The governing parties are seeking to head off challenge of the far right as it faces key elections. Germany has expanded border control measures, with the crossings to all nine of its neighbouring countries now being checked. The checks, implemented on Monday in what the government said last week are a bid to to curb entry of undocumented migrants, are due to last six months. The move has...

Kremlin slams invitation as ‘pure provocation’ as it prepares to welcome Red Cross chief. Ukraine says it has asked the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to verify the situation in areas of Russia’s Kursk region seized by Kyiv. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Monday that he had instructed his ministry to extend formal invitations to the organisations. The invitation is...

Bucha, Ukraine – Valentyna beams when she talks about her new vocation – a “witch of Bucha”. That’s the unofficial moniker of almost 100 women aged 19 to 64 who are volunteers in part-time military service in air defence units in the suburban community northwest of Kyiv. Each “Bucha witch” trains to handle assault rifles and machineguns to shoot down Russian drones that swarm above their homes several...