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Tensions between the UK and Russia have escalated sharply after UK Defence Secretary John Healey publicly accused three Russian submarines of carrying out a covert surveillance operation targeting critical undersea cables and pipelines in waters north of the British mainland. In a press briefing held at Downing Street on Thursday, Healey said the incident represented a deliberate act of malign activity by Moscow, and confirmed British naval and air assets had been immediately deployed to intercept and monitor the Russian contingent, with no evidence of damage to UK Atlantic infrastructure found to date.

Addressing Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, Healey issued a stark public warning: “We see you. We see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences.” According to Healey’s account, Russia deployed one Akula-class attack submarine as a diversionary distraction, while two special-purpose spy submarines operated by Russia’s secretive GUGI deep-sea research directorate conducted surveillance of the undersea infrastructure networks. He added that the diversionary attack submarine returned to Russian waters after being tracked by British forces, while the two GUGI vessels remain in the wider region.

Moscow has rejected the UK’s allegations outright. In a report carried by Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass, the Russian Embassy in London stated that Russia “is not threatening underwater infrastructure, which is truly critical to the UK. We are not using aggressive rhetoric in this regard.”

To counter the Russian operation, the Royal Navy deployed the Type 23 frigate HMS St Albans, Royal Fleet Auxiliary fuel tanker RFA Tidespring, and anti-submarine Merlin helicopters to continuously track all three submarines. Norway also joined the monitoring effort, though Healey did not disclose details of contributions from other allied nations. “Our armed forces left [Russia] in no doubt that they were being monitored, that their movements were not covert, as President Putin planned, and that their attempted secret operation had been exposed,” Healey told reporters. “We watched them, we were able to track them, we dropped sonar buoys to demonstrate to them that we were monitoring every hour of their operation.”

Little known to the general public compared to Russia’s iconic KGB or domestic intelligence service FSB, GUGI – the Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research – is one of Moscow’s most formidable and secretive military units. Officially part of the Russian Navy, the agency operates with such a high level of classification that it reports directly to Russia’s defence minister and the president. Headquartered in St. Petersburg on the Baltic coast, GUGI maintains a key Arctic deployment base at Olenya Bay on the Kola Peninsula, which also hosts Russia’s strategic nuclear submarine fleet.

GUGI’s core mandate covers deep-water underwater surveillance, reconnaissance and sabotage operations. Global military analysts note that only the United States matches GUGI’s unique capability to operate advanced military hardware at extreme ocean depths. This hardware includes small uncrewed mini-submarines, which experts believe were the assets deployed by Russia during the recent operation near UK cable routes. These mini-subs can be launched covertly under cover of darkness from larger mother ships such as the Russian spy vessel Yantar, which has previously been spotted operating near critical infrastructure in the English Channel. The systems have the technical capability to cut undersea cables, or tap into them to intercept data traffic passing through the networks.

This type of activity falls under the framework of modern hybrid warfare: hostile acts carried out by a state that fall short of a clearly attributable, lethal attack that would trigger a formal declaration of war. UK and NATO military planners have long raised concerns that widespread covert Russian surveillance of Western undersea infrastructure is intended to give Moscow a strategic advantage in the event of a future open conflict. If hostilities were to break out, the Kremlin could activate pre-positioned devices to sever or disrupt critical data and energy networks, causing widespread disruption to civilian and military operations.

Healey argued that Putin chose to launch the operation at a moment when global attention is heavily focused on the ongoing war in the Middle East, and reaffirmed that Russia remains the “primary threat to UK security.” While acknowledging the persistent threat Moscow poses, Healey expressed confidence in UK forces’ ability to track future Russian activity and expose any covert operations that threaten British national interests.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer echoed Healey’s stance, saying he was “determined to protect the British people from paying the price for Putin’s aggression in their household bills.” He added that the UK would not “shy away from taking action and exposing Russia’s destabilising activity that seeks to test our resolve.”

The incident has quickly become a point of domestic political debate in the UK. Opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch called on Starmer to immediately publish the government’s long-promised Defence Investment Plan, posting on social media platform X that “We stand shoulder to shoulder on Russian aggression. To be strong abroad we need clarity on spending at home. Without the investment plan, Starmer’s strategy is just words.” Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, referencing recent reports of Russian navy vessels escorting Russian oil tankers through the English Channel, claimed “If we have learnt one thing in the last month, it is that we do not have an operational Royal Navy at any level in this country and that for us needs to be a massive wake-up call.”

Some retired defence officials have also questioned the UK’s ability to counter persistent Russian threats. John Foreman, a retired Royal Navy officer and former UK defence attaché to Moscow, told the BBC that “the rhetoric is a bit tired by now. We’re well aware of the Russian threat. The question is whether we’re doing something about it.” Foreman pointed to the recent decommissioning of two Royal Fleet Auxiliary tankers, RFA Wave Knight and RFA Wave Ruler, as evidence that the UK is “hard-pressed” to maintain maritime security. “I don’t know how we are going to dig ourselves out of this nadir of maritime security that we have found ourselves in,” he said.

Undersea cables and pipelines are among the most critical but overlooked pieces of global infrastructure. More than 600 undersea cables crisscross the world’s oceans spanning more than 870,000 miles, carrying global internet traffic and electrical power between continents, with landing points often located in remote, lightly protected coastal areas. For the UK specifically, the infrastructure is existential to daily life: roughly 60 undersea cables come ashore at multiple points along the UK coast, with concentrations in East Anglia and South West England, and more than 90% of the country’s daily internet traffic relies on these systems. The UK also depends on North Sea undersea gas pipelines, most notably the 724-mile Langeled pipeline connecting Norway to the UK, for 77% of its gas imports.

Military analysts say the challenge of countering GUGI operations is significant. Dr Sidharth Kaushal, a sea power researcher at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), explained that GUGI’s deep-diving mini-submarines are purpose-built to avoid detection, with engineered reductions in acoustic noise, water displacement and magnetic signature that make them “complex targets” for anti-submarine forces. Kaushal told BBC Verify that it is likely the Russian submarines were still able to gather useful intelligence on the UK’s cable network despite continuous monitoring by the Royal Navy, noting that the UK’s ability to restrict such operations during peacetime is “limited” – particularly as military monitoring activity in international waters is legally permitted. Even so, Kaushal added that the British operation was not without benefit: by tracking the Russian deployment, the Royal Navy likely gathered valuable intelligence on Russian tactics, network mapping priorities, and may even have been able to recover any surveillance equipment left behind by the Russian units.

This incident aligns with a broader pattern of Russian hybrid activity that the BBC first exposed in 2025, when it reported that Russia was waging a campaign of hybrid warfare against the UK and Western Europe intended to pressure Western nations to end their military support for Ukraine.

As Hungary prepares for one of its most consequential national elections in recent decades on Sunday, long-serving Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has held power for 16 years and secured four consecutive electoral victories, is facing the most significant challenge to his rule from center-right challenger Péter Magyar, leader of the Tisza party. Magyar has spent months crisscrossing Hungary’s rural regions in a bid to erode Orbán’s traditional stronghold of support, but many small-town and older voters remain unwavering in their loyalty to the incumbent.

While most public opinion polls indicate a growing appetite for change among Hungarian voters, with a significant share having walked away from Orbán’s populist-nationalist Fidesz party, the prime minister retains deep popularity in the country’s smallest settlements and among older demographics. A recent Medián poll underscored this divide: among voters over 65, 47% back Fidesz, compared to just 29% who support Magyar’s Tisza. Support for Orbán also grows consistently as community size shrinks, cementing his rural advantage.

In the small central Hungarian city of Cegléd, 63-year-old local entrepreneur István Vároczi, who runs a market stall selling handbags and other goods, says he dismisses all polls that forecast Orbán could lose. Having backed Orbán for nearly four decades, Vároczi plans to cast his vote for the incumbent once again. “I’ve never been disappointed in him. His biggest strength is that he didn’t forget where he came from — he always remained a normal person,” Vároczi said. “I’m sure he has flaws, but who doesn’t? Fidesz is the only party I trust, and his performance as prime minister is unparalleled.” Even with years of stagnant economic growth, Vároczi blames external pressures rather than government mismanagement, arguing the administration “is doing what it can for us, for the people.”

Similar devotion can be found in Albertirsa, a central Hungarian town of roughly 14,000, where retired pipe fitter János Falajtár grew emotional when describing his support for Orbán. Fighting back tears, Falajtár insisted the prime minister has always “acted for the people.” “The decisions don’t matter. Common sense and heart matter,” he said. For Falajtár, Orbán’s greatest achievement has been advancing unity for Hungarians both within the country’s modern borders and across neighboring regions where millions of ethnic Hungarians reside, following the post-World War I territorial changes that stripped Hungary of nearly 72% of its original land. “We are now beginning to unite the Greater Hungary in Vojvodina, Slovakia, Transcarpathia, Transylvania, and even in Austria,” Falajtár said. “They only took a small piece from us, but it’s still ours.”

Magyar and the Tisza party have seen their support surge in recent years, fueled by widespread public frustration over four years of economic stagnation. Much of that economic strain has been tied to the freezing of billions of euros in European Union development funding, which Brussels halted over ongoing concerns about rule of law breakdowns and systemic corruption under Orbán’s administration.

But Orbán has worked aggressively to shore up support ahead of the vote with targeted pre-election policies tailored to his core base. Backed by Hungary’s continued reliance on discounted Russian oil and gas, the prime minister implemented a widely popular utility bill reduction program that keeps household energy costs far below European averages. He has also expanded pension benefits, adding a mandatory 13th month pension payment for retirees and rolling out a new 14th month supplement ahead of the election. Other popular initiatives for small communities include a nationwide program to renovate aging local pubs and historic churches, alongside the elimination of income tax for young mothers with multiple children.

Beyond policy, Orbán’s enduring political charisma, his consistent focus on protecting Hungarian cultural traditions, and his unapologetic push to bolster national pride resonate more deeply with his base than any specific government program. On the campaign trail, Orbán has also framed the election as a battle for national survival, warning voters that a host of external threats — most notably the ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine, which he claims would drag Hungary into direct conflict and bankrupt the nation — await if he does not win a fifth term. For committed supporters like Vároczi and Falajtár, that message, paired with decades of demonstrated loyalty to their communities, is more than enough to secure their vote once again.

ATHENS, Greece – Greece has stepped into a growing pan-European push for minor online protection by becoming the latest European Union member state to announce draft legislation that would fully block access to social media platforms for all users aged 15 and younger. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis framed the national initiative as a deliberate pressure tactic to push the 27-nation bloc to adopt formal, unified age restrictions across all EU member states.

The proposed rules will apply to all major social media services that allow users to create public or private profiles, engage in cross-user interaction, and share user-generated content – covering industry leaders including Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, as well as ByteDance-owned TikTok.

Once the bill is enacted into law, the obligation to enforce the restriction will fall directly on social media companies, which will be required to complete a full re-verification of the ages of all existing Greek users to remove anyone under the age of 15 from their platforms. Greek regulatory authorities note that the state will only play an oversight role: it will monitor platform compliance and only intervene when violations are reported. Reports of non-compliance will be forwarded either to the regulatory body in the country where the platform is headquartered or directly to the European Commission, the EU’s executive governing branch. Potential penalties for violators are steep, including maximum fines equal to 6% of a company’s annual global turnover, recurring daily fines until the platform comes into compliance, and even temporary or permanent restrictions on operations within Greek territory.

In a pre-recorded video address posted to his own social media channels Wednesday, Mitsotakis spoke directly to young people to explain the rationale behind the ban. He acknowledged that excessive social media use has been linked to rising rates of stress, anxiety, and sleep disruption among adolescents, noting that both parents and young people have privately shared these concerns with him.

“I know many young people will be angry with this decision. If I were your age, I would probably feel the same way too,” Mitsotakis said in the address. “But our job, my job, is not always to be popular. If something makes us more anxious, makes us feel worse about ourselves, less than we really are, then it is better to put an end to it.”

The prime minister emphasized that the new law is not an attempt to cut young Greeks off from digital technology as a whole. Instead, he argued, the regulation targets the inherently addictive design of many major social platforms, whose business models are built on maximizing screen time – a model that he says robs young people of their childhood innocence and personal freedom.

Under the current legislative timeline, the bill will be formally introduced to Greek parliament this summer, with enforcement scheduled to begin on January 1 of next year. Greece is not the first EU country to take this step: it follows similar legislation passed earlier this year by France that also imposes a national ban on social media use for children 15 and under.

In a formal letter sent to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Mitsotakis called for the establishment of a unified regulatory framework for minor online protection across the entire European Union by the end of 2024, to complement national-level protection measures that member states have already enacted. His proposal includes an EU-wide ban on social media access for users 15 and younger, a bloc-wide standardized age verification process that requires platforms to re-verify all user ages every two years, and the creation of a joint body made up of representatives from member states and the commission to review compliance incidents and impose penalties rapidly.

French far-right presidential candidate-in-waiting Jordan Bardella’s romantic relationship with Italian aristocrat and socialite Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies has been formally revealed in a high-profile exclusive by celebrity publication Paris Match, ending months of swirling public speculation about the pairing.

The relationship, which the 30-year-old leader of the Rassemblement National (RN) had long guarded as private, was unveiled on this week’s Paris Match front page. The issue features candid new photos of the couple vacationing together on the French island of Corsica, under the headline “The idyll that no-one expected” — a reveal that many media observers have framed as a calculated, staged announcement rather than an accidental scoop.

Rumors of the romance first emerged back in January, when the pair were spotted attending a Paris event together celebrating the 200th anniversary of French newspaper Le Figaro. For months, Bardella repeatedly declined to answer questions about his personal life, telling reporters that his private affairs remained his “last space of liberty.” The Paris Match exclusive confirms the couple has now made the voluntary decision to go public with their relationship.

Bardella is set to stand as RN’s candidate in the 2027 French presidential election if a July court ruling bars RN’s historic party leader Marine Le Pen from running over her conviction for misappropriation of European Union parliamentary funds. Recent polling indicates that any RN candidate would be a strong contender to win the presidency, making details of Bardella’s personal life a matter of significant political interest.

Political commentators speaking on Thursday noted two core political rationales for the timed announcement. First, they say it is critical for Bardella to enter a potential presidential campaign with full transparency around his personal life, including clarity about who would join him in the Elysée Palace as first lady if he wins. Second, the announcement is seen as a proactive move by RN to defuse potential backlash from working-class and lower-income voters, who may raise questions about the party’s populist positioning amid its leader’s connection to a member of one of Europe’s wealthiest aristocratic families.

At 22 years old, Princess Maria Carolina holds the additional noble titles of Duchess of Calabria and Palermo. She is the daughter of Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro, one of two claimants to the headship of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies — the royal dynasty that ruled southern Italy and Sicily through much of the 19th century, before the unification of Italy stripped the family of its throne. While her royal title holds no official legal status in the modern Italian Republic, she is a distant direct descendant of King Louis XIV, France’s iconic 17th-century “Sun King.”

According to her official public profile, Maria Carolina grew up across Rome, Monte Carlo and Paris, and currently leads a range of cultural, social and humanitarian initiatives aligned with her family’s historic heritage and values. She also collaborates on creative and philanthropic projects with her sister, Princess Maria Chiara. Fluent in six languages, she has built a social media following of more than 350,000 and maintains a close public connection to the global fashion industry. In a break from centuries of royal tradition, her father abolished the Salic law that restricted succession to male heirs, meaning she is positioned to become the next head of the Bourbon-Two Sicilies royal house.

Paris Match’s coverage has framed the couple as a strikingly unconventional 21st-century pairing, describing them as “reinventing courtly love” for the modern era. The publication notes the stark contrast between their backgrounds: while Maria Carolina was raised in the opulence of elite European capitals, Bardella was born in a public housing flat in the working-class Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, with no inherited aristocratic title, and climbed the political ranks through his own ambition — fitting into France’s long tradition of self-made political leaders. According to the magazine’s reporting, the pair first crossed paths at the Monaco Grand Prix in May of last year, where Bardella had accompanied his father, a lifelong motor racing fan.

It should be noted that Paris Match is owned by Bernard Arnault, the French billionaire who chairs the luxury goods conglomerate LVMH.

On Thursday, Russia’s highest judicial body delivered a landmark ruling that effectively outlaws all operations of Memorial, the Nobel Peace Prize-honored human rights organization, marking the most severe escalation yet in the Kremlin’s sustained crackdown on independent civil society and opposition voices amid its ongoing military campaign in Ukraine. The ruling came following a closed-door hearing on a petition filed by Russia’s Justice Ministry, which requested that the court label the so-called “Memorial international civic movement” an extremist organization and implement a full ban on its activities across Russian territory.

In a pre-ruling statement, Memorial representatives noted that the specific entity named in the government’s petition does not actually exist as a formal registered body in the country. Even so, the organization warned that the sweeping extremist designation would give Russian law enforcement and regulatory authorities broad legal authority to target any ongoing Memorial-linked projects, as well as persecute their participants and public supporters.

Founded in the late 1980s during the final years of the Soviet Union, Memorial emerged as one of Russia’s oldest and most widely respected human rights organizations, built originally on a mission to preserve the memory of millions of people killed or persecuted during the Soviet Union’s era of political repression. Over decades of operation, it grew into a sprawling global network of smaller independent groups spanning Russia and dozens of other countries, expanding its mandate to document ongoing human rights abuses across the region.

Less than a year after Moscow launched its full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Memorial was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of its decades-long work advancing human rights and accountability. It shared the prize with imprisoned Belarusian pro-democracy activist Ales Bialiatski and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, another prominent regional human rights organization.

This latest legal action is not the first attempt by Russian authorities to shut down the group. In 2021, Russian courts ordered the dissolution of Memorial’s two core Russian entities: its national human rights center and the original International Memorial. The government had already labeled the group a “foreign agent” years earlier, a regulatory designation that imposes strict government surveillance, carries a heavy public stigma, and subjected the organization to repeated crippling fines for alleged violations of Russia’s restrictive foreign agent legislation. Undeterred by the 2021 shutdown order, Memorial activists continued their work through loosely structured, decentralized projects across the country.

In 2023, former members formally established a new International Memorial Association based in Geneva, Switzerland, to coordinate the group’s global work. Earlier this year, Russian authorities designated the new Geneva-based association “undesirable” — a legal classification that allows the government to prosecute any Russian citizen found collaborating with the group. Thursday’s extremist designation raises the stakes even further: under Russian law, participating in activities linked to an extremist organization is a criminal offense punishable by multi-year prison sentences.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the prestigious peace prize, pre-emptively spoke out against the Russian government’s actions in a statement released one day ahead of the ruling. The committee condemned the crackdown on Memorial as “an affront to the fundamental values of human dignity and freedom of expression” and called on Russian authorities to immediately end all forms of harassment against the organization and its members.

BRUSSELS – Tensions between Washington and its trans-Atlantic allies have reached a new boiling point, as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte finds himself once again managing diplomatic fallout from U.S. President Donald Trump’s anger over the Iran conflict – a war that the 31-nation defensive alliance was never consulted on, and which falls far outside its core defense mandate. Since the U.S.-led war against Iran began, Trump has launched a series of scathing attacks against U.S. allies, labeling many of them cowards, dismissing NATO itself as a toothless paper tiger, and drawing a damaging comparison between British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Neville Chamberlain, the former UK leader widely associated with failed appeasement policy toward Nazi Germany. This latest confrontation only adds to a growing rift that has already been stretched thin by Trump’s repeated threats to annex Greenland, a move that has alarmed European allies and sparked fears that a unilateral U.S. power grab could unravel the alliance entirely. The current friction centers on Trump’s frustration that NATO allies refused to back the U.S. after Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the strategically critical global oil and trade chokepoint. Following Wednesday’s closed-door talks between Rutte and Trump, the U.S. leader made his disappointment public in a fiery social media post, writing: “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN.” When pressed by CNN reporters on whether Trump planned to pull the U.S. out of the trans-Atlantic alliance – a threat he first issued during his first term in 2018 – Rutte acknowledged Trump’s deep dissatisfaction, admitting “He is clearly disappointed with many NATO allies, and I can see his point.” Known widely as a skilled “Trump whisperer” who has managed to keep the mercurial U.S. leader engaged with the alliance since taking the top NATO job in 2024, Rutte has previously scored diplomatic wins: he helped broker a deal that saw European allies and Canada purchase U.S. weapons for Ukraine, keeping the U.S. invested in managing Europe’s largest armed conflict in 70 years. Keeping the U.S. anchored in NATO has become Rutte’s top priority, especially as Washington has increasingly shifted its strategic focus to other global flashpoints, from the Indo-Pacific to Venezuela and now the Middle East. To maintain goodwill, Rutte has leaned into flattery, praising Trump for pushing NATO allies to meet their mandatory 2% GDP defense spending targets, congratulated the U.S. leader on the Iran war, and refused to push back on Trump’s apocalyptic warning that “a whole civilization will die” if Iran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Describing his meeting with Trump as “very frank, very open discussion but also a discussion between two good friends,” Rutte declined to confirm unreported claims that Trump is weighing pulling U.S. troops out of European nations that refuse to back the war. When asked if the world is safer following the U.S.-Iran war, Rutte replied plainly: “Absolutely.” What makes this dispute particularly unusual is that NATO has no natural role in the conflict. As a defensive alliance built to protect the collective territory of its Euro-Atlantic members, NATO only stepped in once to back member Turkey after Iranian retaliatory missile strikes targeted Turkish soil. The war itself was launched unilaterally by the U.S., a NATO member, but no attack on the alliance prompted it. Rutte has repeatedly stated NATO will not join the conflict, and there is no public evidence that the U.S. formally brought the request for alliance support to NATO’s Brussels headquarters, though informal discussions have not been ruled out. When asked about security efforts for the Strait of Hormuz, NATO declined comment, referring all questions to the United Kingdom, which is leading a standalone non-NATO initiative to secure the waterway once a ceasefire holds. Smaller NATO allies have signaled they are open to discussions if a formal request is submitted. Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told CNBC Thursday that “If the U.S. or any other NATO ally is asking (for) our support, we are always ready to discuss it. But for that, we need of course the official ask to discuss then what is the mission, what is the goal? If allies need our support, then we need to plan together.” Rutte has doubled down on his position that NATO will only act to defend its own territory, and will avoid entanglement in conflicts outside the Euro-Atlantic area. “This is Iran, this is the Gulf, this is outside NATO territory,” he explained. While NATO has launched out-of-area operations in the past – most notably in Afghanistan and Libya – the alliance has little appetite for new foreign deployments after the chaotic 2021 U.S.-led withdrawal from Afghanistan, which former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg openly labeled a defeat. Much of Trump’s anger has been directed specifically at two NATO members, Spain and France, rather than the alliance as an institution. Spain has already closed its airspace to U.S. military aircraft involved in the Iran war and blocked U.S. forces from accessing shared military bases on Spanish territory. After a two-week ceasefire was announced, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez took to social media to criticize the war, writing that his government “will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket. What’s needed now: diplomacy, international legality, and PEACE.” France has also taken a critical stance, arguing the war was launched in violation of international law and that Paris was never consulted ahead of time. While France has not issued blanket restrictions on U.S. use of shared bases or French airspace, authorities have confirmed they will review all requests on an individual, case-by-case basis.