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  • Protests in Ukraine’s cities against Zelensky’s removal of defence minister

    Protests in Ukraine’s cities against Zelensky’s removal of defence minister

    On a Thursday morning, thousands of mostly young demonstrators packed central Kyiv’s Ivan Franko Square, voicing fierce public pushback against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s unexpected dismissal of the widely popular Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. The demonstrations, which have spread to multiple major Ukrainian cities, mark one of the most significant public displays of dissent against Zelensky’s administration since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

    Protesters held hand-painted signs reading “Hands off Fedorov” and “Stop sabotaging victory,” while chanting calls of “Shame” toward the presidential office. Some demonstrators carried blunt messages, including one that read “What are you doing, idiot?” held by two young protesters, with a second sign noting the demonstration was “for all of those who couldn’t be here” — a reference to troops deployed on the front lines who cannot participate in public protests.

    Fedorov, 35, only stepped into the defense minister role in January 2026, but in his six months in office he earned broad acclaim from military personnel, civilian commentators, and segments of Ukrainian civil society for his aggressive anti-corruption reforms, data-driven approach to frontline operations, and focus on modernizing Ukraine’s military through high-tech innovation. A former digital transformation minister, Fedorov had long been a key figure in Ukraine’s war effort: in the opening weeks of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, he organized the volunteer “IT Army of Ukraine,” a network of global hackers that launched coordinated cyberattacks against Russian government and military targets. He later led the groundbreaking “Army of Drones” fundraising initiative that sourced thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles for Ukrainian forces, and pioneered a gamified incentive system that awarded units credits for destroying Russian military assets.

    After taking the defense ministry post, Fedorov doubled down on his modernization agenda, pushing to cut through layers of entrenched bureaucracy and root out lingering Soviet-era institutional mindsets that many Ukrainians blame for slowing military progress. His tenure included a high-profile request to SpaceX founder Elon Musk to restrict Russian access to Starlink satellite services, a move that severely disrupted Russian frontline drone operations and advances. Just last month, Fedorov led Ukrainian defense efforts in a series of devastating mid-range drone strikes on Russian-occupied Crimea, publicly vowing to fully cut the peninsula off from Russian control.

    To date, Zelensky has offered no public explanation for his decision to remove Fedorov, a silence that has amplified public and elite frustration with the sacking. Lawmakers were scheduled to hold a confirmation vote later Thursday on Zelensky’s nominee to replace Fedorov: Ihor Klymenko, the current head of Ukraine’s interior ministry.

    Multiple unconfirmed theories have emerged to explain the dismissal. Some Ukrainian political and military observers point to growing tensions between Fedorov, a young reformer focused on asymmetric high-tech warfare, and Ukraine’s more traditionally minded Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. Others suggest the move stems from criticism that Fedorov moved too slowly to implement sweeping overhauls of Ukraine’s military mobilization system, a deeply contentious issue in the country amid ongoing heavy frontline casualties.

    The sacking has already drawn sharp condemnation across Ukrainian society, particularly among active-duty military personnel. “This is the worst mistake Zelensky has made during his entire presidency,” an active-duty Ukrainian soldier named Oleksandr told the BBC. Oleksandr, who enlisted earlier this year specifically because he trusted Fedorov’s leadership and vision, added: “I don’t know anyone who supports the decision to replace him. Not within the army, not in society.”

    Maria Lavrynets, 31, a protester in central Kyiv, framed the demonstration as a defense of Ukraine’s war progress and frontline troops. “I have lots of friends in the military. Lots of them died. I don’t want this to go on,” she said. “We see [Fedorov’s] results. We see the motivation of the soldiers, we should stand for them.”

    Senior military figures have also joined the backlash. Pavlo Yelizarov, a respected commander of one of Ukraine’s most effective drone units, resigned from his post as deputy commander of the Ukrainian Air Force in protest. He called Fedorov’s sacking “a great evil for the country’s defence capability.”

    Prominent blogger Serhii Sternenko, who was brought into the defense ministry as an advisor by Fedorov, hailed his former boss as “the best minister of defence in our entire history.” In a public statement, Sternenko bemoaned the “bureaucratic obstacles and artificial delays” that had blocked Fedorov from implementing deeper institutional reforms, implying that old-guard opposition had led to his ouster.

    In a brief Facebook post published hours after his dismissal, Fedorov did not criticize Zelensky or the presidential administration, instead highlighting his tenure’s achievements and reaffirming his commitment to the war effort. “I will continue… to defeat the enemy through asymmetry, speed of innovation, and organisational strength,” he wrote.

  • World Rugby bans Italy coach Gonzalo Quesada for 2 matches over referee comments

    World Rugby bans Italy coach Gonzalo Quesada for 2 matches over referee comments

    World Rugby has handed Italy men’s national rugby union head coach Gonzalo Quesada a two-match suspension, marking one of the first high-profile sanctions under the governing body’s sweeping new policy aimed at cracking down on abuse toward match officials. The suspension, announced by World Rugby on Thursday, was triggered automatically by critical comments Quesada made in broadcast interviews following Italy’s 47-17 defeat to the All Blacks (New Zealand) in last Saturday’s Nations Championship fixture held in Wellington.

    The controversial turning point of the match came roughly 30 minutes before full-time, when Italian lock Niccolò Cannone was first issued a yellow sin-bin card by referee Luc Ramos for a head-butting incident. The foul was later upgraded to a permanent red card following a video review by the match’s officiating team, forcing Italy to play the remainder of the test with 14 players. Cannone has already received his own separate four-match suspension for the incident.

    Under the terms of Quesada’s ban, the coach is barred from all match-day activities and prohibited from entering the stadium for Italy’s next two scheduled Nations Championship matches. He will miss this Saturday’s test against Australia in Perth and a home fixture against South Africa scheduled for November 7 in Turin. Quesada retains the right to file an appeal against the automatic sanction.

    In his public post-match comments aired after the loss, Quesada acknowledged that New Zealand earned its lopsided win, noting “the All Blacks absolutely deserved the win; they played an extraordinary game.” Even so, he argued that officiating mistakes contributed significantly to the final scoreline, saying “I think the refereeing team was partly to blame for the score. They made a lot of mistakes today.” He also pushed back against the red card decision for Cannone, calling the call overly harsh. “I think the decision against Niccolò was harsh. It obviously forced the team to play with 10 men for a very long time. Every minute against the All Blacks lasts more than 60 seconds; playing with 10 men against them is really tough.”

    World Rugby’s new automatic sanction process for official abuse, rolled out across all international rugby competitions earlier this month, was first approved during the governing body’s annual Shape of the Game forum held in London last February. The policy is explicitly designed to target critical public comments about officials, which World Rugby says have become a foundational driver of a sharp rise in unacceptable harassment and direct threats toward match officials at all levels of the sport. The framework’s automatic suspension rule is intended to deter harmful rhetoric before it translates to offline harm for the sport’s referees and officiating teams.

  • Protesters rally in Kyiv as Zelenskyy moves to oust Ukraine’s defense minister

    Protesters rally in Kyiv as Zelenskyy moves to oust Ukraine’s defense minister

    KYIV, Ukraine – As Ukraine’s prolonged defense against Russia’s full-scale invasion nears its four-and-a-half year mark, a sweeping government reshuffle initiated by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sparked public unrest and emerged as an unexpected test of the president’s political authority. On Thursday, hundreds of demonstrators assembled in central Kyiv, the same day Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, gathered to vote on a new prime minister as part of the restructuring.

    At the center of the controversy is the impending departure of 35-year-old Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, a reformist leader widely credited with leveraging his technological expertise to drive measurable improvements in Ukraine’s military performance against Russia’s larger, better-resourced armed forces over recent months. Fedorov has only held the defense minister post since January this year, just six months before his anticipated exit.

    Zelenskyy has not publicly shared any official explanation for Fedorov’s removal. Unconfirmed reporting from Ukrainian media has pointed to escalating friction between Fedorov and Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s 60-year-old armed forces commander. Syrskyi, a veteran military leader who organized Kyiv’s successful initial defense shortly after Russia’s 2022 invasion and later led a game-changing 2022 counteroffensive that reclaimed large swathes of the Kharkiv region, has been a polarizing figure among segments of the Ukrainian public.

    Protesters, most of whom were young Ukrainians, gathered in downtown Kyiv chanting Fedorov’s name in a show of public support, while directing sharp criticism toward Syrskyi. Demonstrators called for Syrskyi’s resignation and chanted slogans demanding a NATO-aligned, modern military for Ukraine. The protest spread beyond the capital, with demonstrations also organized in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro and the southern Black Sea port of Odesa.

    Bohdan Huryak, a Kyiv resident who attended the downtown protest, told the Associated Press he was deeply shocked and angered by the decision to remove Fedorov. “I’m not deeply invested in the internal political debates, but this is a person who shows results on the battlefield, we see results, we feel the fighting spirit and confidence in victory rising,” Huryak said. “And then, six months later, he is removed from office? Come on.”

    This is not the first time public protests have forced a course correction from Zelenskyy since the 2022 full-scale invasion. In July 2023, large-scale street demonstrations broke out over a controversial draft law that would have restricted the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdog bodies. At the time, the public outcry marked the first major threat to Zelenskyy’s leadership stability, prompting the president to quickly reverse the policy.

    Long before taking over the defense portfolio, Fedorov built a reputation as a progressive modernizer leading Ukraine’s digital transformation agenda. He gained widespread public popularity for spearheading the rapid development and deployment of innovative drone technology that has become a critical asset on the front lines, as well as rolling out widely praised e-government platforms that streamlined public services.

    After taking the defense minister post, Fedorov launched ambitious plans for sweeping military reform. In his opening remarks, he publicly disclosed the scale of long-standing challenges within the military, acknowledging roughly 200,000 troop desertions and an estimated 2 million cases of draft dodging that had weakened Ukraine’s fighting capacity.

    In a series of social media posts confirming his dismissal late Wednesday, following days of unconfirmed media speculation about his exit, Fedorov laid out his key achievements during his short tenure. He wrote that he made the risky decision to reallocate budget funds originally earmarked for military salaries toward expanding mid-range strike capabilities, long-range fiber-optic drones, advanced reconnaissance systems and other critical battlefield technologies.

    Fedorov also highlighted progress on expanding domestic and international drone procurement, finalizing contracts for additional Patriot air defense systems, completing Ukraine’s first successful domestically developed ballistic missile tests, and overhauling the country’s opaque and inefficient military procurement system.

    Even as he celebrated his progress, Fedorov admitted he had been unable to complete all of his planned reforms. He wrote that he failed to finish the full organizational restructuring of the Defense Ministry to align with NATO standards, shift all military procurement to open competitive bidding processes, and embed a widespread culture of accountability across the department. He added that while he had removed dozens of obstructive officials from their posts during his tenure, “it was necessary to dismiss even more people who were hindering the changes.”

    As part of the broader government reshuffle, Zelenskyy has nominated Serhii Koretskyi, the current chief executive of Ukraine’s state-owned energy giant Naftogaz, to take over as prime minister, parliament speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk confirmed in a Wednesday social media post. Zelenskyy argued Wednesday that Koretskyi is the best fit for the role because the government’s top priority ahead of the coming season is preparing Ukraine for another difficult winter of potential Russian energy infrastructure attacks, citing Koretskyi’s decades of experience in the energy sector.

    Ukrainian lawmakers began debating the full slate of cabinet changes this week, ahead of parliament’s scheduled summer recess set to begin Saturday. The outcome of the reshuffle and the public response to Fedorov’s dismissal will serve as a key indicator of Zelenskyy’s political standing as Ukraine enters a new phase of its war with Russia.

    Dan Bashakov and Dmytro Zhyhinas contributed reporting to this article.

  • UK urges FIFA to investigate Argentina over Falklands banner at World Cup

    UK urges FIFA to investigate Argentina over Falklands banner at World Cup

    LONDON – In the wake of Argentina’s dramatic 2-1 victory over England in a 2024 FIFA World Cup semifinal held in Atlanta, a fresh diplomatic and sporting controversy has erupted over a display of political messaging during Argentine players’ post-match celebrations, prompting the British government to call for a formal investigation from global soccer’s governing body FIFA.

    During jubilant celebrations following Wednesday’s final whistle, members of the Argentine national squad unfurled a banner passed to them from fans in the spectator stands that read “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” – a phrase translating to “The Malvinas are Argentine.” Argentina has long claimed sovereignty over the South Atlantic archipelago, which it calls Islas Malvinas; the territory is administered as a British Overseas Territory under the name Falkland Islands.

    The act puts the Argentine team at risk of formal disciplinary action from FIFA, as the organization enforces strict regulations that prohibit any form of political expression or messaging on the field of play during official international tournaments. U.K. Business Secretary Peter Kyle publicly condemned the players’ actions in comments to the BBC, labeling the banner display “entirely inappropriate.”

    Kyle emphasized that a core foundational principle of global international soccer competitions, including the World Cup, is the separation of political discourse from athletic competition. “That is now a matter for FIFA,” Kyle stated. “I expect FIFA to do its investigation thoroughly.”

    Long-simmering political tensions over the Falkland Islands have long amplified the already fierce sporting rivalry between the English and Argentine men’s national soccer teams. The remote archipelago is home to roughly 3,500 permanent residents, sitting approximately 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) off the coast of the United Kingdom and just 300 miles (480 kilometers) off the Argentine mainland.

    The dispute over territorial sovereignty stretches back nearly two centuries. Argentina asserts that British forces illegally seized the islands from its control in 1833, after Argentine authorities moved to assert sovereignty over the territory. For its part, the United Kingdom maintains its territorial claim dates back to 1765, and that British forces reaffirmed control in 1833 by expelling Argentine personnel that had occupied the islands.

    The conflict boiled over into open war in 1982, when Argentine military forces invaded the archipelago. The resulting 10-week conflict ended in a British victory, but left a heavy human toll: 649 Argentine troops, 255 British service members, and three civilian islanders died in the fighting. The sovereignty dispute remains unresolved to this day, with the people of the Falkland Islands overwhelmingly affirming their desire to remain a British territory in multiple public referendums.

  • UK nationalizes Chinese-owned British Steel to protect nation’s steelmaking capacity

    UK nationalizes Chinese-owned British Steel to protect nation’s steelmaking capacity

    LONDON – In a major intervention to safeguard the nation’s critical manufacturing infrastructure, the United Kingdom has taken full public ownership of British Steel, stepping in after the company’s Chinese parent firm moved forward with plans to shutter its core blast furnace operations. The Department for Business and Trade confirmed the nationalization in an official statement released Thursday, framing the decision as a critical measure to protect thousands of local jobs and uphold the UK’s long-term national economic and strategic interests.

    By bringing British Steel into public hands, the government aims to guarantee a steady domestic supply of steel for large-scale public construction projects and the UK’s defense sector, two areas that rely heavily on domestic manufacturing capacity. “British Steel now belongs to the British people, and our focus is firmly on the future: stabilizing the business, supporting the communities that depend on it, and building a sustainable, competitive, decarbonized steel sector for decades to come,” Business Secretary Peter Kyle said in the official announcement.

    An independent assessment process will now get underway to evaluate whether any financial compensation will be awarded to Jingye Group, the Chinese conglomerate that purchased British Steel in 2020. The nationalization comes more than a year after the UK government first took temporary operational control of the company, when Jingye announced it was considering permanent closure of the Scunthorpe plant’s blast furnaces, located in northern England.

    Those blast furnaces hold unique strategic importance: they are the last remaining facilities in the UK that produce virgin steel directly from raw iron ore, a process that forms the foundation of the country’s domestic steel supply chain. Steel production at the Scunthorpe site has a deep historical roots stretching back more than 130 years, tracing its origins to the UK’s Industrial Revolution, when British innovators pioneered breakthrough steelmaking technologies that transformed global manufacturing. Today, the site directly employs roughly 2,700 workers.

    In comments following the nationalization announcement, Jingye Group said it has invested more than £1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) into British Steel since acquiring the company in 2020, funds it says were used to keep operations running amid persistent production instability that threatened the plant’s viability.

  • Jackson Suber leads a day of surprises at Birkdale with a 65 in his first British Open

    Jackson Suber leads a day of surprises at Birkdale with a 65 in his first British Open

    SOUTHPORT, England — The opening round of the British Open at Royal Birkdale delivered one of golf’s most unexpected early-storylines, as 26-year-old American rookie Jackson Suber claimed the first-day lead with a blistering 5-under-par 65, capping a stunning debut on traditional links golf just three days after stepping onto European soil for the first time.

    A day of warm, swirling breezes stretched first-round play across 15 hours, packed with dramatic swings, surprising breakout performances from debutants and a high-profile rebuttal of a legendary critic from one of the game’s most controversial stars. Half of the top 12 players on the opening-day leaderboard are first-time British Open competitors, proving links golf can be as kind to newcomers as it is to seasoned veterans.

    Few could have predicted Suber’s dream start. A former Ole Miss player who has yet to claim a professional win anywhere in the world and is playing just his third major championship, Suber entered the week with zero experience on a championship links course as demanding as Royal Birkdale. He shrugged off the steep learning curve with a clutch par save on the newly redesigned par-3 15th, where severe sloping on both sides of the green makes holding position notoriously difficult. He followed that up with a birdie on the par-4 16th, then produced a masterclass on the 17th: choking up on a 4-iron from 233 yards out, he landed his approach 6 feet from the pin to sink an eagle that catapulted him to the top of the leaderboard.

    “Just kind of kept the ball in good spots and didn’t put much pressure on my game to make pars,” Suber said of his steady performance, which marked just his seventh round of play across any major championship.

    Suber holds a one-stroke lead over South Korea’s Sungjae Im and England’s home hopeful Dan Brown, with nine players tied at 4-under 67. That group includes four more British Open debutants: Alex Smalley, Ryan Gerard, M.J. Daffue and Pierceson Coody.

    One of the most talked-about performances of the day came from Bryson DeChambeau, who silenced three-time Open champion Nick Faldo’s recent criticism of his links strategy. DeChambeau, who has missed the cut in all three majors this year and largely avoided mainstream media since the Masters, fired a 4-under 67 that left him just two shots off Suber’s lead, defying Faldo’s claim earlier this week that “DeChambeau has zero clue of strategy.”

    Faldo, speaking on the Sky Sports Golf Podcast, had argued that traditional links golf rewards controlled placement, not brute force: “You thread it, don’t you? You feed it down the fairway. … You don’t think, ‘Oh, I’ll just blast it down there.’” But DeChambeau turned that criticism on its head, using his signature long-drive strategy to carry Royal Birkdale’s fearsome fairway bunkers entirely, landing on 15 of 18 greens despite only hitting four fairways and rarely finding himself in serious trouble. He carded birdies on both the par-4 second and par-4 10th, blasting blind tee shots over hazards to land within striking distance of the green both times. Only a weak chip and missed putt on the 18th kept him from matching Suber’s score.

    “I feel like I did a really good job today of being incredibly strategic and focused super hard on placing it in the right places,” DeChambeau told reporters from the R&A after his round. “Besides 18, I placed the ball in some good areas. I just need to hit more fairways. Other than that, I feel like my strategy was nice today.”

    The day also brought dramatic ups and downs for some of the game’s top-ranked players. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffer got off to a blistering start, birdying four of his first six holes to jump to 4-under, but failed to card another birdie over his final 12 holes, finishing with a 2-under 68. Scheffler, who played alongside DeChambeau, shrugged off the late cold streak, noting that the Open is a 72-hole tournament.

    “If I continue to strike the ball the way I did today and just keep giving myself looks, that’s part of it,” Scheffler said. “Golf is played over 72 holes, and I definitely liked what I saw today.”

    Four-time major winner Rory McIlroy suffered a far tougher opening, struggling with a sudden putting slump that saw him miss three 4-foot putts across a four-hole stretch on his way to a 1-over 72, six shots off the lead. One of the day’s unluckiest breaks hit debutant Alex Smalley, who held a share of the lead late until a wild bounce off a spectator fence sent his 18th tee shot out of bounds, resulting in a double bogey that dropped him back into the tie at 67.

    “Got up to where the ball was supposed to be and was told it hit a spectator fence and kicked another 15 yards right out of bounds,” Smalley said. “All three of us in our group actually hit it over there, and mine just got an unlucky break. Poor tee shot, poor break. Sometimes that’s how it goes.”

    Other notable players in the tie at 67 include 2018 Open champion Francesco Molinari, Cameron Young, Robert MacIntyre and Thomas Detry, all still well within striking distance of the lead heading into Friday’s second round.

  • Schmidt’s final Wallabies test brings hometown start for Carlo Tizzano vs Italy

    Schmidt’s final Wallabies test brings hometown start for Carlo Tizzano vs Italy

    PERTH, Australia – As outgoing head coach Joe Schmidt prepares to take charge of the Australian Wallabies for the final time this Saturday, the national rugby side has announced three key starting lineup changes for their upcoming Nations Championship clash with Italy, headlined by a hometown start for back-rower Carlo Tizzano. Tizzano will step into the starting scrum side in place of Fraser McReight, who turned in a standout performance as Australia’s best player in last week’s 42-26 defeat to Six Nations titleholders France in Brisbane. The shift of McReight from the starting XV to the reserve bench is widely viewed as a planned rotation move for the third consecutive weekend of tournament play.

    Of the three starting lineup adjustments, two are forced by injury. Brandon Paenga-Amosa has been promoted to the starting hooker position after playing nearly the full match against France last week, when starting hooker Josh Nasser suffered a head injury in the opening minutes of the contest. On the wing, Harry Potter will step into the starting spot after Dylan Pietsch sustained a calf injury that rules him out of Saturday’s fixture.

    Flyhalf Declan Meredith, who made his senior international debut against France last week, has been retained in the starting group. Ben Donaldson has recovered from injury to earn a spot on the reserves bench as backline cover, pushing out Jock Campbell for the match.

    Schmidt, who first announced his departure from the head coaching role last year, has stayed in the position through the tournament to allow incoming coach Les Kiss time to wrap up his existing commitments with the Queensland Reds. Kiss will officially take over the Wallabies ahead of next month’s test series against Japan, and Schmidt is eager to end his tenure on a high note by snapping the team’s current six-match losing skid.

    In his pre-match comments released Thursday, Schmidt acknowledged his side has shown flashes of strong form in recent fixtures but emphasized the need for sustained quality across 80 minutes. “We’ve shown some encouraging signs but we need to sustain our accuracy and effort throughout the match,” Schmidt said. “The challenge for us this week is to perform at a consistently high standard against a dangerous Italian side, who were hugely competitive in the Six Nations, beating both Scotland and England as well as running other teams close.”

    Australia’s recent tournament results have been defined by collapsed second-half leads: after holding a 21-12 halftime advantage over France last week, the side conceded 30 consecutive unanswered points to drop the match, and in the tournament’s opening round in Sydney, Australia surrendered a 12-point lead to fall 33-31 to Ireland.

    Italy enters Saturday’s matchup with its own challenges, having dropped both of its opening Nations Championship fixtures. Italy lost its tournament opener to Japan, followed by a 47-17 defeat to New Zealand last weekend. Lock Niccolo Cannone will miss the clash against the Wallabies, serving a four-week suspension after receiving a red card for a head-butt in the second half of the All Blacks match.

    Australia’s full starting lineup for Saturday is: Tom Wright, Max Jorgensen, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, Len Ikitau, Harry Potter, Declan Meredith, Ryan Lonergan; with captain Harry Wilson, Carlo Tizzano, Rob Valetini, Jeremy Williams, Josh Canham, Allan Alaalatoa, Brandon Paenga-Amosa, and Angus Bell. The reserves are: Billy Pollard, James Slipper, Zane Nonggorr, Miles Amatosero, Fraser McReight, Tate McDermott, Ben Donaldson, and Filipo Daugunu.

  • Ukraine buries its unknown soldiers as families wait for identification

    Ukraine buries its unknown soldiers as families wait for identification

    On a quiet, somber day at Kyiv’s main military cemetery, siblings Stanislav and Oleksandra Yalynych walked slowly between rows of plain wooden crosses, clutching a bouquet of deep red carnations. Every cross in this section of the burial ground shares the same heartbreaking inscription: “unknown defender of Ukraine”, etched above a unique identification number and a small note stating that efforts to confirm the soldier’s identity are still ongoing. One grave, however, now stands apart from the rest: beneath the generic wording, a photograph has been taped to the cross — that of Ihor Yalynych, a Ukrainian soldier who was last seen alive in the Kharkiv region in early 2022. After four long years of relentless searching, the two siblings finally found their father.

    The painstaking work of identifying Ukraine’s fallen troops has emerged as one of the longest, most raw open wounds left by Russia’s full-scale invasion, a national reckoning that experts and officials agree will stretch on for decades after the final shots are fired. Hundreds of unidentified troops already rest in the Kyiv cemetery, with new grave sites dug every week to accommodate more remains, and many more may never be named, leaving their families in perpetual limbo.

    For much of the war, Ukraine lacked a dedicated resting place for unidentified fallen soldiers. Bodies were stored in refrigerated facilities across the country while the national military cemetery was under construction. Even before the site was formally completed in January 2024, the first group of unknown troops was laid to rest there in August 2023, and more than 300 now lie under numbered crosses.

    “I was a daddy’s girl, and I took the loss very hard,” said 21-year-old Oleksandra Yalynych. “All these four years, all I wanted was to come and sit with him, to talk. … Now I’m glad we found him. Now I have somewhere to go.”

    Ihor Yalynych’s story mirrors that of thousands of Ukrainian service members who have fallen since the full-scale invasion began. He had served in Ukraine’s military since 2015, just one year after armed conflict broke out in eastern Ukraine and Russia illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula. When Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ihor was deployed with a brigade in eastern Ukraine. He returned safely from his first combat mission, even sending photos of himself to his son Stanislav, but he never came back from his second.

    After weeks of no contact, Stanislav took to social media to post that his father was missing. An acquaintance reached out, saying he had recognized Ihor in a photo circulating on a Russian Telegram channel: the image showed nine Ukrainian soldiers, shot and killed, lying in a line. When Stanislav saw the photo, he knew immediately his father was among the dead.

    Ukraine’s National Police in the Kharkiv region confirmed to the Associated Press that an investigation into the deaths of this group of service members, whose bodies were recovered in the region in April 2022, remains ongoing, along with efforts to identify all of the men.

    Ihor’s body remained in Russian-occupied territory for five months, and it was only recovered after Ukrainian forces reclaimed the area in September 2022. What followed was a four-year slog through bureaucratic red tape, including mandatory DNA testing, before the family could finally claim his remains. According to Stanislav, the process could have been completed much faster if Mykolaiv regional police — where Ihor was registered as a resident — had not lost the case file, which sat unprocessed for more than two years.

    In response to a written inquiry from the AP, Mykolaiv police did not address the family’s claims of a lost file or excessive delay, only stating that no criminal proceedings had been filed in connection with Ihor’s identification process. Because of the missing file, Stanislav was only able to provide his DNA sample for matching roughly six months ago, and the match was confirmed just two months after that.

    Under Ukraine’s current system for honoring fallen troops, when a soldier is buried as unknown and no family is present to accept the folded national flag from the coffin, the Ukrainian state steps in to receive the flag on the soldier’s behalf, holding it until an identification is made, Veterans Affairs Minister Natalia Kalmykova explained.

    “Honoring a person who gives their life for their country is, first of all, truly needed by those who remain,” she said. “So we understand the price being paid for independence — in our case, our country’s — for our right to choose our own path and democracy in this country.” So far, three of the first unknown soldiers buried in the Kyiv cemetery have been formally identified, she added.

    Kalmykova noted that the backlog of unknown dead traces back to the chaotic early weeks of the 2022 invasion. Most troops who joined in the first year of the full-scale war were not required to submit DNA samples, leaving no pre-existing database to cross-reference with remains. A national database has since been established, and around half of all active Ukrainian troops have now submitted their DNA, according to a senior military official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    In cases where no troop DNA is available in the database, identification relies on close relatives coming forward to provide their own samples for matching. That process is often derailed: many relatives live in Russian-occupied territory, have fled abroad, are estranged from the soldier, do not know their loved one is missing, or have themselves been killed in the war.

    As of the latest data, more than 40,000 DNA samples from unidentified remains have been registered in Ukraine’s system, said Ruslan Abbasov, deputy director of the State Scientific Research Forensic Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Most of these have already been cross-referenced with roughly 170,000 samples submitted by relatives of missing service members. When no match is found through the existing database, investigators often go to extra lengths, searching soldiers’ abandoned apartments or retrieving personal belongings to collect viable DNA, Abbasov added.

    To streamline future identification efforts, every unidentified coffin is marked with a unique ID number inside and out, and the number is inscribed on the grave marker. A centralized public registry logs every number to the corresponding set of remains, so a confirmed match can quickly be traced to its burial site.

    Ukraine receives remains of fallen troops directly from frontline recovery teams, and through the repatriation process with Russia. Since the full-scale invasion began, Ukraine has recovered 24,805 bodies of fallen troops through repatriation alone, according to the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

    While some remains are found with identity documents in pockets, DNA testing is still required to confirm matches: there is no guarantee the documents found with a body actually belong to that soldier. Maksym Paziura, a forensic medical examiner working in the Kyiv region, explained that the process is often far more complicated. In many cases, remains of multiple soldiers are mixed together in a single collection bag, making it difficult just to extract a usable DNA sample. Most remains also are in advanced stages of decomposition by the time they are recovered.

    Paziura’s team processes 15 to 20 bodies every day, holding them in refrigerated storage until they can be identified or buried. The team’s workload is roughly five times what it was before the full-scale invasion, he said. “Even if the war ends, we’ll still have a great deal of work,” Paziura said. “Identification is a hard, long process, and it won’t stop when the fighting does.”

    For families of missing troops, identification is about far more than emotional closure. Until a death is formally confirmed, relatives cannot settle inheritance claims, legally remarry, or access the state compensation that is owed to families of fallen soldiers. Abbasov pointed to the Western Balkans, where identification of war dead continues decades after the Yugoslav Wars ended, and said Ukraine will face the same long, slow process.

    For Stanislav Yalynych, placing his father’s photo on the grave brought a long-awaited sense of peace. “Now it won’t only be us who know our father lies there,” he said. Since the photo was added, strangers visiting the cemetery have stopped to ask about Ihor. To Stanislav, that means his father’s sacrifice will not be forgotten, and his memory will live on long after he is laid to rest.

  • Verdict due in trial over 2018 bridge collapse in Italy that killed dozens

    Verdict due in trial over 2018 bridge collapse in Italy that killed dozens

    GENOA, Italy – Nearly eight years after one of Italy’s deadliest infrastructure disasters killed 43 people, a Genoese courtroom is set to deliver long-awaited verdicts Thursday in the trial of 57 defendants charged over the collapse of Genoa’s Morandi highway bridge. The disaster, which exposed systemic failures in Italy’s national infrastructure upkeep, has remained a raw wound for victims’ families and a national reckoning over public safety standards for years.

    The defendants facing judgement are a broad group that includes former senior executives from Autostrade per L’Italia, Italy’s major highway concession operator, lead engineering experts from the firm’s subsidiary SPEA, and ex-officials from Italy’s national Infrastructure Ministry. Nearly all defendants stand accused of negligent conduct leading to widespread disaster and multiple counts of manslaughter, stemming from allegations that they deliberately neglected mandatory upkeep and safety inspections for the aging bridge, a critical transit link connecting northern Italy to the French Riviera.

    The collapse unfolded on the morning of August 14, 2018, when a 200-meter section of the concrete bridge crumbled during a heavy rainstorm. Dozens of cars and heavy trucks fell more than 40 meters to the ground below, killing all occupants. Graphic footage of the destroyed span spread globally, sending shockwaves across Italy: the collapse occurred on the eve of Ferragosto, Italy’s iconic mid-summer public holiday, when millions of Italians were already traveling for summer vacation, making the disaster a national conversation overnight.

    Lead prosecuting attorneys have argued that decades of deferred maintenance and ignored safety warnings directly caused the structural failure, and have collectively called for nearly 400 years of combined prison sentences for the 57 defendants. All defendants have consistently denied any criminal wrongdoing, asserting that an inherent, unforeseen construction defect from the bridge’s original design was the root cause of the collapse.

    Thursday’s verdicts will bring a close to a sprawling trial that has stretched over four years and included more than 280 separate court hearings, as legal teams sifted through thousands of pages of engineering reports, maintenance records and witness testimony.

    For victims’ legal representatives, the core demand is not just harsh sentences, but formal recognition that the disaster was preventable. “Our expectation is to feel our pain recognized … and to have it acknowledged that this did not happen by chance, but because of serious failures in maintenance,” explained Raffaele Caruso, one of the lead attorneys representing multiple victims’ families.

    When the Morandi Bridge opened to traffic in 1967, it was hailed as a groundbreaking engineering marvel, defined by its three distinctive A-shaped concrete pylons and unique concrete-encased stay cable design. Caruso noted that the trial has already confirmed that warning signs of structural degradation in the pylon that ultimately collapsed were documented as early as the 1990s. Maintenance work to address the same corrosion defect was completed on the bridge’s two other pylons starting in 1993, but work was never scheduled or carried out on the third failed pylon.

    “From 1993 onward, the problem was known. We had three identical pylons. Two had already shown the same defect, and no one seriously asked whether the third one had it as well,” Caruso told reporters ahead of the verdict.

    Ahead of Thursday’s ruling, current Autostrade chief executive Arrigo Giana, who took over the role last year, issued a formal public apology in an open letter published in all major Italian national newspapers Thursday morning. “The actions and decisions of some people left indelible scars,” Giana wrote. “Offering today the apology that was not made then is, for us, a moral imperative that goes beyond establishing legal responsibility and the course of justice toward the truth.”

    Earlier in the legal process, Autostrade and its engineering subsidiary SPEA reached a separate corporate liability settlement with prosecutors. The firms agreed to pay roughly 30 million euros ($34 million) in administrative fines, and implemented sweeping new corporate compliance protocols designed to prevent similar safety failures in the future. All victims and their families have already received full financial compensation through the agreement. In exchange, the companies avoided standing trial as corporate defendants, and escaped far harsher potential penalties that would have included a ban on bidding for future public infrastructure contracts across Italy.

    A replacement span, designed by world-renowned Genoa-born architect Renzo Piano, opened to traffic in 2020. The new bridge was built alongside a permanent public memorial honoring the 43 people killed in the 2018 collapse.

  • Starmer on final trip to Ukraine as PM pledges UK’s ‘cast-iron’ support

    Starmer on final trip to Ukraine as PM pledges UK’s ‘cast-iron’ support

    As Keir Starmer prepares to step down as United Kingdom Prime Minister, he is making one last high-stakes trip to Ukraine to cement the long-standing bilateral commitment to the war-torn nation, pledging that Britain’s “cast-iron” backing for Kyiv will not waver under his successor. Starmer is scheduled to hold formal talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Thursday, just one day before Andy Burnham, Starmer’s incoming successor as leader of the Labour Party, is officially installed and set to take over the office of prime minister on Monday.

    In pre-departure remarks, Starmer paid tribute to the extraordinary resilience of the Ukrainian people, arguing that their unbroken fortitude in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion launched in February 2022 has done more than defend their own borders — it has preserved the collective security of the entire European continent. The outgoing prime minister also highlighted the major milestones of British support for Ukraine during his two-year tenure in Downing Street, most notably the historic 100-year bilateral partnership signed by the two nations, designed to deepen integrated defence cooperation and expand bilateral trade ties. He also noted his leadership in building global consensus around the creation of a dedicated multinational peacekeeping force to secure long-term stability once a formal peace agreement is reached.

    “When I entered Downing Street as prime minister, I made a commitment that the UK would not just offer temporary solidarity with Ukraine during the immediate heat of conflict — we would help lay the solid foundations for its long-term security and lasting success,” Starmer said in his official statement. He added that under his government, the UK has expanded its own defence investment and positioned itself as a global leader in developing next-generation combat technologies needed for modern battlefields. “We have also rallied partners across the globe to join us in this commitment. As the recent G7 and NATO summits made clear, the United Kingdom and our allied nations remain completely united in opposing Russian aggression,” he added.

    Zelensky’s recent push for increased military support comes amid an intensification of Russian air strikes across Ukrainian territory. Speaking at last week’s NATO summit hosted in Turkey, the Ukrainian president called on allied nations to prioritize expanding supplies of advanced air defence systems to counter the ongoing bombardment. Shortly after that appeal, U.S. President Donald Trump granted Ukraine approval to domestically produce Patriot air defence missiles, a capability that will significantly boost Kyiv’s ability to intercept Russian ballistic missile attacks targeting population centers and critical infrastructure.

    In the latest British military contribution to Ukraine, a £61 million contract with defence giant BAE Systems will deliver 150 British-manufactured artillery barrels to help strengthen Ukrainian frontline defences, adding much-needed firepower to Kyiv’s counter-offensive operations. “I am incredibly proud of everything Britain has contributed to Ukraine’s fight. This work will continue, and our unwavering, cast-iron support for Ukraine will always endure,” Starmer said.

    Starmer’s visit coincides with renewed Russian offensive operations targeting the strategic southern Ukrainian port of Odesa. The Kremlin has confirmed that its forces struck port infrastructure it claims is used for unloading petroleum, oil and lubricant supplies for the Ukrainian military. Recent Russian attacks on Black Sea oil tankers have killed eight people, adding to the rising civilian and military toll along the critical Black Sea trade corridor.

    On Wednesday, during Starmer’s final appearance at the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session in the House of Commons, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch publicly praised Starmer’s diplomatic and policy work on Ukraine and his close personal friendship with President Zelensky. As he bid farewell to fellow members of parliament, Starmer recalled a defining emotional moment from his tenure: welcoming Zelensky to Downing Street just days after the Ukrainian leader’s high-profile public disagreement with U.S. President Donald Trump during a 2025 visit to the White House. “I sat down with him then to make clear: in the United Kingdom, we will always stand with him and the people of Ukraine,” Starmer said.