Independent outlet, whose former editor Dmitry Muratov won Nobel prize, cites intolerable pressure from authorities

Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s best-known independent media outlets, has announced it will permanently close next month. The newspaper, whose former editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel peace prize in 2021, cited intolerable pressure, including being stripped of its newsroom, its donation platforms and its legal right to publish.

“This is not just our own story; it is the story of a country and a society that are being systematically crushed,” wrote its editor-in-chief, Sergei Sokolov, on the newspaper’s website.

Dozens of CIA officers have been afflicted by debilitating symptoms over the past decade. Are they the result of ‘mass hysteria’? Or are they from attacks with an energy weapon and, if so, who is responsible? And has there been a cover-up?

Shortly after 1am one night in April 2019, a CIA officer on a work trip to London was jolted awake in his hotel room by the most intense head pain he had ever experienced. His body was soaked with sweat and he felt like his eyes were spinning in their sockets. He manoeuvred his way out of bed, hoping to make it to the bathroom to vomit, but found his sense of balance had deserted him. Eventually, he fell back into a fitful, shallow sleep.

The next day, arriving at the work meeting he had travelled for, the officer found he could not remember the names of colleagues in the room, people he knew well. As the meeting got under way, he could barely follow the discussion. Initially, he chalked it up to a terrible – if rather odd – case of food poisoning. But over subsequent weeks, worrying symptoms persisted: brain fog, loss of balance and increasingly harsh tinnitus.

Their opposition to Putin led to two of the group being sent to brutal prison camps. Then another was found to be spying for the Kremlin. Shaun Walker reports

It’s January 2012 and Pussy Riot are filming a video in Red Square, Moscow. As snow covers the cobbles and dusts the onion globes of St Basil’s Cathedral, the clock on the Kremlin chimes 11am. Eight women in colourful balaclavas leap on to a stone platform, one with an electric guitar. They start playing their latest song, Putin Has Chickened Out. It’s pretty punchy, with lyrics such as: “The rebellious column is heading to the Kremlin / Windows are exploding in FSB offices.”

The group had formed a few months earlier after Vladimir Putin announced that he planned to return to the Kremlin for a third term as president. Inspired by the Arab spring the previous year, they hoped to bring revolution to Russia and stop Putin. Instead, the state cracked down hard. Three Pussy Riot members were found guilty of hooliganism after later protests, with two spending two years in some of Russia’s harshest jails.

Exclusive: Intelligence officers say Russian campaign could intensify ‘in months, not years’ – but that panic risks playing into Kremlin psy-ops

European intelligence officials have raised the possibility of an imminent Russian test of Nato, with one saying a potential attack could come in a matter of “months, not years”.

The warnings come after Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, told parliament that intelligence assessments suggested Russia might launch an attack with drones or missiles on Nato territory in the coming months, as part of efforts to prove that “article 5 is more theoretical than practical”.

Exclusive: In her first media interview since fleeing Russia, Rita Flores describes her three years of being run by the FSB

First came the blackmail and death threats to secure cooperation, then came a series of tasks, each more sinister than the last: to inform on fellow activists, to elicit personal information from protest-minded artists and – eventually – to help with a plot to kidnap and murder a Kremlin enemy.

That is how Rita Flores, a 29-year-old Russian artist, activist and former member of the Pussy Riot collective, described her recruitment and three-year handling by officers from Russia’s FSB security service, a cooperation she only broke when she fled the country last month.

When exiled Russian opposition campaigner Igor Rogov was accused of working for the Kremlin, his friends were shocked. Could this young activist have really been an undercover agent?

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The police came for Igor Rogov because someone had mailed him a bomb-making kit. The eclectic mix of items – a chrome vacuum flask, a pair of marker pens, a power bank and a bottle of antifreeze fluid – might have seemed innocuous to an untrained eye, but Poland was on high alert in July 2024. Two months previously, a shopping mall in Warsaw had burned down in an arson attack; an Ikea in neighbouring Lithuania was also set on fire. Authorities believed it was a sabotage campaign masterminded by Russia’s intelligence services, intended to sow panic and undermine support for Ukraine. They feared it was only a matter of time before the Kremlin escalated further.

A security officer at the parcel company’s warehouse was suspicious enough about the package to call in the authorities, who arrived with sniffer dogs and special equipment. X-rays of the marker pens showed they had 1980s Soviet-produced detonators concealed inside, while the flask had a false bottom containing a sachet of metallic powder. The power bank appeared to have been tampered with in some way, and a probe of the bottled liquid showed it contained a highly volatile nitroglycerine solution. With the right expertise, the items could be turned into a powerful bomb.

Beneath the ​drone strikes and ​talk of ceasefires lies a battle over history that is testing ​Kyiv’s chances for an end to the conflict

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I’ve just come back from a trip to Kyiv, where after more than four years of war, it can feel like the political and diplomatic news agenda has become cyclical: a suggestion that some kind of peace deal could be around the corner, followed by the swift intervention of reality that the Kremlin has no interest in abandoning its maximalist goals, and we all go back to the drawing board.

We are now in a period where Russia has again stepped up its air attacks on the Ukrainian capital. Frequent mass drone and missile attacks keep Kyiv residents awake, and some even get through to the city centre, whereas in the past Ukrainian air defences were usually able to repel them. Nights can be noisy and scary: one attack while I was there killed 27 people. Thousands head into the metro to get some sleep.

Kyiv’s decision to honour second world war fighters who killed about 100,000 Poles has revived simmering tensions

In the aftermath of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Polish-Ukrainian solidarity emerged as one of the most heartwarming subplots of the Kremlin’s brutal war. Millions of Poles, remembering their country’s own tragic history with Russia, mobilised to help Ukrainian refugees with food, shelter and support as they crossed the border in huge numbers to flee the conflict.

Four years later, that outpouring of generosity and solidarity is a distant memory, as the two countries find themselves locked in a bitter dispute over history that has led to angry rhetoric, mutual mud-slinging and a threat from Poland to block Ukraine’s EU accession until it gets its historical house in order.

The US president is in combative mood as Nato leaders meet for a two-day summit in Ankara. There are divisions over Russia’s war in Ukraine, defence spending, and the US-Israel war in Iran with signs of the fragile ceasefire collapsing. 

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is holding talks with leaders as he rallies the European cause against Russia’s war that has reached the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, as Nato allies present an increasingly united front against an unreliable US.

Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent Shaun Walker

Kyiv offers expertise on how to develop radar systems and ground stations as it turns from buyer to security provider

Ukraine hopes to sign major defence deals with at least seven Nato countries by the end of the year, according to a top official, highlighting a new aspect of Kyiv’s foreign policy intended to show it can be a provider as well as a recipient of military hardware and expertise.

Kyiv has signed “drone deals” with six countries in recent months. Three are Middle Eastern states, who became eager for Ukrainian support after being targeted with Iranian long-range Shahed drones after the US-Israeli war on Iran began in spring. These are the same weapons that have targeted Ukrainian cities relentlessly over the past four years. Azerbaijan has also signed an agreement with Kyiv, as well as the Nato members Latvia and Lithuania.

More than 70 missiles fired at Ukraine capital as Russia faces fuel shortages after strikes against its oil refineries

At least 21 people were killed and dozens injured overnight in Kyiv, local authorities said, in what the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, called the worst Russian attack on the capital during more than four years of air assault on Ukraine.

Russia used nearly 500 drones and more than 70 missiles in the hours-long attack on Kyiv and other parts of the country in the early hours of Thursday. Loud explosions shook the capital for several hours as waves of drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles came towards it and Ukraine’s air defence attempted to shoot them down.

Trump administration’s rhetoric has created so much uncertainty that Poland and Baltic states have fresh doubts as alliance prepares to meet next month

A nightmare scenario has been playing on eastern European minds with increasing intensity since Donald Trump returned to the White House: what if Russia attacks and the US does not join the fight?

On the rare occasions the question is posed out loud, nobody much likes the answer. In mid-May, at a gathering in Tallinn, the US undersecretary of state Thomas DiNanno was asked directly whether American troops would fight if Russia invaded the Baltic states. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, then gave a meandering answer. It did not include the word “yes”.

Increasingly isolated president is determined to press on with Ukraine war, say well-placed sources, despite ailing economy

Vladimir Putin pulled up to a hotel in central Moscow earlier in May in a Russian-made SUV, dressed casually in jeans and a light jacket. Carrying a bouquet of flowers, he walked unhurriedly into the lobby and embraced his former schoolteacher Vera Gurevich, who kissed him on both cheeks.

He then helped Gurevich into his car and drove her to dinner at the Kremlin.

Former general Petr Pavel says Moscow’s testing of alliance’s eastern flank should be met with firm line

The Czech president, Petr Pavel, has urged Nato to “show its teeth” in response to Russia’s repeated testing of the alliance’s resolve on its eastern flank, suggesting a range of options including switching off its internet, cutting off its banks from global financial systems and shooting down jets that violate allied airspace.

Speaking to the Guardian in Prague, Pavel called for “decisive enough, potentially even asymmetric” responses to counter Moscow’s provocative behaviour against the alliance or risk the Kremlin intensifying its actions.

Officials from Baltic states say Moscow behind latest such incident but also tell Kyiv to be more careful with its routing

A Romanian F-16 Nato jet shot down a drone over Estonia on Tuesday in what appears to be the latest case of Russian electronic jamming diverting long-range Ukrainian drones into the alliance’s territory.

A local resident told the Estonian public broadcaster, ERR, that he had seen two fighter jets – part of a Nato force policing the skies over the Baltic states – flying in the area before a loud bang that brought the drone down. He said the drone had crashed about 30 metres from the nearest residential building.

Trump reportedly involved in securing visa for Zbigniew Ziobro, who is wanted in Warsaw on criminal charges

Poland has said it expects Washington to extradite a former justice minister wanted on criminal charges after reports emerged that he had fled to the US from Hungary, where the former prime minister Viktor Orbán had granted him asylum.

“You can’t hide these days. You can flee, you can delay it for a while, but eventually your options run out,” Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, said on Monday in reference to Zbigniew Ziobro.

Exclusive: Documents obtained by consortium of journalists show role of Moscow university in training operatives in military intelligence

Last April, Vladimir Putin visited the campus of Bauman Moscow state technical university, set on the banks of the Yauza River in the east of the city and home to some of the country’s brightest scientific minds.

He toured the campus, met undergraduates and boasted about Moscow’s ambitious plans for space missions to the moon and Mars. “You have everything it takes to be competitive,” Putin told the students.

Kyiv sources say they think injection contained relaxant meant to make people more talkative in interrogations

Hungarian security operatives administered a “forced injection” to one of the Ukrainians detained earlier this month during a dramatic raid on bank vehicles carrying gold bars and tens of millions of dollars and euros in cash, sources have told the Guardian.

Hungary’s TEK anti-terrorism police detained seven Ukrainians from the state savings bank, Oschadbank, on 5 March. They were accompanying a convoy of two armoured cars from Vienna to Ukraine, as it transited Hungary in what Kyiv claims was a regular transfer of state funds. Hungarian officials have claimed it was money for the “Ukrainian war mafia”, without giving details.

Daria Boyarskaya coordinating OSCE mission overseeing vote in which pro-Moscow Viktor Orbán could lose power

Hungarian rights groups have raised concerns over the appointment of Vladimir Putin’s former interpreter to a key role in an international election monitoring mission, amid fears of Russian interference ahead of Hungary’s crucial vote next month.

Daria Boyarskaya, who worked for many years for Russia’s foreign ministry and interpreted in numerous high-level meetings including one between Putin and Donald Trump, is now a senior adviser at the parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE-PA), based in Vienna. She is coordinating the body’s mission to monitor next month’s parliamentary election in Hungary.

In 2023, what were thought to be Nazar Daletskyi’s remains were buried in his home village and his mother, Nataliia, visited the grave every week. Three years later, he spoke to her on the phone

Nazar Daletskyi was declared dead in May 2023. The DNA match left no room for doubt, officials told his mother, Nataliia. A Ukrainian soldier who volunteered for the front in the early weeks of the war, Nazar had become one more casualty of Russia’s invasion.

Nazar’s remains were laid to rest in the cemetery of his home village. In the months after the funeral, Nataliia visited the grave at least once a week, at first to cry and later to stand in quiet contemplation, remembering her only son.