标签： Europe

The Norwegian Royal Palace has confirmed the passing of Princess Astrid, sister of the late King Harald V, at the age of 94, just two days after she joined public ceremonies to lay her brother to rest. Her death marks the end of a decades-long public service career deeply tied to Norway’s modern royal history, and comes as the nation’s royal family concludes a period of national mourning following Harald’s death last month at 89, after 35 years on the throne.

As the last surviving child of King Olav V, who ruled Norway from 1957 to 1991, Princess Astrid stepped into an unprecedented public role at just 22 years old. After the 1954 passing of her mother, Crown Princess Märtha, Olav chose not to remarry, leaving Astrid to serve as Norway’s first lady for 14 years until her brother Harald’s marriage in 1968. Through every stage of her public life, she became known for her steady, warm commitment to representing the Norwegian Royal House across the country and abroad.

In a formal statement following the princess’s death, Norway’s new monarch King Haakon VIII paid tribute to his aunt. “Throughout her long life, Princess Astrid represented the Royal House in a warm and dutiful manner,” he said, adding that “In her work, Princess Astrid was always particularly concerned with care and inclusion for the most vulnerable in society.”

Princess Astrid’s final public appearance was Harald’s funeral, held in Oslo earlier this week, where she attended in a wheelchair. The high-profile ceremony drew dozens of European royals and global heads of state, including the Prince of Wales, three Nordic monarchs, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Thousands of Norwegian residents lined the processional route between the Royal Palace and Oslo Cathedral to pay their respects to the late king.

In line with royal tradition, the Norwegian government has announced that Princess Astrid will be buried at state expense, and all public flags across Norway will be flown at half-mast to honor her legacy. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre confirmed the arrangements in a public statement Wednesday.

Public health records show the princess’s health had declined gradually over recent months, and she received inpatient treatment for pneumonia in March this year. Her passing comes at a time of significant personal and public upheaval for the Norwegian royal family. Earlier in 2026, two major scandals rocked the household: documents revealed Queen Mette-Marit, Harald’s wife, had repeated prior contact with disgraced American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a connection she later said she regretted. Separately, Mette-Marit’s son from her first relationship, Marius Borg Høiby, who grew up in the royal household despite not holding a formal royal title, was sentenced to four years in prison in June on two counts of rape. He remains under house arrest while appealing the conviction, and was granted special permission to attend Harald’s funeral earlier this week.

As Russian military pressure escalates in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, Ukrainian authorities have ordered mandatory evacuation orders for remaining civilians in the strategically critical cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, where daily bombardment has turned urban life into a lethal nightmare. These two adjacent settlements are the largest population centers still fully under Ukrainian control in Donbas, a territory that forms the core of Moscow’s stated war aims more than two years into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Pavlo Dyachenko, a senior official with Donetsk region’s police force, confirmed that forced evacuations are already underway for households with children in the hardest-hit districts, describing the evacuation order as the only viable path to saving civilian lives amid a catastrophic collapse in local security. “The frequency of attacks has spiked dramatically,” Dyachenko explained, noting that where Slovyansk once faced roughly one glide bomb strike per week, it now endages deadly bombardments on a near-daily basis.

Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, and the nearby southern city of Kostyantynivka form a critical segment of Ukraine’s eastern “fortress belt” — a layered network of heavily fortified defensive lines designed to halt Russian advances deeper into Ukrainian-controlled territory. But recent frontline reports indicate only a limited Ukrainian troop presence remains in Kostyantynivka, while Russian officials have claimed full control of the city, a development that would leave the two larger northern cities even more exposed to offensive operations.

Capturing the entirety of Donbas, which encompasses the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, has been one of the Kremlin’s most prominent stated objectives since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Moscow has repeatedly framed its military campaign in the region as a “liberation” and “protection” of ethnic Russian-speaking communities, a justification that has been widely rejected by the international community as a baseless pretext for territorial aggression. Russia already controls nearly the entire Luhansk region, and currently holds approximately 80% of Donetsk — the oblast where all three fortress belt cities are located. For months, Russian ground forces have concentrated their offensive operations around the Kramatorsk-Slovyansk axis, and a full Russian seizure of the two cities would open a clear path for Moscow to push further west into Ukraine.

Civilians still residing in the two cities face constant threat from Russian drone and artillery strikes. Viktor Makurin, a London-based volunteer working on the ground in the region, described daily life as saturated with violence: key city thoroughfares are now draped in protective anti-drone netting, and FPV (first-person-view) attack drones routinely patrol roadways in search of moving targets. “Driving anywhere in the city is a death sentence,” Makurin told the BBC. “You can hear the constant buzz of drones through your window, explosions never stop ringing out in the distance, and Ukrainian air defense teams are constantly engaging incoming unmanned aerial vehicles.”

Data compiled by Ukrainian police, analyzed by the BBC, lays bare the rapidly worsening human cost of the intensified bombardment. Over the summer months, the number of civilian wounded jumped from 70 in June to 212 in August. Monthly civilian fatalities have held steady in double digits: 16 people were killed in June, 20 in July, and 15 in August. Residential apartment blocks are as frequently targeted as critical infrastructure, leaving widespread destruction across residential neighborhoods. The number of Russian glide bombs — widely considered one of the most lethal weapons in Moscow’s current arsenal — has surged from 40 in June to 109 in July and 92 in August.

Unlike unguided free-fall munitions, Russian glide bombs are fitted with wing kits that let them navigate precisely to their targets from long range, putting most of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk within strike range from Russian-held positions. They typically weigh between 250 and 500 kilograms, though Russian forces have been documented deploying 1,500-kilogram variants capable of leveling entire city blocks. “The destruction they leave behind is unimaginable,” Dyachenko said. John Auckland Abbey, another British volunteer working in the region, described the weapons as silent killers that have shattered civilian morale. “They come without warning, and after the first explosion you know more are on the way,” Abbey wrote on social media. “As you lie motionless in the dark, the only question is: will the next one land on me?”

One of the deadliest recent strikes hit Kramatorsk on August 25, when nine glide bombs targeted the city. Seven of the munitions hit civilian apartment buildings, wounding 24 people including a two-month-old infant. A second major strike followed just two days later, when seven glide bombs hit Kramatorsk and another five struck Slovyansk. As of this week, seven additional civilians were wounded in a new round of shelling targeting Kramatorsk.

Strategically, Kramatorsk holds major political significance for Ukraine: it currently hosts the headquarters of the Donetsk regional civilian administration, after the original oblast capital of Donetsk was seized by Russian-backed separatist forces in 2014.

The fate of remaining Ukrainian-held Donbas has recently moved to the center of international diplomatic efforts around the war. Last weekend, U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with Donbas’s status reported to be a core topic of discussion. Witkoff has previously expressed public sympathy for Russian territorial claims to the region, but Zelensky has repeatedly ruled out withdrawing Ukrainian troops from any portion of Donbas.

Zelensky confirmed that Putin has set an end-of-year deadline for his military to fully occupy all of Donbas, with the Kramatorsk-Slovyansk-Kostyantynivka axis remaining the Kremlin’s top military priority. To shore up defenses in the region, Zelensky has recently established two new defense taskforces led by seasoned Ukrainian commanders Andriy Biletsky and Denys Prokopenko, tasking them with holding the remaining Ukrainian-held portion of Donetsk. One senior unnamed Ukrainian general described the ongoing fighting for the area as far more than a battle for territory: it is shaping up to be the defining conflict of this year and next, the general said.

A devastating highway accident has shaken cross-border travel communities after a tourist coach carrying dozens of Dutch nationals overturned in the southeastern Swiss Alps on Thursday afternoon, leaving multiple people dead and an untold number injured, local law enforcement officials confirmed.

The crash unfolded along the route connecting the small Alpine towns of Susch and Zernez, located in Switzerland’s mountainous Graubünden region – widely referred to as Grisons by locals and international visitors. Emergency response teams quickly mobilized a large-scale search and rescue operation, dispatching multiple helicopters and ground crews to the remote crash site to access and treat injured passengers.

According to a spokesperson for the General Dutch Association of Travel Companies, speaking on behalf of Netherlands-based tour operator OAD, the coach was carrying exactly 48 Dutch passengers when the accident occurred. In an initial statement to leading Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, the spokesperson noted that officials were still working to confirm the exact number of fatalities and injured individuals as of Thursday evening, as response teams continued clearing the scene and accounting for all passengers.

Preliminary photos published by local Swiss news outlets show the large passenger coach resting on its side adjacent to a narrow rural road, with dozens of ambulances parked along the route and rescue teams working systematically across the crash site to extract passengers and provide emergency care.

Further details about the trip itinerary show the coach departed the Netherlands on Monday, and was operating a day excursion into Switzerland from neighboring Austria when the crash occurred. Zernez, the town closest to the crash site, is best known as the primary entry point for visitors accessing the Swiss National Park – a 100-square-kilometer protected Alpine reserve that spans the rugged Engadine valley and draws thousands of outdoor tourists each year.

As of late Thursday, authorities have not released additional details about the cause of the crash, nor updated the public on the condition of injured passengers. Investigations into the accident are ongoing, with Swiss local police expected to release an updated statement once all passengers have been accounted for.

Four and a half years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a new wave of cross-border attacks targeting civilian infrastructure has left multiple civilians dead and dozens injured on both sides, marking a sharp escalation of violence that dims faint hopes for an early breakthrough in recent US-backed peace efforts. The deadliest of the latest strikes hit a crowded shopping mall in the central Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad, located in Dnipropetrovsk region, on Thursday. Ukrainian officials confirmed that four people were killed in the assault, with another 60 people wounded – including a child and two emergency service responders. Ukrainian Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi noted the attack unfolded in broad daylight, when public streets surrounding the mall were already packed with local residents going about their daily routines. The strike left damaged storefronts and smoldering vehicles in its wake, with footage released by Ukraine’s State Emergency Service showing firefighters battling thick plumes of smoke rising from burning cars along the city’s streets. In a statement following the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, condemning what he called a deliberate strike on ordinary civilians. “The Russians used drones to kill people who were simply standing near shopping centres,” Zelenskyy said. This assault is only the latest in a string of Russian attacks on Ukrainian commercial hubs across the country this week. Just one day prior, a Russian drone strike on a shopping mall in the northern city of Sumy killed two people and wounded 20. A second Russian aerial bombardment on Sumy on Thursday injured eight more people, three of them children. Earlier this week, a Russian strike on a shopping mall in Zaporizhzhia, a southern Ukrainian city partially occupied by Russian forces, nearly destroyed the entire building, according to its owners. The mall was closed at the time of the attack, however, so no casualties were reported. Last month, an even deadlier assault on a Kryvyi Rih shopping center left at least 16 civilians dead and 130 wounded, Ukrainian officials say. Pavlohrad, a key logistics hub located close to the major central city of Dnipro, has already faced repeated Russian targeting; a strike on local storage facilities there just one month ago killed two people. Attacks have not been limited to Ukrainian government-held territory, either. Russian authorities report that Ukrainian drones have struck civilian sites in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, including a shopping mall in the port city of Mariupol this week and another attack in the city of Donetsk last month. The violence has also spilled across Russia’s internationally recognized borders, with Moscow confirming a new wave of Ukrainian attacks this week that have left casualties among Russian civilians. Overnight Wednesday, Russian officials say multiple Ukrainian seaborne drones targeted the popular Black Sea resort city of Sochi, wounding 28 people – two of them children. On Thursday, Russian authorities reported a Ukrainian drone strike on the town of Novy Oskol in Belgorod Region killed one person and injured six more. In Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, Russian officials said a Ukrainian attack on a civilian car Wednesday killed a 15-year-old girl and injured a six-year-old child and two adult women, while a separate strike on a civilian truck in the same region left one male driver dead. This latest surge of bloodshed comes just days after a long-awaited peace mission by envoys of US President Donald Trump, who held separate talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Zelenskyy in Kyiv over the weekend. Early assessments indicate the diplomatic push has produced little to no tangible progress toward ending the conflict, leaving civilian populations on both sides to bear the brunt of continued hostilities.