Israel’s defence minister said on Friday he has instructed the military to “seize more ground” in Gaza and threatened to annex part of the territory unless Hamas releases the remaining hostages it holds.

Israel Katz’s warning came as the army stepped up the renewed assault it launched on Tuesday, shattering the truce that had facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages and brought relative calm since late January.

After retaking part of the strategic Netzarim corridor that divides Gaza’s north from south, Israeli troops moved on Thursday towards the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the southern border city of Rafah. The military said it had resumed enforcing a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City.

“I ordered [the army] to seize more territory in Gaza,” Katz said. “The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel.”

Katz also threatened “to expand buffer zones around Gaza to protect Israeli civilian population areas and soldiers by implementing a permanent Israeli occupation of the area,” should Hamas not comply.

He said the army “will intensify the fight with aerial, naval and ground shelling as well as by expanding the ground operation”, which he said would include implementing Donald Trump’s proposal to turn Gaza into a resort after the relocation of its Palestinian inhabitants to other Arab countries.

Early in February, the US president vowed to “take over” war-ravaged Gaza and “own it”, claiming that it could become the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

The Trump administration reiterated this week its support for Israel, which resumed intensive bombing of Gaza on Tuesday, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying, “The president made it very clear to Hamas that if they did not release all of the hostages there would be all hell to pay.”

Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Thursday that 504 people had been killed since the bombardment resumed, one of the highest tolls since the war began more than 17 months ago with Hamas’s attack on Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the new strikes were against “terrorist” targets including a “Hamas military site in northern Gaza where preparations were being made to fire projectiles” and “several vessels in the coastal area of the Gaza Strip … intended for use in terrorist operations by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad [armed group]”.

The ceasefire was supposed to continue as long as talks on a second phase continued, but Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu balked at entering substantive negotiations. Instead, he tried to force Hamas to accept a new ceasefire plan put forth by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

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That plan would have required Hamas to release half its remaining hostages — the militant group’s main bargaining chip — in exchange for a ceasefire extension and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Israel made no mention of releasing more Palestinian prisoners — a key component of the first phase. Hamas has rejected the Witkoff plans as an attempt to renegotiate the original deal.

Netanyahu said that the strikes were “only the beginning” and that future negotiations with Hamas “will take place only under fire”.

“Hamas has already felt the strength of our arm in the past 24 hours. And I want to promise you – and them – this is only the beginning,” the Israeli prime minister said in a video statement.

Israel and Hamas accuse each other of breaching the truce, which had broadly held since January and offered respite for the 2.3 million inhabitants of Gaza.

Israel had already cut off the supply of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to the strip. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, one of the largest providers of food aid in Gaza, warned on Friday it only had enough flour to distribute for the next six days.

“We can stretch that by giving people less, but we are talking days, not weeks,” Unrwa official Sam Rose told reporters in Geneva in an online briefing from central Gaza, reports Reuters.

About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, died in the shock Hamas incursion into Israel in October 2023 that triggered the war. The Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed more than 49,000, also mostly civilians.

AFP, Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

Israel’s supreme court has frozen the decision of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to fire the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency amid protests against the move.

The order will remain in place until the court can hear the petitions that have been filed by Israel’s opposition and an NGO against the dismissal of Ronen Bar, who was sacked after an overnight vote by the government.

The Shin Bet has been investigating Netanyahu’s close aides for alleged breaches of national security, including leaking classified documents to foreign media and allegedly taking money from Qatar, which is known to have given significant financial aid to Hamas.

In a letter made public late on Thursday, Bar said his dismissal was motivated by Netanyahu’s “personal interests”. The security chief referred to the conclusions drawn by his agency’s investigation into the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, which said “a policy of quiet had enabled Hamas to undergo massive military buildup”.

He added: “The dismissal of the head of the service at this time at the initiative of the prime minister sends a message to all those involved, a message that could put the optimal outcome of the investigation at risk. This is a direct danger to the security of the state of Israel.”

The court ruling said the freeze on his dismissal would remain until the appeals were presented to the court before 8 April.

According to the earlier government statement announcing his dismissal, Bar was supposed to leave his post when his successor was appointed, or by 10 April at the latest.

Bar, whose tenure was meant to end next year, was appointed by the previous Israeli government, which briefly forced Netanyahu from power between June 2021 and December 2022.

His relations with the prime minister had been strained even before the 7 October Hamas attack, which sparked the war in Gaza, notably over proposed judicial reforms that had split the country. Relations worsened after the 4 March release of the internal Shin Bet report on the attack, which acknowledged the agency’s own failures but also pointed to wider policy issues in the run-up.

In a statement on Friday, a Netanyahu spokesperson said: “The Israeli government, which is in charge of the Shin Bet, has lost all confidence in Ronen Bar, who continues to cling to his seat while cynically using the families of the kidnapped and politically incorrect use of his position to fabricate futile, unfounded investigations.

“Ronen had the opportunity to retire with honour after his searing failure on October 7 … But [he] preferred not to attend the government meeting dealing with his case.”

A series of high-ranking officials seen as responsible for mistakes and misjudgments in the period before the Hamas attack have resigned. Netanyahu himself has not accepted any responsibility for Israel’s worst ever security disaster, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and has resisted calls for a powerful commission of inquiry.

After the government vote against Bar, Israel’s opposition and an NGO said on Friday they had filed a petition against the decision. Their initiative was upheld by the supreme court, ruling as the high court of justice on state decisions, which subsequently issued a temporary injunction.

The NGO, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, had denounced “an unlawful decision … posing a real risk to the national security of the state of Israel”, while the opposition leader Yair Lapid’s centre-right party denounced what it called “a decision based on flagrant conflict of interest”.

The communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, said in response to the ruling that the judges had no right to interfere in the government’s decision to fire Bar.

“Bar will end his tenure on April 10 or earlier, with the appointment of a permanent head of the Shin Bet,” he said. “You have no legal authority to interfere in this. This is the government’s authority. Your order is void.”

A former head of the Shin Bet, Yoram Cohen, on Friday condemned Bar’s sacking in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, and alleged that the prime minister had compelled him to carry out acts of questionable legitimacy when he was in charge of the agency.

He has previously alleged that in 2011 Netanyahu asked him to wiretap the government’s top defence officials to ensure that “they were not leaking information from a particularly sensitive security meeting”, the Times of Israel reported.

In a separate move on Friday, Netanyahu’s cabinet said it would debate on Sunday a motion of no confidence in the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, accusing her of acting “as the long arm of the government’s opponents”.

Baharav-Miara previously warned Netanyahu he could not fire Bar before her office had reviewed his motives for doing so.

Netanyahu is facing a potential jail sentence at the conclusion of an ongoing corruption trial. The 75-year-old politician, who came to power for the first time in 1996 and has served 17 years as prime minister, is giving evidence twice weekly.

On Friday, hundreds of demonstrators protested for a fourth consecutive day against the move to sack Bar, joining protesters angry at the decision to resume fighting in Gaza while 59 Israeli hostages remain in the Palestinian territory.

Israel’s supreme court has frozen the decision of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to fire the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency amid protests against the move.

The order will remain in place until the court can hear the petitions that have been filed by Israel’s opposition and an NGO against the dismissal of Ronen Bar, who was sacked after an overnight vote by the government.

The Shin Bet has been investigating Netanyahu’s close aides for alleged breaches of national security, including leaking classified documents to foreign media and allegedly taking money from Qatar, which is known to have given significant financial aid to Hamas.

In a letter made public late on Thursday, Bar said his dismissal was motivated by Netanyahu’s “personal interests”. The security chief referred to the conclusions drawn by his agency’s investigation into the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, which said “a policy of quiet had enabled Hamas to undergo massive military buildup”.

He added: “The dismissal of the head of the service at this time at the initiative of the prime minister sends a message to all those involved, a message that could put the optimal outcome of the investigation at risk. This is a direct danger to the security of the state of Israel.”

The court ruling said the freeze on his dismissal would remain until the appeals were presented to the court before 8 April.

According to the earlier government statement announcing his dismissal, Bar was supposed to leave his post when his successor was appointed, or by 10 April at the latest.

Bar, whose tenure was meant to end next year, was appointed by the previous Israeli government, which briefly forced Netanyahu from power between June 2021 and December 2022.

His relations with the prime minister had been strained even before the 7 October Hamas attack, which sparked the war in Gaza, notably over proposed judicial reforms that had split the country. Relations worsened after the 4 March release of the internal Shin Bet report on the attack, which acknowledged the agency’s own failures but also pointed to wider policy issues in the run-up.

In a statement on Friday, a Netanyahu spokesperson said: “The Israeli government, which is in charge of the Shin Bet, has lost all confidence in Ronen Bar, who continues to cling to his seat while cynically using the families of the kidnapped and politically incorrect use of his position to fabricate futile, unfounded investigations.

“Ronen had the opportunity to retire with honour after his searing failure on October 7 … But [he] preferred not to attend the government meeting dealing with his case.”

A series of high-ranking officials seen as responsible for mistakes and misjudgments in the period before the Hamas attack have resigned. Netanyahu himself has not accepted any responsibility for Israel’s worst ever security disaster, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and has resisted calls for a powerful commission of inquiry.

After the government vote against Bar, Israel’s opposition and an NGO said on Friday they had filed a petition against the decision. Their initiative was upheld by the supreme court, ruling as the high court of justice on state decisions, which subsequently issued a temporary injunction.

The NGO, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, had denounced “an unlawful decision … posing a real risk to the national security of the state of Israel”, while the opposition leader Yair Lapid’s centre-right party denounced what it called “a decision based on flagrant conflict of interest”.

The communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, said in response to the ruling that the judges had no right to interfere in the government’s decision to fire Bar.

“Bar will end his tenure on April 10 or earlier, with the appointment of a permanent head of the Shin Bet,” he said. “You have no legal authority to interfere in this. This is the government’s authority. Your order is void.”

A former head of the Shin Bet, Yoram Cohen, on Friday condemned Bar’s sacking in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, and alleged that the prime minister had compelled him to carry out acts of questionable legitimacy when he was in charge of the agency.

He has previously alleged that in 2011 Netanyahu asked him to wiretap the government’s top defence officials to ensure that “they were not leaking information from a particularly sensitive security meeting”, the Times of Israel reported.

In a separate move on Friday, Netanyahu’s cabinet said it would debate on Sunday a motion of no confidence in the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, accusing her of acting “as the long arm of the government’s opponents”.

Baharav-Miara previously warned Netanyahu he could not fire Bar before her office had reviewed his motives for doing so.

Netanyahu is facing a potential jail sentence at the conclusion of an ongoing corruption trial. The 75-year-old politician, who came to power for the first time in 1996 and has served 17 years as prime minister, is giving evidence twice weekly.

On Friday, hundreds of demonstrators protested for a fourth consecutive day against the move to sack Bar, joining protesters angry at the decision to resume fighting in Gaza while 59 Israeli hostages remain in the Palestinian territory.

Elon Musk visited the Pentagon on Friday morning with plans to be briefed about unspecified military matters, as the Trump administration denied reports that he is to discuss secret US plans should a war break out with China.

Donald Trump and others pushed back against a New York Times report on Thursday night that the key aide to the US president was to be filled in on strategy in the event that China and the US go to war.

Two anonymous officials told the Times about the plans. A third said the briefing would be focused on China, but did not specify further, while a fourth confirmed Musk would visit the Pentagon.

As a key adviser to Trump and head of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), Musk has exercised broad powers in the two months since Trump returned to the White House, conducting mass layoffs and slashing budgets across the federal government. But while the Pentagon was also in line to be a target for job cuts, Musk has yet to play any role there, including in defense intelligence or military operations.

Musk’s involvement in any US plans or dealings with China would raise not only security concerns but questions over a major conflict of interest, as Musk has considerable economic interests in China as the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, which also has contracts with the US air force.

Hours after the report, Donald Trump said on X that “the story is completely untrue” and that “China will not even be mentioned or discussed”. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, tweeted that Musk would visit the Pentagon on Friday but it “is NOT a meeting about ‘top secret China war plans’”.

“It’s an informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies [and] smarter production,” Hegseth wrote. “Gonna be great!”

In the early hours of Friday morning, Musk denied the reports, calling it “pure propaganda” and threatening to find those who leaked the information.

“I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information,” he wrote. “They will be found.”

Musk repeated his demand for such prosecutions upon arrival at the Department of Defense on the outskirts of Washington DC on Friday morning. He left the Pentagon about 90 minutes after arriving.

A Pentagon spokesman, asked by email to explain the true purpose of Musk’s briefing given administration denials that it would putative war plans with China, referred the Guardian to a statement posted on social media by Hegseth.

The Wall Street Journal later confirmed the New York Times’ report, also citing two anonymous US officials, and the Washington Post and other outlets followed up with additional reporting.

Hegseth was scheduled to deliver remarks with Trump from the Oval Office at 11am on Friday. It is unclear whether they will address Musk’s visit.

According to the Times’ report, the meeting was set to take place not in Hegseth’s office, where informal meetings about innovation would take place, but in a secure conference room known as the Tank, which is typically used for higher-level meetings. Musk was to be briefed on a plan that contains 20 to 30 slides and details how the US military would fight a conflict with China.

Officials who spoke anonymously with the Times and the Journal offered up potential reasons why Musk was receiving the briefing. The Times suggested that Musk, in his Doge capacity, may be looking into trimming the Pentagon’s budget and would need to know what military assets the US would use in a potential conflict with China.

One source told the Journal that Musk was receiving the briefing because he asked for one.

Though Musk has a “top-secret” clearance within the federal government, lawyers at SpaceX advised him in December not to seek higher levels of security clearances, as he would probably be denied due to his foreign ties and personal drug use.

Counter terror police are leading the investigation into the “unprecedented” electrical substation fire that has closed down London Heathrow, stopping more than 1,300 flights as engineers tried to restore power to the airport on Friday.

Airlines face days of disruption with hundreds of thousands of scheduled passengers already unable to fly in and out of Europe’s busiest airport, after what ministers said was an “unusual and unprecedented incident”.

London fire brigade was called shortly after 11pm on Thursday to a fire at an electrical substation in Hayes, west London, with power also cut to thousands of homes.

More than 70 firefighters tackled the blaze, which the brigade said at 8am was under control, with more than 20,000 litres of oil having caught fire in a transformer. Officers said that despite the acrid smell, there was no air quality danger to the public.

The cause of the fire is unknown, although security sources indicated there was no immediate indication of foul play.

A spokesperson for the Met Police said: “We are working with the London Fire Brigade to establish the cause of the fire which remains under investigation. While there is currently no indication of foul play we retain an open mind at this time.

“Given the location of the substation and the impact this incident has had on critical national infrastructure, the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command is now leading enquiries.

“This is due to the specialist resources and capabilities within that command that can assist in progressing this investigation at pace to minimise disruption and identify the cause.”

The detectives have the security clearance to access sensitive material as investigators try to establish the fire’s cause.

Heathrow is regarded a potential target for terrorism or sabotage, the incidence of which, backed by state actors, has been rising in recent years.

National Grid said substation fires were “extraordinarily rare” and it was not able to “rule anything in or out”.

More than 1,350 flights had been scheduled on Friday to and from Heathrow, Britain’s biggest airport and one of the busiest in the world. Power was still cut off to two of the airport’s four terminals, T2 and T4, by late morning.

The immediately cancelled or rerouted flights had capacity for up to 291,000 passengers, with a significant proportion connecting onwards, as well as carrying freight.

Airline operations around the world will be affected, with the knock-on effects expected to last several days.

According to the online flight tracking service FlightRadar24, 120 flights to Heathrow were in the air when the closure was announced. Some arriving flights from Asia and Australia were diverted to other airports around Britain and Europe while others coming from the US returned to their departure points.

A Heathrow spokesperson said: “To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, we have no choice but to close Heathrow until 23h59 on 21 March 2025. We expect significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.

“We know this will be disappointing for passengers and we want to reassure that we are working as hard as possible to resolve the situation.”

British Airways, which operates just over half of the flights from Heathrow, said: “This will clearly have a significant impact on our operation and our customers and we’re working as quickly as possible to update them on their travel options for the next 24 hours and beyond.”

Global airlines body Iata said it was “yet another case of Heathrow letting down both travellers and airlines”. Willie Walsh, Iata’s director general, added: “How is it that critical infrastructure is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative? If that is the case then it is a clear planning failure by the airport.”

The UK’s biggest carriers based at other airports, easyJet and Ryanair, said that they would be adding extra capacity to help stranded passengers. EasyJet will fly bigger planes on some key European routes while Ryanair has added additional flights from Ireland to London Stansted.

National rail and coach services operating to Heathrow have all been cancelled today.

The UK energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said it was an “unusual and unprecedented incident”. He said the government would be doing everything it could to restore power to the airport, after supply lines were changed to restore electricity to most of the 67,000 homes affected on Friday morning.

Asked how a fire at a single substation had been able to severely disrupt the UK’s busiest airport, he said: “We don’t know the cause of this fire. It’s obviously an unprecedented event.”

Miliband said he understood that there was a backup system but that it had also been affected by the extent of the fire.

Alice Delahunty, the president of National Grid’s transmission business, said it had been “a very significant and serious incident, which is extraordinarily rare in our network,” and that it was not possible to verify any “rumours and speculation” over the cause of the fire.

She said: “We’re not in a position to rule anything in or out. Our focus has been getting homes and businesses back on supply safely. There will be a time for a full and thorough investigation, but the focus has been on restoring power.”

The fire damaged the substation’s primary transformer, while the backup transformer sustained heat damage during the blaze, Delahunty said.

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The London fire brigade assistant commissioner Pat Goulbourne said firefighters had worked “tirelessly in challenging conditions to bring the fire under control as swiftly as possible”.

Emergency services were called to the scene at 11.23pm on Thursday. The fire left forced more than 100 people to evacuate. Firefighters led 29 people from surrounding properties to safety, and reported no casualties.

While Heathrow has experienced significant disruption from external events such as the air traffic control outage in August 2023 and the mass groundings during the Covid crisis, the last time the airport was fully closed for an extended period was during heavy snowfall and freezing conditions in December 2010, when 4,000 flights were cancelled.

Heathrow is the best connected airport in the world, according to analysts OAG, serving around 230 destinations. A record 83.9 million passengers used it last year, and it claims to be the largest single-site employer in the UK, with around 90,000 people in total working at the airport.

Additional reporting by Jamie Grierson, Elias Visontay and Kate Lamb

Waves of Russian drones pounded the Ukrainian port city of Odesa overnight, setting it ablaze in an attack that underscored Moscow’s intent to continue aerial assaults despite agreeing to a temporary pause in strikes on energy infrastructure.

Videos circulating on social media showed fires erupting in several parts of Odesa.

The regional governor, Oleh Kiper, said Russian drones struck a high-rise residential building, a shopping centre, and several infrastructure targets.

The Czech president, Petr Pavel, was in the city when Russia unleashed the drone attacks.

“Significantly, it was during our meeting that the enemy once again massively attacked the Odesa region,” Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron – a close ally of Zelenskyy– wrote on X that the strikes on Odesa “once again showed” that Russia “sincerely does not want peace.”

Ukraine and Russia have agreed in principle to a limited ceasefire after the US president, Donald Trump, spoke with the countries’ leaders this week. But uncertainty remains about how or when the part-ceasefire will take effect as Ukraine and Russia prepare to send delegations to Riyadh next week for parallel talks with the US.

It was immediately clear that the three parties had different views about what the pact entailed, with the White House saying “energy and infrastructure” would be covered, the Kremlin saying the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure”, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying he would also like railways and ports to be protected.

A senior Ukrainian official told AFP that Ukraine hopes to secure a part-ceasefire at the talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday.

“We still want to agree on a ceasefire, at least on what we have proposed,” the source said, referring to calls for a halt to strikes on energy sites, civilian infrastructure and attacks in the Black Sea.

The source added that as of yet it was “unclear” when any ceasefire could be implemented. “There have been no reciprocal steps from the Russians,” they said.

“We need to agree on the main thing: what objects and what control. The Americans have enormous intelligence capabilities, so they see a lot,” the source added.

On Friday, the Kremlin claimed Vladimir Putin’s order for Russian forces to temporarily halt their attacks on energy infrastructure remained in force, but stressed the agreement only covered “energy infrastructure” and not “energy and infrastructure”.

Russia also accused Ukraine of violating the part-ceasefire, citing a strike that took place before Zelenskyy formally agreed to the truce.

Moscow’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, told Russia’s Channel One on Thursday evening that Ukraine had breached a proposed 30-day ceasefire on energy infrastructure by striking a Russian oil depot on Tuesday night, though that strike came before Zelenskyy’s call with Trump the next day where he agreed in principle to the US-brokered proposal.

The Ukrainian side has accused Russia of violating its pledges. Hours after Putin’s phone call with Trump on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said there had been “hits, specifically on civilian infrastructure”, including a hospital in Sumy.

Moscow appeared to be exploiting the window before any ceasefire takes hold, launching drones at Odesa as well as shelling the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.

In a separate incident, a pumping station that serves as a critical hub for Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine caught fire on Friday morning, with both sides trading blame. Moscow accused Ukraine of striking the facility, while Ukraine’s general staff denied responsibility, claiming instead that it had been “repeatedly shelled by the Russians themselves”.

Russia’s investigative committee said the gas station “was significantly damaged in the blast”.

While much of Europe has cut its reliance on Russian gas, countries sympathetic to Moscow – including Hungary and Slovakia – still buy it, with all supplies flowing through the town of Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region.

European leaders of the coalition backing Ukraine are expected to meet again next week, hoping to finalise plans to secure “credible security guarantees”.

After a meeting with western military planners near London on Thursday, Keir Starmer appeared to step back from his pledge to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, saying instead that allied forces would be deployed by sea and air in support of Kyiv’s own forces.

The Trump administration has appeared lukewarm toward the idea of European troops in Ukraine and has been reluctant to commit to supporting them if they were deployed. Moscow has repeatedly ruled out the presence of western troops in Ukraine, calling it a red line it will not tolerate.

In an interview on Thursday, Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, suggested the US might advocate for troops from Saudi Arabia or India – two countries with relatively warm ties to Moscow – to be stationed in Ukraine as part of a potential security arrangement.

Zelenskyy, meanwhile, pushed back against a reported proposal by Macron, who was said to be exploring the idea of a UN-led peacekeeping mission to protect Ukraine.

“With all due respect, the UN will not protect us from occupation or Putin’s desire to come again. We do not see the UN as an alternative to a contingent or security guarantees,” Zelenskyy said during a press conference with Pavel, the Czech president.

Waves of Russian drones pounded the Ukrainian port city of Odesa overnight, setting it ablaze in an attack that underscored Moscow’s intent to continue aerial assaults despite agreeing to a temporary pause in strikes on energy infrastructure.

Videos circulating on social media showed fires erupting in several parts of Odesa.

The regional governor, Oleh Kiper, said Russian drones struck a high-rise residential building, a shopping centre, and several infrastructure targets.

The Czech president, Petr Pavel, was in the city when Russia unleashed the drone attacks.

“Significantly, it was during our meeting that the enemy once again massively attacked the Odesa region,” Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron – a close ally of Zelenskyy– wrote on X that the strikes on Odesa “once again showed” that Russia “sincerely does not want peace.”

Ukraine and Russia have agreed in principle to a limited ceasefire after the US president, Donald Trump, spoke with the countries’ leaders this week. But uncertainty remains about how or when the part-ceasefire will take effect as Ukraine and Russia prepare to send delegations to Riyadh next week for parallel talks with the US.

It was immediately clear that the three parties had different views about what the pact entailed, with the White House saying “energy and infrastructure” would be covered, the Kremlin saying the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure”, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying he would also like railways and ports to be protected.

A senior Ukrainian official told AFP that Ukraine hopes to secure a part-ceasefire at the talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday.

“We still want to agree on a ceasefire, at least on what we have proposed,” the source said, referring to calls for a halt to strikes on energy sites, civilian infrastructure and attacks in the Black Sea.

The source added that as of yet it was “unclear” when any ceasefire could be implemented. “There have been no reciprocal steps from the Russians,” they said.

“We need to agree on the main thing: what objects and what control. The Americans have enormous intelligence capabilities, so they see a lot,” the source added.

On Friday, the Kremlin claimed Vladimir Putin’s order for Russian forces to temporarily halt their attacks on energy infrastructure remained in force, but stressed the agreement only covered “energy infrastructure” and not “energy and infrastructure”.

Russia also accused Ukraine of violating the part-ceasefire, citing a strike that took place before Zelenskyy formally agreed to the truce.

Moscow’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, told Russia’s Channel One on Thursday evening that Ukraine had breached a proposed 30-day ceasefire on energy infrastructure by striking a Russian oil depot on Tuesday night, though that strike came before Zelenskyy’s call with Trump the next day where he agreed in principle to the US-brokered proposal.

The Ukrainian side has accused Russia of violating its pledges. Hours after Putin’s phone call with Trump on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said there had been “hits, specifically on civilian infrastructure”, including a hospital in Sumy.

Moscow appeared to be exploiting the window before any ceasefire takes hold, launching drones at Odesa as well as shelling the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.

In a separate incident, a pumping station that serves as a critical hub for Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine caught fire on Friday morning, with both sides trading blame. Moscow accused Ukraine of striking the facility, while Ukraine’s general staff denied responsibility, claiming instead that it had been “repeatedly shelled by the Russians themselves”.

Russia’s investigative committee said the gas station “was significantly damaged in the blast”.

While much of Europe has cut its reliance on Russian gas, countries sympathetic to Moscow – including Hungary and Slovakia – still buy it, with all supplies flowing through the town of Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region.

European leaders of the coalition backing Ukraine are expected to meet again next week, hoping to finalise plans to secure “credible security guarantees”.

After a meeting with western military planners near London on Thursday, Keir Starmer appeared to step back from his pledge to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, saying instead that allied forces would be deployed by sea and air in support of Kyiv’s own forces.

The Trump administration has appeared lukewarm toward the idea of European troops in Ukraine and has been reluctant to commit to supporting them if they were deployed. Moscow has repeatedly ruled out the presence of western troops in Ukraine, calling it a red line it will not tolerate.

In an interview on Thursday, Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, suggested the US might advocate for troops from Saudi Arabia or India – two countries with relatively warm ties to Moscow – to be stationed in Ukraine as part of a potential security arrangement.

Zelenskyy, meanwhile, pushed back against a reported proposal by Macron, who was said to be exploring the idea of a UN-led peacekeeping mission to protect Ukraine.

“With all due respect, the UN will not protect us from occupation or Putin’s desire to come again. We do not see the UN as an alternative to a contingent or security guarantees,” Zelenskyy said during a press conference with Pavel, the Czech president.

Teachers unions and Democratic politicians joined in denouncing Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at eliminating the US Department of Education, with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) saying simply: “See you in court.”

Trump’s move was long trailed, so much so that Randi Weingarten, the head of the AFT – which represents 1.8 million teachers – put out her statement the day before the order was signed. Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which represents 200,000 members, teachers and other education workers mostly in New York City, said: “We will join our national union and public education allies to protect students and educators. We are working with our partners to file lawsuits to stop this executive overreach.

“In the meantime, we will hold the federal government accountable for providing the resources our school communities have been promised under the laws of our country.”

Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, said: “Trump is telling America’s public school kids that their futures don’t matter.”

Referencing Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, whose drastic cuts to federal budgets and staffing are prompting outrage, Warren said: “Billionaires like Trump and Musk won’t feel it when afterschool programs are slashed, class sizes go up, and student aid gets cut. It’ll be working parents, students, and teachers who pay the price.”

Rashida Tlaib, a congresswoman from Michigan, said Trump’s order was “really alarming to me because the majority of Americans will tell you they don’t want to give up on the Department of Education, they don’t want to give up on our education system”.

Polling shows the majority of people in the US oppose dismantling the Department of Education.

This week, a survey from the advocacy group New America found 55% of respondents against eliminating the department. Another group, Third Way released a poll showing majority support among Republicans for issues including improved accountability for federal funding in higher education – a core responsibility of the education department.

Eliminating the department has long been a goal of some parts of the Republican right. On Friday, Margaret Spellings, education secretary under George W Bush, who expanded the department’s role, told the Associated Press that Republicans in Congress traditionally voiced support for elimination while voting against it, mindful of how federal funds reach schools in their districts.

“It was always a little bit of a wink and a nod deal,” Spellings said. “Donald Trump has called the bluff.”

The Department of Education’s role is primarily financial, dispensing federal funds nationwide. It also upholds civil rights protections such as Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination.

Trump’s order will not eliminate the department entirely. Created by Congress in 1972, it can only be eliminated by the same body.

John King Jr, who was education secretary under Barack Obama, told NBC: “I think what you’re going to see is bipartisan support in Congress for maintaining the vital functions of the department” – including, he said, “directing resources to vulnerable students, low income students and students with disabilities, funding the Pell grant program and the student loan program that makes it possible for Americans to access higher education, and civil rights enforcement, which has been the historical role of the department”.

After Trump signed his order, Linda McMahon, the wrestling impresario turned education secretary charged with wrecking her own department, hailed what she called a “history-making action” and said: “We are sending education back to the states where it so rightly belongs.”

King called that “a rhetorical move”. He continued: “The reality is that most decision making about education happens at the state and local level, but there is a crucial federal role that goes back to the civil rights movement … Laws were put in place because we needed the federal government to step in to make sure that students weren’t discriminated against, and that role continues.

“We need the federal government to say to a state: ‘You can’t ignore the needs of your English learners.’ To say to a district: ‘You can’t leave Black students or Latino students out of access to advanced placement classes or extracurricular activities at your school. That civil rights role has to be protected.”

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivered a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk at a huge rally in Arizona on Thursday, accusing them of “screwing over” working- and middle-class Americans as they turn the country into an oligarchy.

Speaking to an overflowing arena as part of his Stop Oligarchy tour – a series of events with the progressive New York congresswoman that has attracted huge attention among Democratic supporters disillusioned with what they feel is the party’s otherwise tepid reaction to Trump’s radical agenda – Sanders, the senator from Vermont, warned the president:

“We will not allow you to move this country into an oligarchy. We’re not going to allow you and your friend Mr Musk and the other billionaires to wreak havoc on this country.”

Ocasio-Cortez put it differently: “We’re going to throw these bums out and fight for the nation we deserve.”

Sanders, who is independent but votes with Democrats, trained some of his sharpest attacks on industry titans.

“You know who the biggest criminals are in this country? They are the CEOs of major corporations who are robbing us every single day,” he said.

“They are the fossil fuel industry that has lied to us for years about what they’re doing to the planet. It is the drug companies who charge us the highest prices in the world and people die because they can’t afford those drugs. It’s the insurance companies who deny claim after claim. Those are major criminals.”

The rally was the pair’s second of the day, following an earlier event in Las Vegas, as the progressive political stars continue on what has become a particularly high-profile tour that also features events on Friday in Colorado – including a town hall in Denver featuring Alvaro Bedoya, an FTC Commissioner who was abruptly fired by Trump this week. On Saturday, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez will return to Arizona for a rally in Tucson.

During the event in Arizona on Thursday night the pair also offered a sharp critique of the Democratic party.

“This isn’t just about Republicans, either. We need a Democratic party that fights harder for us, too,” Ocasio-Cortez said, drawing some of the loudest, most sustained applause of the event.

Several rallygoers said they would like to see Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat of New York, challenge the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, in a primary race after he relented and helped Republicans pass a funding bill last week to avert a shutdown.

Ocasio-Cortez made no explicit mention of Schumer or her future political ambitions, despite intermittent shouts of “Primary Chuck”.

She called on attenders to help elect candidates “with the courage to brawl for the working class” and praised Arizona voters for electing two Democratic senators. She then swiped the state’s former one-term senator, Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic party while in office to become an independent, and then declined to seek re-election.

“One thing I love about Arizonans is that you all have shown that if a US senator isn’t fighting hard enough for you, you’re not afraid to replace her with one who will,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Sinema recently resurfaced old comments by Ocasio-Cortez attacking the then-senator over her refusal to abolish the filibuster, a Senate rule requiring 60 votes to pass most legislation. Last week, House Democrats implored their Senate counterparts to use the filibuster to block a Republican-drafted funding bill.

“Change of heart on the filibuster I see!” Sinema posted on social media.

“Still no. In fact, the same Dems who argue to keep the filibuster ‘for when we need it’ do not, in fact, use it when we need it,” Ocasio-Cortez shot back.

The Sudanese army has recaptured the presidential palace in the capital, Khartoum, in a highly symbolic battlefield victory over the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the country’s catastrophic civil war.

Videos posted on social media showed soldiers carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers inside the partly ruined building. An officer wearing a captain’s epaulettes announced the takeover of the palace in a video and confirmed that troops were inside the compound.

In a post on X, Khaled al-Aiser, Sudan’s information minister, said the military had retaken the palace. “Today the flag is raised, the palace is back and the journey continues until victory is complete,” he wrote.

Intermittent gunfire could be heard throughout the capital on Friday, but it was not clear if it involved fighting or was celebratory.

Following the capture, RSF – led by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – responded with deadly drone attacks. Shortly after state television broadcast scenes of fighters celebrating in the palace, three of its journalists were killed in a drone strike, an army source told Agence France-Presse.

In a statement on Telegram, the RSF said it had launched a “lightning operation” around the palace that “killed more than 89 enemy personnel and destroyed various military vehicles.”

“The battle for the Republican Palace is not over yet,” the militia vowed.

The RSF pledged to “continue to fight” to dislodge the army from areas it has retaken.

Its fighters are reportedly still scattered around the city centre, hiding in nearby buildings and stationed in part of the bombed out airport.

The seizure of the palace, which overlooks the Nile and was the seat of government before the war, follows months of steady advances for the army in the Khartoum area in recent months. Earlier this week, the army said its forces had merged from the north and south, hemming in the RSF.

RSF fighters, who seized much of the capital in the early stages of the war – forcing the army-aligned government to flee to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast – have been all but expelled from the city.

However, the army gain does not mean an end to the war is imminent. The RSF has consolidated control in the western Darfur region, hardening battle lines and moving the country towards de facto partition. The RSF is working to set up a parallel government in areas it controls, although that is not expected to receive widespread international recognition.

Late on Thursday, the RSF claimed it seized control of the Sudanese city of al-Maliha, a strategic desert city in North Darfur near the borders of Chad and Libya. Sudan’s military has acknowledged fighting around al-Maliha but has not said it lost the city.

Al-Maliha is about 125 miles (200km) north of the city of El Fasher, which remains held by the Sudanese military despite near-daily strikes by the surrounding RSF.

The head of the UN children’s agency has said the conflict in Sudan has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. The war has killed tens of thousands of people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country.

Sudan, in north-eastern Africa, has been unstable since a popular uprising forced the removal of the longtime autocratic president, Omar al-Bashir, in 2019. A short-lived transition to democracy was derailed when Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Dagalo led a military coup in 2021. The RSF and Sudan’s military then began fighting each other in 2023.

Since the war began, the Sudanese military and the RSF have faced allegations of human rights abuses. Before Joe Biden left office, the US state department declared the RSF was committing genocide.

The military and the RSF have denied committing abuses.

The war has attracted external actors with interests in the country, including Chad, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Libya, Qatar and Russia. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been accused of providing financial and military support to the Sudanese army and the RSF respectively, but they have denied it.

AFP, Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report

The Sudanese army has recaptured the presidential palace in the capital, Khartoum, in a highly symbolic battlefield victory over the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the country’s catastrophic civil war.

Videos posted on social media showed soldiers carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers inside the partly ruined building. An officer wearing a captain’s epaulettes announced the takeover of the palace in a video and confirmed that troops were inside the compound.

In a post on X, Khaled al-Aiser, Sudan’s information minister, said the military had retaken the palace. “Today the flag is raised, the palace is back and the journey continues until victory is complete,” he wrote.

Intermittent gunfire could be heard throughout the capital on Friday, but it was not clear if it involved fighting or was celebratory.

Following the capture, RSF – led by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – responded with deadly drone attacks. Shortly after state television broadcast scenes of fighters celebrating in the palace, three of its journalists were killed in a drone strike, an army source told Agence France-Presse.

In a statement on Telegram, the RSF said it had launched a “lightning operation” around the palace that “killed more than 89 enemy personnel and destroyed various military vehicles.”

“The battle for the Republican Palace is not over yet,” the militia vowed.

The RSF pledged to “continue to fight” to dislodge the army from areas it has retaken.

Its fighters are reportedly still scattered around the city centre, hiding in nearby buildings and stationed in part of the bombed out airport.

The seizure of the palace, which overlooks the Nile and was the seat of government before the war, follows months of steady advances for the army in the Khartoum area in recent months. Earlier this week, the army said its forces had merged from the north and south, hemming in the RSF.

RSF fighters, who seized much of the capital in the early stages of the war – forcing the army-aligned government to flee to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast – have been all but expelled from the city.

However, the army gain does not mean an end to the war is imminent. The RSF has consolidated control in the western Darfur region, hardening battle lines and moving the country towards de facto partition. The RSF is working to set up a parallel government in areas it controls, although that is not expected to receive widespread international recognition.

Late on Thursday, the RSF claimed it seized control of the Sudanese city of al-Maliha, a strategic desert city in North Darfur near the borders of Chad and Libya. Sudan’s military has acknowledged fighting around al-Maliha but has not said it lost the city.

Al-Maliha is about 125 miles (200km) north of the city of El Fasher, which remains held by the Sudanese military despite near-daily strikes by the surrounding RSF.

The head of the UN children’s agency has said the conflict in Sudan has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. The war has killed tens of thousands of people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country.

Sudan, in north-eastern Africa, has been unstable since a popular uprising forced the removal of the longtime autocratic president, Omar al-Bashir, in 2019. A short-lived transition to democracy was derailed when Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Dagalo led a military coup in 2021. The RSF and Sudan’s military then began fighting each other in 2023.

Since the war began, the Sudanese military and the RSF have faced allegations of human rights abuses. Before Joe Biden left office, the US state department declared the RSF was committing genocide.

The military and the RSF have denied committing abuses.

The war has attracted external actors with interests in the country, including Chad, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Libya, Qatar and Russia. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been accused of providing financial and military support to the Sudanese army and the RSF respectively, but they have denied it.

AFP, Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report

French investigators have begun a search for further victims of a paedophile surgeon on trial for raping or sexually assaulting 299 mostly young patients, after he admitted all the charges in what was described as a “turning point” in France’s largest child abuse case.

Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, had said “I committed heinous acts” at the opening of the trial last month but previously only acknowledged the abuse on a case-by-case basis and had denied several of the charges.

His lawyer, Maxime Tessier, told reporters his client had admitted that all those mentioned in his handwritten notes – reported to be more than 300 names – had been abused. He said the surgeon had told the court, which was sitting in private: “I have a duty to tell the truth.”

The public prosecutor’s office in Rennes has opened a fresh investigation to identify and trace other victims mentioned in Le Scouarnec’s writings, one document of which was headed: “My paedophile letters.”

Le Scouarnec’s admission came after 10 days of evidence from some of the 158 male and 141 female victims, most of whom were under the age of 15, at the trial in Vannes, western France. The court has heard how most of them were abused while under anaesthetic or recovering from operations between 1989 and 2014, when the surgeon worked in a dozen public and private medical establishments across Brittany and western France.

Tessier described it as “a moment of truth and justice … and a turning point” in the trial that came after he asked his client if he recognised that the people mentioned in the numerous notebooks seized by police were “all potential victims of his acts”.

Le Scouarnec replied: “Yes.”

Asked if he recognised that the 299 accusations at the centre of the four-month trial were criminal offences, the surgeon again replied: “Yes”.

“Monseur Le Scouarnec is aware of the consequences of this, that is to say the possibility of reopening investigations, of finding victims who would have been forgotten by the prosecution. This is an act that goes beyond all declarations of intent,” Tessier said.

Frédérique Giffard, a lawyer for 15 of the victims, welcomed Le Scouarnec’s admission and said she believed the surgeon had finally realised the devastating impact of his abuse. “This recognition is a crucial step in allowing the victims to move forward,” Giffard said.

Since 2020, Le Scouarnec, described by members of his family as a “Jekyll and Hyde” character, has been serving a 15-year prison sentence for the sexual abuse of four young girls. It was while searching his home for evidence in this case that police came across notebooks and hard disks containing hundreds of thousands of photos and videos of child sexual abuse. Officers also discovered a collection of lifesize dolls.

The trial is examining how Le Scouarnec was allowed to work after his 2005 conviction for possession of child sexual abuse images when he was given a four-month suspended sentence. His hospital employers and the health authorities were aware but no action was taken.

Speaking before the trial, Francesca Satta, a lawyer representing several of the victims, described the surgeon as “extremely perverse” and said there could be as many as 400 victims. At least 12 cases were dropped because the allegations were out of time for prosecution.

Satta said the investigation had opened a “Pandora’s box” for those treated by Le Scouarnec, most of whom are now in their 30s and 40s and who learned of the abuse only when police turned up at their homes.

“It has caused real distress. Many of the victims were five to 10 years old at the time, many were anaesthetised and incapable of knowing what happened. Most had absolutely no idea. In any case, they were children who wouldn’t have recognised the difference between a medical act and sexual abuse. And he was a doctor. They and their parents trusted him,” Satta said.

A Norwegian man has filed a complaint against the company behind ChatGPT after the chatbot falsely claimed he had murdered two of his children.

Arve Hjalmar Holmen, a self-described “regular person” with no public profile in Norway, asked ChatGPT for information about himself and received a reply claiming he had killed his own sons.

Responding to the prompt “Who is Arve Hjalmar Holmen?” ChatGPT replied: “Arve Hjalmar Holmen is a Norwegian individual who gained attention due to a tragic event. He was the father of two young boys, aged seven and 10, who were tragically found dead in a pond near their home in Trondheim, Norway, in December 2020.”

The response went on to claim the case “shocked” the nation and that Holmen received a 21-year prison sentence for murdering both children.

Holmen said in a complaint to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority that the “completely false” story nonetheless contained elements similar to his own life such as his home town, the number of children he has and the age gap between his sons.

“The complainant was deeply troubled by these outputs, which could have harmful effect in his private life, if they where reproduced or somehow leaked in his community or in his home town,” said the complaint, which has been filed by Holmen and Noyb, a digital rights campaign group.

It added that Holmen has “never been accused nor convicted of any crime and is a conscientious citizen”.

Holmen’s complaint alleged that ChatGPT’s “defamatory” response violated accuracy provisions within the GDPR European data law. It has asked the Norwegian watchdog to order ChatGPT’s parent, OpenAI, to adjust its model to eliminate inaccurate results relating to Holmen and to impose a fine on the company. Noyb said that since Holmen’s interaction with ChatGPT took place, OpenAI had released a new model incorporating web searches – which has made a repeat of the Holmen error “less likely”.

AI chatbots are prone to producing responses containing false information because they are built on models that predict the next most likely word in a sentence. This can result in factual errors and wild assertions, but the plausible nature of the responses can trick users into thinking that what they are reading is 100% correct.

An OpenAI spokesperson said: “We continue to research new ways to improve the accuracy of our models and reduce hallucinations. While we’re still reviewing this complaint, it relates to a version of ChatGPT which has since been enhanced with online search capabilities that improves accuracy.”

A Soviet-era dissident has been sentenced to 16 years in prison in Russia for his anti-war views, in a case that observers say highlights how the country’s repression now exceeds even parts of the Soviet period.

Alexander Skobov, a 67-year-old lifelong dissident, was sentenced on Friday by a military court in St Petersburg over a social media post supporting Ukraine’s 2022 strike on the Crimea Bridge, as well as his alleged involvement with the foreign-based opposition group the Free Russia Forum.

A self-described leftwing pacifist, Skobov published the dissident Soviet journal Perspektivy in what was then Leningrad, and spoke out against the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and later Russia’s the wars in Chechnya, and, more recently, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2014.

In the Soviet Union, Skobov was repeatedly charged with “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” and was twice forcibly confined to psychiatric institutions. He spent a total of six years in Soviet psychiatric wards that functioned as prisons.

His sentence on Friday effectively amounts to life imprisonment, given his age and frail health. Skobov’s lawyer said her client had diabetes, hepatitis C, bronchial asthma and glaucoma.

In a defiant final statement before sentencing, Skobov condemned the war in Ukraine, saying: “Today I will be asked whether I plead guilty. Well, I am the one making the accusation here! I accuse the stinking corpse of a regime and the ruling Putin clique of preparing, unleashing, and waging an aggressive war, of committing war crimes in Ukraine, of political terror in Russia, and of the moral corruption of my people.”

“I ask the regime’s henchmen present here: do you admit your guilt in being complicit in Putin’s crimes?” Skobov added.

As the judge read out the sentence, Skobov – seated inside a locked metal cage and guarded by security officers – was heard shouting: “Glory to Ukraine.”

Skobov has been in detention since his arrest in April 2024. Even behind bars, he has remained politically active. Last June, he published an open letter addressed to younger Russian political prisoners. “I want the young people who took the hit to know: the last Soviet dissidents stood alongside them,” he wrote in the letter, which was published by the Novaya Gazeta outlet

The sentence Skobov was given on Friday was extreme even by the already-repressive standards of today’s Russia. Observers said it highlighted how modern Russia had surpassed the scale of repression seen during the post-Stalin Soviet era.

“The draconian sentence handed down to Alexander Skobov today is emblematic of the war against dissent wielded by Russian authorities insure the country, in parallel to their abuse war in Ukraine,” said Tanya Lokshina, an associate director for Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division.

“It is particularly poignant that Skobov had spent years in a Soviet prison for having exercised his freedom of opinion all those years back – and over four decades later the history is repeating itself,” she added.

Russia has launched an unprecedented crackdown on dissent since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a campaign that has reached into nearly every corner of society.

The independent Russian outlet Proekt estimated in 2024 that the scale of repression under the Putin regime had surpassed that of the Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, persecuting at least 116,000 people over the past six years alone.

The Skobov case also suggests that Moscow has no intention of easing repression at home against those who oppose the war – even as the Kremlin claims to be pursuing peace talks over the conflict in Ukraine.

In recent weeks, Russian authorities have detained a string of citizens who have criticised the war, ranging from a film critic to a pensioner and several regional journalists. Each is facing long spells in prison for social media posts condemning Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Members of the punk rock band UK Subs have said they were denied entry and detained in the US, according to accounts from the band themselves.

Bassist Alvin Gibbs shared details of the incident in a Facebook post on Wednesday, which comes amid widespread reports of people being denied entry to the US, including a French scientist who said he was barred because of anti-Donald Trump comments he had made.

Gibbs, along with bandmates Marc Carrey and Stefan Häublein, were deported back to the UK following their detainment. Only vocalist Charlie Harper had been allowed entry. Harper ended up playing the band’s scheduled show in Los Angeles with a group of stand-in musicians.

He recounted how after he landed at the LA airport with his partner, he was told he would be questioned after being flagged. He was informed the flagging was for two reasons: first, he was told he had an incorrect visa, but he was also told that there was another reason that the agents would not disclose to him.

“I can’t help but wonder whether my frequent, and less than flattering, public comments regarding their president and his administration played a role – or perhaps I’m simply succumbing to paranoia,” he said.

The band, considered pioneers in the genre of British punk rock, have been outspokenly critical of Trump and his policies in the past. They are known to often make political statements during live performances.

“What followed was far from pleasant,” Gibbs said. “Two police officers escorted me to another section of LAX, where I found Stefan and Marc already detained in a cold holding pen, along with a group of Colombian, Chinese, and Mexican detainees. My luggage, phone, and passport were confiscated.”

He explained how he was eventually called for a second interview at 4am, hours after he had initially landed at 7pm.

Gibbs says his partner waited 25 hours for him to finally be released from the detention. “By the time we were escorted on to the flight at 8pm the next day, I had gone without sleep for well over a day, surviving only on a pot noodle and a couple of cups of tea.”

Though he expressed relief that Harper had been able to enter the country and perform the scheduled show, Gibbs is not keen on trying to come back to the US again. “It seems my relationship with the country is over for the foreseeable future,” he said.

The experiences of the UK Subs members are the latest in a long line of people who have experienced long hours of detainment and deportation upon entering the US, with the incidents frequently credited to vague or unspecified visa issues.

In a similar situation to UK Subs, a French researcher was denied entry to the US earlier this month after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticisms of the Trump administration.

In response to the news Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister of higher education and research, said: “This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy.”