassinations of senior Russian political and military figures. While Ukraine never officially claims responsibility for these targeted killings, a Ukrainian intelligence officer previously admitted to the BBC that the GUR was behind the December 2024 assassination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, another senior Russian military figure.

It is impossible to confirm how many Russians are currently working for Ukrainian intelligence, though Foma estimates the total number is between 300 and 500. Ivan notes that most ideologically motivated Russians opposed to Putin have already either left the country or been arrested, leaving many operatives inside Russia either as unwitting participants (such as truck drivers who unknowingly transport compromised cargo) or paid contractors. Ivan himself is an unusual case: despite being a known former opposition member, he remains able to travel freely in and out of Russia, a fact that has raised questions even within the GUR about his reliability. Foma argues Ivan’s free movement does not automatically mean he is a double agent, pointing to widespread vulnerabilities in Russia’s governance that allow well-connected or lucky operatives to avoid detection. What lends credibility to Ivan’s account is his advance warning to Mamon of a major planned strike on Russian strategic bomber airfields, which came more than a year before a devastating large-scale drone attack on multiple Russian military airfields.

The full documentary *Shadowmen: Russians working with Ukraine* is available to watch on YouTube for audiences outside the UK and can be listened to via the BBC World Service Documentary Podcast.

Escalating cross-border hostilities between Russia and Ukraine have spilled into Russia’s second-largest city St Petersburg, where an overnight drone attack left at least one civilian dead and five others injured, targeting critical energy infrastructure and major commercial facilities across the urban area. Regional Governor Alexander Beglov confirmed Saturday that emergency response teams were working to contain large blazes that broke out at two major energy sites: the city’s primary St Petersburg Oil Terminal and the Ruchyi oil depot. Additional targets in the coordinated strike included a logistics hub operated by Ozon – Russia’s leading e-commerce platform, often compared to Amazon – and a regional data center belonging to VKontakte, the country’s dominant domestic social media network that serves as a local alternative to Facebook.

Ukrainian officials have not yet issued an official claim of responsibility for the strikes, which come amid a sharply escalating cycle of energy infrastructure attacks ahead of the winter heating season. The strike also follows a recent breakdown in a temporary truce on energy targets brokered by former U.S. President Donald Trump during ongoing negotiations to secure Russian diesel supplies for the U.S. market.

Over the past week, the intensity of mutual attacks has surged rapidly. Zelensky stated Saturday morning that Russian forces have carried out 76 separate strikes on Ukraine’s energy sector since Trump announced his so-called “energy ceasefire” initiative just seven days prior. Ukraine initially paused its own campaign of strikes on Russian energy infrastructure – which Kyiv frames as a targeted effort to cut off Moscow’s primary source of revenue for its full-scale invasion – for three days following Trump’s announcement. But Ukrainian officials quickly accused Russia of violating the truce by continuing its own attacks on Ukrainian energy sites, prompting Kyiv to resume its strikes earlier this week. That resumption drew sharp public criticism from Trump, who has defended his deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to import diesel to the U.S.

This is not the first time St Petersburg has come under Ukrainian drone attack: the city’s oil terminal was previously hit in a July strike, though strikes on Russian territory are far more frequent in regions directly bordering Ukraine. Following Saturday’s attack, Beglov confirmed that 12 multi-story apartment buildings and two private residential homes sustained damage in the attack, prompting authorities to temporarily suspend all flight operations at Pulkovo International Airport, the region’s main air hub. The governor also warned residents of potential temporary disruptions to mobile internet service across affected districts.

Both companies whose facilities were targeted confirmed the attack but sought to downplay long-term disruptions. VKontakte confirmed that a drone struck its regional data center, acknowledging early morning service outages reported by users but emphasizing that full functionality had been restored quickly and platforms were operating “as usual.” Ozon also confirmed a drone hit its St Petersburg logistics center, sparking a small fire that was contained by emergency crews. The company stated that all staff were safely evacuated before the fire was extinguished, and no injuries were reported at the site. Ozon added that it has temporarily stopped accepting new seller shipments at the location while structural and operational assessments are completed.

Ukraine’s recent drone campaign has expanded beyond energy infrastructure to target key Russian commercial and digital assets in an effort to disrupt broader economic activity tied to the war effort. Earlier this month, Kyiv launched a series of coordinated cyber and physical strikes against Yandex, Russia’s largest internet search engine and technology conglomerate, causing widespread temporary service disruptions across the country.

The U.S. deal to import Russian diesel has sparked significant political friction between Washington and Kyiv, as relations between the two allies have frayed in recent weeks. The deal, struck ahead of U.S. midterm elections, is designed to lower skyrocketing domestic U.S. energy prices that have surged amid the ongoing Iran war. Zelensky has publicly condemned the agreement, arguing that it amounts to the U.S. directly funding Russia’s war machine. Trump’s accompanying decision to temporarily suspend a broad package of economic sanctions on Russia has also drawn fierce criticism from political opponents, including a number of lawmakers within his own Republican party.

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth year, both sides have ramped up attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure as winter approaches. Russian military officials maintain that all of their strikes target facilities tied to Ukraine’s war effort, but a United Nations report released Friday noted that the first two weeks of October marked the deadliest period for Ukrainian civilians in years. Russian strikes on energy infrastructure across Ukraine have already left hundreds of thousands of households without access to electricity, stoking widespread international concerns that Ukrainian civilians will face another deadly freezing winter without reliable heating or power. Speaking Saturday, Zelensky confirmed that tens of thousands of Ukrainians remain without power as of Saturday, adding that Russian forces launched nearly 2,700 drones, 1,700 aerial bombs, and 66 guided missiles against Ukrainian targets over the past week – the vast majority targeting energy infrastructure sites.

Russian defense ministry officials claimed overnight into Sunday that their air defense systems had intercepted and destroyed more than 1,000 Ukrainian drones launched across Russian territory.

France entered Sunday morning under a shadow of chaos, after a day of mass nationwide demonstrations devolved into rioting, arson, and looting that left major urban centers scarred with shattered storefronts, burned vehicles, and mounds of smoldering debris across public sidewalks.

Organized protests drew roughly 550,000 people to the streets across the country on Saturday, with the vast majority of demonstrators gathering peacefully to voice their anger over skyrocketing fuel costs, a soaring cost of living, and crumbling public services ranging from primary education to municipal infrastructure. Student-led demonstrations have been growing in intensity for weeks, with campus organizers demanding increased education funding to address crippling staff shortages, overcrowded classrooms, and decades of disrepair to school buildings.

But the largely peaceful mobilization was hijacked by small, organized groups of violent agitators, many clad in black clothing and concealing their identities with masks and balaclavas. These rioters spread destruction across Paris, Marseille, Lille, and dozens of other major cities, setting vehicles and commercial structures ablaze and triggering widespread looting of retail locations.

In central Paris, violent clashes erupted between protesters and riot police, who deployed tear gas and high-pressure water cannons to disperse unruly crowds. Riot officers were witnessed charging assembled crowds and striking multiple demonstrators with batons. By Sunday morning, the scale of destruction in the capital was clear: high-end designer retailers including Ralph Lauren, Gucci, and Versace had their glass storefronts completely shattered, many storefronts were defaced with political graffiti reading slogans like “tax the rich” and “eat the rich,” and at least one central restaurant was completely gutted by fire.

The violence was not contained to Paris. In Marseille, protesters used a metal fence as a battering ram to break into the city’s main town hall. In Lille, authorities confirmed a local McDonald’s outlet was set on fire, and an Apple Store in the city center was broken into and looted. In Lyon, the city’s historic tourist office, a beloved landmark building, was destroyed by fire in what Mayor Grégory Doucet called “a tragedy that breaks all our hearts.” Local authorities reported that hostile agitators blocked firefighters from reaching the blaze, preventing crews from stopping the fire before it destroyed the building.

Further damage was recorded at the 143-year-old town hall in Limoges, where a deliberate fire caused a partial collapse of the structure, leaving most of the historic building a total loss. “A wild horde deliberately set fire to this irreplaceable local landmark,” said Maurice Barate, prefect of the Haute-Vienne department, which oversees Limoges. In Saint-Étienne, a southeastern French city, Mayor Régis Juanico confirmed a young man suffered the amputation of his hand after being struck by a small explosive device, calling the incident “a tragedy that should never have occurred.”

Official figures released by the French government confirm around 1,500 police officers were injured during the unrest, and police took roughly 1,800 people into custody across the country on Saturday. Damage to public and private buildings was reported in more than a dozen cities across France, including Grenoble, Avignon, Pau, Montpellier, and Valence.

As dawn broke on Sunday, local residents and business owners emerged to survey the wreckage across Paris. Shopkeepers took to the streets early with brooms to clear large shards of broken glass, while municipal waste collection trucks worked through major boulevards to clear tons of debris. One small clothing store owner near Place de la République, whose shop was ransacked, told the BBC his business was looted for more than 90 minutes, with no police presence to intervene during the attack. He noted that none of the looters appeared to be genuine protesters, saying they were simply opportunists exploiting the demonstration to commit theft and vandalism. Surveillance footage broadcast on France 2 showed groups of masked teenagers stealing inventory from a mobile phone store, casually taking devices from unlocked display shelves.

France’s interior ministry released a statement describing the violence as “targeted acts of violence” carried out by hooded agitators who operated in multiple major urban centers, including the capital, Marseille, Rennes, Toulouse, and Angers.