What Vladimir Putin cannot achieve on the battlefield and in Russian factories due to incompetence and corruption, he is trying to achieve instead by offering American companies and politicians fat contracts and huge profits, writes Caroline de Gruyter.

The EU is aiming to impose a 20th round of Russia sanctions on the fourth anniversary of the full invasion of Ukraine, on 24 February — despite the US-led ceasefire talks.

Slovakia’s Hungarian minority are protesting against the state’s ongoing use of wartime decrees to confiscate private land on ethnic grounds. Now the president has signed a decree making it a criminal offence, with up to six months in prison, to criticise the land confiscations.

Across Europe, mayors and local councillors are facing a disturbing rise in harassment, threats, disinformation, and even physical violence. These aren’t isolated incidents — they are a growing pattern. And they’re not 'just politics'. They are deliberate attempts to silence, intimidate, and push people out of public life, warns the Council of European Municipalities and Regions.

A French banker inside Euroclear, who flew to Russia 155 times for "private" reasons, allegedly tried to connect the company's CEO, Valérie Urbain, with Russian spies and threatened her when she declined, according to an investigation by EUobserver, Humo, De Morgen, and Dossier Center.

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