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Ukraine war challenging the Western obsession with 'perfect' weapons
The West has long focused on making exquisite weapons, but the war is demonstrating that weapons that are adaptable and widely available is key.
Ukraine releases new video of Flamingo missiles launching into battle
The homegrown FP-5 Flamingos struck a military-industrial site in the Russian city of Cheboksary, about 370 miles east of Moscow.
Starmer says UK opening talks with EU on joining €90bn loan scheme for Ukraine
The prime minister is backing the deal as it would allow British firms to access the contracts funded by the loan
UK to enter talks to join £78bn EU loan scheme for Ukraine
Sir Keir Starmer will meet leaders at the European Political Community summit in Armenia on Monday.
Research commissioner pitches EU to US scientists and investors
Research Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva is just back from a two-day trip to San Francisco, where she pitched the EU as the place to be for US researchers looking to move and US venture capitalists looking to invest. A Commission spokesperson told Science|Business that Zaharieva used the trip to “promote Europe as a stable, rule-based and vibrant innovation destination.” She emphasised Europe’s excellent infrastructure and predictable funding, particularly through the European Research Council (ERC) and Europe Innovation Council.These are already proving tempting, with applications from US-based researchers to ERC and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) calls increasing substantially over the past few years. According to the Commission, the number of US-based applicants for the annual ERC Consolidator Grant call rose from 19 in 2025 to 64 in 2026, while US bids to the ERC Advanced Grant call rose from 23 in 2024 to 114 in 2025. Meanwhile, US applications to the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships scheme rose from 352 in 2024 to 998 in 2025.Pressure on US scientists to seek alternative employment has increased since Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Jobs at federal science agencies have been slashed, funding cut in some research areas and international scientific partnerships turned upside down. He has also made unprecedented attempts to control university affairs.During her trip, Zaharieva made a point of highlighting the protection of academic freedom in Europe, “especially in areas like climate change, renewable energy, and health, where US funding has faced cuts,” the spokesperson said.She also underlined the EU’s “attractive long-term career opportunities and relocation support for top researchers from anywhere in the world,” especially through its new Choose Europe for Science initiative.“Transatlantic cooperation remains essential to tackle global challenges while safeguarding shared values such as academic freedom and openness,” Zaharieva wrote on social media ahead of her visit.Related articlesERC walks back stricter resubmission rules for 2027Don’t feel guilty about poaching scientists fleeing Trump, US science body tells EuropeHer itinerary took in Stanford University’s business school and school of medicine, where topics for discussion included entrepreneurship and interdisciplinary collaboration. She also met with venture capital firms, including Playground Global, Forgepoint Capital and Akkadian Venture Capital, as well as the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest public pension fund in the US.Other meetings included Jensen Huang, the chief executive of AI chip manufacturer Nvidia, and local business associations such as the Bay Area Council and EuroCham. European delegations in the area also received visits, including Advantage Austria and France’s La French Tech, and the Consulate General of Ukraine in San Francisco.
Russia’s sports comeback fuels anger in Ukraine
Ahead of a key meeting about curling, a top Ukrainian minister tells POLITICO he is “deeply concerned” about the trend toward readmission.
Ukraine's war startups are pushing to meet NATO standards, win deals
Ukraine's wartime startups are racing to meet NATO standards and ready for exports and Western defense deals as global demand for their tech surges.
India beat Ukraine in Uber Cup, SC Delhi vs Mohammedan SC in ISL, Jr. Shooting World Cup continues: Indian Sports LIVE, April 26
Here are all the updates from Indian sports on April 26, 2026.
Trump dismisses Prince Harry’s comments on Ukraine ahead of royal visit
President Donald Trump on Thursday brushed off remarks by Prince Harry asking the US for more action to end the war in Ukraine, saying the British royal does not speak for the United Kingdom.
To protest rising taxes, Russia’s small businesses take their ‘flash mobs’ online
With the costs of the war in Ukraine growing, the Kremlin has been raising taxes on and rolling back exemptions for Russian small businesses.
This Ukrainian drone company fears missing Iran war moment
Ukraine's battle-proven drone interceptors are seeing new interest. One maker worries that without being able to export, it will miss the window.
Russia drafts time limit on privatisation lawsuits to reassure business
A new Russian draft law would set a 10-year limit on legal claims disputing privatisation deals, after business leaders complained about a surge in state seizures of private property since the start of the military campaign in Ukraine.
Drone wars: The strategic convergence between Ukraine and Iran
Seeing Ukraine and Iran as interconnected can help the US better prepare for future wars and remain steps ahead of its adversaries.
"War is our reality": 4A reveal Metro 2039, a horror FPS inspired by Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Metro 2029 returns the FPS series to the tunnels of Moscow, but this time it's "told from a distinctly Ukrainian perspective."
Russian Influencers Turn From Cosmetics To Politics, But Don't Mention The War
Russian influencer Victoria Bonya made a personal address to Russian President Vladimir Putin: In a country where political debate and criticism of the authorities is tightly controlled, she brought up problems people face in their everyday lives. Except the war in Ukraine.
King: Summer is too important for politics to steal
If you can get your mind off the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, if you can stop checking your 401(K), which seems to have taken off for the
Fighter pilot Rumen Radev looks to break Bulgaria’s political deadlock
Radev is vowing to combat the country’s oligarchs and mafia, but his Kremlin-aligned positions on Ukraine have sparked concern.
Germany's aid to Ukraine faces challenges
Ukrainian-German government talks in Berlin on Tuesday, were overshadowed by worries about continuing support for Ukraine. Political resistance is growing.
In the West, businesses can only watch, not stop drone threats
With few options available, businesses and the wealthy in the West are buying drone detectors, a technology used often in Ukraine, to spot threats.
From War Hero to Politics, Zelenskiy’s Top Aide Steps out of the Shadows
Kyrylo Budanov was taken from military intelligence to run Ukraine’s presidential office. It’s a political post that has Kyiv powerbrokers speculating over his future career path.
“AI polls” are fake polls
A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.
Italy's UniCredit says no plans to liquidate Russian business
UniCredit said on Friday it had no plans to liquidate its Russian business or return the banking licence held by its local subsidiary, which the Italian lender has held onto during the Ukraine conflict.
Investing in Tomorrow: Strengthening Human Development and Resilience in Ukraine
Since Russia’s invasion, World Bank support has helped Ukraine sustain essential services by protecting schools, strengthening healthcare, and delivering social assistance to those most in need.
Jamie Dimon warns of a 'skunk at the party' his shareholder letter
Dimon said that the wars in Iran and Ukraine could impact prices beyond the immediate energy sector.
Orban fuels anti-Ukraine mood ahead of Hungarian vote
Orbán has sought to portray his chief rival Magyar as the "puppet" of the EU and Ukraine
Ukraine beats Russia at world’s top sports court
The chess ruling in Kyiv’s favor sends signal that “aggression cannot be normalized through sporting institutions,” top Ukrainian official tells POLITICO.
Commentary: Summer Is too important for politics to steal
If you can get your mind off the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, if you can stop checking your 401(K), which seems to have taken off for the
'A realisation of tens of thousands of people's hopes'
Construction on Hill Dickinson Stadium began in August 2021 and was completed in 2025. The Toffees finished four points above the relegation zone in 2021-22 and just two points clear of the drop zone the following season. Everton also cut ties with Russian sponsors in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine and the Friedkin Group took over the club in November 2024.
Europe has the resources to contain Russia but lacks the political will
Europe unquestionably possesses the industrial and economic base to outmatch Russia but has yet to demonstrate the unity and political will necessary to contain the Kremlin and stop Putin in Ukraine, writes Oleksiy Zagorodnyuk.
Why America’s hard-power military might isn’t ending the Iran war
Donald Trump is fond of telling Ukraine it has no cards in its attritional war with Russia. But the US president is facing growing questions about the strength of his own deck in the war with Iran.
May elections come at time of war on two fronts, Starmer says
At campaign launch, PM acknowledges concern over events in Ukraine and Iran as well as over rising cost of living
Ukraine Health Cluster: Partner Response to Evacuations, (as of 28 February 2026)
in English on Ukraine; published on 10 Mar 2026 by Health Cluster and WHO
Orbán accuses crowd of ‘pushing Ukraine’s cart’ after being booed at campaign rally
The incident took place in Győr, an opposition stronghold in northwestern Hungary.
Russia's oil is beating global prices, padding the Kremlin's war chest
The shift marks a turnaround for Russia, which had been forced to sell oil at steep discounts following Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.
In Rural Ukraine, Basic Health Care Is a Casualty of War
Elderly people in isolated villages are going without medicine. One woman said she hadn’t seen a doctor in four years.
Ukraine's unique role in the Iran war: From the Politics Desk
Plus, congressional Republicans plot a new reconciliation push.
Russia breaks record, launches nearly 1,000 strike drones in a day
Ukraine said it shot down 906 out of 948 long-range drones launched into its borders within a single 24-hour window.
Volunteer US and UK fighters in Ukraine face hidden health crises, new study suggests
Former soldiers who have served as volunteer fighters in Ukraine experience high levels of mental and physical health difficulties yet are rarely able to access the health care they need, either during ...
High-speed combat drone production starts at new US Anduril plant in days
Anduril Industries will begin building its new FURY, "loyal wingman," high-speed combat drones in the coming days at a new facility in Ohio, as the U.S. military's interest in unmanned aircraft surges following battlefield successes in Ukraine and Iran.
Researchers uncover iPhone spyware capable of penetrating millions of devices
A powerful software exploit capable of penetrating and stealing information from potentially hundreds of millions of Apple iPhones was planted on dozens of websites in Ukraine in recent weeks, researchers said on Wednesday.
IPC president disappointed with Ukraine for shifting focus to politics at Milan Cortina Paralympics
The president of the International Paralympic Committee says he was disappointed with the complaints made by Ukraine’s National Paralympic Committee during the Milan Cortina Games
IPC president disappointed with Ukraine for shifting focus to politics at Milan Cortina Paralympics
1,900-year-old double Scythian burial in Ukraine contains toxic red mineral
A double burial in Ukraine of two women from the Late Scythian culture contains a toxic red mineral, but exactly why it was used remains a mystery.
Surging Energy Costs Put German Industry ‘Really in Danger’
Four years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices soaring, the war in Iran is posing another challenge to efforts to revive European factories.
Watching Ukraine, NATO artillery crews learn to work drones in Arctic
NATO commanders told Business Insider that drones are useful but could never fully replace the reliability of old-fashioned artillery.
War with Iran fuels Russian oil boom — and trouble for Ukraine
War with Iran drives oil prices higher, boosting Russian energy revenues and shifting global attention from Ukraine as Moscow gains economic leverage.
Why Vladimir Putin may be the big winner from Trump's Iran war
Russia “gains new resources to finance its war against Ukraine as energy prices rise,” European Council President António Costa said. “It profits from the diversion of military capabilities.”
Iran war’s oil shock fuels GOP political anxiety
Oil prices Monday spiked to levels not seen since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 before falling, while prices at the pump jumped nearly 50 cents higher than a week ago.
Billionaire Czech Premier Shrugs Off Defense Calls to Focus on Health
As Russia’s war in Ukraine rages to the east and the US piles on pressure to spend more on the military, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has been focusing on a very different agenda.
Advent Said to Explore $4 Billion Sale of Naval Defense Business
Advent is exploring a sale of its Ultra Maritime business for more than £3 billion, as demand surges for naval defense companies amid conflicts from Iran to Ukraine, according to people familiar with the matter.
Oil prices soar past $100 a barrel as war escalates in Iran
Oil prices surged past $100 per barrel on Sunday, the first time crossing that mark since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, as investors worried that the war in Iran would mean prolonged restrictions on Middle Eastern oil flows.
Ukraine says homegrown missiles 800+ miles to hit Russian factory
The launch from last week came amid one of Ukraine's largest long-range attacks into Russia, with Moscow saying it shot down 77 Ukrainian drones.
Russian Offensive Hampered by War Losses, Western Officials Say
Mounting Russian casualties are likely to hinder President Vladimir Putin’s ability to launch a large-scale offensive against Ukraine in the coming months, according to Western officials.
Attacks on Ukraine’s health care increased by 20% in 2025
Since the beginning of the full-scale war on 24 February 2022, WHO has documented at least 2881 attacks on health care in Ukraine, affecting health workers, facilities, ambulances, and medical warehouses.
‘Progressive membership’: Ukraine’s economic resilience shows future for EU business tie-ups
Joint ventures on defence, green energy and telecoms suggest how country could join bloc in stages rather than wait for full status
Trump's Ukraine peace deal stalled as bloody war hits 4-year mark
Experts say Vladimir Putin has peruaded U.S. negotiators that he wants to cut a deal – even as Moscow rains missiles and drones on Ukrainian cities.
From bakeries to beauty shops, Russian businesses are feeling the pain from a new wartime tax policy
As Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine marks four years, the pressure on Russia’s economy is starting to show.
From bakeries to beauty shops, Russian businesses are feeling the pain from a new wartime tax policy
Denis Maksimov’s bakery in suburban Moscow became famous overnight after he appeared on President Vladimir Putin’s annual call-in show in December. Standing in front of the bakery — called Mashenka, after his oldest daughter -– he pleaded with Putin via video to look into new tax reforms that are significantly increasing the burden on small businesses like his. As Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine marks four years, the mounting pressure on Russia’s economy is starting to show.
Russia's Arctic units wrecked in Ukraine, NATO bracing for comeback
NATO needs to use this time to prepare for a Russian resurgence in the Arctic, a top Norwegian military official told Business Insider.
High energy prices threaten UK’s status as manufacturing power, business groups say
CBI and Energy UK report finds 40% of firms have cut investment as electricity costs remain far above pre-Ukraine levels
Business Lookahead: Nvidia earnings take center stage
STORY: As global markets react to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on President Trump's tariffs, Nvidia earnings head for center stage. These are the stories to watch in business and finance in the coming week. :: Nvidia's momentMarkets will be watching for Nvidia's quarterly results Wednesday...as investors worry about returns on AI spending and industry disruptions caused by the emerging tech.Nvidia shares have soared following the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022.But shares of the company and others in the "Magnificent Seven" have stalled so far in 2026.:: Anniversary angstTuesday marks the four-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.While the push for a ceasefire continues, getting one over the line remains difficult.Ukraine has faced sustained pressure to agree to a deal that could mean painful concessions, as Russian forces pound its power grid and slowly advance on the battlefield.The International Monetary Fund looks set to rubberstamp extended support, meaning Kyiv's bonds are flying high.:: Key Australia dataAustralia's consumer price reading Wednesday will be closely watched by investors, who are betting the central bank will hike rates at least once more this year.Earlier this month, Australia's central bank became the only one in the G10 outside Japan to tighten policy, as it struggles to bring inflation under control in a supply-constrained economy.:: British uneaseBritish Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a reckoning Thursday in a Manchester special election.Investors will be watching the results closely. Friday could be another volatile day for British markets and Westminster.British gilts and the pound wobbled earlier this month as a crisis engulfed Starmer over what he knew of Peter Mandelson's links to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein when he appointed the former as U.S. ambassador.
In Ukraine, Senators See War’s Impact and Press for Stronger U.S. Support
Senate Democrats traveled to Kyiv and Odessa to show solidarity with the war-torn nation and make the case that the United States should do more, including imposing harsh sanctions on Russia.
Ukraine taught West to view small drones as disposable, not precious
Western militaries often view new technology as precious and valuable. Ukraine shows that they can't afford to view small drones that way.
Live updates: Trump administration news, US-Russia-Ukraine trilateral talks and DHS funding negotiations
Ukraine sports minister slams Russia’s Winter Paralympics entry as ‘deeply outrageous’
Six Russians and four Belarusians will feature next month at Milano Cortina with all athletes competing under their nation’s flags
Russia says Ukraine peace talks in Geneva were difficult, but business-like
Russia's chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said on Wednesday that U.S.-mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Geneva had been difficult but business-like, and that a new round of talks would be held soon.
With Witkoff and Kushner, Trump Bets on Diplomacy Without Diplomats
President Trump’s most trusted envoys are at the center of the Iran and Ukraine negotiations, an approach that has sidelined the State Department and the National Security Council.
Ukraine's small businesses struggle as Russian strikes turn off power
Nataliia Bilostotska poured her heart and soul into her three-year-old beauty salon in a commuter town just outside Kyiv. But when the temperature inside plunged to almost freezing, she realised she had to shut up shop.
Trump pushes hard on Iran and Ukraine deals
President Donald Trump addressed his hopes for constructive talks with Iran and Ukraine while flying back to Washington aboard Air Force One.
Russia's air defenses learned in Ukraine, now a bigger threat to NATO
Russia still has many air defenses, and experience it gained against Ukraine actually makes them a bigger threat to NATO aircraft than before 2022.
Ukrainian skeleton slider Vladyslav Heraskevych has appeal dismissed over Olympics disqualification
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has dismissed Ukrainian skeleton slider Vladyslav Heraskevych’s appeal to be reinstated into the Olympic Games after he was disqualified from competition for breaking International Olympic Committee (IOC) rules over athlete expression.
WATCH: Ukraine's skeleton star slams Olympic ban over helmet
Speaking to DW in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Ukraine's Vladyslav Heraskevych had strong words for the IOC after he wasn't allowed to compete in the men's skeleton competition. Heraskevych wanted to wear a helmet depicting athletes killed in Russia's war in Ukraine.
Disqualification of Ukraine’s Heraskevych includes dismissal of his sport by Olympic leaders
IOC comments that they wanted Heraskevych to hold back for "one minute" run was reductive of his sport, our columnist Steve Buckley writes.
Ukrainian skeleton slider withdrawn from Olympics after ‘refusing to adhere’ to IOC rules on helmet honoring dead compatriots
Ukrainian skeleton slider Vladylsav Heraskevych has been withdrawn from competing at the Winter Olympics for “refusing to adhere” to the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) athlete expression guidelines regarding his insistence on wearing a helmet featuring images of athletes killed during the war in Ukraine during competition.
Skeleton-Ukraine's Heraskevych disqualified over helmet controversy
Ukraine's skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics on Thursday over the use of a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the conflict with Russia since Moscow's invasion in 2022, he said.
Partners discuss improving pooled procurement of emergency medical countermeasures
On 13 January 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (DG HERA) brought together regional partners in Brussels for a workshop focused on pooled procurement of medical countermeasures – including diagnostics, treatments and vaccines – for health emergencies.
In Ukraine’s west, Hungarian minority rights collide with wartime politics
In Zakarpattia, ordinary life continues as an old dispute between neighbouring nations rocks regional geopolitics.
Ukrainian skeleton slider claims IOC has banned helmet showing athletes killed in war
Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych says the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has banned him from wearing his helmet featuring images of athletes killed during the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine businesses struggle to cope as Russian attacks bring power cuts and uncertainty
While businesses were prepared for electricity cuts due to Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, no one expected such a brutal winter
Donald Trump demands end to Russia-Ukraine War by June, Zelenskyy says
Is peace coming? There's a deadline now.
Olympics Officials Signal Sanctions on Russia in Sports May End
In Milan this week, Olympics officials signaled a willingness to ease years of restrictions imposed on the country over its state-backed doping program and invasion of Ukraine.
APT28 Uses Microsoft Office CVE-2026-21509 in Espionage-Focused Malware Attacks
APT28 exploited a Microsoft Office flaw to deliver MiniDoor and Covenant Grunt malware in targeted attacks across Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
Fifa president Gianni Infantino called 'infantile' for wanting to lift Russia ban
Ukraine's sports minister calls Fifa president Gianni Infantino "irresponsible" and "infantile" for saying it will look at lifting a ban on Russia.
Russian hackers exploit recently patched Microsoft Office bug in attacks
Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) says that Russian hackers are exploiting CVE-2026-21509, a recently patched vulnerability in multiple versions of Microsoft Office.
Musk confirms SpaceX success in preventing Russian military from accessing stolen Starlink units
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says his company successfully blocked Russia's "unauthorized" use of captured Starlink terminals in Ukraine on Sunday.
The Observatory and WHO Ukraine reflect on productive partnership and continued collaboration
Why have some health systems coped better than others during the COVID-19 pandemic? Some answers might become clear if we could assess how resilient health systems are in response to crises or shocks, such as the current pandemic and other emergencies, including financial ones, or how well health systems were prepared for such events in the first place. The European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies has just published a new policy brief, “Strengthening health systems resilience”, which includes a framework to help policy-makers understand health system resilience and how to strengthen it. This policy brief highlights the key features of resilience and provides examples of strategies which have been applied in different countries.
Ukraine commander says drone pilots hit Russians at extreme close range
The Unmanned Systems Forces' commander said his units' average engagement distance against Russian soldiers is less than 1 mile from the contact line.
Zelenskyy says UAE round of Ukraine-US-Russia talks ‘constructive’
The Ukrainian president said more talks could take place next week.
Ukraine Will Be the Business Opportunity of the Decade
Once peace takes hold, Ukraine will become one of the world’s most dynamic emerging economies, Howard J. Shatz writes in a guest commentary.
Zelensky to Meet Trump at Davos Forum to Discuss Ukraine Peace Deal
President Trump and Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, are expected to talk about sticking points in negotiations to end the war with Russia.
The dramatic, and unusual, Oval Office moments from the first year of Trump 2.0
From an explosive sit-down with the leader of war-torn Ukraine to an unexpectedly friendly meeting with a Democratic socialist mayor-elect, the Oval Office has hosted some of the most dramatic moments of President Donald Trump’s first year back in office.
Ukrainian tennis player asks sporting world to ‘protect children and women’ at Australian Open
Oleksandra Oliynykova used her news conference after defeat to Madison Keys to speak about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine's military chief: Russia trying to build 1,000 Shaheds a day
Oleksandr Syrskyi said that Russia is currently producing 404 Shaheds "of various types" per day.
Former Ukrainian PM accused of bribing politicians with US dollars to weaken Zelenskyy's government
Ukrainian authorities seized stacks of U.S. dollars during raids targeting former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who allegedly planned to bribe lawmakers
'Massive' Russian losses in Ukraine push it toward breaking point: official
Up to 25,000 Russian soldiers are being killed every month, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said this week.
New US-made missile buggy has scored 21 Shahed kills: Ukraine crew
Ukraine's air command for the central region published video of the Tempest firing what appear to be Hellfire Longbow missiles into the night sky.
I flew drones on Ukraine's fiercest battlefield, and saw their limits
Sgt. Dimko Zhluktenko, a commander of a drone team, told Business Insider what it was like flying in the heavy fog that Russia used to its advantage.
Trump has 'greenlit' sanctions bill punishing Russia for war in Ukraine, Sen. Graham says
The bill, co-written by Graham and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, allows tariffs and secondary sanctions on countries buying Russia's oil, gas, and other exports.