标签： Europe

Russia’s Defense Ministry has announced a unilateral ceasefire that will be in effect across Ukraine on Friday and Saturday, timed to coincide with the 81st anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, while issuing a stark warning that it will respond with force if Kyiv attempts to undermine Russia’s Victory Day commemorations.

In an official statement released Monday, the ministry expressed hope that Ukrainian leadership would match the ceasefire announcement for Russia’s most meaningful national secular holiday. As of Tuesday morning, Ukrainian officials had not issued any public response to Russia’s proposal.

The announcement comes one week after Russian authorities confirmed they would drastically scale back the traditional annual Victory Day military parade on Moscow’s iconic Red Square, a decision directly tied to growing security fears over potential cross-border attacks from Ukraine. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine has carried out a growing number of deep-strike drone attacks targeting locations inside Russian territory as part of its counter-offensive operations.

Russia’s Defense Ministry went on to issue an explicit threat: if Ukraine carries out any action to disrupt Saturday’s Victory Day celebrations, Russian forces will launch a massive missile strike against central Kyiv. The statement also included a formal warning to civilian residents of the Ukrainian capital and staff working at foreign diplomatic missions, urging them to evacuate the city immediately to avoid harm.

The ceasefire discussion was first raised last week during a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and former U.S. President Donald Trump, where Putin first floated the idea of a truce to mark the national holiday.

For decades, the Kremlin has leaned on the elaborate, spectacle-driven Victory Day parade as a platform to display Russia’s military power and diplomatic standing on the global stage, and the holiday has long served as a unifying source of national patriotic pride for the Russian public. This year, however, the Moscow parade will proceed without the traditional display of tanks, ballistic missiles, and other heavy military equipment for the first time in almost 20 years. Many smaller regional parades held across Russia’s vast territory have also been cut back or canceled entirely due to persistent security concerns.

World War II holds a unique, unifying role in modern Russian national memory. For the Soviet Union, the conflict—referred to domestically as the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945)—cost 27 million lives, a staggering national loss that remains etched into the collective Russian psyche decades later, standing as one of the few shared historical touchstones across Russia’s turbulent modern political history.

Over his 25-plus years in power, Putin has elevated Victory Day into a core ideological pillar of his presidency, frequently framing the ongoing conflict in Ukraine through the lens of the World War II anti-Nazi struggle to justify the invasion. Last year’s 80th anniversary commemoration drew the largest gathering of global heads of state to Moscow in a decade, with high-profile international guests including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in attendance. For that 2024 event, Putin declared a 72-hour unilateral ceasefire starting May 7, and authorities shut down cellular internet access across Moscow for multiple days to reduce the risk of Ukrainian drone attacks.

A high-stakes diplomatic mission is set to unfold this week, as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio travels to Rome and Vatican City to defuse rapidly escalating friction between President Donald Trump and the first American-born pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, rooted in deep disagreements over the Trump administration’s Iran war policy. The State Department officially confirmed Rubio’s itinerary on Monday, noting that the trip, scheduled for Thursday and Friday, marks the Catholic secretary’s third official visit to Italy or the Holy See since he took office as the Republican administration’s top diplomat. Vatican officials have publicly confirmed that Rubio will hold a one-on-one meeting with Pope Leo on Thursday.

According to a formal statement from the State Department, the core agenda for Rubio’s discussions with Holy See leadership will center on the volatile security situation across the Middle East, alongside overlapping policy priorities for the U.S. and the Vatican in the Western Hemisphere. Separate meetings with Italian government counterparts, the statement added, will focus on collaborative security objectives and continued strategic alignment between the two NATO allies.

The diplomatic outreach comes at a moment of open public friction between the sitting U.S. president and the pope. Tensions first flared last month, when Trump issued a scathing social media rebuke of Pope Leo, accusing the pontiff of being soft on transnational crime and terrorism over Leo’s public criticism of the administration’s hardline immigration and deportation policies, as well as its ongoing military campaign in Iran. In response, the Pope delivered a widely interpreted rebuke, stating that God does not hear the prayers of leaders who choose to wage aggressive war. The exchange escalated dramatically when Trump shared a now-deleted social media graphic that depicted him in the likeness of Jesus Christ.

To date, Trump has rejected repeated calls to apologize for the controversial post, offering a shifting explanation that he initially believed the image portrayed him as a medical professional rather than a Christ figure. The friction between the White House and the Vatican has already spilled beyond religious and diplomatic circles, seeping into Italian domestic politics: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a longstanding ally of Trump, has publicly condemned the president’s comments about the pope. In turn, Trump has lashed out at Meloni, part of a broader growing frustration with NATO allies that he accuses of failing to provide sufficient support for the Iran war. That frustration has already translated into policy, with the Pentagon announcing plans to withdraw thousands of U.S. troops from Germany in the coming months.

This is far from the first time Rubio has been tapped to clean up after Trump’s provocative rhetoric: the secretary has repeatedly been tasked with walking back or softening the president’s harsh public statements on European relations, NATO and Middle East policy. Beyond the international diplomatic ramifications, the high-profile dispute with the pope carries notable domestic political stakes for the Republican Party, as the U.S. approaches upcoming midterm congressional elections.

Pope Leo has sought to frame his own comments as non-partisan, saying his public calls for peace and criticism of the Iran war and other global conflicts were not intended as a direct attack on Trump or any other political leader. Prior to this week’s trip, Rubio has made two official visits to Italy as Secretary of State. His first trip, in May 2025, included attendance at Pope Leo’s inaugural mass and a private audience with the pontiff alongside Vice President JD Vance. His second visit, in February, again paired with Vance, for the opening ceremony of the Milan Winter Olympics, where the pair met with U.S. Olympic athletes. This story has been corrected to confirm that this week’s trip will bring Rubio’s total number of official visits to Italy or the Vatican to at least three.

PRAGUE — In a high-profile legal ruling that has roiled the Czech political landscape just months after Prime Minister Andrej Babiš formed his new government, a municipal court in Prague found former close aide Jana Nagyová guilty of fraud connected to a $2 million European Union subsidy scheme on Monday. The court handed Nagyová a three-year suspended prison sentence and ordered her to pay a fine of 500,000 Czech koruna, equal to approximately $24,000. The verdict is not binding, as Nagyová retains the right to file an appeal to challenge the conviction.

The case, one of the most controversial political legal matters in modern Czech history, names both Nagyová and Babiš, a populist billionaire who began his third term as prime minister in December 2024, as co-defendants. The fraud allegation centers on the Stork’s Nest farm, a property that was deliberately restructured to qualify for EU agricultural subsidies earmarked exclusively for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Originally owned by Agrofert, the large industrial conglomerate controlled by Babiš, the farm was transferred into the names of Babiš’s family members to meet the small-business eligibility criteria for the funding. After securing the $2 million in subsidies, full ownership of the property was transferred back to Agrofert — a company that would never have qualified for the targeted funding on its own. Agrofert has since returned the disputed subsidy to authorities.

Unlike Nagyová, who currently serves as a member of the European Parliament and has already had her legal immunity lifted by EU legislative bodies, Babiš retains parliamentary immunity from criminal prosecution. In March, lawmakers in the lower chamber of the Czech Parliament voted down a motion to revoke Babiš’s immunity, a decision that means any trial against the sitting prime minister cannot proceed until his current term ends in 2029. Babiš has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, framing the entire case as a politically motivated attack against his administration.

Babiš’s return to the prime minister’s office came after his populist political movement ANO — which translates to YES in Czech — secured a decisive victory in October national elections. He went on to form a narrow governing coalition with two small right-wing and populist parties: the anti-immigrant Freedom and Direct Democracy party, and the right-wing Motorists party. The coalition’s stated policy agenda marks a notable shift from the previous Czech government, including plans to reduce Czech military and political support for Ukraine amid the ongoing Russian invasion, and to push back against a number of flagship European Union policy initiatives. The conviction of Babiš’s former closest associate is expected to amplify domestic tensions, with opposition leaders already calling for greater transparency and accountability for the new administration.

VIENNA – In a sharp escalation of diplomatic tensions between Moscow and a European Union member state, Austria’s Foreign Ministry announced Monday it has expelled three Russian Embassy personnel over credible allegations of systematic espionage targeting international organizations headquartered in the country. The move confirms an earlier report from Austrian public broadcaster ORF, which first broke the story Sunday, detailing accusations that the three diplomats used hidden antenna arrays installed on the roofs of two Russian diplomatic properties – the main Russian Embassy in central Vienna and a separate diplomatic compound in the capital’s Donaustadt district – to conduct covert intelligence gathering.

According to ORF’s reporting, the custom-built antenna installations gave Russian intelligence operatives the capability to intercept satellite internet data transmitted by major international organizations based in Vienna. The Austrian capital hosts a dense network of key global bodies, including multiple United Nations agencies, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

In an official statement announcing the expulsions, Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger emphasized that the new government has shifted its approach to addressing foreign espionage on Austrian soil. “Espionage is a security problem for Austria. In this government, we have changed course and are taking decisive action against it,” Meinl-Reisinger said. “We have made this unequivocally clear to the Russian side, also with regard to the array of antennas at the Russian embassy. One thing is clear: it is unacceptable for diplomatic immunity to be used to engage in espionage.”

The incident traces back to April, when Austrian authorities summoned Russian Ambassador Dmitry Lyubinsky to the Foreign Ministry over the suspected activities. Prosecutors requested that Moscow waive diplomatic immunity for the three employees to allow a formal criminal investigation, but Russia rejected the request – a decision that directly triggered the expulsion order, ORF confirmed. As of Monday, all three expelled diplomats have already departed Austrian territory.

Beyond the immediate expulsions, the Austrian government is moving to update the country’s national espionage legislation to close critical gaps that currently leave international organizations based in Austria underprotected. Under existing law, espionage carried out by foreign actors is only criminalized if it targets direct Austrian national interests. The proposed regulatory reforms, put forward by the current administration, will extend the same legal protections to activities involving international organizations hosted on Austrian soil, the Austrian Press Agency confirmed.

The expulsions mark the latest in a series of reciprocal diplomatic expulsions between Western European states and Russia that have taken place since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Austria, which holds formal military neutrality as an EU member, initially avoided taking high-profile diplomatic action against Moscow but has ramped up such expulsions in recent months.

The Russian Embassy in Vienna had not responded to direct requests for comment on the decision by Monday afternoon. However, in a public statement posted to its official Telegram channel Monday, the embassy called Austria’s decision “outrageous” and warned that Moscow would issue a forceful reciprocal response. The statement added that “Vienna bears full responsibility for the further deterioration of bilateral relations, which are already at a historical low.”