The conservative opposition has won the most votes in Germany’s general election, but a dramatic surge by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is likely to complicate the formation of a government to help spearhead a European response to growing global threats.

The CDU/CSU candidate, Friedrich Merz, was preparing on Sunday night to try to form a ruling coalition after clinching almost 29% of the vote from a high turnout.

“I’d like to express my respect for our political rivals,” he said, referring to fellow centrists. “It was a very tough campaign.

“Now we need to talk to each other and as quickly as possible form a government for Germany that can take action so that we can do the right thing at home, be present again in Europe and make sure the world sees that Germany again has a reliable government.”

The AfD, buoyed by anger about immigration, violent crime and high energy costs, got about 21% of the vote – finishing second and nearly doubling its result at the last election in 2021.

The party’s jubilant chancellor candidate and co-leader, Alice Weidel, cheered the outcome with AfD officials including the extremist firebrand Björn Höcke, who has been convicted of using the banned Nazi slogan “Alles für Deutschland” (Everything for Germany) in campaign speeches.

“This is a historic success for us – our best result ever,” Weidel told the broadcaster ARD. “We extend our hand to offer cooperation with the CDU. Otherwise change won’t be possible in Germany.”

All the mainstream parties, however, have pledged to maintain a “firewall” barring formal cooperation with the anti-migrant, pro-Kremlin AfD, which attracted high-profile endorsements from Donald Trump’s confidant, Elon Musk, and the US vice-president, JD Vance, during the short, intense campaign.

Trump hailed the election’s outcome. “Much like the USA, the people of Germany got tired of the no-common-sense agenda, especially on energy and immigration,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social. “This is a great day for Germany.”

But Merz struck a blunt tone, saying Trump had made it “clear that [his] government is fairly indifferent to Europe’s fate” and that Germany would have to wait to see “whether we will still be able to speak about Nato in its current form” when the alliance meets for its next summit in June.

“For me, the absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA” in defence matters, Merz said.

He said he had not given up hope that Ukraine would be included in any negotiations with Russia on its future, perhaps with the “intervention of the US Congress” on Kyiv’s behalf against any attempt at exclusion by Trump.

British prime minister Keir Starmer congratulated Merz and welcomed the chance to “enhance our joint security”. “I look forward to working with the new government to deepen our already strong relationship, enhance our joint security and deliver growth for both our countries,” Starmer posted on X.

French president Emmanuel Macron offered his congratulations, saying: “We are more determined than ever to achieve great things together for France and Germany and work towards a strong and sovereign Europe. In this time of uncertainty, we are united to face the major challenges of the world and our continent.”

The incumbent chancellor, Olaf Scholz, turned in the worst performance for his Social Democrats since the second world war, with about 16%. He had led a fractious three-way government until it collapsed in November over a dispute on spending priorities – just hours after Trump’s re-election – triggering the poll seven months ahead of schedule.

A chastened Scholz called it a “bitter result” and a “defeat” but struck a defiant tone on the strength of the far right, saying it was “something that we can never simply accept”.

Voters also punished Scholz’s junior partners, the Greens, who slipped three points to 11.6%, and the pro-business Free Democrats, who failed to clear the 5% hurdle to representation in parliament.

The far-left Linke drew more than 8% after a remarkable late-campaign comeback, while a new populist left-conservative party, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, fizzled out after strong showings in European and state elections last year to tally just below 5%.

Merz’s conservatives, who fell far short of a majority, will need to seek an alliance to govern, with the goal of having a new administration in place by Easter. His most likely coalition partner is seen as the Social Democrats; together they should have just enough to form a majority, according to a Spiegel projection of seats.

Weidel said a three-way coalition government under Merz would be “unstable” and predicted it would “not survive four years”, at which point the AfD would be waiting in the wings.

The AfD will become the biggest opposition party even while it is under surveillance by security authorities as a suspected extremist force. It has grown steadily more radical since its launch by Eurosceptic professors 12 years ago.

It has also taken direct aim at Germany’s culture of atonement for the Holocaust. During a televised debate last weekend, Weidel explicitly refused to distance herself from remarks by one of the AfD’s founders calling the Nazi period “no more than a speck of bird poo in over 1,000 years of successful history”.

Merz, a sharp-tempered corporate lawyer and veteran MP with no experience leading a government, will face a towering in-tray as chancellor, a position he has chased for decades.

Jump-starting the sputtering economy, grappling with the breakdown in transatlantic relations under Trump and forging a path forward for besieged Ukraine are just a few of the challenges facing Germany, as Europe seeks stronger leadership in a more volatile world.

The news weekly Die Zeit said given the new global realities, Merz was now facing “a mountain of problems of mythical proportions”.

The mood of the campaign was markedly grimmer than usual, analysts observed, with a sense that the rise of the AfD was keeping the focus on immigration at the expense of other pressing issues such as soaring housing costs and the climate crisis.

Merz did not mention the AfD’s strong result as he addressed his own party faithful, but took a more conciliatory tone with left-leaning opponents than he had in recent days.

To the voters, he added: “Thank you for the trust you have placed in us and also in me personally – I understand the responsibility and the scope of the task ahead of me and I will face it with the greatest respect. I know it won’t be easy.”

A series of deadly attacks with suspects from migrant backgrounds gave the AfD’s Weidel grist for her calls for radical changes to border policy, including mass deportation of immigrants and German citizens deemed poorly integrated, keeping Merz, in particular, struggling to outflank her.

The latest assault came on Friday, when a Spanish tourist was stabbed at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial, allegedly by a 19-year-old Syrian refugee who prosecutors said planned to kill Jews.

“Migration dominated the campaign and going forward, the new government will have to find policies that comply with German law and don’t undermine the EU, which is going to be a huge challenge,” the political scientist Aiko Wagner of Berlin’s Free University told the Guardian.

“But the biggest challenge of all is going to be forming a stable coalition that also has the strength to cut the AfD down to size.”

Exit polls showed the AfD did well among younger voters, winning in the 25-34 age bracket with 22%, ahead of CDU/CSU at 18%, and the Greens and Die Linke at 16% each. Merz’s conservatives ceded legions of support to the AfD compared to four years ago, while the SPD saw heavy losses to the far right among the working class.

At this month’s Munich security conference, Vance denounced the “firewall” against the AfD as undemocratic in a brazen intervention into the campaign. His remarks drew a strong rebuke from Merz, who pledged to bar the far right from any government he leads.

Merz has offered an action plan to revive the German economy, the world’s third largest, by cutting corporate taxes while expressing openness to reforming the strict “debt brake” that limits federal government annual borrowing to 0.35% of GDP.

But any policy initiatives will have to be agreed by potential partners in what are expected to be protracted coalition talks.

Friedrich Merz, a former banker who has never been a government minister, appears almost certain to be the next chancellor of Germany after his conservative CDU/CSU alliance won the most votes in Sunday’s crucial federal election.

During the campaign his decision to win a vote in parliament by relying on far-right support proved a historic and highly controversial turning point, even if he has since insisted he would never break Germany’s “firewall” (“brandmauer”) by going into coalition government with the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland.

As testing as the domestic political – and economic – landscape is, however, many of Merz’s most pressing challenges may well come from outside Germany. The man who once won plaudits by claiming he could simplify the life of millions of people by reducing tax rules so they would fit on the back of a beer coaster faces an altogether more complex reality.

Merz, a keen aviator and married father of three, whose wife prevented him from buying his own private jet until his children were out of the house (he now reportedly owns two), will want to make his mark early on. Here’s a brief look at his in-tray.

Relations with the US

Having presented himself early on in the election campaign as an assertive businessman who would be well equipped to make face-to-face deals with the mercantile Donald Trump, Merz was forced to switch his stance within a matter of hours after the US president flipped the narrative on Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine.

The once optimistic transatlanticist received his first dose of realpolitik even before winning the top job. It seemed to turn him into an ashen-faced, furrow-browed realist, and his rhetoric quickly changed.

Merz did nothing to hide his shock after Trump’s statements blaming Ukraine for the war. Merz called it “a classic reversal of the perpetrator-victim narrative”.

“That’s how Putin has been presenting it for years, and I’m honestly somewhat shocked that Donald Trump has now obviously made it his own,” he said, referring to Trump as “an admirer of autocratic systems”.

To get mired in emotion, however, he said, would not get Europe anywhere. “The only thing we can do if we have a different idea of … democracy … [is] to get our act together in Europe as quickly as possible.”

Yet the challenge is huge. The overnight breakdown in relations between Washington and Berlin, referred to by Merz in no uncertain terms as an “epochal severance”, is likely to become the defining element of his chancellorship.

It will surely dominate what was an already overloaded in-tray. As leader of Europe’s largest economy, his handling of the crisis will be crucial to how the continent stands up to a new world order.

It’s the economy, Dummkopf

Europe’s largest economy is in need of a reboot. Challenges abound, from overregulation and creaking infrastructure to high energy costs, a chronic skills shortage and an ageing population. There is, say many Germans, an urgent need for investment in everything from the country’s defence to its infrastructure.

But doing that is likely to require Merz to relax a constitutionally protected rule known as the “debt brake”, which for years has been used by Berlin to claim its much-vaunted status as a paragon of fiscal discipline.

Under the brake – introduced in 2009 by Angela Merkel to show Germany was committed to balancing the books after the banking crash – the federal government is required to limit annual borrowing to 0.35% of GDP.

Merz could relax that and in turn unleash much-needed funds for investments on everything from housing to rail infrastructure, which more than half of Germans support. But it would not be without controversy: indeed, it was a row over the “debt brake” that ultimately brought down Olaf Scholz’s government. Watch this space.

Ukraine

Ukraine is already a big bone of contention in Germany. There is a clear divide in the population between those who believe supporting Kyiv brings the threat of war closer to Germany – a claim most forcefully made by the “left-conservative” Sahra Wagenknecht movement (BSW) – and those who believe that not supporting it, and showing weakness in the face of Vladimir Putin, is even more perilous.

Merz clearly belongs in the second camp. He warned Scholz against adopting “an appeasement policy” towards Russia, and visited Kyiv even before the then chancellor.

Germany is the second-biggest provider of military supplies to Ukraine, and Merz has fervently backed this, saying he would like to go even further by providing Ukraine with long-range Taurus cruise missiles. He is also likely to face calls to send German troops to Ukraine as part of a deterrent or peacekeeping force, a discussion Scholz has described as “completely premature”.

The German far right

The question of who Merz will seek to go into coalition with, and whether he will continue to rule out forming a government with the far-right AfD, is uppermost in the minds of the electorate.

Merz’s decision in January to signal a taboo-breaking receptivity to AfD backing for a non-binding “five-point plan” on tighter border controls was an explosive turning point in what had been a somewhat staid election campaign.

He has since repeatedly insisted a CDU-AfD coalition is not on the cards.

But many fear that an unstable, fractious coalition government will lead to a repeat of the stalemate and conflict that defined the ill-fated “traffic light” administration.

And the fear is that that could inadvertently pave the way for a CDU-AfD coalition under a new, less reluctant leader at the next likely poll in 2029.

Dealing with Merkel

Merz was sidelined by the former chancellor when he tried to break into the top echelons of the CDU in the early 2000s and the two have never been on the best of terms.

He is hailed by his supporters as a “back to the roots” candidate, a textbook Christian Democrat in the way Merkel never was. He has made his feelings clear about her 16 years at the helm, referring to her leadership as “idle” and claiming a “blanket of fog” lay over her “open door” policy to refugees in 2015.

In her memoirs released last year, Merkel said she “did not begrudge” her old rival the position of chancellor, saying she recognised in him the “unconditional desire to have power” that was necessary to take on the role.

But then, in January, came a rare public rebuke, as the former chancellor criticised Merz’s flirtation with the AfD. Merkel still commands a lot of respect among many Germans so her assessment of his future leadership will be worth keeping an eye on.

For more than 150 years, the symbolism of the Siegessäule, or Victory Column, in Berlin’s Tiergarten, has shifted alongside German identity: from emblem of the empire to strategic relocation by the Nazis and, finally, its adoption as an icon of Berlin’s legendary love parade.

On Sunday, as throngs of people gathered in its shadow, the golden statue bore witness to yet another shift – an election that had yielded an emboldened far right in a result that was unprecedented in Germany’s postwar history.

“I’m devastated,” said David, 32. “And I’m scared and sad.”

Preliminary results suggested that although the conservative CDU/CSU bloc had won the largest share of the vote (29%), likely to be the second force in the parliament was the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which garnered about 20% of the vote.

Polls had long predicted this result, said David, who declined to give his surname. But now the question was what exactly it meant for the millions of Germans who were either racialised, like him, or who are migrants.

He was among the many who had gathered outside the hull-shaped headquarters of the CDU to take in the results of the election. Unlike the party faithful who had neatly filed into the building earlier, David was not there to celebrate but part of a protest rally organised by an alliance of several civil society groups.

“I’m here outside the CDU because it will be them who decide how much they give to the AfD – I’m here to hold them accountable,” he said.

While Merz has ruled out any formal cooperation with the AfD, he leaned on the party during the campaign to support a non-binding resolution on border policy, marking a historic breach of a taboo.

His willingness to do so, and the election result – in which the AfD nearly doubled its share of votes from 2021 – have added to concerns about the influence the far-right party could have in Germany’s parliament.

Half of the country’s voters had chosen to cast their ballot for either the CDU/CSU bloc or the AfD, pointed out Gian Mecheril, 32. “That means that the coalition of fascists with the conservative party is possible,” he said. “It’s a danger.”

On Sunday night Merz again insisted there was “no question” of entering into coalition with the far-right party. But for the millions of Germans who regard the AfD as an unprecedented threat, that is of little comfort, particularly after a campaign marked by political rhetoric against migrants, while issues such as country’s ailing economy, deteriorating infrastructure or housing crisis were seemingly ignored.

“The campaign was just filled with racist diversions from the actual problems we face,” said Flo, 19. “I’m anxious about what comes next.”

The result was a divisive election that had helped to legitimise the far right, said Ella, 30. “The CDU’s win comes on the shoulders of the AfD,” she said. “They worked with them, they normalised them.”

Tens of thousands sought to fight back in recent weeks, taking to streets across Germany to protest against the far right and the AfD’s co-leader, Alice Weidel, as she backed the mass deportation of migrants and peddled a party whose ranks include members who have played down the horrors of the Holocaust and chapters that have been designated as “rightwing extremist” by security authorities.

“I would say the AfD is the ridiculous monster our period needs to have,” said Willi Schultz, 32, in a reference to the oft-cited quote attributed to Antonio Gramsci: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”

He contextualised the AfD support within the wider, global surge of backing for rightwing populists – a link reinforced during the election as Elon Musk used his influence to tout the AfD, describing it as the only party able to “save Germany”.

The election had laid bare Germany’s fragmented political landscape, said Charlotte, 21. Merz could need one or two parties to form a coalition, probably the Social Democrats and possibly the Greens.

“I don’t know what kind of coalition we’re going to have now, but I think it won’t be easy to make new laws and to keep politics going here in Germany,” Charlotte said. “I feel like we’ve forgotten how to speak with each other. We’re just more against each other rather than trying to understand each other’s position.”

A case in point, she added, were the one in five voters who had cast their ballot for the far right. The AfD proved particularly strong among in the 25-34 age bracket, receiving 22% of the vote, ahead of the CDU/CSU at 18%, and the Greens and Die Linke at 16% each.

“I wish it wasn’t like that, but there’s a big part of the people who think that they are not being seen by politicians right now. So they vote for the AfD.”

It remained to be seen what that would now mean for the world’s third largest economic power and most populous EU country. Recent weeks have underscored the scope of the challenge as Europe grapples with the breakdown of the transatlantic alliance under Donald Trump and looming threats to European security.

“The campaign was very much about migration, not anything else, even though we have these big problems to face with Trump and Putin,” said Charlotte. “I wish that had received more attention.”

For some, there was some solace to be taken from the late-campaign comeback of the far-left Die Linke, who drew more than 8% of the vote.

“It’s like a win for all of us,” said Liv Michel, 25. “It’s a win for everybody who’s afraid right now because of the rightwing movement in Germany.”

It has been a extraordinary election in Germany, and the result has been keenly awaited around the world to see what new government might emerge in Europe’s largest but ailing economy.

Results show a clear win for the CDU/CSU centre-right alliance, followed by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) – an anti-Islam party that has advocated “remigration” for migrants as well as German citizens deemed to have integrated poorly – in second place.

Frontrunners from the start of this race, called in November, the conservatives had a standing start under Friedrich Merz, a multimillionaire former corporate lawyer and banker, who is now set to take the helm.

However, the alliance cannot govern alone: it received about 29% of the vote, not an overall majority. So what happens now?

The Trump administration on Sunday said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, according to a notice sent to agency workers and posted online.

“As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAid direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally,” the notice said.

“Concurrently”, the notice added, the agency is “beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force” affecting about 2,000 USAid personnel in the US.

The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Billionaire Elon Musk has boasted that he is “feeding USAID into the wood chipper” as his so-called “department of government efficiency” has led an effort to gut the main delivery mechanism for American foreign assistance, a critical tool of US“soft power” for winning influence abroad.

On Friday, a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to put thousands of USAid workers on leave, a setback for government employee unions that are suing over what they have called an effort to dismantle it.

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was appointed acting USAid administrator by Donald Trump earlier this month. The unsigned notice came from “the office of the administrator”.

Two former senior USAid officials told Reuters that a majority of some 4,600 agency personnel, career US Civil Service and Foreign Service staffers, would be placed on administrative leave.

“This administration and Secretary Rubio are shortsighted in cutting into the expertise and unique crisis response capacity of the US”, said Marcia Wong, one of the former officials. “When disease outbreaks occur, populations displaced, these USAid experts are on the ground and first deployed to help stabilize and provide aid?” In a post on Musk’s social-media platform, Wong was even more blunt, calling the job cuts “a shortsighted, high risk and frankly stupid act”.

“Unsigned notices like this are not self-implementing. They must be followed up by an individual personnel action or at least an approved leave slip, properly executed by someone with that authority”, a second former official, who asked not to be further identified, told Reuters.

The US president ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe.

Trump, his press secretary and Musk have all tried to justify the cuts by pointing to wildly mischaracterized or wholly invented spending on overseas aid projects.

The administration has approved exceptions to the freeze totaling $5.3 billion, mostly for security and counter-narcotics programs, according to a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters that included limited humanitarian relief.

USAid programs received less than $100 million in exemptions, according to the list. That compares to roughly $40bn in USAid programs administered annually before the freeze.

Trump’s ally, the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, joined the campaign to smear USAid, posting video on Musk’s social media platform of a speech in which he attacked the agency in conspiratorial terms for supporting “pseudo-civil organizations” to promote democracy and human rights.

“USAID was the heart of a robust financial and power machine. A monster created to crush, crumble and erode the freedom and independence of nations so that the liberal-globalist empire could thrive,” Orban wrote. Trump, he added, “drove a stake through the heart of the empire”.

The new FBI director, Kash Patel, has told his agency employees to hold off on responding to an email from the Donald Trump administration asking them to list their accomplishments in the last week as tech billionaire Elon Musk expands his crusade to slash the federal government’s size.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers had been given little more than 48 hours to explain what they achieved to the office of personnel management (OPM), sparking confusion across key agencies that included the US’s top law enforcement agency.

But the FBI director – confirmed by the Senate on Thursday – undercut the request. According to ABC News, the agency was seeking additional guidance from the US justice department on next steps.

“FBI personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information,” Patel’s message read. “The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures. When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”

Patel’s missive came amid reports on Sunday indicated that he was expected to be named acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a domestic law enforcement agency that – like the FBI – sits within the Department of Justice.

Separately, the US attorney John Durham, the top federal prosecutor in the eastern district of New York, also sent a message to his staff to hold off, according to the outlet.

“Of course, a majority of our work is law enforcement sensitive (in addition to much classified work), so even assuming this is legitimate, we will need to be careful in how we respond to this inquiry. As noted, the deadline isn’t until 11.59pm on Monday, so we have plenty of time,” Durham wrote in his letter.

And the Department of Defense reportedly told employees to pause responding to the OPM message.

“The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures,” the force’s undersecretary for personnel and readiness said in a message, CNN’s Natasha Bertrand reported on Sunday. “When and if required, the department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM.”

Trump’s national health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, however, evidently did not follow the leads of Patel, Durham and the defense department. He required that his staff comply with the OPM directive, according to a copy of an email reported on by Sam Stein of the Bulwark.

“This is a legitimate email,” Kennedy’s agency said in an email to staffers. “Please read and respond per the instructions.”

Musk, who has been tasked to ostensibly cut government costs during Donald Trump’s second presidency, telegraphed the extraordinary request on his social media network on Saturday.

“Consistent with [Trump’s] instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk posted on X, which he owns. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

Shortly afterwards, federal employees – including some judges, court staff and federal prison officials – received a three-line email with this instruction: “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.”

The deadline to reply was listed as Monday at 11.59pm, although the email did not include Musk’s social media threat about those who fail to respond.

The latest unusual directive from Musk’s team has injected a fresh sense of chaos across beleaguered agencies, including the National Weather Service, the state department and the federal court system, as senior officials worked to verify the message’s authenticity on Saturday night and in some cases, instructed their employees not to respond.

The president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 workers in the federal government, issued a statement saying: “Elon Musk and the Trump Administration have shown their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people.”

“It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life,” said Everett Kelley, the AFGE president.

Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforce – either by being fired or offered a buyout – during the first month of Trump’s administration. In fire both new and career workers, the White House and Musk’s so-called department of government efficiency (Doge) have been telling agency leaders to plan for “large-scale reductions in force” and freeze trillions of dollars in federal grant funds.

There is no official figure available for the total number of firings or layoffs so far, but the Associated Press has tallied hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside Washington. The cuts include thousands at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service and the National Parks Service, among others.

Musk on Friday celebrated his new role at a gathering of conservatives by waving a giant chainsaw in the air. He called it “the chainsaw for bureaucracy” and said “waste is pretty much everywhere” in the federal government.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is not willing to cave in to intense US pressure to sign a $500bn minerals deal and that he wants Donald Trump to be “on our side” in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv ahead of the third anniversary on Monday of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Zelenskyy said he did not recognise the sum demanded by the White House as apparent “payback” for previous US military assistance.

He said the figure was far higher than the US’s actual military contribution of $100bn, and pointed out that both parties in the US Congress and the then president Joe Biden had approved the support in the wake of Russia’s attack. It came as a “grant” rather than as “debt” that had to be repaid.

“I’m not signing something that 10 generations of Ukrainians are going to pay later,” he said.

Zelenskyy said any deal was contingent on the US administration providing security guarantees to stop Russia from violating any future ceasefire – something it has so far refused to do.

Ukraine’s president also revealed the onerous financial terms which Washington is seeking to impose.

For every $1 of any future military aid Kyiv has to pay back $2 – an interest rate, Zelenskyy noted, of 100%. The same conditions were not applied to Israel, the UAE, Qatar or Saudi Arabia, he remarked, saying he had asked for an explanation but not received one.

Zelenskyy insisted he wanted good, “friendly” relations with America – a “strategic partner” – and shrugged off Trump’s bruising description of him as a “dictator” for not holding elections during wartime. “Why should I be offended? A dictator would be offended by being called a dictator,” he said, pointing out he won the last 2019 election with 73% of the vote.

He added that he was ready to quit as president if it meant “peace for Ukraine” or membership of Nato, something the US and some other Nato member states oppose. “I don’t plan to stay in power for decades. But we won’t let Putin stay in power over Ukrainian territories either,” he said. “It’s important what Ukrainians think of me,” he added.

The press conference was held just hours after Russia launched its biggest ever aerial attack on Ukraine, using 267 drones. At least four people were killed across the country. Kyiv echoed with the booms of anti-aircraft fire, as crews spent much of the night trying to shoot the drones down. Three ballistic missiles had also been fired, the air force said.

Zelenskyy said the massive attack demonstrated it was not feasible to conduct a poll under severe wartime conditions. “How can we do this in Sumy? Are we supposed to send election observers to Pokrovsk?” he asked, referring to two Ukrainian cities on the frontline under constant bombardment.

The demand for elections – and the claim that Zelenskyy was “illegitimate” – was part of a sweeping Russian disinformation campaign, he suggested. He pointed out that elections were illegal under martial law and that it would be impossible for soldiers standing in trenches to take part.

On Saturday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Trump was “very confident” an agreement could be made to end the war as early as “this week”.

Steve Witkoff, one of Trump’s special envoys, hinted on Sunday in a separate interview with CBS News that a motivation for Washington for seeking a Ukraine peace deal was so that American companies would be able to do business again in Russia, which is under sanctions. “Obviously there would be an expectation that if we get to a peace deal, that you would be able to have American companies come back and do business there. And I think that everybody would believe that that would be a positive, good thing to happen,” Witkoff told the Face The Nation programme.

US and Russian negotiators are expected to have a second round of talks, following their meeting last week in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

Zelenskyy said it was not possible to reach a meaningful peace deal without Ukraine’s involvement, or without the participation of the EU, the UK and other strategic partners. “It’s impossible to finish the war without one party, without Ukraine. Any bilateral US-Russia deal “would not have any success” or halt the war, he predicted.

Zelenskyy conceded his armed forces would lose 20% of international military support, should the Trump administration stop all deliveries. He said Ukraine was still waiting on deliveries of weapons agreed at the Nato summit in Washington last summer, and need another 20 Patriot missile batteries – costing $30bn- to counter Russian air attacks.

He said he welcomed the role played by the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, who will meet Trump this week. “Of course the UK has to be at the table,” Zelenskyy said. He said he expected a European summit to take place after their US trips to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.

• The US is pressuring Kyiv to ditch its draft UN resolution condemning Russia’s war in the country, ahead of a vote on Monday to mark the conflict’s third anniversary, AP reports, citing an unnamed US official and European diplomat. The Trump administration is urging countries to back its rival resolution and vote against Ukraine’s, which demands Russia withdraw its troops and halt hostilities, Reuters reports. A draft text of the US resolution calls for a “swift end” to the conflict but makes no reference to Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he would be willing to resign in exchange for peace or Nato membership, telling reporters he doesn’t plan to stay in power for decades. “But we won’t let Putin stay in power over Ukrainian territories either,” he said Sunday.

• He made his remarks just hours after Russia launched its biggest ever aerial attack on Ukraine, using 267 drones, killing at least four people across the country. Kyiv echoed with the booms of anti-aircraft fire as crews spent the night trying to shoot the drones down.

• Zelenskyy also said he would not bow to pressure from Washington to hand over $500bn worth of Ukraine’s minerals, adding: “I’m not signing something that 10 generations of Ukrainians are going to pay later.” Around $350bn worth of Ukraine’s critical resources are in areas captured by Russia, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, told reporters.

• Zelenskyy also revealed the Trump administration was asking Ukraine to pay back $2 for every $1 of military aid the US provides Ukraine going forward – an interest rate of 100%.

• The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, will separately meet Trump early this week and have agreed to show “united leadership in support of Ukraine”.

• EU and world leaders are heading to Kyiv on Monday to show their support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy, and discuss security guarantees. Among those expected to attend are the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, European Council president, António Costa, and European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

• EU leaders will also meet on 6 March for a special summit “to take decisions” on Ukraine and European defence, Costa said, as pressure mounts on European nations to boost defence spending.

• Meanwhile, US and Russian officials are planning to meet again at some point in the next two weeks, Russian state news agency RIA reported over the weekend, citing the deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov.

• Russian government spokesperson Dmitry Peskov supported comments made by Trump about Zelenskyy – such as calling the Ukrainian leader a dictator – as “understandable” after Zelenskyy made “inappropriate remarks” about Trump. Zelenskyy had accused Trump of being “trapped” in a Russian “disinformation bubble.”

• Despite Zelenskyy’s growing frustration with the Trump administration, he repeated his hopes in keeping the US allied with Ukraine, and to be included in any peace talks. “We would really like it as a priority for the US to first talk to us, then to Russia.” He added, “it is not possible to decide anything about Ukraine without us.”

Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have agreed to show “united leadership in support of Ukraine” when they separately meet Donald Trump this week.

The UK prime minister and the French president spoke on Sunday afternoon to reiterate the importance of Ukraine being at the centre of any negotiations to end the war, Downing Street said.

Their call before an important week for both leaders highlights their desire to present a united European position against Russia’s aggression, after the US president launched extraordinary attacks on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, dismissing the president of Ukraine as a “dictator without elections”.

The prime minister appeared determined to have vital discussions with allies before his Washington visit: he also spoke to Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, and Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, on Sunday night.

Starmer and Rutte agreed “there could be no negotiations about Ukraine, without Ukraine”, and noted the importance of European leaders stepping up to ensure the security of the region, Downing Street said.

Russian and US representatives agreed to start working towards ending the war without involving Ukraine in discussions, which prompted international outcry.

On top of this, the White House has also been putting pressure on the Ukrainian leader to sign a $500bn (£395bn) minerals deal that would give the US half of Ukraine’s mineral resources, in an agreement Zelenskyy has not signed.

Trump added to tensions on Friday when he said Starmer and Macron “haven’t done anything” to end the war in Ukraine.

Despite this, the prime minister and French president agreed in their call: “The UK and Europe must continue stepping up to meet their security needs and show united leadership in support of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression, which they would both discuss in the US in the coming week.”

Discussing the trip that will be a test of his premiership, Starmer told reporters in Glasgow: “At the centre of our discussions this week will obviously be the importance of the special relationship between us, and obviously the situation in Ukraine and other issues of common concern.”

Starmer also used his speech at the Scottish Labour conference to echo his support for Ukraine. “I’ve seen first-hand the devastation Putin has caused. Mark my words: what I have seen only makes me more determined to stand up for Ukraine,” he said.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, said Trump was right to re-establish links with Putin to set up peace talks to end the war as there could be “no negotiated peace without Russia”.

Zelenskyy, who was democratically elected in May 2019, said he would be willing to “give up” being president of Ukraine in exchange for peace, when asked at a press conference in Kyiv on Sunday. “Yes, I am happy, if it is for the peace of Ukraine,” he said.

He added: “If you need me to leave this chair, I am ready to do that, and I also can exchange it for Nato membership for Ukraine.”

Alex Sobel, the Labour MP for Leeds Central and chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Ukraine, said: “[Zelenskyy] knows what is best for his country. He has shown he is a great democrat and puts his country and its future security before himself.”

But Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, told the Guardian: “Shame on Donald Trump for his betrayal of Ukraine. President Zelenskyy should never have been put in this position.

“Yet it is no surprise that Zelenskyy is willing to step down if it brings the peace and security Ukraine craves and deserves. That is because he is the exact opposite of Donald Trump: a selfless, patriotic, true leader.

“The UK government should continue to support Zelenskyy in every way we can, and ensure that Ukraine is in the driving seat of its own future – not Putin or Trump.”

In light of Trump’s demands, officials including Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to the US, had been preparing Starmer to use his visit to Washington to confirm a timeline to raise UK defence spending to 2.5% of GDP.

Phillipson described the 2.5% target as “ambitious”, and urged European allies to “step up alongside that”, although she indicated it could be unlikely for the prime minister to set out a full plan this week for the UK’s defence spending increase.

She said: “Let’s be clear: 2.5% is ambitious. We will get there, but it is ambitious, and this is also in the context of the public finances, which, let’s be honest, were left in a devastating state by the Conservatives – a £22bn black hole, no credible plan for this nonsense that they claim around how they were going to reach 2.5%.”

Starmer’s meeting with Trump will come three days after the US president meets Macron, who will be the first European leader to travel to Washington since Trump’s inauguration.

Phillipson played down the significance of Starmer not being the first European leader to meet Trump. “I don’t think that really matters,” she told Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme.

It comes as the government launches new measures to exclude anyone from the UK who provides significant support to Russia or who owes their status or wealth to the state.

The Home Office believes this will bolster the UK’s national interest and security, and will remain in place as long as Russia threatens Ukraine’s security.

A senior Democratic lawmaker accused Donald Trump of “surrendering to the Russians” on Sunday, as Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff said talks between the US and Russia over Ukraine was “the only way to end the carnage”.

In an interview on ABC News’ This Week, Democratic senator Jack Reed, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, hit out at Trump’s recent verbal attacks on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and increased alignment with Russia.

“Essentially, this is President Trump surrendering to the Russians,” Reed said. “This is not a statesman or a diplomat. This is just someone who admires Putin, does not believe in the struggle of the Ukrainians and is committed to cozying up to an autocrat.”

But senior administration officials sought to side-step accusations that Trump’s re-positioning of US policies on Ukraine, including a possible deal for Ukraine to repay US military and financial support with rare-earth materials, amounted to a capitulation to the Russian position on the war.

Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the mideast who revealed this week that he had “spent a lot of time with President Putin”, during a recent trip to Moscow, “talking, developing a friendship, a relationship with him”, declined to blame Russia for starting war in Ukraine, calling Ukraine’s ambitions to join Nato “a threat to the Russians”.

“The war didn’t need to happen – it was provoked. It doesn’t necessarily mean it was provoked by the Russians,” Witkoff said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

“There were all kinds of conversations back then about Ukraine joining Nato”, he said. “That didn’t need to happen. It basically became a threat to the Russians and so we have to deal with that fact.”

Witkoff’s remarks come days after he, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz, held talks in Saudi Arabia with Russian officials over re-establishing diplomatic relations and a Russia-Ukraine peace deal.

Ukrainian officials said they were not invited to the meeting, and later said they would not accept a peace deal imposed on them. But Ukraine’s position later appeared to shift after Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections” who “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left”.

On Sunday, Zelenskyy said he wanted Trump to be a close partner to Ukraine, not just a mediator between two superpowers, the US and Russia, and would be willing to step down, if it would secure lasting peace for his country.

“If, to achieve peace, you really need me to give up my post, I’m ready. I can exchange it for Nato [membership]”, he said. “I don’t plan to stay in power for decades” he added. “But we won’t let Putin stay in power over Ukrainian territories either.”

That came as President Putin appointed the chief of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, as a special envoy on international economic and investment cooperation with western nations “including the United States of America”. Dmitriev, considered the most US-savvy member of Russia’s elite, was part of the Russian delegation that met with US counterparts in Riyadh.

Nato membership for Ukraine has all-but been ruled out by the US negotiators. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, confirmed to Fox News Sunday that no US troops would be part of any future peace-keeping force in Ukraine and dodged the question over responsibility for starting the bloody three-year conflict.

“Does all the finger-pointing and pearl clutching make peace more likely? That’s the enduring question the president is asking. He wants peace, and if that’s the case, you’ve got to stare down the Russians, and Vladimir Putin, and who they’ve chosen to negotiate and have earnest conversations about difficult things,” Hegseth told his former colleague Shannon Bream.

“Standing here and saying, ‘You’re good, you’re bad; you’re a dictator, you’re not a dictator; you invaded, you didn’t’, it’s not useful, it’s not productive. So President Trump isn’t getting drawn into that in unnecessary ways and as a result, we’re closer to peace than ever before,” Hegseth added.

The White House continued its pushback against claims that it has pivoted to Russia’s position on the war. “President Trump’s peace through strength America First diplomacy effectively deterred Russia in his first term, and this war would have never started if he had never left office,” said the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in an email to the Wall Street Journal.

Leavitt said Trump was “actively pressing both sides to end this brutal conflict once and for all”.

The Taliban have arrested a British couple in their 70s for “teaching mothers parenting with children”.

Peter Reynolds, 79, and his wife, Barbie, 75, were detained when returning to their home in Bamiyan province on 1 February.

The couple have been running projects in schools in Afghanistan for 18 years and decided to stay in the country after the Taliban seized power in 2021. One of the projects involved training mothers and children in Bamiyan, one of the largest cities in central Afghanistan.

There is a ban on women working and on female education beyond primary school, but this project had apparently been approved by the Bamiyan local authority.

The couple were arrested alongside an American-Chinese friend, Faye Hall, who had rented a plane to travel with them, and a translator from the couple’s Rebuild training business.

An anonymous Rebuild employee told the PA news agency the group was informed that their flight “did not coordinate with the local government”.

For the first three days after their arrest, the couple kept in touch with their children via text message, explaining they were being held by the interior ministry and stating they were fine.

Then the texts stopped. Their children have not been in contact with them since.

The Reynolds’s home in Nayak has since been raided and their employees have been interrogated about whether the couple were engaging in religious proselytising, which all of them denied.

“This is really bad,” their daughter, Sarah Entwistle, from Daventry, Northamptonshire, told the Sunday Times. “My mother is 75 and my father almost 80 and [he] needs his heart medication after a mini-stroke.

“They were just trying to help the country they loved. The idea they are being held because they were teaching mothers with children is outrageous.”

With her three brothers, she has written an open letter to the Taliban leadership, begging for her parents’ release.

The couple met at the University of Bath and married in Kabul in 1970 after falling in love with Afghanistan. Barbie went on to become the first woman to receive a certificate of appreciation from the Taliban.

In the letter, Entwistle and her brothers pleaded with the Taliban to set their parents free so that they can continue their good work in schools and pointed out they have been given dual citizenship.

“We do not understand the reasons behind their arrest,” they wrote. “Our parents have consistently expressed their commitment to Afghanistan, stating that they would rather sacrifice their lives than become part of ransom negotiations or be traded.”

The anonymous employee, who said Rebuild workers were “in danger” and living in hiding, described the couple as “the most honourable people I have ever met in my life”.

They told PA they feared for Peter’s condition. “It seems that if Peter and Barbie are not released soon, Peter may lose his life because he needs medication, and the Taliban are not allowing him it,” they added.

As well as their project in Bamiyan, the couple had been running projects in five schools in Kabul. “The Taliban leaders were so impressed and inspired by the programmes Mum and Dad were offering, they said they would like them set up in every province of Afghanistan,” Entwistle said, adding that her parents had done nothing without permission.

“They were meticulous about keeping by the rules even as they kept changing,” she said.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has been contacted for comment.

Ministers are relaunching negotiations with India this week in an attempt to clinch a multibillion-pound free trade agreement that they hope will boost the UK’s flatlining economy.

Jonathan Reynolds, the business and trade secretary, flew to Delhi on Sunday to meet his Indian counterpart, Piyush Goyal, for the first time since Labour won the election.

The trip kickstarts the 15th round of trade negotiations with India, a booming economy of 1.4 billion people, after they were paused in May when Rishi Sunak called the general election.

Successive Conservative prime ministers tried to secure a trade deal with India, considered to be one of the biggest prizes of Brexit. Reynolds told the Guardian that sealing the deal was “a top priority” for him and that he was “not afraid to take the tough decisions needed”.

“We’ve seen trade secretaries come and go, and while their efforts have been sincere, it’s no secret that British businesses have nothing to show for it in terms of a final product,” he said. “They need a trade deal they can actually use to cut costs, grow their business and expand in the massive Indian market. That’s what this government is going to get them.”

During his visit to India, Reynolds and Goyal will visit BT India’s office in Gurugram. Poppy Gustafsson, the investment minister, is expected to hold business engagements in Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Saif Malik, the chief executive of Standard Chartered, which has been operating in India for more than 160 years, said the opportunities of a trade deal for businesses were “significant”.

“Whether it’s improved access to India’s growing consumer market, opportunities in manufacturing, infrastructure and innovation, or collaboration in financial and professional services, the relaunch of trade talks can unlock even greater trade, investment and prosperity across the UK-India corridor,” he said.

The UK and India are the sixth and fifth largest global economies respectively, with a trade relationship worth £41bn. India is forecast to become the third-largest world economy by 2028.

The country is a notoriously tough negotiator on trade, however. Narendra Modi’s government signed a £79bn agreement with the European Free Trade Association – a bloc made up of Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein – in the spring, 16 years after talks began. Donald Trump said this month that Modi was a “much tougher” negotiator than him.

Boris Johnson and Liz Truss both set Diwali deadlines to reach agreements but failed to get them over the line. Under Sunak, negotiators got close to finalising a deal but this was put on ice when the UK election was triggered.

As part of the deal, the UK has asked for lower tariffs on goods such as cars and whisky, and increased access for British lawyers and financial services companies to the Indian market. In return, India has asked for faster and easier processing arrangements for its companies to send workers to the UK.

One sticking point has been Delhi’s concern that Indians working temporarily in the UK on business visas have to pay national insurance despite not being eligible for UK pensions or social security benefits.

The Guardian revealed in the spring that India has also asked for an exemption from the UK’s planned carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) – a planned tax on the import of carbon-intensive goods such as steel, glass and fertiliser – on the basis that it is a developing country.

Any decision to exempt India from a carbon tax would be controversial. The plans are designed to reduce emissions and support UK steel producers by levelling the playing field with countries that have a lower or no carbon levy.

Ministers have recently touted a number of life sciences and tech companies that are increasing their exports to India. About £17bn goods and services were exported in total by UK businesses to the country in 12 months to September 2024.

Among the British businesses exporting to India are Radio Design, which has its headquarters in Shipley, West Yorkshire, and has opened a manufacturing facility in India, and the tech company marcusevans group, which has established its global tech operations in Mumbai.

ApplianSys, a tech company based in Coventry that offers internet-based education services, has developed a pilot to be used across almost 5,000 Indian schools.

Reynolds said tech and life sciences were “two huge growth sectors for the UK” and that their exports into the Indian market “will amount to tens of millions of pounds for the UK economy”.

Pope Francis, who is battling pneumonia and a complex lung infection, remains in a critical condition, the Vatican has said.

The pontiff, 88, was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on 14 February and was subsequently diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection and pneumonia in both lungs.

Francis was given supplemental oxygen and blood transfusions on Saturday after a prolonged asthma-style attack and required blood transfusions for a low platelet count, doctors said.

“The condition of the Holy Father remains critical; however, since last night he has not experienced further respiratory crises,” the Vatican said on Sunday.

Blood tests had also indicated a “mild renal insufficiency, which is currently under control”, the statement added.

“The complexity of the clinical picture, and the necessary wait for the pharmacological therapies to show some effect, require that the prognosis remains guarded.”

The statement said the pope was receiving “high-flow oxygen therapy” through a nasal cannula, but continued to remain “vigilant and well-orientated”.

On Friday, doctors said the pope’s health remained uncertain and that he was expected to remain in hospital for at least another week.

They warned that the main threat facing the pope would be the onset of sepsis, a serious infection of the blood that can occur as a complication of pneumonia.

Saturday’s blood tests showed that he had developed a low platelet count, a condition known as thrombocytopenia. Platelets are cell-like fragments that circulate in the blood that help form blood clots to stop bleeding or help wounds heal.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, a senior Vatican official, told participants at a mass in St Peter’s Basilica on Sunday morning they should make their prayers for Francis “stronger and more intense”.

In a message published in lieu of his weekly Sunday Angelus prayer, which he normally delivers from a window overlooking St Peter’s Square, Francis thanked medical staff.

“I am confidently continuing my hospitalisation at the Gemelli hospital, carrying on with the necessary treatment – and rest is also part of the therapy!” he said.

“I ask you to pray for me,” he concluded in the message that was written in “recent days”.

In New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan admitted what church leaders in Rome were not saying publicly: that the Catholic faithful were united “at the bedside of a dying father”.

“As our Holy Father Pope Francis is in very, very fragile health, and probably close to death,” Dolan said at St Patrick’s Cathedral, without saying if he had independent information about the pope’s condition.

Francis, who has been head of the Catholic church since 2013, was initially admitted to the Gemelli – which has a special suite for popes – on 14 February with bronchitis.

Doctors first diagnosed the complex viral, bacterial and fungal respiratory tract infection and then the onset of pneumonia in both lungs.

They prescribed “absolute rest” and a combination of cortisone and antibiotics, along with supplemental oxygen when needed.

In its evening update on Saturday, the Vatican said the pope had suffered a difficult day and his “condition continues to be critical, therefore … the pope is not out of danger”.

Dr Sergio Alfieri, the head of medicine and surgery at Gemelli hospital, said: “He knows he’s in danger, and he told us to relay that.”

“The pope gets worse,” Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper had said in its Sunday edition, while La Repubblica described it as the “darkest day” at the Vatican.

Francis has said the papacy is a job for life, but has also left the door open to resigning like his predecessor. The late Benedict XVI became the first pope to resign in almost 600 years, citing his advanced age and deteriorating strength.

The Vatican hierarchy tried to tamp down speculation that the pope might decide to resign. There is no provision in canon law for what to do if a pope becomes incapacitated.

Francis has said that he has written a letter of resignation that would be invoked if he were medically incapable of making such a decision.

The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, gave a rare interview to Corriere della Sera to respond to rumours about a possible resignation after the Vatican issued an unusual and official denial of an Italian media report that said Parolin and the pope’s chief canonist had visited Francis in the hospital in secret.

Given the canonical requirements to make a resignation legitimate, the implications of such a meeting were significant, but the Vatican denied that any such meeting occurred.

Parolin said such speculation seemed “useless” when what really mattered was the health of the pope, his recovery and return to the Vatican.

The 88-year-old pope has maintained a punishing work schedule, despite increasing health issues. Last September, he carried out a mammoth 12-day tour to the Asia Pacific, one of the few places in the world where the Catholic church is growing in terms of baptised faithful and religious vocations.

Associated Press, AFP and Reuters contributed to this report

Pope Francis, who is battling pneumonia and a complex lung infection, remains in a critical condition, the Vatican has said.

The pontiff, 88, was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on 14 February and was subsequently diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection and pneumonia in both lungs.

Francis was given supplemental oxygen and blood transfusions on Saturday after a prolonged asthma-style attack and required blood transfusions for a low platelet count, doctors said.

“The condition of the Holy Father remains critical; however, since last night he has not experienced further respiratory crises,” the Vatican said on Sunday.

Blood tests had also indicated a “mild renal insufficiency, which is currently under control”, the statement added.

“The complexity of the clinical picture, and the necessary wait for the pharmacological therapies to show some effect, require that the prognosis remains guarded.”

The statement said the pope was receiving “high-flow oxygen therapy” through a nasal cannula, but continued to remain “vigilant and well-orientated”.

On Friday, doctors said the pope’s health remained uncertain and that he was expected to remain in hospital for at least another week.

They warned that the main threat facing the pope would be the onset of sepsis, a serious infection of the blood that can occur as a complication of pneumonia.

Saturday’s blood tests showed that he had developed a low platelet count, a condition known as thrombocytopenia. Platelets are cell-like fragments that circulate in the blood that help form blood clots to stop bleeding or help wounds heal.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, a senior Vatican official, told participants at a mass in St Peter’s Basilica on Sunday morning they should make their prayers for Francis “stronger and more intense”.

In a message published in lieu of his weekly Sunday Angelus prayer, which he normally delivers from a window overlooking St Peter’s Square, Francis thanked medical staff.

“I am confidently continuing my hospitalisation at the Gemelli hospital, carrying on with the necessary treatment – and rest is also part of the therapy!” he said.

“I ask you to pray for me,” he concluded in the message that was written in “recent days”.

In New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan admitted what church leaders in Rome were not saying publicly: that the Catholic faithful were united “at the bedside of a dying father”.

“As our Holy Father Pope Francis is in very, very fragile health, and probably close to death,” Dolan said at St Patrick’s Cathedral, without saying if he had independent information about the pope’s condition.

Francis, who has been head of the Catholic church since 2013, was initially admitted to the Gemelli – which has a special suite for popes – on 14 February with bronchitis.

Doctors first diagnosed the complex viral, bacterial and fungal respiratory tract infection and then the onset of pneumonia in both lungs.

They prescribed “absolute rest” and a combination of cortisone and antibiotics, along with supplemental oxygen when needed.

In its evening update on Saturday, the Vatican said the pope had suffered a difficult day and his “condition continues to be critical, therefore … the pope is not out of danger”.

Dr Sergio Alfieri, the head of medicine and surgery at Gemelli hospital, said: “He knows he’s in danger, and he told us to relay that.”

“The pope gets worse,” Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper had said in its Sunday edition, while La Repubblica described it as the “darkest day” at the Vatican.

Francis has said the papacy is a job for life, but has also left the door open to resigning like his predecessor. The late Benedict XVI became the first pope to resign in almost 600 years, citing his advanced age and deteriorating strength.

The Vatican hierarchy tried to tamp down speculation that the pope might decide to resign. There is no provision in canon law for what to do if a pope becomes incapacitated.

Francis has said that he has written a letter of resignation that would be invoked if he were medically incapable of making such a decision.

The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, gave a rare interview to Corriere della Sera to respond to rumours about a possible resignation after the Vatican issued an unusual and official denial of an Italian media report that said Parolin and the pope’s chief canonist had visited Francis in the hospital in secret.

Given the canonical requirements to make a resignation legitimate, the implications of such a meeting were significant, but the Vatican denied that any such meeting occurred.

Parolin said such speculation seemed “useless” when what really mattered was the health of the pope, his recovery and return to the Vatican.

The 88-year-old pope has maintained a punishing work schedule, despite increasing health issues. Last September, he carried out a mammoth 12-day tour to the Asia Pacific, one of the few places in the world where the Catholic church is growing in terms of baptised faithful and religious vocations.

Associated Press, AFP and Reuters contributed to this report

The folk singer Bill Fay, known for songs such as The Healing Day and Thank You Lord, has died aged 81, his record label has announced.

Fay began work on his latest album just a month before his death, and his label Dead Oceans said they hoped to “find a way to finish and release it”.

In a statement on Instagram, Dead Oceans said: “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Bill Fay, who died peacefully this morning [Saturday] in London, aged 81.

“Bill was a gentle man and a gentleman, wise beyond our times. He was a private person with the biggest of hearts, who wrote immensely moving, meaningful songs that will continue to find people for years to come.”

It continued: “For now, we remember Bill’s legacy as the ‘man in the corner of the room at the piano’, who quietly wrote heartfelt songs that touched and connected with people around the world.”

Starting his career in 1967, Fay’s self-titled debut in 1970 and its follow-up, Time of the Last Persecution (1971), had limited commercial success, but his work was rediscovered in the 1990s, when the albums were reissued, and he became a cult figure.

Archival releases of demos, and recordings from 1978 to 1981 were released during the 2000s, before Fay released his first studio album in more than 40 years, Life Is People, in 2012 on Dead Oceans.

Fay released two more albums: Who Is the Sender? (2015) and Countless Branches (2020).

During his comeback, Fay was reluctant to play live. He made only one television appearance, on the BBC music show Later … With Jools Holland.

The singer was credited by numerous artists as an influence. Artists including the War on Drugs, Wilco, Pavement and the Soft Cell singer Marc Almond covered his songs.

A version of Fay’s song Be Not So Fearful, performed by AC Newman, featured in the US horror drama series The Walking Dead.

Fay was born in London in September 1943 and went to college in Wales to study electronics, where he began to write songs on piano and harmonium.

Tens of thousands of people have attended a funeral in Beirut for Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Iran-backed, Lebanese militia and political party Hezbollah for three decades before being killed in an Israeli bombing last September.

The ceremony was held in a sports stadium in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which had extra seats installed prior to the ceremony in anticipation of the massive crowds.

The funeral for Nasrallah and his deputy, Hashem Safieddine, also killed in an Israeli airstrike in early October, was delayed for five months due to security concerns.

Most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership was killed by Israel late last year, due to what analysts have described as Israel’s deep intelligence infiltration of a group once famed for its secrecy.

The stadium was packed by mourners carrying pictures of Nasrallah and waving Hezbollah flags, with some hanging off floodlights to get a better vantage point of the stage. Several foreign delegations attended the funeral, including the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Aragchi, and several Iraqi lawmakers.

“I can’t even express how I feel, it feels like my father or grandfather I died. Most of us still don’t believe he’s actually dead,” said Mohammed Khalifeh, a Lebanese man who traveled from Australia for the funeral.

Nasrallah was born into a working-class family in Beirut in 1960, though he was originally from south Lebanon. One of the founding members of Hezbollah, he was the longest-serving leader of the group and was famed for his charisma and skills as an orator.

He became a celebrated figure in Lebanon for Hezbollah’s role in ending Israel’s 18-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000, although that image was tarnished after the group’s intervention in Syria’s civil war in support of the long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad. The group’s dominance of Lebanon’s politics over the last two decades also engendered resentment among its opponents.

Mourners wept as Nasrallah and Safieddine’s caskets were paraded around the stadium and threw rings, jackets and scarves for pallbearers to rub on the coffins and return to them as mementoes of the late leaders. As the caskets were unveiled, four Israeli fighter jets flew low over the stadium, prompting cries of “Death to Israel!”.

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, said the planes were “conveying a clear message: whoever threatens to destroy Israel and attacks Israel – that will be the end of him. You will specialise in funerals – and we will specialise in victories.”.

Israeli fighter jets bombed south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley before and during the funeral ceremony, despite the ceasefire agreement signed months earlier.

Nasrallah’s death marked the beginning of an escalation in the Hezbollah-Israel war, which up until then had mostly been defined by low-level, tit-for-tat-style fighting in Lebanon’s border region.

Hezbollah attacked Israel on 8 October 2023 “in solidarity” with Hamas’s attack from Gaza on Israel the day before. The conflict was confined mainly to the Lebanese border until a dramatic Israeli escalation and ground invasion in south Lebanon in late September 2024, which left more than 3,000 people in Lebanon dead and displaced more than a million people.

Fighting officially ended under a ceasefire agreement and Israeli troops mostly withdrew on 18 February, though Israeli troops have remained in five points in south Lebanon and continue to strike targets periodically.

Despite the organisation’s massive losses and the immense humanitarian cost of the war, Hezbollah’s followers said on Sunday that they remained undeterred.

“They thought that after they killed our leaders that we would become weak and that they could occupy Lebanon, but they couldn’t do it,” said Lina Jawad, a 27-year-old designer who lives in Beirut.

Hezbollah’s secretary general, Naim Qassem, whose speech during the ceremony was televised from a remote location, said the group would “not submit” and would not accept Israeli forces remaining in the country.

The group’s status in the country and influence on the state after the war has been diminished, with Lebanon’s new government attempting to disarm the non-state group.

Hezbollah has long claimed its forces acted a deterrent to Israeli invasions, although some of the Lebanese public has grown frustrated with the now-weakened militant group.

In the government’s first statement last week, it dropped any references to the right to “armed resistance” – a reference to Hezbollah’s right to hold weapons – the first time since 2000 that the state did not pay homage to Hezbollah.

In a meeting with an Iranian delegation on Sunday, the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, said the country was “tired of others’ wars” and that Lebanon had paid a “heavy price” for the Palestinian cause.

The state faces the task of reconstruction, after large swathes of the country were levelled by Israeli bombing. It is courting international donors, including gulf countries, for funds.

The new government also has demanded the full withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from Lebanon and is relying on diplomatic channels to pressure Israel to do so.

Israel has sent tanks to the West Bank city of Jenin, in the first deployment of its kind in the area in more than two decades, as troops intensify operations in the territory that officials said will last at least a year.

The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Sunday that the latest operation across the West Bank was expanding, and that troops would remain in the area’s urban hotspots “for the coming year”, meaning approximately 40,000 people displaced by the fighting will not be able to return to their homes.

The Israel Defense Forces said they were sending tanks to the northern city of Jenin for the first time since the height of the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in 2002.

Israel’s latest operation in the West Bank, launched two days after the ceasefire in Gaza came into effect on 19 January, has killed more than 50 people and ripped up roads and infrastructure in the territory’s refugee camps, set up to house Palestinians displaced after the creation of Israel in 1948.

Today the camps resemble urban slums, and have long functioned as bastions of armed resistance to the occupation.

The Israeli army began large-scale operations in the West Bank in the spring of 2022 after a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis, and violence there has soared since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 that ignited the latest war in Gaza.

Tensions in the West Bank have risen further since Thursday night after a series of bus explosions near Tel Aviv that appeared to detonate early, causing no casualties. In a Telegram post, a branch of Hamas’ military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, from the West Bank city of Tulkarem, praised the attacks but stopped short of taking responsibility.

Intensified raids in the West Bank come as the fragile Israel-Hamas truce in Gaza lurches from crisis to crisis.

Hamas released six Israeli hostages on Saturday under the terms of the agreement, but Israel suspended the handover of more than 600 Palestinians it was due to free from its prisons in exchange, putting the five-week-old ceasefire agreement in further jeopardy.

Delayed talks on the second stage of the deal, which is supposed to involve a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, are due to begin this week, but no date has been announced.

On Sunday, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel was prepared to return to hostilities in Gaza “at any moment” and vowed to complete the war’s objectives “whether through negotiation or by other means”.

A senior Hamas official, Mahmoud Mardawi, said: “There will be no dialogue with Israel through the mediators at any stage before the release of the Palestinian prisoners. The mediators must oblige Israel to implement the agreement.”

The former US ambassador to Panama has launched a stinging critique of Donald Trump’s approach towards Latin America, comparing his conduct to that of the ruthless and egotistical fictional mob boss Tony Soprano.

In the first month of his presidency, the US president has shocked some observers with his aggressive focus on a region many expected him to largely ignore. Early steps have included threatening to “take back” the Panama Canal, accusing Mexico’s government of being in cahoots with narco-traffickers, sending an envoy to meet the Venezuelan dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and clashing with Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, over deportation flights.

John Feeley, who was regarded as one of the state department’s top Latin America experts until he resigned from his job in Panama during Trump’s first term, said he was horrified but not surprised by Trump’s moves.

“If you use as your psychological paradigm [for Trump] a combination of Tony Soprano and Thucydides … it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that he’s going to go to the Americas first,” the ex-ambassador said, referring to the ancient historian who chronicled the fifth-century BC struggle between Athens and Sparta.

Feeley believed the most famous line from Thucydides’s account of that war – “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” – explained Trump’s bully-boy worldview.

“[He’s doing it] because he can – because the asymmetry of American commercial and military power is so incalculable in relationship to Mexico, Central America, Panama, even Brazil, Argentina. They can’t really do much other than suffer the consequences. And so I think, in a sort of mafioso way, he is very adept at reading relative power,” said the former diplomat, who attributed his 2018 resignation to how Trump had “warped and betrayed … the traditional core values of the United States”.

“He’s a velociraptor … He kills anything he perceives as a threat.”

Feeley did not believe Trump would follow through on his threat to forcibly reclaim the Panama canal if his demands over alleged Chinese meddling in the trade route were not met.

“It’s all bluster. He doesn’t have the votes for it. He ran on a ticket of American isolation … He doesn’t want to keep US bases in Germany. He doesn’t want to protect Europe. He doesn’t want to send America’s blood and treasure to fight and die in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. He wants to ‘make America great’.

“His vision of a ‘Great America’ is an America that sits in its sphere of influence, king in its own castle, and exploiting parts of the world for American gain, such as $500bn in Ukrainian rare earths,” said the diplomat who also served in Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Mexico during a 28-year state department career.

Feeley praised Panama’s handling of the “relentlessly transactional” US president’s tactics by making tactical concessions while maintaining control of the canal.

The former ambassador saw a similarly Soprano-like modus operandi in Trump’s engagement with Maduro, whom the US president appears to have warmed to after trying unsuccessfully to overthrow him during his first administration.

“A mobster doesn’t kill every one of his competitors. Frequently, he buys them off. Frequently, he corrupts them. Frequently, he co-opts them,” Feeley said. “And he saw in Maduro a tinpot little mobster in a country that he doesn’t care about – a country that he currently, in this transactional moment, needs to be able to send a bunch of C-17 Globemasters [transport planes] back to and dump out a bunch of Venezuelans in orange jumpsuits and shackles so that he can go back to his Maga base and say: ‘See, Joe Biden let these rapists and drug dealers in. I kicked them out.’”

Feeley thought Trump’s engagement with Maduro was motivated by his mass deportation campaign, not a desire to access Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. “The United States set record oil and gas productions last year … We don’t need the black gold from the Orinoco belt.”

By striking a deal with Maduro allowing him to send deportation flights to Caracas, Feeley argued that Trump had betrayed the opposition politicians widely believed to have beaten the Venezuelan autocrat in last July’s presidential election. “He sold them down the river after they gave him their vote,” the former ambassador said of the Venezuelan Americans who backed Trump in the 2024 US election hoping he would help rid their country of Maduro.

But if Trump was channeling Tony Soprano in his treatment of Latin America, Feeley believed he was also channeling Trump. “Donald Trump’s approach to Latin America is reminiscent of the manner in which he and his father ran their buildings in Queens. They put a big C [for “coloured”] on any application from a family that was Black or Hispanic. And not surprisingly, those people didn’t get apartments. They settled that case with the Department of Justice in the 1970s. But it’s very clear to me that Donald Trump sees Latin America as a place to exploit and to get rent from – but not to allow to live in his building,” he said.

“I am ashamed of my country. I am angry at my country for electing him. And I am hopeful that we have still the guardrails of democracy to get back to, not perfection, but a place where we value strategic alliances to keep us all safe, where we incorporate human rights and concepts of basic decency into our foreign policy, and where we cultivate our soft power.”