标签： Europe

KYIV, Ukraine — In a surprising departure from standard political leadership pathways, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has tapped 48-year-old Serhii Koretskyi, the head of the nation’s state-owned energy sector, to serve as the country’s new prime minister. The appointment, announced Thursday, marks a break from the traditional background of most of Ukraine’s top government officials, who typically rise through partisan politics, parliamentary roles, or civil service ranks. Instead, Koretskyi brings a two-decade private-sector career rooted in engineering and industrial management, spanning both fuel and food sectors, before he was tapped to rescue some of Ukraine’s most troubled state energy assets.

Over the past several years, Koretskyi has built a well-documented reputation as a results-driven crisis manager, turning around chronically underperforming state-owned enterprises and returning them to profitability. His most high-profile successes came after 2022, when the Ukrainian government reclaimed control of major oil producer Ukrnafta and refinery operator Ukrtatnafta from oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskyi and appointed Koretskyi to lead both firms. In just two years, he guided Ukrnafta to record annual profits, paid off all of the company’s outstanding tax debts, and grew domestic production, transforming it into one of Ukraine’s largest taxpayers and a critical supporter of the war effort — supplying military fuel and funding frontline drone programs.

He was later selected to lead national energy giant Naftogaz in 2023, at a moment of acute crisis for the firm: Russian missile and drone strikes on energy infrastructure had decimated production facilities, and previous leadership had failed to build up sufficient gas reserves, leaving stockpiles at historic lows. Koretskyi responded by launching a full organizational audit that led to sweeping restructuring, cutting redundant roles and streamlining operations — changes that sparked internal pushback but delivered tangible results. Under his leadership, Naftogaz rebuilt national gas reserves to over 13 billion cubic meters and raised close to $1 billion in critical revenue for the state.

Now, Koretskyi steps into what will be the greatest challenge of his career: leading Ukraine’s cash-strapped wartime government. This role demands far more than the corporate turnaround expertise that defined his career to date, requiring sharp political skill, careful diplomatic navigation, and strategic power brokering to keep the government and country functioning through ongoing conflict. Zelenskyy has tasked him with steering the nation through what Ukrainian officials warn will be the most difficult winter of the full-scale Russian invasion, targeting repeated Russian attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure. He is the third prime minister to hold office since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

From the outset, his premiership has been mired in controversy. When parliament gathered to vote on his confirmation, hundreds of demonstrators assembled in central Kyiv, voicing anger at Zelenskyy over this week’s sudden government reshuffle that sidelined the widely popular Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

Addressing lawmakers after his confirmation, Koretskyi outlined his immediate policy priorities: shoring up Ukraine’s damaged energy infrastructure ahead of winter, stabilizing the war-battered national economy, ensuring transparent and effective use of incoming international aid, and scaling up domestic arms production to support Ukraine’s military. For his part, Zelenskyy has defended the appointment, framing Koretskyi as the most prepared candidate to lead the country through the coming months, with winter preparedness as his top guiding priority.

In a symbolic closing to his final official visit to Ukraine as British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer has been honored with one of the country’s highest civilian distinctions, the Order of Freedom, by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The award presentation, which took place during the working trip to Kyiv, underscores the deepening diplomatic and strategic partnership between the United Kingdom and Ukraine amid the ongoing regional conflict. The Order of Freedom is typically bestowed upon foreign leaders and prominent figures who have made extraordinary contributions to Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and global advocacy for the nation’s cause. This recognition comes as Starmer wraps up his term in office, marking a tangible milestone in his administration’s commitment to supporting Ukraine against external aggression. Neither Downing Street nor the Ukrainian presidency has released additional details on the full agenda of the visit or further comments on the conferral as of press time, but the ceremony itself stands as a clear reflection of the mutual respect and shared priorities between the two governments.

LONDON — In the wake of damning findings of widespread institutional and individual failures by the United Kingdom’s domestic security service MI5, the British government announced Thursday it will implement stricter oversight measures for the country’s intelligence agencies. The ruling from the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the independent body that hears complaints against UK intelligence services, confirmed MI5 repeatedly provided misleading false accounts to multiple courts regarding its relationship with a neo-Nazi informer who faced accusations of violence against his former partner.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood confirmed she is launching urgent action to reinforce accountability and oversight frameworks for MI5, after the tribunal’s conclusion that a false narrative about the case was allowed to stand uncorrected for an extended period due to deep-rooted systemic gaps. The case stems from a legal claim brought by a woman who was abused by her ex-partner, a man identified in court proceedings only as Agent X who served as an informer for MI5.

Earlier in 2025, MI5 already issued a formal apology and reached a compensation settlement to resolve the woman’s legal claim. In sworn court testimony, MI5 officials claimed the agency had never officially confirmed or denied Agent X’s status as an informer. But records later confirmed an MI5 officer had directly disclosed Agent X’s informer status to a BBC journalist who was conducting an independent investigation into the man.

The tribunal’s final report found that MI5’s false account persisted across three separate court cases, and multiple opportunities to correct the misrepresentation were missed entirely due to systemic organizational failures. “The findings of this report are stark. It details serious failings by individual MI5 officers, resulting in false evidence being provided to the courts, and criticism of MI5 as an organization,” Mahmood told reporters in a statement Thursday.

Mahmood acknowledged the critical national security role that MI5 plays in protecting the UK from threats, noting that agency personnel have already taken targeted steps over the past year to address the gaps exposed by the investigation. “MI5 plays a critical role in keeping our country safe and we owe a debt of thanks to its staff. They have made significant progress over the last year in learning from these failures, but there is more to do to ensure the highest standards of integrity and accountability are upheld,” she added.

Ken McCallum, the Director-General of MI5, accepted full responsibility for the agency’s shortcomings in a public statement following the tribunal’s ruling. McCallum said the service “recognizes without hesitation the seriousness of our failings” and has already begun implementing systemic changes “to ensure we never find ourselves in this position again.”

This is not the first high-profile scandal to expose deep oversight failures in MI5’s handling of informants. Last year, a separate public report found that MI5 knowingly protected a top informant embedded within the Irish Republican Army even after confirming the man was wanted by police for murder. The agency continued to suppress full details of the agent’s activities for decades after the conclusion of the decades-long violent conflict in Northern Ireland.

In a high-stakes case that lays bare Russian efforts to exploit long-running historical fault lines between neighboring Poland and Ukraine, Polish prosecutors have formally charged an 18-year-old Ukrainian national with carrying out coordinated sabotage operations on behalf of Russian intelligence. The suspect, identified only as Illia K in line with Polish privacy regulations, is accused of committing 47 separate criminal offenses between November 2024 and his arrest in August 2025.

According to Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW), the core objective of the sabotage campaign was to stoke ethnic friction and undermine mutual trust between the two Eastern European countries, which have maintained a critical alliance in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The targeted acts included the deliberate desecration of memorials honoring Polish victims of the World War II-era Volhynia massacre, a 1943–1944 campaign carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) that killed an estimated 100,000 ethnic Poles in territory that is now part of western Ukraine.

Prosecutors noted that while Illia K was motivated by financial gain rather than ideological alignment with Russia, all of his actions were executed to advance the interests of a foreign intelligence service. Beyond vandalizing historical monuments, the teen was also charged with plotting to fly a drone over Polish President Karol Nawrocki’s motorcade during the annual Polish Armed Forces Day parade held in Warsaw on August 15, 2024. He was taken into custody just three days before the scheduled event, authorities confirmed.

The ABW added that the suspect allegedly recruited other co-conspirators to participate in the sabotage operations, paying them through cryptocurrencies registered in Russia and China. Tasked by an unidentified handler via an encrypted messaging platform, Illia K was required to send photographic proof of completed acts back to his controller. In addition to Volhynia massacre memorials in the towns of Domostawa and Wrocław, the teen also vandalized the Monument to the Jewish Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland’s capital, placing pro-UPA glorifying inscriptions and symbols at multiple sites.

The legacy of the Volhynia massacre has strained Polish-Ukrainian relations for decades, with deep divisions over the historical legacy of the UPA. Tensions over the issue flared again in May 2024, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a decree naming a Ukrainian military unit after the “Heroes of the UPA”. In response, President Nawrocky stripped Zelenskyy of Poland’s highest state honor, the Order of the White Eagle — a step that had only been taken once before in three centuries of the honor’s existence.

Wojciech Konończuk, director of Warsaw’s Office for Eastern Studies, explained that the divergent national memories of the UPA create a permanent rift that can be easily exploited by outside actors. “For Ukrainians they are heroes because they fought the Soviets,” Konończuk noted in a recent interview. “Many years after the Second World War, the UPA were fighting the Soviet occupation, so Ukrainians only want to remember that part of the history of the formation after 1945. So they don’t know, or don’t want to know what were the UPA activities before 1945.”

“For Poles, the UPA were a criminal structure which was responsible for the mass killing of the Polish population,” he added. “At the same time the level of knowledge in Poland of the history of UPA after the Second World War — basically they were fighters against the Soviets — is usually non-existing knowledge in Polish society.”

The case comes amid a documented surge in Russian espionage and disinformation activity targeting Poland. The ABW reported in May that it had launched 48 active espionage investigations in the previous year, more than double the number recorded in 2024. Russian intelligence services have centered their efforts on discrediting Poland on the global stage and weaponizing pre-existing historical and ethnic divisions, most notably the long-standing tensions between Poland and Ukraine, the agency confirmed. If convicted, Illia K faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

In a major development that highlights ongoing Russian hybrid interference in Central European relations, Polish law enforcement officials have filed serious charges of sabotage and diversionary activity against an 18-year-old Ukrainian national, alleging the man acted on direct orders from Russian intelligence. Authorities claim the suspect was paid through cryptocurrency to carry out a coordinated campaign of vandalism targeting World War II-era memorials honoring Polish citizens killed in wartime massacres carried out by Ukrainian nationalist forces, all as part of a broader plot to stoke deep division between Warsaw and Kyiv.

Poland has been one of the most vocal and unwavering backers of Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, providing critical military aid, shelter for millions of Ukrainian refugees, and consistent diplomatic support for Kyiv’s bid to join NATO and the European Union. Even with this robust alliance, long-simmering historical tensions over World War II-era violence have recently boiled over, creating a opening that Russian intelligence has long sought to exploit to fracture the bilateral relationship. Anti-Ukrainian sentiment has slowly but steadily grown across parts of Polish society in recent months, a shift that Warsaw has repeatedly tied to deliberate Russian influence operations.

The recent dispute between the two nations reached its lowest point in late June, when Polish president Karol Nawrocki revoked the highest Polish state honor previously awarded to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The move came in response to Zelenskyy’s decision to name a Ukrainian military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a mid-20th century paramilitary force that fought for Ukrainian independence against both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. While the UPA holds a complex place in Ukrainian nationalist history, it is widely accused by Polish historians and officials of perpetrating the mass killing of an estimated tens of thousands of Polish civilians between 1943 and 1944, primarily in the occupied regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.

According to official details released by Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW), the charged suspect committed 47 separate criminal offenses between November 2024 and August 2025. Beyond the vandalism of memorial sites, prosecutors accuse the young man of plotting a high-stakes drone sabotage attack that targeted the motorcade of the Polish president during the country’s annual August 15 military parade held in central Warsaw. The suspect was taken into police custody by ABW agents before the parade could begin, preventing any attempt to carry out the attack. Investigators confirmed the suspect was recruited remotely through online channels, with all payments for his activities made in untraceable cryptocurrency.

In a public statement announcing the charges, the ABW emphasized that the case lays bare the systematic operating model of Russian intelligence services, which work to advance Moscow’s geopolitical goals by fueling historical and social conflict between neighboring states. This recent disruption of a Russian sabotage plot comes as Poland and the Baltic states have issued repeated warnings in recent months that Moscow is preparing a range of limited military and hybrid provocations targeting NATO’s eastern flank. This is not the first Russian-linked scheme uncovered in Poland this year: back in late June, the ABW announced it had dismantled another Russia-financed network designed to co-opt members of the large Ukrainian refugee community in Poland to organize anti-government protests and deepen social unrest across the country.